Menü Datei


command New
  command New (menu File)

Creates a new (empty) InfoBase. Before you can work with the new pool you have to assign a file name to it and it is saved to that location.


command Open
command Open (menu File)

Opens an existing InfoBase in a new InfoBase Window.

If an InfoBase is open already and a record is active and in the field with the reference or in the text of this record something is selected, this command tries to open an object specified by the selection.


command Open
command Open As (menu File)

Opens an existing InfoBase in a selected mode.

This command can be useful if an InfoBase is used simultaneously by several users. You can select from these open modes:

Write or Read	This is the normal mode that is also applied when you select the simple Open command. At first opening of the InfoBase is tried in write mode. If that fails it is opened in read-only mode.

Write only	If opening the InfoBase in write mode fails it is not attempted to open read-only. This mode should be selected if in a multi-user environment changes to the InfoBase are intended. This action fails if anyone has already open this InfoBase in write mode.

Read only	The InfoBase is opened in read-only mode. This should be selected if in a multi-user environment no changes to the InfoBase are intended. In this case the InfoBase is opened on a snapshot of the current content. To see later changes you must close and reopen the InfoBase.


command Close
command Close (menu File)

Closes all InfoBase Windows of the active InfoBase. If necessary, unsaved changes are saved automatically.


command Save
 command Save (menu File)

Saves changes. This command is not available when there are no unsaved changes.


K command Save As
command Save As (menu File)

Saves the active InfoBase under a new name (making a copy).


command Properties
command Properties (menu File)

Opens a dialog window with the properties of the active InfoBase.


command Comment
command Comment (menu File)

Opens a dialog window for editing the comment for the active InfoBase.

If this command should be executed on every opening (and closing) of the InfoBase insert the string ‘###’ (‘####’) into the topic (File/Properties) of the InfoBase.


command Alarms
command Alarms (menus File, InfoBase, Info)

Opens a dialog window for editing the active alarms. You also can delete alarms here.

There are three variants of this command. Depending on the menu where you select it. You see all alarms, only the alarms of the active InfoBase, or only those of the active Info.

If this command is not available there are no active alarms in this context.


command New Alarm
   command New (free) Alarm (menu File)

Defines a free alarm. A free alarm is not linked to any InfoBase record, hence this command is also available if no Info is active.

If you want to set an alarm that is linked to an InfoBase record select the command New Alarm in menu Info.


command Page Setup
command Page Setup (menu File)

Sets page margins and other layout options for printing..


command Page Preview
   command Page Preview (menu File)

Shows print output for the current print options on screen.


command Print Options
 command Print Options (menu File)

Opens a dialog window with the options for printing.

When you want to print something from an InfoBase first select this command to select what to print. Next, select the command Print Preview in menu File to see the result on the screen before final printing.


command Print
 command Print (menu File)

Prints data of the active InfoBase corresponding to the selected print options. To select print options click on Print Options in menu File or on [image].


  Commands 1, 2, 3, ... (menu File)

Use the numbers and file names listed in menu File to reopen the most recent closed InfoBases.

You may change the number of listed InfoBases with the command Tools/Options.


K command Exit
command Exit (menu File)

Terminates your infoHandler session. All unsaved changes are automatically saved.


Menü Bearbeiten


command Undo (menu Edit)

The last action is undone. If that is not possible this command is not available.


command Cut
 command Cut (menu Edit)

Removes the currently selected characters from the Info Title or InfoText of the active Info and copies them onto the clipboard.


command Copy
 command Copy (menu Edit)

Copies selected characters onto the clipboard. The command is not available if currently no characters are selected.


command Paste
 command Paste (menu Edit)

Inserts a copy of the content of the clipboard at the insertion point. This command is not available if the clipboard is empty.


command Delete
 command Delete (menu Edit)

Deletes the selected object in the active area..

The result of this command depends on what you selected last. There are the following possibilities:

•	Records on the InfoList,

•	Text on the Info Title Field,

•	Text on the Info Reference Field,

•	Text on the InfoText Area.

Note   Deletion of records cannot been undone.


command Select All
command Select All (menu Edit)

Selects all data objects in the field that currently has the keyboard focus. Possible data objects are titles on the InfoList, Categories on the Category Lists, and InfoText.


   command Find (menu Edit)

Opens/closes the Find Dialog.

Use this to search for text patterns in the title and text of the records in the InfoList of the active InfoBase Window. If you don’t need it anymore close it using this command, by pressing the Esc-key, or clicking on the X-button.


command Edit All Records
   command Edit All Records (menu Edit)

Toggles the Edit-All-Records mode on or off.

When you activate a record normally at first this is protected against all modifications. To be able to edit it always immediately select this command.

When this mode is on you can switch it off also using the command Edit Info (menu Info) or clicking [image].


Menü Ansicht


command List View
   command List View (menu View)

Maximizes the InfoBase Area. If this state is set already the normal view is reestablished.


command Card View
   command Card View (menu View)

Maximizes the Info Area. Rearranges the InfoBase Window such that only the title, the reference, and the text of the active Info is shown.  If this state is set already the normal view is reestablished.

If you are in card view mode and change the layout of the InfoBase Window such that the InfoBase Area becomes visible the card view mode is reset.

Note   This View corresponds to the view of a single index card drawn from the card box - hence the analogy.


command Time bounds
command Time Bounds (menu View)

Shows/hides the time bounds bar.

You use the time bounds bar if you want to set time bounds for the various time stamps of the displayed InfoRecords. With some commands you can set bounds for the InfoTime also directly. If in this case the time bounds bar.is not yet visible it is shown automatically and displays the effective bounds.


command Time bounds
command Time Bounds (menu View)

Shows/hides the time bounds bar.

You use the time bounds bar if you want to set time bounds for the various time stamps of the displayed InfoRecords. With some commands you can set bounds for the InfoTime also directly. If in this case the time bounds bar.is not yet visible it is shown automatically and displays the effective bounds.


command History
command History (menu View)

Shows/hides the History window.

This is a small window with a list of the most recently activated InfoRecords. Clicking on one of the entries activates the resp. Info. You can change position and size of this window persistently. The maximal count of entries in this list you can set using Options in menu Tools.

Note   If you have several InfoBase Windows open the entry highlighted at the History List is not always synchronized with the active Info at the currently active InfoBase Window - the highlighted entry always reflects either the Info most recently (newly) activated or selected from the history list.


command Status Bar
command Status Bar (menu View)

Shows/hides the status bar.


command Toolbar General
command Toolbar Standard (menu View)

Shows/hides the standard toolbar.


command Toolbar Format
command Toolbar Format (menu View)

Shows/hides the format toolbar (with special commands for formatting the InfoText).


Menü InfoPool


command New Record
 command New Info (menu InfoBase)

Creates a new record. If you do not type a title for the new record the creation is undone again.


command New Document
 command New Document (menu InfoBase)

Opens a dialog window for creating a new document of one of the registered document types. At the same time a new record is created with a link to the new document.

This command is only available if the InfoBase is enabled for references.


command New Group
command New Group (menu InfoBase)

Creates a new Category Group. You may create up to 16 Category Groups.


Dcommand Order Groups
command Order Groups (menu InfoBase)

Opens a dialog window for reordering the Category Groups.

The ordering of the Category Groups also influences the sorting of the Categories.


command <Group>: New Category
command <Group>: New Category (menu InfoBase/<Category Group>)

Creates a new Category for this Category Group.

You find this command also in the context menus of the diverse Categories Lists. Further you may create a new Category by clicking on the headers of the Categories Lists in the Info Area.


command Add Category
command Add Category (menu InfoBase)

Defines a new Category for this Category Group.


command <Group>>: Properties Category
command <Group>>: Properties Category (menu InfoBase/<Category Group>)

Edit the properties of a Category in this Category Group.

You find this command also in the context menus of the diverse Categories Lists.

Note   Canging properties of a Category does not mean the creation of a new Category. Hence the change is automatically done with all records that contain the Category.


command <group>: Move Category
command <group>: Move Category (menu InfoBase/<Category Group>)

Moves one or more of the Categories of this Category Group to another Category Group.

You find this command also in the context menus of the diverse Category Lists.


command <group>: Delete Category
command <group>: Delete Category (menu InfoBase/<Category Group>)

Deletes a Category in this Category Group.

You find this command also in the context menus of the diverse Category Lists.


command Delete Category
command Delete Category (menu InfoBase/<Category Group>)

This command can be executed either from a submenu of the menu InfoBase or from the context menu of a Category list. For the affected Category Group a Category should be deleted. A dialog opens for selecting the Category to be deleted.


command <group>: Properties
command <group>: Properties (menu InfoBase/<Category Group>)

Opens a dialog window to edit the properties of this Category Group.

You find this command also in the context menus of the diverse Category Lists.


command <group>: Delete
command <group>: Delete (menu InfoBase/<Category Group>)

Deletes this Category Group if it is empty (contains no Categories).

You find this command also in the context menus of the diverse Category Lists.


Menü InfoListe


command Update InfoList
   command Update InfoList (menu InfoList)

The InfoList is updated corresponding to the selected restrictions for Categories and time.

This command is only available if a delay is set for the automatic update (command Options in menu Tools). Select this command when you do not want to wait for the delayed update after changing the restrictions.


command Reset Categories
 command Reset Categories (menu InfoList)

Resets the InfoBase Category Lists to a neutral state.  All lists are set to ‘nothing selected’ and operation ‘and’ so that no restrictions on the InfoList are effective.


command Reset Time bounds
 command Reset Time Bounds (menu InfoList)

Resets the time bounds to the absolute bounds of this InfoBase (minimum and maximum) so that no restrictions for the records on the InfoList are effective.


command Reset InfoList
command Reset InfoList (menu InfoList)

Combines the commands Reset Categories and Reset Time Bounds and so all records of the InfoBase are displayed in the InfoList.

On the other hand, if this command is not available then all records are displayed.


command Activate First Record
   command Activate First Record (menu InfoList)

Activates the first record in the InfoList.


command Activate previous Record
command Activate previous Record (menu InfoList)

Activates the previous record before the active Info in the InfoList.


command Activate next Record
command Activate next Record (menu InfoList)

Activates the next record after the active Info in the InfoList.


command Activate last Record
   command Activate last Record (menu InfoList)

Activates the last record in the InfoList.


command InfoTime Today
command InfoTime Today (menu InfoList)

Sets the bounds for the InfoTime to the current day (e.g. shows the dates of today).

The hot key for this is Ctrl+1. Furthermore, the hot keys Ctrl+2, ..., Ctrl+8 set the bounds for the InfoTime to the next 2, ..., 8 days, always inclusive the current day.

Note   These commands are special for dates management. For this purpose there is also a special tool window with graphic access to these and other commands that you may open with command Dates Control in menu View.


Hinweis   Diese Befehle wurden speziell für die Überwachung von Jahrestagen (z.B.Geburtstagen) eingeführt.


command InfoTime Today Every Year
command InfoTime Today Every Year (menu InfoList)

Sets the bounds for the InfoTime to the current day independent of the year (e.g. shows the birthdays recurring today).

The hot key for this is Ctrl+Shift+1. Furthermore, the hot keys Ctrl+Shift+2, ..., Ctrl+Shift+8 set the bounds for the InfoTime of every year to the next 2, ..., 8 days, always inclusive the current day.

Note   These commands are special for anniversary management. There is also a special tool window with graphic access to these and other commands that you may open with command Dates Control in menu View.


* command Move Documents
command Move Documents (menu InfoList)

Moves the documents (files) of the selected records to another folder that you select in a dialog window.


command Open Documents
command Open Documents (menu InfoList)

Opens the linked documents (files) of the selected InfoRecords.

Note   Be cautious using this command!


command Print Documents
command Print Documents (menu InfoList)

Prints the linked documents (files) of the selected InfoRecords.

Note   Be cautious using this command!


command Delete Documents
command Delete Documents (menu InfoList)

Deletes the linked documents (files) of the selected InfoRecords in a save manner.

Note   Broken links are also removed by this action.


command Autocategorize Records
command Autocategorize (menu InfoList/Categories)

Autocategorizes the selected InfoRecords.

On Autocategorizing the InfoText of an InfoRecord is searched for occurrences of the names or synonyms of Categories that are enabled for Autocategorizing. The Category is assigned automatically to the Info if such an occurrence is found.


command Add Category to records
command Add Category to records (menu InfoList/Categories)

Assigns a Category to the selected InfoRecords.


command Remove Category from Records
command Remove Category from records (menu InfoList/Categories)

Removes a Category from the selected InfoRecords.


command Replace Category in records
command Replace Category in records (menu InfoList/Categories)

Replaces a Category in all selected InfoRecords by another one.


Menü Info


command Edit Info
 command Edit Info (menu Info)

Toggles the edit mode for the active Info..

When you activate a record normally at first this is protected against all modifications. To be able to edit it select this command.

To be able to edit all records immediately after activation select the command Edit All Records in menu Edit.


command New Alarm
 command New Alarm (menu Info)

Defines a new alarm that is linked to the active Info.

If you want to set a free alarm (not linked to any Info) select the command New Alarm in menu File.


command Duplicate
command Duplicate (menu Info)

Creates copies of the active record thereby incrementing the InfoTime by one week, one month, or one year for each new record.

This command is not available if the active Info has nor InfoTime assigned. To it.

Use this command to create periodically recurring dates.


command Autocategorize Info
command Autocategorize (menu Info)

Autocategorizes the active Info.

On Autocategorizing the InfoText of an InfoRecord is searched for occurrences of the names or synonyms of Categories that are enabled for Autocategorizing. The Category is assigned automatically to the Info if such an occurrence is found.


command Document Print
command Document Print (Menu Info/Linked Object)

Prints the document linked to the active Info.


command Document Move
command Document Move (Menu Info/Linked Object)

Moves the document linked to the active Info to another folder.

This command is only available for local documents (files).


command Document Delete
command Document Delete (Menu Info/Linked Object)

Moves the document linked to the active Info to the recycle bin.

This command is only available for local documents (files).


command Document Read-only
command Document Read-only (Menu Info/Linked Object)

Makes the document linked to the active Info read-only. If the document is already read-only this state is removed. If the document is read-only this command is checked and the background of the reference field is colored reddish.

This command is only available for local documents (files).


command Object Open
command Object Open (Menu Info/Linked Object)

Opens the object linked to the active Info.

This action depends on the kind of the linked object. For local documents the particular application is opened with the document, for internet objects the specific action is executed, i.e. accessing a web page or sending e-mail.

You can activate this command also by double-clicking on the title of the record or by single-clicking on the symbol before the title in the InfoList.

Note   This command is not available if the record has no reference or only a ‘broken’ reference..

Note   If you don’t like the action after single-clicking on the symbol - you can disable this with Tools/Options...


command Document Properties
command Document Properties (Menu Info/Linked Object)

This command is not yet available!


command To Floppy
   command To Floppy (Menu Info/Linked Object)

Saves the linked file to the floppy. A file with the same name is overwritten only if it has an earlier modification date. If no file with the same name is already on the floppy you are asked whether to create it.


command From Floppy
   command From Floppy (Menu Info/Linked Object)

Loads a linked file from floppy if there exists a file with the same name and a later modification date. The replaced file is moved to the wastebasket prior to this:


command Reference File
command Reference File (Menu Info)

Opens a dialog window where you can select a file to be linked by the active Info.


Menü InfoZeit


command InfoTime = Current Date
   command Set Now (menu InfoTime)

Sets the InfoTime of the active Info to the current time.


command InfoTime = Last Date
    command Set Last (menu InfoTime)

Sets the InfoTime of the active Info to the value previously set for another record. This command is useful if you input several records for the same date (e.g. articles of a periodical).


command InfoTime + One Week
command InfoTime + One Week (menu InfoTime)

The InfoTime of the active Info is incremented by one week.

Note   This command is special for handling weekly recurrent dates.


command InfoTime + One Month
command InfoTime + One Month (menu InfoTime)

The InfoTime of the active Info is incremented by one month. If the number of the day is greater than the 28th it is reduced to 28 else the same day number is set..

Note   This command is special for handling of monthly recurrent dates. Please note that this day may be a Sunday or holiday, so correct it if necessary if the next weekday is wanted.


command InfoTime + One Year
command InfoTime + One Year (menu InfoTime)

The InfoTime of the active Info is incremented by one year. The same day in the same month is selected (Exception: the 29th February is reduced to 28th).

Note This command is special for handling of yearly recurrent dates. (e.g. birthdays).


command Delete InfoTime
command Delete InfoTime (menu InfoTime)

The InfoTime of the active Info is removed.


Menü InfoText


command Font
command Font (menu InfoText)

Changes the font of the selected text.


command Font
command Paragraph (menu InfoText)

Changes indentations and text alignment in the selected paragraph.


command Font
   command Bullet (menu InfoText)

Formats the selected paragraph as a bulleted list.


command Font
command Open (menu InfoText)

Interprets the selected text as an object and tries to open it.

If the InfoText hat the input focus (eg after just selecting some text) the command Open in menu File (or clicking [image]) has the same effect.


command Font
command {...} (menu InfoText)

Brackets the selected text between { and }.

Thereby you define a textfield where you may jump to using the Page-up/Page-down keys.


command Font
command [...] (menu InfoText)

Brackets the selected text between [ and ].

Thereby you define a textfield where you do not jump to using the Page-up/Page-down keys.


command Font
command <...> (menu InfoText)

Brackets the selected text between < and >.

Thereby you define a textfield where you do not jump to using the Page-up/Page-down keys.

Textfields of this type are devised as links to objects that you might "open". So use it for URLs, E-mail addresses,  or for paths to local documents. If you double-click on such a field the content is not only selected but also interpreted and "opened" - no need to press Ctrl simultaneously as with the other field types. But there is another condition for acting as a field like this: there must be not blank space anywhere between the brackets. The latter condition makes sure that there are no unwanted effects if you use this characters as standing for themselves.


command Font
command ... (menu InfoText)

Removes one pair of brackets ‘{...}’, ’[...]’, or ’<...>]’ around the selected text.


Menü Extras


Command History/Go Backward (menu Tools)

Activates the previous InfoRecord in the History List.

Note   To see the History List select History in menu View.


Command History/Go Forward (menu Tools)

Activates the next InfoRecord in the History List.

Note   To see the History List select History in menu View.


Command Options (menu Tools)

Opens a dialog for setting global options for all InfoBases.


Command Calendar (menu Tools)

Shows/hides a calendar just for your convenience.


Menü Fenster


command New Window (menu Window)

Opens a new window for the active InfoBase.

The ability to open several windows for the same InfoBase enables you to view different parts of an InfoBase simultaneously. When you change anything in one window this change is reflected in all other open windows for this InfoBase.

The new window becomes the active InfoBase Window.


command First Window
   command First Window (menu Windows)

Activates the first window in the list of open InfoBase Windows.

This command is useful if you use a special InfoBase for handling the other InfoBases and you open this special InfoBase always at first (see also the article ‘Management of InfoBases’ in chapter ‘Hints for Using infoHandler’).


Menü ?


command Help Mode
command Help Mode (menu ?)

Use the command Help Mode to get help for a certain part of graphic user interface of infoHandler. When you execute this command the mouse pointer changes to an arrow with question mark. Click then with the mouse somewhere in the infoHandler window, e.g. onto another symbol on the tool bar, a entry in a menu, or some field somewhere else. The help topic for the clicked component is then shown.


Symbolleiste Format


command Font
command Font (Toolbar Format)

Changes the font of the selected InfoText.


command Size
command Size (Toolbar Format)

Changes the font size of the selected InfoText.


command Bold
command Bold (Toolbar Format)

Toggles the formatting bold for the selected InfoText.


command Italic
command Italic (Toolbar Format)

Toggles the formatting italic for the selected InfoText.


command underline
command underline (Toolbar Format)

Toggles the formatting underline for the selected InfoText.


command Color
command Color (Toolbar Format)

Formats selected InfoText in the selected color.


Begriffe


One-of-n group
OneOf CategoryGroup

This is a special CategoryGroup, with these properties:

Each record of the InfoBase has exactly one Category assigned to of such a group.

One of the Categories of this group is declared the default Category for this group. This default Category is assigned to a record implicitly if you do not select another one

Define a OneOf CategoryGroup if it doesn’t make sense to assign more than one Category from this group to any record. In the InfoList  you can sort the records by the Categories in such a group..


Alarm

InfoHandler Alarms come in two variants, free and bound to Info. The former ones you set with command New Alarm in menu File and no InfoBase has to be active then. The latter is also called InfoAlarm and you set this with command New Alarm in menu Info after first activating an InfoRecord, the alarm is then bound to the Info of this record.

At he set time (minute) the alarm ”rings” with displaying a little window with the assigned message. Of course infoHandler must run to make this happen (if infoHandler does not run at the set time the alarm rings at the next start of infoHandler). If this alarm is an InfoAlarm you can activate the attached Info from within this window.


InfoBase properties

The attributes that you can set and change individually for each InfoBase with the command File/Properties.

Some of these properties like title, topic, author, company and comment  you can view and change also by other means, e.g. using the command Properties of the Windows Explorer.


Aktives Fenster

Wenn Sie ein oder mehrere Infopoolfenster geöffnet haben, so ist immer genau eines davon aktiv oder ausgewählt. Sie wählen z.B. ein Fenster aus, indem Sie mit der Maus hineinklicken..


Aktiver Infopool

Wenn Sie ein oder mehrere Infopools geöffnet haben, so ist immer genau einer davon aktiv oder ausgewählt. Dies ist der Infopool, der dem aktiven Fenster zugeordnet ist.


active record
active Info

If you activate an InfoRecord its Info is presented at the Info Area of the InfoBase Window. We then call this Info the active Info.(of this InfoBase Window) You can change the active Info only if you enable the edit mode additionally.

See also: Activating an InfoRecord


Bemerkungen zu einen Infopool

Ein optionaler längerer Text (bestehend aus mehreren Abschnitten) den ganzen Infopool betreffend.

Zum Eingeben bzw. Ändern des Kommentars zum aktiven Infopool wählen Sie den Befehl Datei/Eigenschaften


Zeitgrenzen

Zeitgrenzen bilden ein weiteres Mittel (zusätzlich zu den Kategorien) zur Auswahl von Infos. Sie können Zeitgrenzen auf jede der drei Arten (Infozeit, Erstellungszeit, Änderungszeit) anwenden.

Zur Anzeige bzw. Einstellung der Zeitgrenzen dient ein eigener Bereich des Infopoolfensters.


InfoTime

InfoTime is an optional component of the Info of an InfoRecord. Its value is some date/time since 1/1/101 that can be changed any time by the user. Also the name of the InfoTime (preset: ‘InfoTime’) and its format can be changed (command File/Properties).

Use the InfoTime eg to store the publishing date of journals, birthdays, appointments, last access to a linked object, etc.


Creation time of a record

For each record the date and time of the first creation is stored and may be used as a criterion to restrict the displayed records.


context menu

If you click somewhere in the InfoBase Window with the right mouse button almost always a menu pops up that contains commands relevant to this place. These menus are called ‘context menus’ accordingly.


record
InfoRecord, Info

An InfoRecord - or just ‘record’ for short - is the container for some of the information (Info) that is managed by infoHandler in InfoBases.

The Info of an InfoRecord can have some or all of these components: InfoTitle, InfoLink, InfoTime, InfoCreationTime, InfoModificationTime, InfoCategories, InfoText. Additionally you can attach InfoAlarms to the Info of an InfoRecord.


Info Area

The lower main area of the InfoBase Window that presents the Info of the active Info. Subareas are from top to bottom: the InfoTitle Area, the InfoText Area, and the Info Categories Area.


InfoText Area
InfoTitle Area

The first  subarea of the Info Area. I contains three or four fields: the InfoTitle field, the Info Reference Field if this InfoBase supports references, the Info dates field, and the Info Categories field.


InfoTitle field

The first field in the InfoTitle Area for entering and presenting the title of the active Info.


Info Reference Field
InfoLink field

The second field in the InfoTitle Area  if this InfoBase supports references. Is for entering and presenting the reference of the active Info.


record dates field
InfoTime field

The second or third field in the InfoTitle Area  for presenting the dates assigned to the active Info.


InfoCategories field

The second or third field in the InfoTitle Area  for presenting the dates assigned to the active Info.


InfoText area

The second subarea of the Info Area for presenting and editing the text of the active Info.


Info Categories Area
InfoCategory area

The third subarea of the Info Area contains for each defined CategoryGroup a list with the defined Categories. You select in these lists the Categories for the active Info.


InfoBase Window

presents an InfoBase.

The upper part of an InfoBase Window is called the InfoBase Area because it represents the whole InfoBase. The lower part is called Info Area because it presents the Info of the active Info.

For each loaded InfoBase you may open several different InfoBase Windows simultaneously.


InfoList

The list of InfoRecords displayed top-right in the InfoBase Window. Only those records are displayed that meet the current restrictions set by Categories and time bounds.


InfoBase

An InfoBase is the container for InfoRecords. Normally you will create a new InfoBase for gathering information of a certain kind that is characterized and differentiated by a common set of Categories. Externally, an InfoBase is stored in a file with the extension ‘iba’.

Important components of an InfoBase are: InfoBaseProperties, the Categories, the CategoryGroups, and the InfoRecords


Infopoolbereich
InfoBase Area

The upper main area on the InfoBase Window. Subareas are: the InfoBase Category Lists at the left, the InfoList with the time bounds field and beneath the area with the Category queries at the right.


Infopoolkategorienlisten

Dieser Unterbereich links im Infopoolbereich enthält 8 Listen mit den Kategorien ausgewählter Kategoriengruppen. Mit Hilfe dieser Listen bilden Sie Kategorienfilter zwecks Eingrenzung der in der Infoliste angezeigten Infos.


Kategorienfilter

Durch Selektion einzelner Kategorien und logischer Operatoren in den Infopoolkategorienlisten formulieren Sie  Bedingungen für die Auswahl der in der Infoliste angezeigten Infos. Die Gesamtheit der auf den Kategorien basierenden Auswahlbedingungen bezeichnen wir als Kategorienfilter.  Die jeweils effektive Kategorienfilter wird außer in den Infopoolkategorienlisten zusätzlich in einer übersichtlichen Form im Filterbereich dargestellt.


InfoText

InfoText  is the text assigned to an InfoRecord. There is no limit to the size of this text and you can set font and paragraph properties.

Note   InfoText is stored internally in two different modes: as simple text or as rich text. The latter only is the case if you apply a command for setting font or paragraph properties, or if you paste rich formatted text from the clipboard. On storing this mode uses a little more space than the storing of simple text.

Note   InfoText is loaded on activation of a record and unloaded on deactivation (saved if necessary). Therefore there is no special burden on the main memory if you have many records with extensive text.


Categories of an InfoBase

Simplified seen, the Categories of an InfoBase are a set of text-strings (i.e. a sequence of characters - often several words)  that describe Categories of information or objects. Each of the records in the InfoBase can be assigned any number of these Categories. These assigned Categories are then an important means for the specific selection (retrieval) of records.

The Categories of an InfoBase are organized in CategoryGroups

More about Categories


Categories of an InfoRecord

Normally, you assign one or more Categories to every InfoRecord. These Categories are the most important means for the selective retrieval of the info.


CategoryGroup

The Categories  of an InfoBase are organized in CategoryGroups. Each of these groups is identified (named) by a text string. You may define up to 16 different CategoryGroups.

While from normal CategoryGroups you may assign any number of Categories to each Info, from OneOf CategoryGroups HID_OneOfN you can assign always exactly one.

CategoryGroups.can be ”open” or”closed”. The latter have a closed name space for the contained Categories so that the names of the Categories are independent of the names in other CategoryGroups. On the other hand you cannot move Categories from or to closed CategoryGroups.

By default CategoryGroups are open. You can freely move Categories between open groups but all the Categories in these groups must have unique names respective to all these groups.

CategoryGroups can be enabled for AutoCategorizing (but are disabled by default). If they are, all contained Categories are enabled for AutoCategorizing by default but can be disabled again individually.


CategoryLists

There are several kinds of CategoryLists in an InfoBase Window:

InfoBase CategoryLists   You find these above in the InfoBase Area top-left, beside of the InfoList. They are used to select Categories for queries onto the InfoBase that restrict the records displayed in the InfoList. With each of these lists you can associate any of the defined CategoryGroups. Altogether, there are  eight of these lists so that you may formulate up to eight simultaneous selection criteria for up to eight different CategoryGroups.

Info CategoryLists   You find these below in the Info area.  They are used to select Categories for the active Info in edit mode. For each CategoryGroup there is exactly one Info Category List and these lists are arranged in the defined order of the CategoryGroups.

These two kinds of Category Lists have context menus whose commands refer to the associated CategoryGroup. The width of these lists can be changed by dragging at the edge of the header (even to zero so it becomes invisible).

Beside these active Category Lists where you can select Categories there exist “passive” Category Lists as components of the InfoList, the Categories query, and in the attributes area. These have no context menus and so are not referred to when speaking is of the “context menu of a Category List”.


modification date

For every record the date and time of the last modification is stored and may be used as a criterion to restrict the displayed records.


Dialogfenster

Ein 'Dialog' oder 'Dialog-Fenster' ist die Bezeichnung für ein Fenster das nur kurzzeitig erscheint, um zusätzliche Informationen zu einem aktivierten Befehl einzugeben. Meist müssen Sie dieses Fenster schließen, ehe Sie irgend etwas anderes auf dem Bildschirm tun können..


default Category

see OneOf CategoryGroup


InfoTitle

The title of a record identifies the record. It is always displayed in fields with only one line, so its length should be restricted.

The title is the only obligatory component of a record - it cannot be empty - all other components are optional. After creation of the title on first creation of the record it can be changed any time afterwards.

Note   The title should identify the record unambiguously. But this requirement is not enforced by infoHandler, so several records with identical titles are may be coexisting.


splitter bar

The InfoBase Window is divided in several areas that are separated by splitter bars. To change the relative size of the areas position the mouse pointer upon one of the splitter bars, press the left mouse button and then, moving the mouse, drag the bar to a new place.


Links
Links (References)

There are two kinds of links: Infolinks and embedded links.

Infolinks are separate optional components of an InfoRecord and link the Info to an external object (a file, a folder, or an Internet page). You can manipulate the linked object out from infoHandler in several ways - open it, move it, rename it, or even delete it. You can create Infolinks by dragging some files onto the window of an InfoBase or as a side effect while creating a new document (file) out from infoHandler. In this documentation, when we speak just of “links”, we usually mean this kind of links if not suggested otherwise by the context.

To create Infolinks in an InfoBase the latter has to be enabled for links either on first creation or later on using Properties in menu File.

Aside from the Infolinks you can have ”embedded links”. These are strings of text embedded in the text or title of the Info that can be interpreted as references to external objects and also to (internal) InfoRecords. Differently from Infolinks the functionality of embedded links is limited to activation (“opening”) the linked objects.


Zwischenablage

Die allgemeine Zwischenablage des Betriebssystems, mittels derer Sie Texte und Grafiken zwischen verschiedenen Fenstern (einer oder verschiedener Anwendungen) übertragen können.


Die den Feldern des Infofenster zugeordneten Hilfstexte in geometrischer Folge von oben nach unten


Tool Bar
Toolbars

Normally the toolbars are positioned horizontally at the top of the infoHandler window below the menu bar. They provide for a quick access to frequently used infoHandler commands.

There are two different toolbars:

the standard toolbar,

the format toolbar.

The standard toolbar shows symbols for commands of the menus of the menu bar. You can customize this tool bar. To customize click with the right mouse button anywhere on the bar.

The format toolbar shows commands for formatting that are usable only for editing the text  of the active Info.

You can drag the tool bars with the mouse to other locations inside the main window, either free floating or docked to the upper or lower window border..

To hide or show the tool bars use the commands Toolbar Standard or Toolbar Format in menu View.


InfoList

Shows a selection of InfoRecords. Only those records are displayed that conform to the restrictions set by the selected Categories in the Category Lists on the left and the set time bounds set at the Time Bounds Bar (if enabled) underneath the InfoList. When you click on the title of an InfoRecord in the InfoList the record becomes activated. If you click on the header of a column of the InfoList all the records in the list are sorted by this column (a [image]  or [image]  before the header stands for ascending or descending order by this column).

If a record has a reference attached, the icon for the linked object is shown in front of the title. You can ”open” (activate) the linked object by double-clicking on the title or (single-)clicking on the icon.


time bounds, display
Time Bounds

This is the Time Bounds Bar.

The currently effective bounds for the InfoTime, the creation date, and the date of last modification are set and displayed on this bar. The displayed records in the InfoList satisfy these bounds.

To set time bounds use the various date editor fields on this bar. Such an editor field shows a green background if its value does not restrict the records displayed in the InfoList. On the other hand, if the background is red this indicates a restriction for the displayed records by this value. An exception of this rule are year-independent bounds for the InfoTime, these are displayed on blue background. You select this mode by checking the box e.y. (”every year”).

You may hide/show the Time Bounds Bar with the command Time bounds in menu View. If hidden, the Time Bounds Bar is shown automatically when you set the time bounds with one of the commands in menu InfoList or on the Date Control Window.


Category queries
Category Filter

The queries specified through selection of Categories in the InfoBase Category Lists are displayed here again in a more intuitive format. Just open this area if you select many Categories or you do not see anymore all used Category Lists.


InfoBaseCategoryList

One of eight list boxes where you can select Categories to narrow the selection of records in the InfoList. On top of the list of Categories you see the name of the resp. CategoryGroup. By clicking on this entry you select another group. Above that you see the button for setting the logical operation for this list: AND, OR, or NOT.

If you do not see all eight lists drag the vertical bar to the right to see more of them.

To change the width of a list box click with the mouse at the right side of the button with the operator  and drag to the new size.

The context menus of these list boxes provide commands for defining new Categories, rename Categories and other actions concerning the resp. group. Especially you can select ranges of Categories with the commands in submenu Select - this possibility can come handy for numerically interpreted Categories.


This movable bar separates the InfoBase CategoryLists on the left from the InfoList and Time Bounds Field on the right side. Drag this bar to the right if you want to see more Category Lists.


This movable bar separates the CategoryLists and the InfoList above from the area with Category queries. Drag this bar upwards if you want to see this convenient presentation of the currently effective Category Filter.


This movable bar separates the InfoBase area (above) from the Info area. Use it to set the relative sizes of these areas as needed.


This movable bar separates the Info Title Area from the InfoText Area below. Drag this bar downwards if you want to see more of the fields of this area (there are up to four fields: Info Title Field, Info Reference Field, Info Times Ffield, and Info Categories Field).


This movable bar separates the InfoText area above from the Info Category Lists for he active Info. Drag this bar downwards to see more InfoText, drag it upwards if you want to assign Categories to the active Info.


InfoTitle Area

This area contains up to four different fields for displaying components of the active Info (all but the InfoText):

•	The InfoTitle field.

•	The InfoLink field if this InfoBase is enabled for InfoLinks.

•	The InfoTime field: InfoTime and the times of first creation and last modification.

•	The InfoCategories field.


InfoTitle Field

If the active Info is in edit mode, you can edit its title here. You find some commands for this in the context menu.


Info Reference Field
InfoLink Field

If an InfoLink is assigned to the active Info, this field shows the path to the file or folder, or the URL of an Internet object. You assign an InfoLink in several ways using keyboard or mouse. Different colors stand for type and status of the InfoLink. You find more about InfoLinks in the topics of chapter ‘About Links and References’.

The context menu contains commands for manipulation of the reference.

This field is only visible if the InfoBase is enabled for InfoLinks (command File/Properties).


Field with the time stamps of the active record
InfoTime Field

You find this field in the InfoTitle area below the InfoTitle field and the InfoLink field (if existing).

This shows the InfoTime (if assigned), set alarms, and the times of first creation and last modification of the active Info. If the Info is in edit mode you can assign and set the InfoTime in this field.


Field with the Categories of the active record
InfoCategories Field

Shows the Categories assigned to the active Info (sorted).


Field with the text of the active record
InfoText area

Displays the InfoText of the active Info. You can format this text by using the commands of the context menu and/or the format toolbar.


InfoCategoryLists

If the active Info is in edit mode you can add or remove Categories to or from the active Info by selecting or deselecting in these lists.

With the commands of the context menus you may define new Categories, rename Categories or do other actions for the resp. group.

To define quickly a new Category just click on the header of the resp. list.

If you create a new Category from one of these lists, and at the same time some Info is active and in edit mode, the new Category is automatically assigned to this Info (This is not the case if you define the new Category elsewhere).

The properties of a CategoryGroup are shown as parenthesized single characters after the names in the headers of the Info Category Lists as follows:

1	OneOf Group

:	Closed group with own name space

A	Used for Autocategorizing.


Status Bar

The status bar is shown at the bottom of the infoHandler window. You can toggle its display status shown/hidden using the command Statusbar in menu View.

At the left part of the status bar help messages are shown if you move through the entries of menus or over the symbols of a toolbar. Also, status messages about internal working might be displayed there.

At the right side you find fields with the count of records in the currently active InfoBase Window, and the current date and weekday.


Eigenschaften Infopool


The (current) file name of the InfoBase.


The path of the folder for this InfoBase.


You can change this title of the InfoBase if you do not want the original file name.


The topic of the InfoBase.

If somewhere here the string ‘###’ or. ‘####’ is inserted the comment (see below) is shown on each opening or opening/closing of the InfoBase.


Your name.


Your company.


 A comment for this InfoBase.

If you want to see this comment on every opening of the InfoBase in a special window, just insert the string ‘###’ somewhere in the field for the topic (see above). If you insert ‘####’ the comment  will also be shown when closing the InfoBase (so you may add some notes).

Note   If you only want to see or edit the comment select Comment from menu File.


Here you can change the Name of the InfoTime - this name is then used instead of the preset ‘InfoTime’ (not in commands).


Select here your preferred format for the InfoTime. E.g. the 1st of February 1999 is formatted as shown here for some of the variants:

   YYYY-MM-DD:	1999-02-01

   YYYY-MM:	1999-02

   YYYY:	1999

   DD.MM.YY 	01.02.99

   DD-MMM-YY	01-Feb-99

   MM/DD/YY 	02/01/99

   MMMM DD, YYYY 	February 01, 1999

   MMMM YYYY 	February 1999

If you select ‘System short format’ or  ‘System long format’ the global settings for the short resp. long date/time format of the operating system is used (see ‘International’ in ‘System Control’ of Windows).

Hint   Two-digit year numbers are only defined for years greater or equal 1900.


Select here whether on displaying the InfoTime the weekday should be displayed too, and where and how.


Select here whether on displaying the InfoTime the time should be displayed too, and where and how.


Check this box if the InfoBase should be able to contain InfoLinks to files (documents), folders, or internet objects. You cannot reverse this option but select it anytime later on. So, if you are not sure, better not select it this time.


If you have checked the box Has InfoLinks you can check this box too. If you do this the InfoTime is set to the current date on every opening (accessing) of the linked object. Also, when you create a new reference to a file, the InfoTime is initialized with the time of last access to this file.

Tip   If you check this box you should also rename the InfoTime to something like ‘last access’ or so.


If you check this box then also those records without attached InfoTime are displayed when you set bounds for the InfoTime.

This makes sense if you use the InfoTime for appointments. If you then want to determine a date for the next day, to see only the already made dates, you first would bound the InfoTime for this day. Then you create a new InfoRecord. This record does not have an InfoTime to begin with but should not reset the InfoList because of this.

An example for the opposite setting would be an InfoBase where systematically only part of the records have an InfoTime and you wants to filter out certain time periods (eg see sample InfoBase ‘CD-Collection’).


If you check this box the layout of an InfoBase Window is stored on closing. On next opening of the InfoBase this layout is re-established.

Because of technical reasons the layout is not stored if the window is maximized before closing.

The stored layout encompasses the position in the main window, the sizes of the InfoBase Window and the diverse areas inside and the sizes and assignments of the Category Lists.

This behavior is often desirable, at least with InfoBases that you load frequently, but it may be undesirable if you often change the size of the main window.


The license information under which this InfoBase was created..


Kategorie Eigenschaften


The name of the Category must be unique inside the group for closed CategoryGroups and globally for open groups, but may contain any character including blanks.

Tip   Avoid using the character ‘:’ (colon) since this is used for the qualified representation of Categories in closed groups.


This box is only enabled if the CategoryGroup is to be used for Autocategorizing.

Uncheck this box if this Category should not be used for Autocategorizing.


If this box is checked on autocategorizing only whole words are compared with the name and synonyms of this Category. Uncheck this box if also parts of words should be compared.


If this box is checked for autocategorizing only synonyms (not the name of this Category) are used.


Check this box if you want to define synonyms for this Category after closing this window.

Synonyms are used in addition to the name for Autocategorizing.


This area is only enabled if the CategoryGroup is to be used for Autocategorizing.

Here you can define the synonyms for using at Autocategorizing with this Category.

To define a new synonym enter the text into the edit field at the top of the area and click on New.

To change a synonym select this in the list box, edit it in the edit field, and click on Replace.

To delete a synonym select this in the list box and click on Delete.

All synonyms are capitalized before storing.


Kategoriengruppe Eigenschaften


The name of the CategoryGroup must be unique, but may contain any character including blanks.

Tip   Avoid using the character ‘:’ (colon) since this is used for the qualified representation of Categories in closed groups.


Check this box, if this should be a OneOf group. To every record is assigned exactly one of the Categories of such a group (not any number as with other groups). In the InfoList an extra column is created for each OneOf group.


Type here the text string for the default Category of this OneOf CategoryGroup. This is assigned automatically to all records which have none of it’s Categories assigned to explicitly.


Check this box if you want this to be a ”closed” CategoryGroup.

Closed CategoryGroups have an own, closed name space for the contained Categories, the names of which are therefore independent of used names in other groups. You cannot move Categories to or from closed CategoryGroups.

On the other hand the names of Categories in ”open” CategoryGroups have to be unique for all open groups and you can move them freely between these groups.

You can change this property later on (open the group again) provided there are no conflicts with other open groups. Of course you may ”close” an open group later on any time.


Check this box if you want the Categories in this group to be sorted as numbers. You can change this property later on any time.

In this case 777 is greater than 88 and -1 is less than 1. But also ‘777 Euro’ is greater than ’88 Euro’, since only the first characters of the name are scanned for digits. Names that start with a non-digit are given the ”value” 0.

Using the commands Select/Before, Select/Between, Select/After in the context menu of an InfoBase Category List you set in a simple way intervals for the Categories of such ”numeric” groups as filters for the displayed InfoRecords.


Check this box if you want this group to be used for AutoCategorizing. The Categories of this group are then used for AutoCategorizing by default, but can be excluded explicitly if necessary. You can change this property later on any time.

On AutoCategorizing the InfoTitle and the InfoText of an InfoRecord is searched for occurrences of the names or synonyms of Categories that are enabled for AutoCategorizing. The Category is assigned to the Info automatically if such an occurrence is found.

You find commands for AutoCategorizing in the menus Info and InfoList. Also in the course of the automatic initialization of Info while importing Email or News messages AutoCategorizing is applied.


Neues Dokument


List of the Registered Document Types

Lists all known applications for that infoHandler can create a new document.


Templates for the Current Document Type

These templates/samples were found in the above folder for the current document type. If you select one of them the new document is created as a copy of this.


Folder with Own Templates

The folder in which the templates listed underneath were found. Click on the button labelled ‘...’ to specify another folder.


Finds another folder for the templates.


Name of the New Document

Type here the name for the new document.

Type only the name, not also the already existing folder or the file extension. But if you want to create a new folder in the underneath displayed existing folder you can specify it here. Do this using the following format:

      MyNewFolder\MyNewDocument

(You may created only one new folder this way)


Folder for the New Document

The folder for the new document. Click on the button labelled ‘...’ to specify another folder.


Finds another folder for the new document.


Check this box if you want to work with the new document right away.


Click here if you want to assign some Categories to the new record right now (this is limited to at most one Category from any of the first six CategoryGroups). This is advisable in particular if you want to work right away with the new document.


Anordnung der Kategoriengruppen


This lists the CategoryGroups in the current order. To reorder select a group and click Move up or Move down.


Moves the selected group up one level.


Moves the selected group down one level.


Globale Einstellungen


On this page you can change various aspects of the graphical presentation.


Check this box if you want flat buttons on the tool bars.


Select here the format for the presentation of dates. This setting is globally applied in all InfoBases for the creation date and the date of last modification for all records.

Note   To the right of this box you see an example for the selected format.


Here you set the language for infoHandler independent of the global settings of the operating system. This takes effect after the next start of infoHandler.

Note: For the German language the file ResDeu.dll must exist in the installation folder!


If this box is checked the global settings are used for the names for weekdays and months. If not, the names for the set language (English or German) are used if they are available from the system.

Clear this box if your system is neither English nor German and you do not like the mix-up of two languages on your interface.


Check this box if you want the Category queries area shown. This area offers an alternative presentation of the restrictions for the InfoList set up by selecting Categories and operators in the InfoBase Category Lists.


On this page you can change various aspects of the InfoList.


The delay time in seconds for automatic updating the InfoList after changing the restrictive Categories. A value greater 0 (e.g. 3 to 6 sec.) is recommended if you frequently compose complex queries for big InfoBases.


If this box is checked a single click with the left mouse button on the symbol before the title of a record in the InfoList opens the linked object. If it is not checked  a double click is necessary (same as it is with the Info Title).


Select here what should happen when you drag one or more records from one InfoList upon the InfoList of another InfoBase (drag & drop) and thereby press the left mouse button.

The first (preset) alternative is a menu from which you may select the action but also may cancel the procedure (this menu is the only alternative for dragging with the right button pressed).

The other two alternatives are Move or Copy without further affirmation.

Note   With all alternatives there is always a further dialog with the user if assigned Categories are not defined in the target InfoBase, or if references cannot be created.


On this page you can change various aspects of the InfoText.


If this box is checked a double-click on a <...> field does not only select its content but also tries to interpret this as a reference to an object and opens such an object.

This behavior can be useful since bracketing with < and > is often used for email addresses and Internet URLs.


Select here the wanted behavior if you - editing InfoText - press one of the page keys. Normally you scroll with that by one window content. Alternatively you can set to jump to the next or previous field of a certain kind - preset is a jump to a {...} field.


Select here the default font size for new InfoText.


On this page you can set the font size for the various areas of an InfoBase Window. You can also select between normal or bold font weight.

The new settings become effective with new InfoBase Windows.


On this page you can select various other global settings.


Here you can change the number of ‘recently used InfoBases’ that should de displayed for quick reopening in the menu File. The maximum is 9.

Note   An alternative to this (customary) list is to administer all InfoBases in one special InfoBase (see the article ‘Management of InfoBases’ in the chapter ‘Suggestions for using infoHandler’).


Here you can select how many of the most recently activated InfoRecords should be stored as history. You can set this to any number between 10 and 100.


Druckoptionen


Check this if you want to print parts of all records in the InfoList.


Check this if you want to print only parts of selected records in the InfoList.


Check this if you want to print only parts of the active Info.


Check this entry if you want to print the InfoBase title as header


Check this entry if you want to print the count of printed records and the currently valid restrictions (for Categories and time).


Check this entry if you want to print the file info. The parts of the file info that are supported by infoHandler are title, topic, author, company and comment.


Check this entry if you want to print this time stamp for every record.


Select here the CategoryGroups of which the Categories should be printed for each record.


Check this box if the reference (path, URL) for every record if existing should be printed.


Check this box if the InfoText for every record should be printed.


Select here one of three preset font sizes for the output. This does not influence the presentation of the InfoText though, this is always output in its original font and size..


If you import contacts from Microsoft Outlook (by drag & drop) you should set here the options for the links back from infoHandler to Outlook.

You have the choice between an InfoLink, an embedded link at the InfoText, or no link at all (but only some of the contact info copied to the InfoText). If you select a link make also sure that the correct path to the contact folder in Outlook is set.


Terminsteuerung


The period that includes the (own) dates of the displayed records.


Clicking one of these buttons adjusts the bounds for the InfoTime such that only the dates of that day are displayed in the InfoList. These buttons work directly for the next 8 days counted from the current day. To select days after click buttons ‘+’ and ‘-‘.

If Every Year is checked the selection is done independent of the year .

Note   Disabled keys hint that there are no dates for these days.


Switches to the dates of the next day.


Switches to the dates of the previous day.


Clicking one of these buttons adjusts the bounds for the InfoTime such that only the dates of the next days are displayed in the InfoList. These buttons work directly for the next 8 days counted from the current day. To select prolonged periods click buttons ‘+’ and ‘-‘.

If Every Year is marked, the selection is done independent of the year .

Note   Disabled keys hint that there are no more dates for these prolonged periods.


Prolongs the period by one day.


Shortens the period by one day.


Mark this box if the dates should be selected independent of the year. Birthdays or other anniversaries are then shown though their years may be not corresponding with the current year.


The (own) date of the active record.


Increases the (own) date of the active record by one day.


Decreases the (own) date of the active record by one day.


Increases the (own) date of the active record by one week.  Use these command to reset a weekly recurrent date.


Decreases the (own) date of the active record by one week.


Increases the (own) date of the active record by one month.  Use these command to reset a monthly recurrent date.


Decreases the (own) date of the active record by one month.


Increases the (own) date of the active record by one year.  Use these command to reset a yearly recurrent date (e.g. birthdays).


Decreases the (own) date of the active record by one year.


Find


Enter here the pattern that you want to find. Case is not significant.


Check this box if the Info Titles should be searched too.


Check this box if the references should be searched too.


Check this box if the InfoText should be searched too.


Here you’ll see messages about the searching.


Activates the first record in the InfoList and starts the search in this record.


Activates the record before the current active record and starts the search in this record.


Activates the record after the current active record and starts the search in this record.


Searches the records before the current active record until either the search pattern is found or the begin of the list is reached.


Searches the records after the current active record until either the search pattern is found or the end of the list is reached.


Resumes the search in the current active record beginning at the current position of the insertion point. The insertion point is set at the beginning of the first search target (title, reference, or text) when the record is activated or when the search pattern is changed. If the search pattern is found somewhere the found text is selected and becomes the position of the insertion point.


AlarmSetting


The title of the linked Info. If this is a ”free” alarm without linked Info this field is empty.


The InfoBase of the linked Info. If this is a ”free” alarm without linked Info this field is empty.


Change here the date for the alarm.

If the exists already other alarms for the linked Info the time of the last is taken as a presetting for the new alarm. Otherwise the current time is taken.


Change here the time for the alarm.

If this alarm is an Info Alarm and if there exists already other alarms for the linked Info the time of the last alarm is taken as a presetting for the new alarm. Otherwise the current time is taken.


Enter here the message for the alarm.

If this alarm is an Info Alarm the title of the linked Info is taken as a presetting for the message of the new alarm. If the linked Info has an InfoTime assigned this time is taken additionally as a prefix to the title.


AlarmRinging


The message of this alarm.


Tries to activate the Info connected with this alarm. If the InfoBase with this Info is not loaded it is opened on this occasion.

If no Info is connected to this alarm this command is not available.


Makes a new alarm for this context. Use this command e.g. if you want to postpone this alarm a bit.


Closes this window without further action.


Alarms


The currently active (not yet triggered) alarms. If you select one of them you can edit it in the lower part of the window.


Change here the date for the alarm.


Change here the time for the alarm.


Change here the message for the alarm.


The complete path of the InfoBase that contains the Info.


Tries to activate the Info connected with this alarm. If the InfoBase with this Info is not loaded it is opened on this occasion.

If this is not an Info Alarm this command is not available.


Duplicate Info


Select here the step size for incrementing the InfoTime for each created new record.


Selects the total number of created records.


Selects the time period for the created records. This period can only been set between the date of the source record and Jan. 1, 2038.


Enter the total number of  created records here (max 100).


Enter here the date up to which the InfoTime of the new records should be incremented (max. Jan 1, 2038).


Move Folders or Files


The path of the target folder for this moving. If you used this feature before you’ll find up to 10 of the most recently used files in this list. Click on the button at the right to choose another folder.


Select here whether you ant to move only files or also folders.


If you check this box you may change your mind separately for every file or folder.


Export/Import Alarms


Select this option if you want to transfer the alarms of this computer to another computer and want to avoid to have alarms ring twofold. After copying the alarms to the file all active alarms in the system are deleted!


Select this option if you want to make a backup of the active alarms for security reasons. If you use this method for transferring alarms to another computer there may be alarms ringing twofold on both computers.


Select this option for importing alarms that were exported earlier to a file with one of the options above. The alarms of the file are merged with the alarms already active in the system, this means that only those alarms from the file are added that are different in some aspect from any of the alarms already present.


Kategorien Edit/Delete


Edit the selected Category.


Delete the selected Category. If this Category is used in any record the user has to confirm this command.


Close this dialog window.


Opening an InfoBase

1	Click in menu File on Open or click on

2	In the file selection dialog window select the folder and the file with the InfoBase and click Open.

Tip   To open a recently used InfoBase click in the lower part of menu File on the file name. Alternatively you should consider to organize your InfoBases in a dedicated special InfoBase and open them from there. To learn more about this possibility see InfoBases in InfoBases.

Note   If you like to see the comment of the InfoBase (see File/Properties and File/Comment) at every opening of the InfoBase just insert the string ‘###’ somewhere in the topic of the InfoBase  (command File/Properties). Include ‘####’ if you want to see it on closing too. This would be an opportunity to make notes after using the InfoBase and see them again next time.


Creation of a new InfoBase

1	Click in menu File on New or click on

2	In the file selection dialog window select the folder, type the (file) name of the new InfoBase and click Save.

3	In the dialog window Properties fill in the given fields as you like and click OK.

4	Now you can start to create records immediately and create Category Groups and Categories on the fly as needed. Alternatively, you may first define some Category Groups and some Categories suitable to your task (you can restructure them later anytime).

Note   If this InfoBase should support references select this option in the dialog window Properties. But remember, you may add this option later anytime - you cannot remove it again afterwards!

Note   If you click on Cancel in the dialog window Properties the creation of the new InfoBase is canceled.

Tip   If you administer your InfoBases in a special dedicated InfoBase (see InfoBases in InfoBases), you can create new InfoBases (as other documents) out of that InfoBase (see Creating a New Document with Record).


Saving an InfoBase

Normally, you do not have to save an InfoBase explicitly, this happens automatically on several occasions. For example, a new or changed record is stored as soon as you activate or create another record, or when you activate another InfoBase Window.

If you want to save the active InfoBase explicitly select Save in menu File or click on [image]. Changed parts of the InfoBase are then stored in the file.

Note   When there are no unsaved data for the active InfoBase this command is not available.

If you want to make a copy of the active InfoBase use the command Save As in menu File.

Note   If you make such a copy you do not work afterwards with this copy (as is common practice in other applications) but work on with the original file

Tip   In particular you should consider making a copy of the active InfoBase if you are going to delete records because you cannot undo this action. If you administer your InfoBases in a dedicated InfoBase (see here) you have this alternative at your disposal.


 Opening Another Window for an InfoBase

For a loaded InfoBase you may open any number of windows simultaneously. This makes sense if you want to see several different choices of records side by side, or if you want to activate several records simultaneously. To open another window for an InfoBase proceed as folowing:

1	Make sure that a window for this InfoBase (an ‘InfoBase Window’) is active (if necessary click onto such a window).

2	Select New Window in menu Window.

Note   You’ll see that all changes to an InfoBase that you make in one window immediately show up in all windows that present this InfoBase.


Definition of a New CategoryGroup
Defining a New CategoryGroup

1	Click in menu InfoBase or in the context menu of an Info CategoryList on New Group

2	In the dialog window Properties of Category Group type the name of the new group (all characters are allowed, even blanks - but avoid the colon ‘:’ since this is used as a special delimiter) You may change this name any time afterwards.

3	If this should be a OneOf Group  check the corresponding box (later conversion of a Category Group to this mode is a little awkward). Change the name of the Default Category if you like.

4	If you want for this group a ”closed” own name space for the contained Categories check the related box. In this case names of Categories have to be unique only within this group and can be reused in other Category Groups. But notice that you cannot move Categories between this group and other groups any more. You can also ”close” the group later if you like, but you can reverse this property again only if the names of all contained Categories are unique with respect to all the other ”open” Category Groups. When Categories of closed Category Groups have to be presented out of the context of the group the names of the Categories are prefixed by the name of the group with a ‘:’ (colon) as delimiter between.

5	If you want this group to be used for Autocategorizing check the related box. The Categories of this group are then used for Autocategorizing by default, but can be excluded explicitly if necessary. You can change this property later on any time.

6	Click OK.

If one or more of the described properties are set  different from their default value for a Category Group they are shown as parenthesized single characters after the names in the headers of the Info Category Lists as follows:

1	OneOf-Group

:	Closed group with own name space

A	Used for Autocategorizing.


Changing Properties of a CategoryGroup

1	Click in menu InfoBase on the name of the Category Group. Alternatively, use the context menu of one of the CategoryLists.

2	Select in the pop-up menu Properties Group.

3	In the dialog window Properties of Category group change the properties as you like. More about these properties you can learn in section 'Defining a New Category group’

4	Click OK.


Changing the order of the Category groups

You can change the order of the Category Groups for displaying in the InfoBase Window as you like (the only exception is the automatically created group ‘Reference Type’ that is always positioned first). If you change the order of the Category Groups also the ordering of the Categories is changed thereby. To change the order of the Category Groups proceed as following:

1	Select the command Order Groups in menu InfoBase or in the context menu of one of the Info CategoryLists.

2	In the dialog window Order Category groups change the order in the list using the buttons at the right side.

3	Click OK.

Note   Changing the order of the Category Groups is not reflected immediately in the opened windows of this InfoBase. To see the change in the windows close the InfoBase and then open it anew.


Deleting a Category Group

1	Click in menu InfoBase on the name of the Category Group. Alternatively, use the context menu of one of the CategoryLists.

2	Select in the pop-up menu Delete Group.

3	Click OK.

Note   You can only delete empty Category Groups. So before deleting a group, delete all Categories in this group or move them to other groups.


Defining a New Category

1	Click in menu InfoBase on the name of the CategoryGroup for the new Category. Alternatively, use the context menu of a CategoryList for this group. Select in the pop-up menu New Category.

1a	Alternatively click on the header of an Info CategoryList.

2	In the dialog window New Category type the name of the new Category (all characters are allowed even blanks, and you may change this name any time afterwards).

3	If the containing Category Group is enabled for AutoCategorizing (see 'Defining a New Category group’) this dialog window has additional fields for the AutoCategorizing with this Category. Uncheck the field Use for AutoCategorizing if this Category should not be used for that. Otherwise you have the option to define synonyms for this Category after checking Edit synonyms and closing this window. Synonyms found in the InfoText also result in assigning a Category during AutoCategorization.

4	Click OK.

Note   If you define a new Category using one of the Info Category Lists and simultaneously there is Info active in edit mode, the new Category is assigned to this Info automatically.

Note   You should avoid using the character ‘:’ (colon) in names of Categories and Category Groups since this is used as a delimiter in qualified naming Categories of closed Category Groups.


Changing Properties of a Category

1	Click in menu InfoBase on the name of the Category Group that contains the Category. Alternatively, use the context menu of a Category List for this group. Select in the pop-up menu Rename Category.

2	In the dialog window Categories select the Category of which you wish to change properties and click OK.

3	In the dialog window Properties of Category make the wanted changes (see also section ‘Defining a New Category’).

4	Click OK.


Moving Categories to another CategoryGroup

1	Click in menu InfoBase on the name of the CategoryGroup that contains the Categories you want to move. Alternatively, use the context menu of a CategoryList for this group. Select in the pop-up menu Move Categories.

2	In the dialog window Move Categories select in the left list those Categories that you want to move to another group and in the list on the right the target group where you want to move to.

3	Click OK.

Tip   If you want to select several Categories in the Category List press Ctrl together with each click or select a whole range pressing the Shift key.


Deleting a Category

1	Click in menu InfoBase on the name of the CategoryGroup that contains the Category. Alternatively, use the context menu of a CategoryList for this group. Select in the pop-up menu Delete Category.

2	In the dialog window Delete Category select the Category that you want to delete and click OK.

If this Category is assigned to records the number of these records is displayed and you must acknowledge the deleting - otherwise, the Category is without further asking deleted.

Note   The Category is automatically unassigned from all records that used it.


Creating a New Info
Creating New Info

1	Click in menu InfoBase on New Info or click on [image] or type F2.

2	Replace in the InfoTitle field ‘--- new Info ---‘ by the title of the new Info. Press Enter or the tab key or use the mouse to proceed to the next field which is either the field for the InfoLink or for the InfoText.

3	Attach an InfoLink if appropriate.

4	Enter InfoText as you like.

5	Add suitable Categories.

6	Set the InfoTime if necessary.

7	Save the new Info explicitly if you like (this is done anyway on deactivation the Info).

Note  If you do not type the title immediately after the command New Info but activate something else the command is canceled.

Note  The title of the Info should uniquely identify the record in the InfoBase - but this requirement is not enforced by infoHandler so that several InfoRecords with the same title are possible. To avoid double input of records by mistake, during creation of new records you should sort the InfoList by title.

Note  New Info is automatically in edit mode until deactivated by some event, so you may change all its components as you like. At the next activation the edit mode normally is disabled to avoid unintentional changing.


Activating and Editing a Record
Activating and Editing the Info of an InfoRecord

There are several ways to activate the Info of an InfoRecord:

•	Click with the left mouse button on the title of a record in the InfoList.

•	With the commands Activate First Record, Activate last Record, Activate next Record, and Activate Previous Record you activate InfoRecords even if you do not see the (hidden) InfoList.

•	If the InfoList has the keyboard focus (e.g. set by clicking with the mouse on it) you may navigate also with the arrow keys to activate InfoRecords.

Note   Activation of an InfoRecord means presentation of the Info of this record with all its components in the Info Area of the InfoBase Window. This Info is then called ‘the active Info’ (of this InfoBase Window). To edit the active Info select the command Info/Edit

Note   You can move the keyboard focus between the InfoList and the fields on the Info Area also using F6. For example, if you navigate the InfoList with the arrow keys and then want to edit the text of the active Info, you can move to the textfield with F6, switch to edit mode with F3 and then edit the text without using the mouse during this procedure.


Assigning Categories to Records
 Adding Categories to Info

1	Activate the record and make sure that edit mode is enabled.

2	Make sure that the Info Category Lists in the lower part of the Info Area are visible (if necessary, drag the lower splitter bar upwards with the mouse).

3	Select the suitable Categories in the Info Category Lists by clicking with the left mouse button.

4.	If necessary, define new Categories on this occasion.

Note   If you prefer working without mouse, using F6 you walk sequentially through the list boxes and can select there Categories using the arrow keys and the space bar (the latter you need with multiple choice boxes).

Note   Of course the same way you can remove Categories from the active Info.

You can also add Categories to the active Info by Autocategorizing (command Info/Autocategorize, see also this article).

Without activating any Info you can select records in the InfoList and then add, remove, replace a (single) Categoy or autocategorize these InfoRecords. To do this, select the commands Add Category, Remove Category, Replace Category, resp. Autocategorize in menu InfoList/Categories.


Assigning an InfoTime to InfoRecords
Assigning InfoTime to Info

Activate the record and make sure that edit mode is enabled.

Make sure that the Times Field in the Info Area is visible.

There are several possibilities to assign an InfoTime to a record:

•	Check the box at the right of the name of the InfoTime. The currently displayed time on the date and time editors at the right of this is then attached to the record.

•	Change the date and/or time in the date and time editors. You can jump there from the title field by repeatedly pressing Enter or Tab and then edit date or time using the arrow-keys. Alternatively click on the buttons of the editors with the mouse.

•	To set the InfoTime to the current time or to the time previously assigned to another record you can use the special commands Set Now or Set Last in Menu InfoTime or the associated function keys.


Editing the Text  of a Record
Editing the InfoText

1	Activate the record and make sure, that the Edit Mode is switched on.

2	Make sure, that the InfoText Area is visible. If not, drag the adjoining Splitter Bars in position or select the command Card View in menu View or click on [image].

3	Activate this area by clicking in it or pressing the tab key or Page down.

4	Type the text or edit existing text. To learn more about this see More about Editing the InfoText

5	If you like save the text by selecting File/Save (but this is done automatically on deactivating the Info or at the latest on exiting the program)


Editing the Record Text
 More about Editing the InfoText

The area for presentation and editing the text of an InfoRecord (InfoText) is the second subarea of the Info Area.

You edit this text similar to the working with Wordpad which is a standard component of Windows. In the menu Edit, the context menu of the InfoText Area, and on the Format toolbar you find a selection of the Wordpad commands.

You can define textfields (we call them just fields if there is no ambiguity) in this text by including parts of the text in { and } or [ and ]. Double clicking somewhere in these fields selects all of it, pressing Ctrl together with double-clicking opens an object specified by the textfield (see also the article Embedded Links). Pressing one of the keys Page up or Page down results in jumping from field to field.

Such textfields are particularly useful if you initialize the InfoText of a new record automatically. To define text for initializing the InfoText of every new record for a certain InfoBase simply create a record with the special title ”***” (three stars). The InfoText of this record is then copied to every new record as a kind of form and, pressing Page down, you may jump from field to field to fill out the form.

A second textfield variant uses  ‘[‘ and ‘]’ as delimiting brackets. Contrary to the {...}-fields you cannot jump to such a field (but select all its content with a double-click).

The third textfield variant uses  ‘<‘ and ‘>’ as delimiting brackets and is specialized for links (this is also a common use of these brackets). Inside such a field no blank space is allowed and you open the linked object with just a double-click without simultaneously pressing Ctrl.

Note   You can change the described behavior to an extent - see Tools/Options/InfoText.

Hint   With the possibility to define initial InfoText with fields, infoHandler may replace in some cases specialized Information managers like address organizers. Of course, infoHandler does not offer the strict input control of those programs, and you may delete text outside the fields accidentally, and you don’t have the special features of the special programs. On the other hand, the possibilities to shape your interface are almost unlimited and you can use one tool (and one interface) for many different tasks. (see also the sample InfoBase ‘addresses’ that accompanies the infoHandler distribution).

Note   Internally, InfoText is stored in two different modes, as ”simple” or ”rich” text. The last comes into being if you apply one of the special formatting commands of the context menu or the toolbar, or if you insert ”richly formatted” text via the clipboard. ”Rich text” uses a little more storage space than ”simple text”.


Searching Text

To search the active Info or all records of the current InfoList for a given text pattern proceed as follows:

1	Select in menu Edit the command Find. This opens the Find Dialog Window.

2	At the Find Dialog Window enter the search pattern in the field Find what.

3	In the field Where to search check whether to search only in titles, in the references, in the InfoText, or in all of those.

4	If you want to search in the currently active InfoRecord click on Find More in This Record. Repeat this until the message field displays “Pattern not found”.

5	If you want to search in all records of the current InfoList first click on Find in First Record. To search more records then click repeatedly on Find in Next Record or on Find in Next Records. Notice the messages at the message field of the Find Dialog Window and look for marked text in the title and textfield of the active InfoRecord in the InfoBase Window. Eventually click on Find More in This Record when you want to search for more after a hit in some record.

Hint  Use the context help (?-button) to learn more about the various controls on the Find Dialog Window.

Hint   If you change the search pattern, the start position for the next search is reset automatically to the beginning of the text of the active record. You may set this position also manually by clicking onto the text of the active record.

Hint   You may change to another InfoBase Window any time and search there using this same Find Dialog Window.


Saving Records
Saving InfoRecords

Normally, you need not worry about saving of changes because this happens automatically. Changed records are always saved on deactivating, e.g. on activating another record, or at the latest on closing the InfoBase. To save a record explicitly select Save in menu File or click on

Note   If this command is not available there are no unsaved changes.


duplicating InfoRecords
Duplicating of InfoRecords

This feature was introduced to handle periodically recurrent dates. Beginning with an InfoRecord with assigned InfoTime you create a sequence of new records with the InfoTime incremented by fixed intervals.

To duplicate an InfoRecord do this:

1	Activate the record.

2	Make sure that for the active Info the InfoTime is assigned.

3	Select the command Duplicate in menu Info.

4	At the dialog window Duplicate select the wanted increment (week, month, or year) and the repeat count or the whole period to fill.

5	Click OK.

The created copies inherit the title and the Categories of the originating Info, but no InfoText.

Tip   If you, before duplicating, assign a special (identifying) Category to the original Info you may later filter out the set of created records easily from the whole set of records.


About InfoBases with References
About InfoBases with Links

There are two different kinds of links from the Info of an InfoRecord to internal or external objects: InfoLinks and ”embedded links”. InfoLinks are independent optional components of the Info like InfoTime or InfoText with a rich own functionality. Alternatively and complementarily to the assignment of such an InfoLink you can embed references that link to certain objects in the InfoText or InfoTitle and then activate those objects out from this point. In this and the following articles we describe the InfoLinks in some detail, another article at the end of this chapter is about embedded links.

In this documentation we use the terms ‘link’ and ‘reference’ mostly synonymous, but in a narrower sense ‘reference’ means the stored text string that is the basis for a ‘link’ between the two objects. And if no another meaning is suggested by the context those terms stand short for InfoLinks.

Not every InfoBase is enabled for InfoLinks. To enable InfoLinks click on Properties in menu File. In the properties dialog window check Has InfoLinks and then click OK.

Note   If Has InfoLinks is already checked InfoLinks are enabled already. You cannot reverse this property, so just click Cancel.

If an InfoBase is enabled for InfoLinks, in the InfoArea below the title field an additional field for the InfoLink reference is added. In this field the InfoLink is displayed as the path of an object of the local file system or as an URL (Uniform Resource Locator) for internet addresses or another protocol-type reference.

The color of the text in the InfoLink field stands for the kind of the linked object:

light red	A broken reference: the text string stored as reference could not be identified as linking to an existing object and no operations are defined on this. This state can result from moving or deleting an object outside of infoHandler or if an InfoBase with references to local objects is copied to another computer.

dark blue	An existing document (a file).

light blue	An existing folder.

dark red	A protocol-type reference as for instance a URL. Accepted are strings that begin as  http://, ftp://, mailto:, outlook:, www, phone:, tel:. Whether such a link references a real object of course can only be verified by trying to activate it.

black	Edit mode: You may change the reference using the keyboard..

Also the background color changes:

light yellow	Edit mode.

Dark yellow	No-edit mode - you cannot change the content using the keyboard.

rose	Read-only mode: The linked object, folder or file, is read only (normally, you can still open it).

Also, a special CategoryGroup named ‘Link Type’ is created that is always the first in the order of Category Groups and that cannot be edited by you. As Categories it contains the object types that are used as references in this InfoBase. These Categories are assigned automatically to the records according to the types of their references.

Note   In the InfoArea this CategoryGroup is normally hidden by setting its width to 0. To see it you may drag it out from the left border of the InfoCategoryLists area.

In the InfoList, records with InfoLinks display the icon for this link before the title. In addition to the icons imported by the registered applications, infoHandler uses the following special icons:

an internet page,

an email address,

a FTP server,

a link to a Microsoft Outlook contact (see here for more about this),

a phone number (more about this here),

a broken reference.

Note   (Single-)clicking on these symbols ”opens” the object - so avoid clicking onto the symbol if you only want to activate the record - click on the title to the right of the symbol in this case.


Attaching a reference to a record
Attaching an InfoLink to a record

To attach an InfoLink to an existing InfoRecord there are two alternatives: typing directly into the InfoLink field or dragging the icon of an object onto the InfoTitle or InfoLink field using the drag & drop functionality.

For typing (or inserting from the Clipboard) the Info must be in edit mode.

Note   infoHandler accepts only valid input for InfoLinks, that is the path names of existing files or folders, or syntactically correct internet URLs, or special formats like Outlook links or phone numbers.

More comfortable than typing is to insert the InfoLinks using drag & drop. To attach an InfoLink to a record by drag & drop select the icon of an object in a suitable source like Windows Explorer or an Internet browser and drag it onto the InfoTitle or InfoLink field.

Note   The InfoBase has to be enabled for InfoLinks - see: About InfoBases with LinksNote...You cannot attach links to Microsoft Outlook objects or phone numbers by drag & drop to existing records.


Creation of New Records with References
Creation of New InfoRecords with InfoLinks by Drag & Drop

There are several possibilities to create new InfoRecords with InfoLinks by dragging objects from some source and dropping onto an InfoList.

•	Dragging files and/or folders from a folder window or Windows Explorer creates records with InfoLinks to these objects.

•	Dragging a hyperlink (URL) from an Internet browser creates a record with a link to that page that you can use then as bookmark and container of info obtained from that page.

•	Dragging of Contacts from Microsoft Outlook creates records with links to that Contacts.

The titles of the new records are generated from the text of the reference (and may be changed by you afterwards).

If you drag several files simultaneously onto the InfoBase you have the opportunity to select prior to the record creation some Categories which are assigned then to each of the new records (there is a restriction in that you may select only one Category from the first six free CategoryGroups).

Note   The InfoBase has to be enabled for InfoLinks - see: About InfoBases with Links


Creating a New Document with Record
Creating Documents linked to InfoRecords

To create a new document simultaneously with a new record that links to the document proceed as follows:

1	Click in menu InfoBase on New Document or click on [image] or type Shift+F2.

2	In the dialog window New Document select the document type and possibly an own template, type the name of the new document and select the folder for it. Check Open now if you want to work with the document immediately. Make use of the context help (?) to learn more about the meanings of the diverse settings.

3	Click OK.

A new record with a link to the new document is created. As title for the record the name of the document is used. If Open now is checked the document is opened immediately (and the attached application started if necessary).

Note   The InfoBase has to be enabled for InfoLinks - see: About InfoBases with Links

Note   Up to ten of the most recently used folders for templates and new documents are remembered by infoHandler globally for all InfoBases and are accessible from the dialog window. Further, the last selected document type, template, and target folder for the new document are remembered per InfoBase and pre-selected next time.

Tip   Simultaneously with the new document you can create a new folder (but only one!) in the selected (existing) folder. To do this, simply write the name of the new folder before the name of the document delimited by ‘\’ (the common format).


Opening of linked Objects

Click in menu Info/Linked Object on Object Open or click on [image] or press F4 or double-click on the title of the record in the InfoList or single-click on the symbol of the linked object before the title in the InfoList.

Note   If necessary, on opening an object the corresponding application is loaded and the document opened by this.

Note   If the background of the InfoLink field is colored rose the document is read-only. Normally in this case you can open it but cannot change it.

Note   infoHandler does not yet check if you have access rights to the object. If you have not, trying to open the document will result in an error message saying this.

To open several linked objects simultaneously::

1	Select the records in the InfoList..

2	In menu InfoList or in the context menu of the InfoList select Linked Documents/Open.

3	Acknowledge the action.


Printing Linked Documents

Click in menu Info/Linked Object on Document Print.

Note   If necessary, on printing an object the corresponding application is loaded and the document printed by this.

Note   infoHandler does not yet check if you have access rights to the document. If you have not, trying to open the document will result in an error message saying this.

To print several linked documents simultaneously::

1	Select the records in the InfoList..

2	In menu InfoList or in the context menu of the InfoList select Linked Documents/Print.

3	Acknowledge the action.


Moving Linked Documents
Moving Linked Documents or Folders

To move a linked document (file) or folder to another folder:

1	Make sure that the linked Info is active..

2	Click in menu Info/Linked Object or in the context menu of the InfoLink field on Document Move.

3	Ii the dialog window Move folder or file  select the folder where the object should be moved to.

4	Click OK.

To move simultaneously several documents or folders:

1	Select records in the InfoList.

2	In menu InfoList or in the context menu of the InfoList select Linked Documents/Move.

3	In the dialog window Move folders or files select the folder where the objects should be moved to and the other options.

4	Click OK.

Note   The references are adjusted to the new places automatically.

Tip   You avoid ‘broken’ links if you move linked documents only using this method - but, of course, the automatic adjustment works only with the participating records, not also with potential other links to the moved objects.


Renaming Linked Documents
Renaming Linked Documents or Folders

To rename a linked document (file) or folder:

1	Make sure that the Info with the link is active..

2	Click in menu Info/Linked Object or in the context menu of the InfoLink field on Document Rename.

3	Ii the dialog window Rename Document  enter the new name.

4	Click OK.

Tip   You avoid ‘broken’ links if you rename linked documents only using this method - but, of course, the link is only adjusted for the active Info, not also with potential other links to the renamed object.


Deleting Linked Documents

1	Make sure that the Info with the link is active..

2	Click in menu Info/Linked Object or in the context menu of the InfoLink field on Document Delete.

Note   Deleted documents are always moved to the Recycle Bin from which they can be retrieved again.

Tip   You can also delete documents together with deleting the referencing records. For more about this see Deleting Records


Saving/Loading Linked Documents To/From Floppy

To save a linked document to a floppy click in menu Info/Linked Object or in the context menu of the InfoLink field on To Floppy or press Ctrl+Shift+S.

To load  a linked document from a floppy click in menu Info/Linked Object or in the context menu of the InfoLink field on From Floppy or press Ctrl+Shift+L.

In both cases infoHandler replaces files without checkback only if the replaced files have an older time stamp for the last modification. Also, on loading from floppy the replaced file is moved to the Recycle Bin first - so the action it revertible.

If, on saving to floppy, a file with this name is not yet existent on the floppy you must acknowledge the creation. This should avoid mistakenly saving to a floppy not designated to this.

For some background for this features see the article Alternating Work with Documents on Several Computers.


Embedded Links

The InfoText of an InfoRecord can contain links to external objects like files (path names), Internet pages (URLs), e-mail addresses, or other system-supported protocols as well as to (internal) InfoRecords. You can activate the objects by first selecting the reference text and then using the command Open in the File menu (This command gets this special meaning if something is selected at the InfoArea, otherwise its meaning is the usual opening of files - here InfoBases).

Note  This works also in the InfoTitle and InfoLink fields. For instance, if you have attached as InfoLink a local document you see in the InfoLink field the complete path to this file. May be, on occasion, you don’t want to open the document itself but the folder that contains the document - just select the folder part in the InfoLink field and then command Open.

Of course, for this kind of links the InfoBase has not to be explicitly enabled as is needed for InfoLinks.

Note   Also the context menu of the InfoText area contains the command Open that is only enabled if at least 7 characters are selected in the context.

Note   This functionality is particularly interesting in conjunction with TextFields  (to learn more about TextFields see Editing the InfoText). If you include the here described references in { and } or [ and ] you can select them with a double-click and after that open with this command. Alternatively, it opens with the double-click already if you press Ctrl simultaneously. If you bracket the references with ‘<’ and ‘>’ you open them with just a double-click - no Ctrl simultaneously necessary (default behavior).


Phone Numbers

You can store phone numbers as InfoLinks or embedded links. ”Opening” such a link means calling the system phone dialer that of course has to be configured correctly. There is a special format defined for links with phone numbers: Prefix the phone number either with the string ‘phone:’ or ‘tel:’. For instance the text

phone: +49 8024 92416

or alternatively

tel: +49 8024 92416

would stand for the number of mdeSoft. You have to type these either in the InfoLink field or somewhere in the InfoText as embedded link, there is no way to enter them by dragging from some source.

For embedded links in the InfoText there is an additional convention: If you ”Open” some selected text that begins either with a digit or a ‘+’ this is also interpreted as a phone number and activates the phone dialer.


Restricting the displayed Records
Filtering the Displayed InfoRecords

There are two methods to filter (narrow) the displayed choice of records in the InfoList:

•	Using the Categories to Filter the Displayed Records,

•	Using Time bounds to Filter the Displayed Records.

Of course both methods may be combined.

To remove an effective restriction on the records by one of these mechanisms (so that all records are shown) select Reset in menu InfoList or click on [image] The effect of this command is the neutralization of all time bounds and Category Lists so that no restrictions are effective anymore.

Note   If the command Reset is not available, this means that all records are displayed and no restrictions effective.

Hint   Remember also that you may sort the InfoList in different ways.


Using the Categories for restricting the displayed InfoRecords
Using the Categories to Filter the Displayed InfoRecords

To filter the displayed records in the InfoList by logically combining Categories  - we call this setting up a Categories query - proceed as following:

1	Make sure that in the InfoBase CategoryLists those Category Groups are selected whose Categories you want to use for the query. If necessary, enlarge this area by dragging the splitter bar until the needed number of lists show up (max. 8). Change the assigned group of a list by clicking on the group field on top of the list.

2	Select in one of the list boxes those Categories that you want to combine logically and , if necessary, change the logical operator clicking on the button above the list. Default for this operator is ‘and’ and that means that all displayed records must have assigned each of the selected Categories. If you change the operator to ‘OR’ at least one of the selected Categories must be assigned, if you change to ‘NOT’ none of the displayed records has any of the selected Categories.

3	Apply the same procedure to the other lists if necessary. The conditions for selecting records defined by different lists are all combined logically with ‘AND’ and that means that all have to be satisfied simultaneously by all displayed records. Occasionally, it can be necessary to have more than one list for the same CategoryGroup (but rarely more than two). That may be the case if you want to make simultaneously some Categories of this group mandatory but exclude some others.

4	After you change a setting in the CategoryLists, normally the corresponding update of the InfoList is not spontaneously but after a certain delay. This prevents a hectic activity of the InfoList during setting up a new Categories filter. To adjust this delay time to your personal preferences select Options from menu Tools. To enforce an immediate update without delay after changing a setting select Update InfoList in menu InfoList or click [image].

Tip   Avoid setting the operator of one of the CategoryList’s to ‘OR’ without having selected some Categories. If you do this no record meets this condition and the InfoList becomes empty.

Tip   When, after setting up a complex query, the InfoList becomes empty you may have set up an impossible condition. Best in this case to reset the InfoList with command InfoList/Reset Categories or clicking

Note   If you change the group of a CategoryList the current setting of this list is neutralized before the change is done (all Categories deselected and operation set to ‘and’). This make sure that there are no hidden restrictions (beside the possibility that some of the selected Categories are scrolled out of sight or some of the used CategoryLists may be covered by the InfoList).

Note   To reset selectively a certain CategoryList select the command Reset from its context menu or double-click on the list with the left mouse button. This deselects all Categories in this list and sets the operator to ‘AND’, the neutral condition.


Using Time bounds for Restricting the Displayed Records
Using Time bounds to Filter the Displayed InfoRecords

To filter the displayed records in the InfoList by setting bounds for the diverse time data proceed as following:

1	Make sure that the TimeBounds bar is visible. You find this bar below the InfoList and you can show or hide it with the command Time Bounds in menu View. For each of the three kinds of time stamps (InfoTime, creation time, modification time) this bar has two date editor fields for the lower and upper bound for this time.

2	With your mouse select the editor for the bound that you want to change. Change the value by either typing in, using the arrow keys, or clicking on one of the spin buttons.

3	While you change a time bound the corresponding update of the InfoList follows up with a small delay.

4	If you want to set bounds only for the day and month but not for the years check the box labeled e.y. (”every year”). This results in all records being displayed whose day and month are included in the set interval (the day of the year for the lower bound can be after the day of the upper bound - in this case the interval includes New Year).

The color of the background of the date displays has these meanings:

green	no restriction is exerted on the InfoList from this value.

rot	this value restricts the InfoList.

blue	a bound for the InfoTime set to ”every year”.

Note   Using command Reset Time Bounds in menu InfoList you can reset the time bounds without resetting any Category restrictions. Resetting the time bounds means setting the bounds to the real bounds (minimum and maximum) for this InfoBase.

Note   The Time Bounds Bar is always visible if restricting bounds are set. If you hide this bar with command Time Bounds also any restricting bounds are reset.


Sorting the InfoList

You may sort the displayed records in the InfoList by these criteria:

•	title,

•	InfoTime,

•	creation time,

•	time of the last modification,

•	Categories of a OneOf group.

•	all Categories

To sort the records by one of these criteria click on the header of the resp. column  (for “all Categories” on other Categories).

If you sort by “all Categories” the first sorting criterion are the Category Groups, the second are the Categories in a group, and the last the title.

If the InfoList is sorted by a column, a [image] before the header of this column means that the “small” values come first (on alphabetic ordering ‘a’ is “less” than ‘b’). The reverse order - “greatest” first - is signaled by [image] before the header. You reverse the order by clicking repeatedly on the column header.


Selecting InfoRecords in the InfoList

Method 1:

Select the first record clicking on the title of the record (the record is also activated thereby).

Select other records pressing either Ctrl or Shift. As usual, with Ctrl you select single records, with Shift you extend a range of records.

Method 2:

Press the left mouse button somewhere outside a record title and then drag the mouse to another place inside the InfoList. You’ll observe a moving frame and marked record titles inside this frame. Release the mouse button when all wanted records are marked. With this kind of selecting records there is no changing of the active record.


Moving and Copying Records
Moving and Copying InfoRecords

To move or copy one or more InfoRecords to another InfoBase proceed as following:

1	Make sure that the InfoBase to which you want to move or copy (the target InfoBase) is opened  and that its InfoList is visible at least in part when you click into the window of the source InfoBase.

1	Select in the InfoList of the source InfoBase those records that you want to move or copy:

3	Position the mouse pointer above the selected records and then press and hold the left or right mouse button (selecting the right button avoids  activating some Info by this action).

4	Drag the mouse pointer above the InfoList of the target InfoBase. the mouse pointer turns first into a [image], what signals that you can not drop here anything. As soon as you reach the InfoList of another InfoBase the pointer turns to a [image] and that signals that the object below  would accept what is attached to the mouse pointer.

5	If you now release the button a small menu pops up where you can select whether to move or copy the records here, or to cancel the whole action in the end. This menu is the default setting for left and right mouse button. For the left button you can change this setting in such a way that no menu pops up but moving or copying is started immediately (command Options in menu Tools).

Handling of Incompatibilities between Source and Target InfoBase

While moving or copying the records, the Categories assigned to the records are replaced by Categories with the same names (no matter the group) in the target InfoBase. If, for a certain Category, no match in the target InfoBase exists you are asked whether to create or ignore this Category. If necessary, on creation a Category a Category Group with the same name as in the source InfoBase is also created. You may choose between acknowledging every creation of a new Category, or to automatically create all, or to ignore all.

Another problem may arise if the source InfoBase has references but the target InfoBase is not enabled for references. In this case a warning pops up that all references are ignored and you may cancel the whole action at this time. Better make sure that the target InfoBase is enabled for references before moving or copying records with references.


Deleting Records
Deleting InfoRecords

To delete one or more records (remove permanently from the InfoBase) proceed as following:

1	Select the records that you want to delete in the InfoList:

2	Select the command Edit/Delete or press Del or click on [image].

3	In the dialog window Acknowledge Deleting Records specify whether linked documents should be deleted too (default is always ‘No’).

Attention   You cannot reverse the deletion of records! So be careful, especially if you have selected more than one record. Consider making a copy of the InfoBase prior to deletion (see also Saving an InfoBase).


InfoHandler Alarms


Setting a free Alarm

An alarm is called a ”free alarm” if it is not bound to any Info.

To set a free alarm select New Alarm in menu File. In the dialog window New Alarm set the date and clock at some future time and enter some text as a message. Click OK.

At the set time - if infoHandler is running - a window with the message pops up. If you close this window, the alarm is deleted. Alternatively you can reset the alarm by clicking New Alarm and setting a new time.


Setting an InfoAlarm

An alarm is called an ”Info alarm” if it is bound to an InfoRecord of some InfoBase.

To set an InfoAlarm activate the resp. Info. Select New Alarm in menu Info. In the dialog window New Alarm set the date and clock at some future time and enter some text as a message. Click OK.

Note   The message text is preset with the title of the Info. If this Info has an InfoTime set to some future time also this is added to the message as a prefix. This becomes handy if the Info identifies some date or appointment where the InfoTime stands for the exact time for the date.

At the set time - if infoHandler is running - a window with the message pops up. Then you have three options:

•	If you close this window, the alarm is deleted.

•	If you click Go to Info the resp. InfoBase and the InfoRecord therein are activated and the alarm deleted.

•	Alternatively you can reset the alarm by clicking New Alarm and setting a new time.


Editing and Deleting Alarms

To see a list of active infoHandler Alarms you have these three options:

•	To see all infoHandler Alarms (free and bound to Info) select Alarms in menu File.

•	To see only the alarms bound to some Info in the active InfoBase select Alarms in menu InfoBase.

•	To see only the alarms bound to the active Info  select Alarms in menu Info.

To edit an alarm in a list of active infoHandler Alarms select it and then edit its date, time, and message text in the lower part of the dialog window.

To delete an alarm in a list of active infoHandler Alarms select it and click Delete Alarm.


Exporting and Importing Alarms

To export or import alarms select command Export/Import Alarms from menu File. At the dialog window Export/Import Alarms select from three options:

•	Move to file
Select this option if you want to transfer the alarms of this computer to another computer and want to avoid to have alarms ring twofold. After copying the alarms to the file all active alarms in the system are deleted!

•	Copy to file
Select this option if you want to make a backup of the active alarms for security reasons. If you use this method for transferring alarms to another computer there may be alarms ringing twofold on both computers.

•	Read from file
Select this option for importing alarms that were exported earlier to a file with one of the options above. The alarms of the file are merged with the alarms already active in the system, this means that only those alarms from the file are added that are different in some aspect from any of the alarms already present.

Hint   When an alarm bound to some Info rings you can activate the bound Info out of the alarm dialog window. But of course that works only, if infoHandler finds the resp. InfoBase using the path name that was valid when the alarm was originally created. So, if you work with alarms on different computers, make sure that you copy also the concerned InfoBases together with the alarms thereby strictly conserving the original path (the article Alternating Work with Documents on Several Computers may be of some interest in this context)


Printing Records and Record Text
Printing

To print part or all of the records in the InfoList:

1	Set the options for print output for the InfoBase. To do this select command Print Options in menu File or click on [image]. In the dialog window Print Options select the choice of records and which parts of them to print, and other options as you like. Use the context help ‘?’ to learn more about the various options.

2	Make sure that, dependent on the set print options, the InfoList displays the wanted records, or some records are selected, or some Info is active.

3	Select command Print Preview in menu File or click on [image] to evaluate the output of the current settings before real output to the printer. Notice that the print preview is not entirely accurate - there may be less text visible than on the final printer output (that’s because preview text is rendered slightly too large).

4	If needed, adjust the print options. To change the page format select command Page Setup in menu File.

5	To print with the current print settings select Print from menu File or click on [image].

6	To save the print output for the current print settings to an editable File select Export As RTF from menu File. You can then open and reedit the created file (an RTF file) with almost any word processor.

Note   Most of the print output should be clear enough, so we wouldn’t elaborate about it. But notice that the InfoBase comment and the InfoText both don’t have headers prefixed to them as all the other components do. Instead, these are separated from the others by lines that are empty but a single point.


Examples for Collections of Personal Info
Examples for Collections of Personal Information

Here are some examples for managing personal information in InfoBases.  Can you think of others?

Notes

Some people are constantly making notes about business or private affairs. Some are collecting hundreds or even thousands of notes, and then depend on remembering and retrieving them again if need comes. infoHandler is great for organizing notes. Categorizing your notes makes it easy for you to retrieve them associatively. Attaching alarms to your notes makes the remembering automatic.

Literature

If you read professional journals regularly you perhaps would like to document some interesting articles in such a way that you can later retrieve them based on the information therein. You then need a means to find for certain topics, terms, journals, and other Categories all relevant articles - but not too few and not too many and fast enough. This aim was originally the motivation for the development of infoHandler. To get a little impression of what that would look alike click here.

CDs

Does your collection of CDs also become confusing? Administer it with infoHandler! What such an InfoBase could look like is demonstrated by one of our provided sample InfoBases. But this should only stand as one example for a suspected immense number of possible applications in the field of personal hobbies. The accompanying sample InfoBase "CD-Collection" demonstrates above all the possibilities and the power of Categorizing.

Cooking Recipes

Maybe you belong to those stressed people who daily have to make the decision of what to cook today? Simply store all your practicable recipes in an InfoBase. Category groups are ingredients, time needed, preferences of the participants on the meal, etc. In case you are in doubt what to cook, you look for available ingredients and feed them into the computer. Also, enter the time available until lunch, the participants, and the other relevant Categories. infoHandler then provides you with a list of all the possible alternatives.

Diary

Why not keep a diary with infoHandler! Each entry you may richly Categorize and later you can do interesting evaluations (please show me all entries in the years 1998 to 2000 concerning our son Bill, but exclude school events). Such a diary you could combine readily with dates management - see also the article Dates Management.

Material Collection

Are you currently working on a book or a dissertation? How do you administer the results of the needed investigations? In an ordinary card index box? Better use an InfoBase, the powerful ”electronic card index”!

Know-how

After long thinking and searching you have found the solution for a problem - are you sure to have this solution readily present later when this or a similar problem arises again? Better store your solutions and other tricks in an InfoBase but do not let others have access to this!

Next suggestion: Documents in InfoBases


Documents in InfoBases

infoHandler is useful for managing the documents that you create with the applications on your computer (text files, Spreadsheets, Graphics etc.). You can create these documents directly from within infoHandler, together with an InfoRecord that refers to it. Then you assign suitable Categories to this record and its document and get a handy document management system.

The question arises: do I put all my documents into one single InfoBase, or do I create several InfoBases for different types of documents, one for letters, another for reports and so on? If in doubt begin with a single InfoBase. It is easy to divide an InfoBase in several new ones later if it becomes to complex (see: Moving/Copying Records).

On creating this InfoBase enable it for InfoLinks! Of course the Category Groups depend largely on the kind of documents. E.g. for letters it should be useful to have the recipients as Categories in a group with the same name.

Now, if you are going to create a new document, select the command New Document. In the dialog window New Document select the type of the document (e.g. a Word document) and a folder with templates of this type from which you may select one for the new document (but not mandatory).Of course, instead of a special folder with templates, you may also select the folder where you store your letters etc. and then select one as template. You must also select the folder and name for the new document. If you have done all this one time, normally next time you do have to type only the name of the document since the other settings are retrieved from the previous action (and also from several others before). If you also mark open immediately and click OK the corresponding application is started immediately,  otherwise you can first edit the created Info (change title and assign Categories) and then open. the document anytime.

Additionally to opening, there are some other actions with the documents you can execute out of infoHandler., e.g. you can print, move, rename, and delete documents. Especially, to avoid ”broken” references,  moving, renaming, and deleting you should always do using these commands (not with the Windows Explorer).

If you want to add existing documents to the new InfoBase, just select them in the Explorer or a folder window. Then drag all the selected files with the mouse onto the InfoList of the InfoBase Window. Doing this, you create for each document a record with reference (Tip: If the Explorer now hides the InfoBase Window, first drag the files onto the button of infoHandler at the task line at the bottom of the screen, but keep the mouse button still pressed. After a second the infoHandler window comes to the top and you can now drag further to the final target).

Next suggestion: Internet Addresses in InfoBases


Internet Addresses in InfoBases

Internet browsers administer your ”favorites” or ”bookmarks”, but normally only in the common unsatisfactory hierarchical manner. infoHandler does better!

To get links to Internet pages in an InfoBase simply drag the URLs from an open Internet browser either onto the InfoList (creating a new InfoRecord thereby) or onto the InfoLink field of an active record. ” Opening” the created link then results in calling the browser and visiting the page on the Internet.

Also e-mail addresses may be linked to InfoRecords (e.g. drag them from your e-mail program onto the InfoBase window - this must produce a valid e-mail URL ‘mailto:<xxx>@<yyy>.<zzz>’, edit it if this is not the case). Clicking on the icon in the InfoList then results in sending mail.

Next suggestion: Dates in InfoBases


Dates in InfoBases

Why should you manage your appointments with infoHandler? You can then categorize them by type, topic, place, partner etc. You may add the results of a meeting as text and other Categories, getting a permanent documentation (Query: when and with whom did I discuss this topic?).

If you want to manage your dates in an InfoBase use the InfoTime to indicate the day and time. As name for the InfoTime select ‘time’ (command File/Properties)

To see the dates of today select the command InfoTime Today in Menu InfoList or type Ctrl+1

To see the dates of the next 2, ..., 8 days type Ctrl+2, ..., Ctrl+8.

Some dates recur periodically, weekly, monthly, or yearly. To update these dates after happening there are some special commands in menu InfoTime and in the context menu of the field with the dates for the active record:

•	+ One Day (Ctrl+D)
increments the InfoTime by one day.

•	+ One Week (Ctrl+W)
increments the InfoTime by one week.

•	+ One Month (Ctrl+M)
increments the InfoTime by one month (same day if not greater 28).

•	+ One Year (Ctrl+Y)
increments the InfoTime by one year (same month and day if not the 29th Feb.).

This procedure provides for a kind of recycling of the date-Info. The disadvantage is that the notes for these recurrent dates are not managed accurately according to the time, the diary character is lost. If you want to prevent this disadvantage you must create an extra InfoRecord for every date. Select the command Duplicate in the menu Info to create - beginning with an initial date - automatically many others with increments of one week, one month, or one year.

Almost all of the described commands and some more you find as buttons on the Dates Control, a small tool window that you can make permanently displayed with the command Dates Control in menu View. Use the ?-button in the header of this window to learn about the many possibilities for manipulating your dates.

Tip   If you manage your dates together with their results in an InfoBase you should document here also not planned events - e.g. important telephone calls - making this InfoBase a universal diary.

Next suggestion: Anniversaries in InfoBases


Anniversaries in InfoBases

If you dedicate an InfoBase to anniversaries as e.g. birthdays (if you do not know the year exactly select a default like 1666) or history dates store the day of the anniversary as InfoTime. Select an appropriate name for the InfoTime like ‘Birthday’ (Command File/Properties)

To see the anniversaries that correspond to the current day, select the command InfoTime Today Every Year or type Ctrl+Shift+1

To see all the anniversaries that correspond to the next 2 to 8 days, type Ctrl+Shift+2, ..., Ctrl+Shift+8.

All the described commands and some more you find in graphic symbolic form at the Dates Control, a small tool window that you can make permanently shown with the command Dates Control. Use the ?-button in the header of this window to get an overview of the many possibilities for manipulating your dates and anniversaries (Hint: For handling of anniversaries check Every Year).

Next suggestion: InfoBases in InfoBases


InfoBases in InfoBases

Yes, also your InfoBases you can organize in InfoBases. This is strongly advisable if you have so many InfoBases that they do not fit altogether in the list of ”most recently opened InfoBases” in menu File (there at most 9 entries are possible).

Basically, there is no difference between the management of InfoBases and that of other documents (see Documents in InfoBases). You create a new InfoBase with New Document and assign appropriate Categories. When you open the new InfoBase this happens inside the same main window (the same instance of infoHandler). Open the InfoBase with the InfoBases always first after launching infoHandler or, better yet, open this InfoBase (and infoHandler) from a shortcut on the desk top - it is then positioned first in the ‘list of open windows’ in menu Windows and you may draw it to the foreground any time by just clicking F5 and then navigate through the other InfoBases.

You also may want to customize the standard toolbar and put the button for the command First Window somewhere left on this bar.

Next suggestion: Programs in InfoBases


Programs in InfoBases

Has your list of programs in menu Start/Programs also become so big and unwieldy? Are you searching in this long list desperately for a certain program for this or that purpose (can’t remember the name)? Would you like sometimes to make a few notes to a program which you then can see and add to on every start?

There is no reason not to organize you programs in InfoBases too. Exactly as with documents, you draw the program or a shortcut to it onto the InfoBase Window. After that you start the program as you open a document: just click onto the icon in the InfoList.


Special Topics, Tips and Tricks


Sorting of InfoRecords and Categories
Sorting of InfoRecords and Categories, how it is done specially

InfoHandler uses a special algorithm for sorting of Categories and InfoRecords by titles.

Conventionally, sorting of textual items like the Names of Categories or the titles of InfoRecords would done purely character-wise from left to right using the system-set ordering of all characters. But this strategy is not always satisfactory. One of the consequences of this ordering is that numbers are not always ordered in the logical sequence, for instance ‘88’ would be ”greater” than ‘777’ and ‘-1’ ”greater” than ‘+1’ in this case.

InfoHandler tries to improve the sorting algorithm by a special treatment of leading numbers. Before deciding the order of two character strings by the conventional methods, it tests for a sequence of leading numbers. The numbers in this sequence may be delimited by any single special characters, but any alphabetic character terminates the sequence. All these numbers are then compared from left to right. Some possible examples with valid leading numbers are these:

(1)	1 some text

(2)	1.5 some text

(3)	1.11.88 some text

(4)	1.11.777 some text

(5)	1887/7/14 some text

(6)	1887/7/6 some text

With infoHandler (1) < (2) < (3) < (4) and (5) > (6) is valid.

If the sequence begins with a negative sign ‘-‘ the order of all components is reversed: ‘-1.880’ would be less than ‘-1.777’.

Note that all these numeric components are compared as integer values and consequently 1.88 is ”less” than 1.777. This is convenient if you want to organize something hierarchically using decimal classification (see samples (1) to (4) above). On the other hand, if you want the pattern to be interpreted as real numbers with a decimal fraction behind a decimal point be sure to write all the numbers with the same number of digits behind the point (1.880 is ”greater” than 1.777).


Autocategorizing, how does it work?
Autocategorizing, how it works and how to use it

During automatic categorizing - short Autocategorizing - of an InfoRecord the Infotitle and the InfoText is searched for some content (pattern) that stands for defined Categories.

The Categories to be used for this have to be enabled for Autocategorizing. Generally it is sufficient if the Category Group that contains the Category is enabled for Autocategorizing (command Properties Group), but you can also explicitly disable this property for Categories in such a group (command Edit Categories).

To begin with, the name of a Category is a ”pattern” for Autocategorizing concerning this Category. But often this is not quite satisfactory, so you can define synonyms as additional patterns (command Edit Categories).

Searching names or synonyms of Categories is not case-sensitive. Also, before searching all hyphenations are removed and all other line breaks are replaced by blanks - so patterns are compared independent of such breaks. You can opt for comparing whole words only or also part of words. If you opt for ‘only whole words’ immediately before and after a found pattern cannot be a letter. When a matching pattern is found the attached Category is added to the Info.

When a Category from a 1-of-N-Group is added, the other Categories from this group are not considered any more. For those groups only the first found Category is assigned, even if others might exist that would have been successful too.

Autocategorizing is started in various situations:

(1)	Autocategorizing the active Info (command Autocategorize in menu Info).

(2)	Autocategorizing selected InfoRecords in the InfoList (command Autocategorize in menu InfoList/Categories).

(3)	Autocategorizing during Import of Email or News messages.

The first kind might be useful after copying text from external sources - maybe the Internet - as InfoText.

The second kind may be appropriate in case you defined a new Category and now want to add this to existing records.

But for many the most important application of this feature may be the automatic categorizing of imported messages where e.g. the author is assigned automatically to all records (provided he or she is already known and represented by a Category).


Cross referencing between InfoRecords

You can embed links to other InfoRecords in the InfoText and then jump to the linked record by the same method as you activate embedded references to external objects (see ”Embedded Links”).

To insert a link to another InfoRecord into some InfoText you must simultaneously see the title of the record to be inserted in some InfoList and also the point where the reference is to be inserted in the InfoText. Also, the target Info must be in Edit Mode. Click then with the right mouse button onto the source record title, drag to the point of insertion, and drop it there releasing the mouse button. The reference is inserted as a string included in angular brackets and composed of four parts. As an example such a reference might look like this:

<info: Info title ||333|c:\Own Documents\MyInfoBase.iba>

The angular brackets are just a convenience so you can jump to the linked  record double-clicking on the field - you may replace them by other brackets or remove them.

The first part of the proper reference is the string ”info:” that identifies this reference as linking to an InfoRecord and may not be changed.

The second part, separated from the prefix ”info:” by a Blank, is the title of the linked Info. It is not used for finding the record and so may be changed at will.

The third part - separated from the preceding title by a blank and two ‘|’ characters - is the internal ID (identifier) of the linked record, a number that may not be changed (other than the title the ID identifies a record unequivocal in the containing InfoBase and is never used again after deletion of an InfoRecord).

The fourth part, separated from the preceding ID by a single ‘|’ character,  is the file path of the containing InfoBase. This path is used to find the InfoBase with the linked InfoRecord and so it’s clear that changing the name or path of an InfoBase would make all such references to records in this InfoBase unusable. If the linked Info is contained in the same InfoBase as the InfoText with the reference you can replace the InfoBase path (the fourth part of the reference) by a star ‘*’ so that the above example would become like this:

<info: Info title ||333|*>

 A star in this place is interpreted as the file path of the active InfoBase and so you can make the link insensible to changes of name or path of the InfoBase. On the other hand, of course, you cannot copy or move such a reference to records in other InfoBases as you could with references containing the absolute file path (and of course this applies equally when copying/moving whole InfoRecords containing such references to other InfoBases).

Tip   In conjunction with links to other InfoRecords the history feature is of special interest: if you jumped to linked Info you can return easily to the original Info with command Go Backward or using the history window. Notice also that on going backward the InfoText of the previous Info is restored at the previous position.

Tip   You can change the font attributes of the reference text as you like - so it may be convenient  setting the title part of the reference off with bold and colored characters and setting all other parts small and fade.


 Alternating Work with Documents on Several Computers

Perhaps you know this problem: You work with certain files - may be text documents or in the future also with InfoBases - on different computers, on the PC at the office, then on the PC at home, then on the notebook on the road. To make this work you keep copying the files between floppies and he computers. Did you already overwrite the newest version of a document with an older one during this procedure?

The features for management of documents (and InfoBases) in InfoBases does not fully solve this dilemma but offers a little help: a direct update of linked files using floppies without the danger of mistakenly overwriting and loosing the last version.

To learn more about saving and reloading linked files to floppy read the article Saving/Loading Linked Documents To/From Floppy.

So the principle is as fowing:

You declare one floppy as the ”master storage” for the document. This floppy is always present if you work on the document somewhere. Also, on each participating computer a copy of the document is stored and additionally administered in an InfoBase. Before you open the document from this InfoBase you shortly select the command From Floppy which updates the file if necessary (and only if). After working with the document (again in infoHandler) you select the command To Floppy and have the current version on the floppy again. If, at this later time, you have mistakenly the wrong floppy in the device, nothing can go wrong because you must acknowledge the creation if the file is no yet on the floppy.

This procedure is fast and secure - no lengthy searching at the browser, no mistaken overwrites of newer files - if necessary, overwritten files can be retrieved from the Recycle Bin.

If you want to work with a document for the first time on another computer, first copy it from the master floppy to a suitable folder. Then drag the new copy from this folder onto the InfoBase for the documents (of course, if the latter does not yet exist you must create it first) . Now you can continue as described above.

Tip   You know, something always can go wrong working with floppies. Pay attention to the symbol in the final message box for the action: if this is an ‘i’ all is ok but if it is a ‘!’ the action was not successful.


Organizing your Emails in InfoBases
Archiving Email and News messages in InfoBases.

Note   This functionality is not yet available with Microsoft Outlook 2000.

You can import Email and News messages  from Microsoft Outlook 97/98  and Outlook Express by dragging the messages from the mail program directly onto the InfoList of an InfoBase. For each message an InfoRecord is created and its Info initialized:

•	The InfoTime is taken from the message date adjusted to local time. So you can sort your messages chronologically.

•	The InfoTitle is constructed from the message Subject (without possible prefixes like 'RE' or some others).

•	The InfoText is initialized from part of the message header (From/To/Subject), possibly names of attached files, and the plain text body. So the essential content of a message is retrieved as InfoText.

•	Finally the Info is autocategorized.

Tips:

The email addresses of sender and receiver often are presented in email headers enclosed in angular brackets - double-click on such an entry to send a message to the sender.

In InfoBases for managing messages you might want to define a 1-of-N-Group ‘Status’ with default Category ‘unread’ and another Category ‘read’. Newly imported message records are then ‘unread’ to begin with.

In your e-mail InfoBase define a 1-of-N-Group ‘In/Out’ with default Category ‘in’ and another Category ‘out’. For ‘out’ define a synonym ‘From:   ”<your name>”’, that is the exact text inclusive blanks that appears in all headers of messages that you send. InfoRecords created from e-mail are then categorized automatically as in- or out-going.

Define a CategoryGroup ‘Contact’ enabled for autocategorizing and define each new sender of a message as a Category in this group. If necessary add the email address of this contact as a synonym. The next message send to or received from this contact is then categorized automatically with this Category.

InfoAlarms can be especially useful in connection with messages - if for instance you want to postpone but not forget answering a message.


Interoperability with Microsoft Outlook

Note This functionality is not yet available with Microsoft Outlook 2000.

Beside e-mail messages you can also drag most of the other objects of Microsoft Outlook 97/98 onto InfoLists to create InfoRecords. Of special interest are Outlook Contacts that not only can create snapshots of their most important content but also links back to its origin.

References to Outlook Contacts have a format like this:

outlook:\\<Folder>\<Subfolder>\~<item>

Per example, a link to the contact ”John Smith” in Outlook could look such:

outlook:\\Personal Folders\Contacts\~John Smith

Activation of such a link would bring you to the linked item in Outlook.

Select tab Import in the Options window (command Extras/Options) to set the options for creating links to Outlook Contacts. You have the choice of creating InfoLinks or embedded links (and also to create no links at all but only snapshots). Also make sure that the path to your contacts is set correctly.


Very big InfoBases

Theoretically, there are almost no limits to the size of InfoBases (more than 4,000,000,000 InfoRecords and up to 60,000 Categories). Practically, there exist some narrower limits that are set by the resources of the computer and some peculiarities of the Windows operating system.

Big InfoBases with several thousand records need their time for loading (opening). Strangely enough, this loading time grows non-linear with size, so that opening an InfoBase with 10,000 records needs substantially more time than twice that of an InfoBase with 5,000 records. The actual times needed depend on the power of the CPU. Once loaded, also big InfoBases react fast though. You’ll experience that even InfoLists wit 10,000 InfoRecords are resorted or updated in a second or two. So big InfoBases are not problematic in this respect if you do not reload them too often.

A certain behavior under different operating systems may be a little more serious. InfoHandler uses as external storage so-called Compound Files, also known as Structured Storage, that are provided by Windows as a system service (by the way, used also for such applications as MS Word and Excel). This database-like storage is the basis for the fast constant synchronization between program-internal and file-external storing of all changes. On the other hand, we depend (as for many other things) on the good service of the operating system.

Now we did discover some peculiar restrictions of this service when working under Windows NT and its various Service Packs. With Service Pack 3 loading of more than about 5,700 InfoRecords proved to be not possible (despite the fact that we could create more than this figure to begin with). With Service Pack 4 this number increased to twice as much, to more than 10,000 records. Alas, there was no further increase of this number with Service Pack 5. We did not observe a comparable behavior under Windows 98 - loading of an InfoBase with more than 20,000 records took its time but was quite successful. We did not yet make these test for Windows 2000, so you may still hope for the better.

To sum up, observe closely these limits for the various types of Windows if your InfoBases reach sizes of more than 5000 records. Using Windows NT make sure to install Service Pack 4 at least, and even than avoid blowing up your InfoBases to more than 10.000 records.

Tip   In case you want to experiment yourself with big InfoBases to get a feeling for the limits of your system, it is quite simple (even if a bit time consuming) to create many InfoRecords for an InfoBase. Just copy the records between two InfoBases to-and-fro until you get the desired number of records in one of them.


Questions and Answers

This chapter will be used in future versions.


Keyboard Shortcuts

This list contains not all of the defined keyboard shortcuts. Not included are the common shortcuts like Ctrl+C for copying to the clipboard. You’ll find all defined shortcuts quoted at the entries in the diverse menus.

New Record	F2

New Document	Shift+F2

Edit Info	F3

Edit All Records	Shift +F3

Objekt Open	F4

First Window	F5

Next Area	F6

Previous Area	Shift +F6

Update Record List	F7

Reset Record List	Shift +F7

Card View	F8

Set Infotime = Now	F9

Set Infotime = Last	F10

Infotime Today	Ctrl+1

Infotime next 2,...,8 Days	Ctrl+2,...,8

Infotime Today Every Year	Ctrl+Shift+1

Infotime next 2,...,8 Days Every Year	Ctrl+Shift+2,...,8

Infotime + One Day	Ctrl+D

Infotime + One Week	Ctrl+W

Infotime + One Month	Ctrl+M

Infotime + One Year	Ctrl+Y

Find	Ctrl+F

To Floppy	Ctrl+Shift+S

From Floppy	Ctrl+Shift+L


With F6 and Shift+F6 you can move between the record list, the info title field, the info text area and the info category lists. See also ” Activating and Editing an info record”  and ”Assigning Categories to Info Records”.


Introducing Topics

If you are a newcomer to infoHandler please have a look at these introductory topics.

Introduction
What did motivate us developing this program? What are it’s capabilities? How should you proceed to learn more about it and to make it to a most effective tool assisting you at your daily work?

Overview
Don’t miss this! An introduction to infoHandlers’ functions, interface and handling.

About Categories
Categories and CategoryGroups are the key to the organization and the retrieval of the information.

About InfoText and TextFields
The Text of an InfoRecord can be ”richly” formatted, but there are other things too.

About InfoTime
The InfoTime allows for the handling of time data in information.

About Links
 Links (or ”references”) to external objects make infoHandler a universal tool for the flexible management of documents, applications, Internet links, and other objects. But you can also link internally - from one record to another.

About Alarms
InfoHandler Alarms let you attach reminders to all the bits of information.

Time-limited Trial License
Without registering you have 60 days to find out whether infoHandler may be of use for you. Here you can learn what that means

Registering infoHandler
If you like infoHandler and want to continue using it you must get a license. Here you learn how to get a license and what it costs.

License Agreement
You should have a look at this too.


About Us
In case you are curious about us, and how infoHandler came into being, and how things should go on, here you can learn something about this.


Introduction to infoHandler
Introduction

The Card File Problem

Think of a card file box. In this box you have collected several thousand cards with evaluations of articles in periodicals. Every card with a header line - author, title, and reference - and below that extensive notes. All cards are ordered accurately by subject. If you are looking for something for a given subject, you only need to find an appropriate index and view all cards belonging to this topic.

Well, so far so good - but now you are looking for something that was published for a certain subject in a certain magazine. You scan the few hundred cards for the subject and select those with the wanted periodical. Because you are uncertain about the subject you search other subjects as well. Now you see you got far to many cards, you couldn’t examine them all. You guess that really you are only interested in certain products together with this subject. Unfortunately, after deciding to order by subject, you couldn’t have ordered the cards by products too. So now you begin to search the collected cards for the wanted product. Don't forget, you have to return all the cards to the box that you have removed when you have completed your task.

Libraries use to solve this dilemma by having two card indexes with duplicated cards, one ordered on authors, the other on subjects.

Another problem comes about  if, preparing a new card, you find that several of the Categories seem to fit and you cannot decide where to put the card - unfortunately, a card cannot be simultaneously at several places.

The infoHandler Solution

To solve these kinds of problems with organizing information, this time  using not a card file but a computer, we conceived the concept of  ”categorizing information” that we implemented in infoHandler. This is much more than just attaching ”keywords” to the info. Most important is the central management of the ”Categories” and the possibility to organize them in groups. Categories are not just ”words” or ”character strings” but ”objects” with its own functionality. Shortly, with the help of these grouped Categories, a kind of multi-dimensional view of the data is accomplished, as opposed to the one-dimensional view of the common card indexes or with the hierarchical organization of many of the available programs for personal information management (PIMs). You can learn more about these Categories in one of the following articles.

But what is ”information”? Bits of information are not only the perhaps numerous notes that you make on all sorts of occasions and topics and store somehow on your computer. Information are also the documents of all kind that you create, the programs (”applications”) that run on your computer, dates - single ones and recurring (e.g. birthdays) - that you have to observe, Internet pages that you want to revisit, postal and e-mail addresses and others. For managing all these various types of information there exist many specialized programs or features of the operating system, all with their own concepts and user interfaces.

infoHandler enables the organization of all this information under one uniform interface. To do this, of course, you need some more special features aside from the universal Categorizing technology. Most important is the quality of the text that you can attach to the info. With infoHandler this text can be richly formatted, it can be initialized automatically for new info, and it knows about ”fields” where you can jump to using the keyboard. To manage documents, Internet pages, or e-mail addresses you can attach links between those objects and the info and then manipulate the objects from within infoHandler. To manage dates or birthdays, or other time data a universal time object (InfoTime) is an optional component of the info. And last not least infoHandler Alarms, attached to InfoRecords, remind you about things to do.

And to retrieve all these many bits of different kinds of information you apply the same set of powerful means. Using the assigned Categories you compose complex queries on the data with just a few clicks of your mouse. By setting bounds for the diverse time stamps you narrow further the displayed choice of info. And, of course, there is a handy global text search function that you can apply selectively to the components of the collected information.

On the other hand, due to its extensive range of features, this program and its user interface are a bit more complex than some of the other specialized  "simple" tools. But it will be well worth the effort to invest an hour or two to familiarize yourself with its concepts. Several provided sample infoHandler databases (InfoBases) assist you on this and helpful documentation is ubiquitous.

This online help is available in different (but usual) ways:

o	When the mouse pointer is placed over a menu entry or a symbol for a command an explaining text appears at the status line at the bottom of the window.

o	When you place the mouse pointer over a symbol at the tool bar a small window (a tool tip) appears with the text of the command.

o	When you click on [image] or the small ? in the title bar of dialog boxes the mouse pointer changes to an arrow with question mark (so called help mode). If you click then with the mouse somewhere in the window of infoHandler or the dialog box (e.g. on a symbol on the tool bar) the help topic for the clicked component is displayed.

o	The command content and index in menu ? opens as usual the window with the content and index of the online documentation. Find there the topic that you are interested in.

o	You already came across the tip of the day as you started infoHandler first time. Inspired by these tips in course of time you should acquire the ability to effective use the plethora of possibilities.

Some of the articles provide tips for the application of infoHandler. If you are wondering what infoHandler could do for you, have a look at those already now. These topics begin here. But be sure to return here after that and  have a look at the following introductory topic Overview.


The infoHandler Window
Here you see an InfoBase window that is maximized inside the infoHandler window. Click on the parts of this window to learn about their function.

Note   This example with articles from periodicals does not contain InfoLinks and therefore does not show the InfoLink-specific graphic elements.

Note   Before selecting other articles from the content window, close this window using the X-button top-right.

Note   This picture is best viewed with a display setting of at least 32768 colors.


Overview

infoHandler organizes information (”info”) in records , called InfoRecords, of special databases, called InfoBases. Aside from these InfoRecords, other important components of an InfoBase are Categories, organized in CategoryGroups. With the help of these Categories the InfoRecords are organized in multiple dimensions.

Interjection   Coming back to our analogy with a card index in the previous topic: the InfoBase is the card index box, the InfoRecords are the index cards, and the Categories are the indexing tabs between groups of cards. However this is an inadequate comparison: in a card index a card cannot be simultaneously behind several tabs, but an InfoRecord may be indexed in many different Categories.

If you start infoHandler, a main window, also called the infoHandler window, is created first that serves as a container or frame for the InfoBase windows (see below). This infoHandler window has all the usual components: header bar, menu bar, tool bars at the top and a status line at the bottom.

When you load (open) an InfoBase an InfoBase window is opened and positioned inside the infoHandler window. You can move it around there, change it’s size, maximize or minimize it.

The InfoBase window is divided into several areas. We identify two main areas and inside these several subareas. These areas are separated by movable splitter bars. You click on such a splitter bar with the mouse and then drag it (while pressing the mouse button) to change the relative sizes of the adjacent areas.

The two main areas are one on top of the other and divided by a splitter bar that seems to be a little higher than the other bars. The upper main area we call the InfoBase area, the lower the Info area.

The InfoBase area is so named because it represents all of the InfoBase. Among others you find there a list with a choice of the contained records. On the other hand, the Info area below presents the information (Info) of one special record, called the active Info, with all its components. By simply dragging  the splitter bar between these areas you change the sizes of the areas until one of them fills all the space of the InfoBase window.

The InfoBase area has up to three sub-areas: top-left the InfoBase CategoryLists, top-right the InfoList and the DatesBounds bar(if visible), and optionally at the bottom the query area where the queries onto the InfoBase specified by selecting Categories in the InfoBase CategoryLists can be displayed in more intuitive form.

Altogether there are eight list boxes for selecting Categories and so narrowing or ”filter” the choice of records displayed in the InfoList. Usually you do not see all these CategoryLists but only a couple of those at the left end. If you need more than you see just drag the splitter bar to the right - but usually there will be no need for more than two or three CategoryLists  to formulate your query. To post a query, you assign CategoryGroups to the list boxes, select Categories therein, and, if necessary, set the wanted logical operator (AND, OR, NOT)

The InfoList contains for each displayed InfoRecord the title, the diverse time stamps, and the assigned Categories. You can sort the list by all of these components and, most important, activate a record by clicking upon it’s title so that its Info is displayed with in the Info area below.

Underneath the InfoList the DatesBounds Bar is displayed. You can show or hide this as needed - it is hidden by default for new InfoBases. Setting DateBounds for the various time stamps using the controls on this bar is, aside from the Categories in the InfoBase CategoryLists, the second means to filter the choice of records displayed on the InfoList.

The Info area in the lower part of the InfoBase window presents the Info of the active record, called the active Info. It has three sub-areas, one on top of the other. In the first area you find three or four fields which show the following components of the active Info: the InfoTitle, the InfoLink to an external object (if this kind of links are enabled for this InfoBase), the assigned InfoTime and other time stamps, and the assigned Categories - the so-called InfoCategories (drag the splitter bar below if you do not see all these fields). We call this area the InfoTitle area. Below this is the InfoText area where you can enter long and ”richly” formatted text, referred to as InfoText. At the bottom of the Info area is the InfoCategoryLists area with the InfoCategoryLists that are used to assign Categories to the active Info.

Click here to see an example of an InfoBase Window.

To learn in detail how to use all these features of infoHandler please consult the other topics of this online documentation and use the help mode clicking on

Next introducing topic:	About Categories


Introduction: About Categories
About Categories

When you create a new InfoRecord usually you assign right away some keywords or Categories which characterize the Info of the record generally.

Categories are the basic means for the retrieval of information. Most important is that the Categories themselves can be organized in CategoryGroups whereupon you get a kind of multi-dimensional view upon the records.

A Category is represented by a character string - all characters, even blanks, are allowed - and you may change this string any time after the first definition (rename the Category). Defined are Categories usually on the fly as needed - that is, if you feel the need for a new Category on creating a new InfoRecord. The new Category will then be a permanent component of the InfoBase, ready to be assigned to other records with just a mouse click (at least as long as you do not delete it again).

Every Category belongs to a certain CategoryGroup. These CategoryGroups are an important means for organizing the Categories and building logical expressions as search criteria or filter for the choice of displayed InfoRecords. Also new CategoryGroups can be defined on the fly as needed, and renamed any time, and Categories may be moved from one CategoryGroup to another - provided that none of the groups is ”closed” (see below).

Normally, you can assign to an InfoRecord any number of Categories from each CategoryGroup. But there are also special (classifying) groups, wherefrom you can assign to each record only exactly one Category. We call those groups OneOf CategoryGroups. Consider, defining a new CategoryGroup, whether it may be one of this kind - later conversion of a normal group to OneOf can be a little awkward. OneOf Groups not only are advantageous on assigning Categories to InfoRecords but have other benefits as that you can sort the InfoList by such a group.

Another optional property of a CategoryGroup is the closeness of its name space. The names of the Categories of such a ”closed” group must be unique only within this group and can be reused in other groups. On the other hand they cannot be moved to other groups or Categories from other groups moved to such a closed group.

Aside from manually adding Categories to the InfoRecords there exists a possibility for automatic assignment in certain situations. The InfoText is then searched for contained patterns that correspond to defined Categories. You can also define synonyms for the Categories to be used by this process in addition to the name. For each CategoryGroup and Category you can determine whether this is to be used for this so-called Autocategorizing.

To control the choice of displayed records in the InfoList you use the Category Lists in the InfoBase Area (the InfoBase Category Lists). You find up to eight of these lists left of the InfoList (drag the separating splitter bar to the right to see them all). Each of these lists contains only the Categories of one single CategoryGroup that you select in a field (a ‘combo box’) on top of the list. Also, for every list a logical operator (AND, OR, NOT) is assigned which you change by clicking on the button displaying it. By simple selection/clicking of Categories in the lists you formulate a query onto the InfoBase or define a ”filter” to show only those records satisfying the query or filter. The selected Categories in each of the lists are combined according to the selected operator and all the conditions represented by every list have to be true (this means an ‘AND’-operation over all the lists). This results in a fast interactive selection and reselection of records for different combinations of Categories.

More about working with Categories you’ll find in this and the following topics.

Next introducing topic:	About InfoText and Textfields


Introduction: About InfoText and Textfields
About InfoText and Textfields

Perhaps the most important and indispensable component of any information is some plain text. We call the text that is part of the Info of an InfoRecord (aside from the title) ‘InfoText’ and there are some aspects of this InfoText that we want to discuss.

When you activate an InfoRecord you see the InfoText of this record in the InfoText Area in the lower part of the InfoBase Window. There you can edit it if the Info is in edit mode. InfoText is ”rich text”, that means you can format it in some manner that goes way beyond the simple notepad-type text processing. There is a special menu and a tool bar with commands only for the InfoText that become active if you set some Info in edit mode.

This ‘rich-text’ property also makes possible that copying text from sources like Internet pages or high-end word processors via clipboard or drag-&-drop preserves much of the formatting of the original.

Of course there is no limit to the size of InfoText except available memory.

But there is more about InfoText than just rich-formatting. Another interesting feature are Textfields. InfoHandler Textfields are simply defined in the context of InfoText by bracketing some part of the InfoText. Depending on the used characters for bracketing there are three variants of Textfields  with subtle differences.

All Textfields have the common property that you select their content with a double-click of the left mouse button.

Textfields bracket by ‘{‘ and ‘}’ have by default the additional property that you can jump to them using the page-up and page-down keys. So this type of fields is useful for structuring large InfoText and also if you work with preformatted initialized  InfoText (see below). But if you like you can assign this property to one of the other kinds of fields or disable it altogether.

Textfields bracket by ‘<‘ and ‘>’ are often used for references like URLs (addresses of Internet pages), e-mail addresses or references to local documents. As a default double-click on such fields not only selects the content but also opens the linked object if the field can be interpreted as a valid reference. If you don’t like this behavior you can disable it permanently.

You don’t necessarily need this third kind of Textfields to open some referenced object. You may select some text anywhere and anyhow in the InfoText and command to interpret it as an object and go to it.

For your convenience there are special commands for setting/resetting brackets in InfoText. And, aside from the page-key functionality, there are some buttons for the tool bar available for jumping selectively to each kind of Textfield.

You can automatically initialize the InfoText of a new InfoRecord. This is simply done by inserting a special InfoRecord with the title ‘***’ (three stars) in the InfoBase. The InfoText of this record is then used as a template to initialize the InfoText of each new record. Of course this InfoText template can also contain Textfields and you can use the {...}-type of Textfield handily for input fields in some preformatted Info - after creating of a new record you jump from field to field to fill in the data. A typical application is an InfoBase with addresses but there are many other kinds of such formatted data collections imaginable where you would otherwise use specialized tools with predefined structure or even vainly search for such alternatives.

Another occasion for automatic initialization of InfoText arises on creation of InfoRecords form Email or News messages.

InfoText is used for autocategorizing to assign Categories to Info automatically.

By the way, InfoText is only loaded into memory when the Info is activated and unloaded on deactivation. So you need not worry about many InfoRecords with each having large InfoText might unduly stress system resources.

Next introducing topic:	About InfoTime


Introduction: About InfoTime
About InfoTime

Some kinds of information have a time component as a more or less relevant element. This is especially the case with appointments or anniversaries like birthdays. Other examples are notes about articles in periodicals, diaries, or historic data. With references (see next chapter) the time of the last access at the linked object is of some interest.

But the time data should not be buried in the general textual info, you would want to sort and select records by this.

The answer of infoHandler to this is a universal time stamp that you can assign to each InfoRecord and that we address accordingly as ”InfoTime”. The universality is not only given with the extended range (from the year 1601 up to 9999) and with the precision to the minute (internally to the second), but by an extensive adaptability to special requirements. Depending on he kind of information only the year may be relevant, or the year and month, or the day without clock time, or the exact time to the minute. The InfoTime can be formatted for all these possibilities and in addition to match certain national customs.

You can specify intervals based on these formats to determine the choice of displayed records. This is complemented by special functions for handling of appointments that allow e.g. to narrow the choice on the current day or the next 3 days. Another one of the many possibilities is a selection independent of the year. With this option you may ask for the birthdays in month May in an InfoBase that stores those birthdays with the original different birth years.

Of course you can freely determine the identifier (name) of the InfoTime different for every InfoBase. As another special service in conjunction with references the InfoTime can be set to the time of last access to the linked object.

Intuitive and efficient procedures are provided for entering the InfoTime.

Next introducing topic:	About Links


Introduction: About Links and References
About Links and References

You can link the info stored in an InfoBase to external objects or to other info in the same or another InfoBase.

There are two kinds of links: InfoLinks and embedded links.

InfoLinks are separate optional components of the Info of an InfoRecord and link the Info to an external object (a file, a folder, or an Internet page). You can manipulate the linked object out from infoHandler in several ways - open it, move it, rename it, or even delete it. You can create InfoLinks by dragging the icons of some files onto the window of an InfoBase or as a side effect while creating a new document (file) out from infoHandler. In this documentation, when we speak just of “links”, we usually mean this kind of links if not suggested otherwise by the context.

InfoRecords with links  offer an alternative to the common management of the objects with Windows Explorer or an Internet browser, with their pure hierarchical structures these tools allow only a one-dimensional view on the objects. In contrast to this, the view with infoHandler is multi-dimensional with the additional benefits of attached time stamps and extensive annotations.

To assign this kind of links to InfoRecords first of all you must select the option ‘Has InfoLinks’ (see menu File/Properties) for the InfoBase. Several features are then added to the InfoBase Window, one of them is a field for entering and displaying the reference to the linked object. You may type in the reference text here (e.g. the path to a file or a URL), but much more comfortable is it to use the drag & drop features of the system. To create a link for the active record, just drag the icon of a document (e.g. from a browser) on the area where title and reference of the active record is displayed. To create new records with links drag one or simultaneously several objects onto the InfoList. Also, you can readily create new documents of the system-registered types with infoHandler together with a new linked record (see here).

Each of the linked objects is of a certain type. infoHandler creates a special CategoryGroup where all used object types are collected. This and also the assignment of the Categories of this group to the InfoRecords happens automatically. You cannot manipulate this group directly, but use it in queries or sort the InfoList by it.

A single click on the icon for the linked object in the InfoList (besides other means) opens the object (loads the corresponding application), visits the internet page, or sends e-mail. A context menu has commands to print, move, rename, or delete documents.

Aside from the InfoLinks you can have ”embedded links”. These are strings of text embedded in the text or title of the Info that can be interpreted as references to external objects (that can be ”opened” by the operating system) and also to (internal) InfoRecords. Differently from InfoLinks the functionality of embedded links is limited to activation (“opening”) the linked objects. Embedded links are most often used in the form of TextFields - e.g. if you bracket the reference between angular brackets ”<...>” you can then activate the link with a double-click of your mouse.   Of special interest are the embedded links to other InfoRecords that you can create by dragging records from some InfoList onto the InfoText. You can then jump to the linked Info clicking on the created reference field (and return again to the original Info using the history command Go Backwards).

More about the working with links you find in this and the following chapters.

Next introducing topic:	About Alarms


Introduction: About Alarms
About Alarms

infoHandler also administers alarms. These alarms are either ”free” or attached to an InfoRecord. The latter does not mean though that these alarms are stored in this record or in the InfoBase, all alarms are stored independently of InfoBases in the central Registry of the Windows operating system.

To define a free alarm no InfoBase has to be loaded, to define an alarm attached to an InfoRecord - an InfoAlarm - the Info of that record has to be active.

If you define a new alarm you determine the exact time (in the future) and enter some text as a message. At the set time the alarm is triggered - provided that infoHandler is started. If the latter is not true the alarms do not get lost of course, at the next start of infoHandler all alarms are triggered belatedly which has their time set before current time.

Triggering an alarm means, aside from an acoustic signal, the opening of a window with the message. This window cannot be covered by other windows and such being overlooked. If the alarm is an InfoAlarm you can now activate the attached Info from this window (if necessary the resp. InfoBase is loaded at this occasion).

The number of active (not yet triggered) alarms is not restricted. You can see and edit the active alarms any time, change its time and message, or delete it before it rings.

You can also export and import alarms. You may want to do this for two reasons:

•	Security. This may be important  in particular if you set long term alarms, maybe years ahead.

•	Transfer to another computer. If you work at different times with different computers this may become a significant feature.

Exporting alarms means moving or copying the active alarms to a file, e.g. on a floppy.  Importing of alarms means merging the alarms from such a file with the alarms already active on the system, only alarms different from the ones already there are copied.

Next introducing topic: List of Features


List of Features

InfoBases - the databases of infoHandler

o	... manage InfoRecords - records of Info (see below).

o	... manage Categories (see below).

o	... store general information like author and comment.

o	... store name and format of the InfoTime (see below).

o	... remember used file directories (folders).

o	... remember the layout of its windows.

o	Each InfoBase is viewed in its own window (the InfoBase Window).

o	Many InfoBases can be loaded at the same time - their windows being arranged in a common frame window.

o	For each loaded InfoBase you can open several InfoBase Windows side by side.

o	The layout of an InfoBase Window can be adjusted in many ways to the requirements of the InfoBase and the current task.

o	You move and copy InfoRecords between InfoBases by “drag & drop”.

o	All changes are saved automatically.

Info - the content of an InfoRecord

o	... is identified by a title of unlimited length.

o	... stores time stamps for the first creation and last modification.

o	... has Categories (see below) assigned to it - manually, by simple selection from several lists - or automatically, by analysing the InfoText (see below).

o	... can contain extensive and rich formatted text (InfoText - see below).

o	... can contain a free changeable and universally usable time stamp (InfoTime - see below).

o	... can contain a reference (see below) to a global object.

Categories - Categorize the Info

o	... are assigned to the Info like “key-words” - we call this “Categorizing the Info”.

o	... are the basic means for the easy retrieval of relevant information.

o	... are managed globally in Category-groups by each InfoBase.

o	... are added on the fly as required.

o	... are named by character strings containing any characters (even blanks) and may be renamed any time.

o	... can be combined logically into queries on the InfoBase by simply selecting them in several lists, such controlling the displayed choice of records.

o	... are created automatically when InfoBase records are copied to another InfoBase.

InfoText - the rich text of the Info

o	... can be as voluminous as you want.

o	... can be formatted "richly", that is with enhanced font and paragraph styles.

o	... can be initialized automatically when creating new Info.

o	... can contain textfields (see below).

o	... can contain links to external objects.

o	... can contain links to other InfoRecords.

o	... can be used for automatic Categorizing.

o	... are only loaded into memory when needed.

o	A special mode for viewing the text of the active Info maximizes its viewing area.

Textfields - embedded in InfoText

o	Simple application: all what is included between  '{' and '}', or '[' and ']', or '<' and '>' is a textfield, with some subtle differences between these three  variants.

o	You can jump from field to field using the keyboard or buttons on the tool bar.

o	You can select the content of a textfield by jumping to it or by clicking with the mouse.

o	If the field identifies an object that can be “opened” (e.g. a file path or an e-mail address) you can open it from within infoHandler.

InfoTime - a freely usable time stamp attached to some Info

o	Stores date and time between the years 1601 and 9999. Externally presented resolution minutes (if you like), internal resolution milliseconds.

o	Use it as the publication date of periodicals, as a historic date, as the time of an appointment or a birthday, or as the time of last accessing an external object - just a few examples.

o	Name it as you like.

o	Set its format so that you see only the year, or year and month, or year, month, and day, or year, month, day, hour, and minute.

o	Use its special features when using it for appointments or anniversaries.

o	Use it to narrow the choice of displayed records.

InfoLinks - link InfoRecords to files, folders, internet pages, and e-mail addresses.

o	... can be created by dragging icons from other sources onto the InfoBase Window.

o	As a side effect new InfoRecord may be created by this procedure.

o	You can create documents (objects of local applications) from within infoHandler and then manage these documents using the created links.

o	You can open, load, move, rename, or delete linked documents (files) from within infoHandler (deletion means moving to the recycle bin).

o	Open linked objects by (single) clicking on the icons in the InfoList.

Alarms - remind you of dates and other things.

o	To every InfoRecord you may link one or more alarms.

o	There are also "free" alarms, not referring to any Info, that can be used as a general reminder for any

purpose.

o	An alarm is raised precisely to the minute and may carry a long message. You wouldn't miss it. One klick with your mouse lets you go to the linked Info.

o	The number of active alarms is not limited.

o	Alarms can be saved and exported to other computers.

InfoList - displays the records of an InfoBase

o	Sort the records by title, time stamps, and Categories.

o	Narrow the choice of displayed records using their attached Categories.

o	Narrow the choice of displayed records using their attached time stamps.

o	Click on the title of a record in the InfoList to ”activate” the record and display its Info in the Info Area of the InfoBase Window.

o	Open linked objects by clicking on the icons in the InfoList.

o	Select many records in the InfoList and then act upon them, eg move all files linked to the selected records to a common folder or add, remove, or replace a Category for all the records.

o	Move or copy InfoRecords between InfoBases by selecting them in the one InfoList and dragging/dropping them onto the other one.

o	A special mode for viewing the InfoList maximizes its viewing area.

 Full text search - supplements the search using Categories and time stamps

o	Search in the active Info only or in all InfoRecords of the InfoList.

o	Restrict the search to title, reference, or InfoText only in any combination.

o	Editing text or switching to another InfoBase Window can be done without closing the (non-modal) search dialog.

o	Retain previous search patterns for reusing.

Printing - make your choice

o	Print all the data of an InfoBase or any part of it. Select from many options to define the choice of records and their components to be printed.

o	Preview the print output on the screen.

o	Aside from printing directly you can export the print output via an RTF (rich text format) file and rework this with any word processor.

o	Print options are separately set up and saved for every InfoBase.

Online documentation and Samples

o	The online documentation contains more than 20,000 words in almost 300 single articles.

o	Context sensitive help is provided for each object of the graphical user interface including the dialog windows.

o	"Tip of the day" provides you with useful tips on starting infoHandler.

o	Suggestions for applying infoHandler should help you to find possible usage.

o	Four included sample InfoBases demonstrate the diverse possibilities.

What else?

o	Navigation between recently activated records by means of a history list.

o	Extensive possibilities for customizing the user interface and functional behavior.

o	Freely customizable toolbar with a choice of 35+ buttons out of the total of 80+ infoHandler commands.

o	Fast selection of different views. You can switch between three states of an InfoBase Window: normal view, maximized InfoText, and maximized InfoList.

o	"Intelligent" sorting. InfoTitles and Category names with leading numbers are ordered "as numbers", not just "alphabetically" as usual (now 777 comes after 88, not purely alphabetically before - and there is more about this).

Next introducing topic: time-limited trial license


Time-limited trial license

mde infoHandler is not free software but may be given to others under the conditions stated under the license. This states in particular that those files that belong to the setup package have to be completely passed on, but under no circumstances any valid registration info for infoHandler. With the availability of the installation package everyone has the permission to install infoHandler on his or her computer and evaluate it for a period of 60 days. We call this ‘granting a free trial license’. Usage of the program after this time needs registration. The input of the personal serial number received with the registration results in the unrestricted unlocking of the program.

When you install infoHandler for the first time the remaining trial period is set to 60 days. Each time you start infoHandler, or once a day if you let it run continuously, a window pops up that tells you the current count of remaining trial days and there you can also enter the license data received on registration. As long as there remain trial days you can continue without entering license data. If the trial period has expired running infoHandler is only possible with restricted functionality. After input of the license data the here described window will never show up again.

As long as you did not enter license data infoHandler is in one of three possible run states:

Regular Evaluation: During the first 30 days after first installation. You should have decided after expiring of this period whether you want to keep infoHandler, you should uninstall infoHandler if you decide to not acquire a license.

Extended Trial Period: From 31 to 60 days after first installation. You should use this time for the acquisition of an infoHandler license.

Unlicensed and restricted usage: 60 days after first installation infoHandler runs only functionally restricted. Existing InfoBases can only be opened in read-only mode and so you cannot create new InfoRecords or edit existing ones. Evaluation is still possible to some extent since this restriction is not valid for new InfoBases.

If you think that infoHandler is useful for you and you decide to register, please do not waste time unnecessarily. There could be delays processing your registration.

Next introducing topic: Registration of infoHandler


Registration of infoHandler

Registration of infoHandler means purchasing a personal infoHandler license.

An infoHandler license costs  US$ 46.00, Euro 40.00, or DM 79.00. We guaranty these prices until Dec 31, 1999 - after this they may be changed without further notice. For orders before Oct 31, 1999 these prices include also VAT where it is to be applied - after this day 16 % VAT is added for all orders from countries of the European Union (EU).

The personal infoHandler license is registered on your full name and company. If you do not use this software for business the company name may be replaced by ‘private usage’ or something similar.

In return of your registration you get by e-mail a personal serial number that, together with your full name and company, will unlock infoHandler version 5.x. This means that you can update to all upcoming releases of infoHandler of main version 5 without further registration.

Please understand that infoHandler is distributed solely via the Internet (and in addition by some of the usual shareware distributions like cover CDs). In particular, shipment of discs or paper based documentation  is not possible. Also delivering of license information is done by e-mail exclusively. Any options available at the forms for payment processing by the services mentioned below that do not conform to these restrictions are not valid.

You are expected to install and use infoHandler on your system and to thoroughly evaluate its usefulness and functionality before making a purchase.  This "try before you buy" approach is the ultimate guarantee that this software will perform to your satisfaction; therefore, you understand and agree that there is no refund policy for any purchase of infoHandler.

How to Order infoHandler

For a secure order processing using credit cards we are working together with the payment processing service Shareit!. This company is based in US and in Germany and offers payment with US$ as well as Euros.

Alternatively you may order directly at mdeSoft. Since mdeSoft is located in Germany this alternative is more likely used by customers who are living in Germany or in the EU where it is more feasible to process payment for this alternative.

Ordering  Online

To order online with one of these services select Register Online in menu ?/Registration. This uses your Internet browser to connect you with the mdeSoft registration page where you can register infoHandler by one of these services.

These are probably the most straightforward and easy methods to ordering a license for infoHandler. You fill out a form with the needed data and use your credit card to pay. The Transactions can be done using a secure server, if your browser supports this.

Ordering Offline with ShareIt!

If you do not have access to the Internet, you can register via phone, fax or postal mail. Please print out this form, and fax or mail it to:

Shareit!
element 5 AG
Sachsenring 69
50677 Koeln
Germany

Phone:  +49-221-2407279
Fax: 	+49-221-2407278
E-Mail:	register@shareit.com

US customers may also order by calling 1-800-903-4152 (9am-5pm). No technical support can be given at this number. US check and cash orders can be sent to the ShareIt! US office at

ShareIt! Inc.
PO Box 844
Greensburg, PA 15601-0844
USA

Direct Ordering at mdeSoft

To order infoHandler directly from mdeSoft  please send the following information to the address below:

First name and last name,
company name,
kind of payment (see below).
Full postal address and e-mail address if available.

Kinds of payment:

eurocheque (DM or Euro),
bank transfer to our account
C.O.D. (only in Germany).
invoice after delivery (only in Germany for registered companies ordering on legally signed official company stationery).

Please send your order to this address:

mdeSoft
Blumenstr. 21
D-83607 Holzkirchen

Fax: +49 8024 92417

E-mail: infohandler@mdesoft.com

Our account: Sparkasse Miesbach-Tegernsee, BLZ 71152570, Account-No. 331520.


Send to:

Shareit!
element 5 AG
Sachsenring 69
D-50677 Koeln
Germany

Registration for mde infoHandler version 4

Program No.: 102749

Last name: 	________________________________________

First name: 	________________________________________

Company:	 ________________________________________

Street and #: 	________________________________________

City, State, postal code: 	________________________________________

Country: 	________________________________________

Phone: 	________________________________________

Fax: 	________________________________________

E-Mail: 	________________________________________

How would like to receive the registration key?
      e-mail - fax - postal mail

The registration fee is US$ 38.00 for orders before May 1, 1999 and US$ 46.00 after this date. How would you like to pay the registration fee:
      credit card - wire transfer - EuroCheque - cash

Credit card information (if applicable)

Credit card: Visa - Eurocard/Mastercard - American Express - Diners Club

Card holder: 	___________________________________

Card No.: 	___________________________________

Date of Expiration: 	___________________________________

Date / Signature:   ______________________________________________________


SOFTWARE PRODUCT LICENSE

The SOFTWARE PRODUCT mde infoHandler, hereafter called 'infoHandler', is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. infoHandler is licensed, not sold.

You are granted the right to install infoHandler on your computer and evaluate it for a period of up to 60 days without registration. After that you must purchase a personal license or remove (uninstall) the software from your computer.

You have also the right to redistribute the infoHandler installation files free of charge to other persons on condition that

(1)  You only pass on those file that belong to the original distribution and neither remove nor add nor change anything.

(2)  You do not pass on any personal registration information.

(3)  You do not charge anything to the receiving person except for possible expenses for packaging and postage.

(4)   This includes distribution on media such as CD-ROM provided that the distributed version is the one most current to download from our Web site possible considering production restrictions.

You may not  pass on any files that are copied on your computer during the installation process.

You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE PRODUCT infoHandler, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation.

There is no warranty or claim of fitness or reliability. The program is distributed AS IS, and mdeSoft shall not be held liable for any loss of data, down time, loss of revenue or any other direct or indirect damage or claims caused by this software.

Copyright © 1998 mdeSoft, all rights reserved


ShareIt! - Your Shareware Registration Service on the Internet

...die einfache Art, Shareware zu registrieren!

ShareIt! offers shareware users the most convenient and inexpensive way of registering shareware on the Internet. With presences in Europe as well as in the United States ShareIt! provides shareware authors with professional and international order and payment processing and enables software developers to accept all major forms of payment.

Home page: http://www.shareit.com/


What is Kagi?

Kagi is a shareware payment processing service that makes it easy for people to pay shareware fees and saves shareware authors from handling payment processing.  Shareware is software that someone writes and is widely distributed on the Internet and BBSes.  People download the software and try it.  If they like it they pay a shareware fee for it's use.  We handle the processing of that shareware fee.  Here's how we do it.

How does the payment processing work?

We provide shareware authors with a small registration program that they bundle with their software.  When a person wishes to pay for their shareware they run the registration program and fill in the form that it presents.  They enter their name, email, postal address, and the shareware they wish to pay for.  The form accepts many different payment methods such as: US Check, Money Order, Cash (in many different currencies), Visa, Mastercard, American Express, First Virtual, and Invoice (to be given to their accounts payable department).  They either email the data generated by the registration program or they print it and send it via postal mail or fax.  Sensitive information, like credit card numbers, is encoded for better security.  Each payer receives an email reply and at the once a month the shareware authors receive a single payment from Kagi.  What are the advantages to this system?

Payers like this service because it makes it easy to pay their shareware fees and shareware authors like the service because more people tend to pay when it is easy to do so.  Non-USA shareware authors and payers like the service because it eliminates all the currency conversion issues such as how a payer in Finland would pay an author in Australia.  Another benefit of the service is that shareware authors can concentrate on what they do best, writing software, rather than spending time processing payments.

The above is just a short summary of Kagi Shareware.  We offer many services to meet the needs of our shareware authors and are always open to suggestions.  For more information go to <http://www.kagi.com/> on the WEB, or send email to <support@kagi.com>.

Kee Nethery

kee@kagi.com