Simtel MSDOS 1992 June

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Simtel MSDOS 1992 June / SIMTEL_0692.cdr / msdos / database / personal.arc / PERSONAL.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1989-07-04 | 33.4 KB | 579 lines

PERSONAL V1.10 ============== WHAT IS PERSONAL? ----------------- PERSONAL is an advanced electronic address book. It allows you to easily maintain and access a database of names, addresses, home and business phone numbers, birthdays, freeform notes, etc. You can search for people by first or last names, or by a special key field which you can use to classify people according to any scheme you choose (for example, you may use this field to enter the name of the company each person works for; you could then find somebody who works for a certain company even if you don't remember their name). When searching for people by name, you don't even have to spell their name exactly; PERSONAL will find people whose names sound similar to the name you enter. PERSONAL requires MS-DOS 2.00 or higher and will run on systems which are fully compatible with the IBM PC. PERSONAL requires at least 400K of free memory when it is run. This means that it will not run on a machine with less than 512K of memory, and that even on 640K machines it may not run if there are many memory-resident programs present. It will run from a floppy disk; however, as it is a disk-intensive program, it will benefit greatly from the use of a hard drive and/or a disk-caching program. If you are using DOS 3.10 or higher, or if your computer has a network BIOS, PERSONAL can be run on a network and all users can share one set of files. If you are using a DOS version previous to 3.10 and you do not have a network BIOS, or if PERSONAL is run on a stand-alone computer, many users may still share one set of files, but only one user may access these files at any time. See the section entitled COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS for information on how to enable multi-user access. PERSONAL is a shareware program. Shareware (also known as user- supported software) is a distribution philosophy based on the belief that users should be able to try using a package before having to pay for it. You are encouraged to distribute an unlimited number of unmodified copies of the files on the diskette provided that you charge no more than $6 (Canadian) per copy as a nominal distribution fee. You may copy the files on the diskette to bulletin boards. Please help the spread of PERSONAL by giving copies to your friends, family and colleagues. You may try PERSONAL for free to determine if it suits your needs. Should you continue to use it, it is expected that you will send a contribution to the author. The amount of this contribution depends on how much you think the program is worth to you. If you use PERSONAL frequently, it is of significant value to you and your contribution should reflect this fact. If you only use it once in a while, a somewhat smaller contribution is appropriate. When sending your contribution, please mention the registration number displayed on the title screen of the copy of PERSONAL you are currently using. This number can also be found in the file REGISTER.TXT on the diskette. You can print this file and fill in the blanks. More information can be found at the end of this documentation. There has been one previous release of PERSONAL (V1.02). This documentation assumes that you are not familiar with this previous version. A list of differences between the two version can be found in the section entitled DIFFERENCES BETWEEN V1.02 AND V1.10 later in this file. INSTALLING PERSONAL V1.10 ------------------------- Before you install PERSONAL, it is recommended that you make a backup copy of the diskette. You can do this using the DISKCOPY program (one of the programs that comes with MS-DOS); see your DOS manual for details on how to run DISKCOPY. There are four sections below describing how to install PERSONAL in various situations. These are: upgrading from PERSONAL V1.02, installing and running PERSONAL on a floppy disk, installing and running PERSONAL on a hard disk, and installing and running PERSONAL on a local area network. You need only read the section which describes your situation. UPGRADING FROM PERSONAL V1.02 ----------------------------- To upgrade from version 1.02 to version 1.10, just install PERSONAL as you would for a new installation. This applies whether you are using a hard disk or a floppy disk. For hard disk users, install PERSONAL into the same directory as the old version uses. For floppy disk users, install PERSONAL onto the same floppy as the old version. The first time you run the new version of PERSONAL, it will spend some time converting the old files into the new format it uses. You can then use PERSONAL normally. INSTALLING AND RUNNING PERSONAL ON A FLOPPY DISK ------------------------------------------------ If you are using PERSONAL on a machine without a hard drive, you will need a blank, formatted floppy disk (you can format a disk with the DOS FORMAT command, or with one of a number of utility programs). Copy the files PERSONAL.EXE, PERSONAL.DOC and REGISTER.TXT onto your blank disk. PERSONAL is now installed on your disk. To run PERSONAL, insert the disk onto which you installed PERSONAL into a floppy drive. Switch to that drive by typing A: or B: (depending on which drive you are using) and pressing the Enter key. Now type PERSONAL and press the Enter key. The computer will access the disk for a while and then the title screen will appear on your monitor. You are now running PERSONAL. (If you are using one or more of the command-line options, you would type them in after typing PERSONAL and before pressing Enter; see the section entitled COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS for more information). You must not remove the floppy disk from the drive until you have left PERSONAL and the DOS prompt reappears. If you do remove the disk, you risk damaging the files stored on it. This may mean that you lose your data, or it may even mean that your copy of PERSONAL will no longer function correctly. INSTALLING AND RUNNING PERSONAL ON A HARD DISK ---------------------------------------------- To install PERSONAL onto a hard disk, insert the PERSONAL disk into a floppy drive. Switch to that drive by typing A: or B: (depending on which drive you are using) and press the Enter key. Next, type INSTALL C: (or whatever letter refers to your hard drive) and press Enter. The install program will then create a subdirectory on that drive called PERSONAL (if the subdirectory already exists, an error message may be displayed but installation will continue normally) and copy the files you need into that directory. It will also create a batch file called PERSONAL.BAT in the root directory of the drive onto which you installed it. When the normal DOS prompt appears, the installation procedure is finished. To run PERSONAL, select your hard drive by typing C: (or whatever the drive letter is) and pressing Enter. If you are not in the root directory of that drive, type CD\ and press Enter. Now, type PERSONAL and press Enter. This invokes the batch file created during installation. If you are using one or more of the command-line options, you can type them after typing PERSONAL but before pressing Enter. Alternatively, if you are familiar with editing batch files, you can incorporate them into the PERSONAL.BAT file. INSTALLING AND RUNNING PERSONAL ON A LOCAL AREA NETWORK ------------------------------------------------------- Generally, individual users on a local area network (LAN for short) are not allowed to add applications themselves. Instead, there is a network supervisor who is responsible for adding applications. You should talk to your supervisor and ask him or her to install PERSONAL onto your network. Once installation has been performed, your supervisor will inform you and other users of the method you will use to access PERSONAL. NOTE TO THE NETWORK SUPERVISOR: The procedure for installing and running PERSONAL on a network is similar to that for installing and running PERSONAL on a hard disk. All users must be given create/read/write/modify rights to the directory in which PERSONAL is installed, and this directory must either be the default directory or must be on one of the search drives when users run PERSONAL. To enable shared use of PERSONAL's files, PERSONAL must be invoked with the N1 option specified (see the section entitled COMMAND LINE OPTIONS). The first time PERSONAL is run, the user must have delete rights in addition to those specified above. Multi-user access to PERSONAL should not be attempted the first time it is run. PERSONAL has been tested on an IBM Token Ring network running Novell Advanced NetWare 286 V2.15. It should also work on any network which adheres to standard DOS calls for file and record locking. If you are not sure whether your network supports these DOS calls, check the documentation, ask your system supervisor, or contact the distributor of your network. LOGGING ON ---------- When you run PERSONAL, your computer will access its disk for a while and then you will see the PERSONAL title screen. This screen contains information on PERSONAL. The registration number of the copy you are using is displayed at the bottom of the screen. There is a notice on the title screen which says that you can use the F1 key to get help while running PERSONAL. This help is available whenever you are using a menu or when you are entering information. Help is not available while PERSONAL is accessing the disk drive or while it is waiting for you to press a key. You can find more information on getting help with the F1 key in the section of this file entitled GETTING HELP. If this is the first time you have used PERSONAL, or if you have previously been using version 1.02, a message asking you to wait a few moments will appear at the very bottom of your screen and PERSONAL will access the disk drive. PERSONAL is either creating its files (if this is the first time you have used it) or updating your old files so that they are compatible with the new file formats used by version 1.10. Once this process has finished, the message at the bottom of your screen will change to "Press any key to continue." You can press any key to log on. Logging on is the process in which you tell PERSONAL your name and code number. The combination of your name and your code number allow PERSONAL to decide which parts of the address book database belong to you. This ensures that nobody else can access your private information. When you press a key to continue, you will see the logon screen appear. This screen includes an entry box where you type in your name. Make sure that you remember exactly how you typed it in, including which letters were capitalized, as you will have to type it in exactly the same way every time you use PERSONAL from now on. When you have entered your name, press the Enter key. You will now see a prompt appear asking you to enter your code number. Code numbers are numbers from 1 to 63. Type in your personal code number. If you enter a single-digit number, you will have to press Enter after it. If you type in a two-digit number, you should not press Enter. Note that the number you type is not displayed on the screen. This prevents anyone else from seeing your code number. The first time you use PERSONAL, it will not be able to find your name and code number in its files. Therefore, it will display a message on the screen telling you that it did not find you in its files. You are presented with three options. You can type A if you made a typing error and would like to type in your name and code number again (A for Again). You can type Q if you would like to quit PERSONAL and return to DOS (Q for Quit). You can type E if you would like to enter your name and code number into PERSONAL's files (E for Enter). Choose E to enter yourself into the files. You will see a menu with five options. These options control how PERSONAL will display dates. Choose whichever of the five date formats you prefer by using the up and down cursor keys to move the light bar to the format of your choice. Press Enter to confirm your choice. PERSONAL will then add you to its files and advance you to its main menu. THE MAIN MENU ------------- The main menu presents you with several options: Add Entry, Delete Entry, Find Entry, Modify Entry, Quit, and Security. These are described in detail later. In all menus in PERSONAL, you use the up and down arrow keys to select the option of your choice. Press Enter to confirm your choice. The choices are listed in alphabetical order, and you can also type the first letter of the option of your choice. Note that as you move the light bar up and down, a short description of the choice currently selected appears at the bottom of the screen. ADD ENTRY --------- This option allows you to add a new entry to the database. PERSONAL will not check to see if the person is already listed; therefore, it is possible to have more than one entry for a given person if you are not careful. Fill in the blanks on the screen with the information you wish to enter into the database. You can use the up and down arrow keys to move between entry fields. To delete from the current cursor position to the end of the field, press Control-Y. When you have finished, press the Page Down (PgDn) key and the new entry will be written to disk. DELETE ENTRY ------------ This is the option you will choose when you wish to delete an entry from the database. When you select Delete Entry, a second menu will appear on the screen with the choices First Name, Last Name, and Other Key. (This menu also appears when you wish to find or modify an entry.) This menu lets you choose how you wish to specify the entry to be deleted. If you choose to find a person by first or last name, an entry box will appear on the screen. Type in the person's name. You do not have to type it in exactly; PERSONAL will try to find entries with names that sound similar to the one you type in. For example, to locate someone with the first name Stephen, you could type in Steven, Stefan, Stephanie, etc. For the last name Dunn, PERSONAL will also accept Dun or Dunne. If you choose to select the entry by its other key, you have to type it in almost exactly the same way as you entered it into the database. PERSONAL doesn't care whether it's in upper case, lower case, or a mixture of both. Other than that, however, you must type it in exactly. If you decide that you do not wish to delete anyone, you can press Esc to return to the main menu. Otherwise, select one of the three ways to search. You will be prompted for the name or key value. Once again, pressing Esc will return you to the main menu. Once you have told PERSONAL how you want to search for the person to delete, it will begin to search through the database to find that person. When it finds a matching entry, it will display it on the screen and ask if you want to delete this entry. Type Y to delete it and return to the main menu. Press N if you wish to leave this entry in the database and continue searching for matching entries (for example, if it found another person with the same first name). Pressing Enter has the same effect as typing N. If you decide that you don't want to delete anyone, press Esc and you will return to the main menu. FIND ENTRY ---------- This option allows you to find and view information which is already in your database. As with Delete Entry, PERSONAL will present you with a second menu listing the three ways to search the database (First Name, Last Name, and Other Key). The same rules apply for how closely you have to type in the name or key. When PERSONAL finds an entry matching the name or key you specified, it will be displayed on the screen. PERSONAL will display a question at the bottom of the screen, asking if you wish to continue searching the database. Press Y or Enter to continue searching. Press N or Esc to return to the main menu. MODIFY ENTRY ------------ This option allows you to modify an entry which is already in the database. As with finding or deleting an entry, you will be asked to choose how to search for the entry to modify. Once you have selected a method and entered the name or key to search for, PERSONAL will look for matching entries. When PERSONAL finds a matching entry, it will be displayed on the screen. You will be asked if you wish to modify this entry. Press Y or Enter if you wish to modify it. Press N to leave this one unchanged and search for more matching entries. Press Esc to return to the main menu. If you choose to modify this entry, you will be presented with the information from the database in a format similar to the Add Entry screen. Move from field to field with the up and down arrow keys. Press Control-Y to delete from the cursor position to the end of the field. When you have finished making changes, press Page Down (PgDn) and the information in the database will be updated. PERSONAL will then return you to the main menu. QUIT ---- When you have finished using PERSONAL, select this option. A box will pop up on the screen asking if you are sure. Press Y to confirm that you wish to return to DOS. Pressing N, Esc or Enter will return you to the PERSONAL main menu. If you choose to leave PERSONAL, the final screen will be displayed. This screen gives you information on PERSONAL, including where to send contributions and suggestions. If you have deleted any entries, PERSONAL will access the disk for a few seconds while it reorganizes its files. You will then be returned to DOS. SECURITY -------- This option allows you to change your security code number. PERSONAL will prompt you to enter a new code number. As with the code number when you logged on, it will not be displayed. Code numbers range from 1 to 63. If you enter a single-digit code number, you must press Enter after typing it in. If you choose a double-digit number, you should not press Enter. If you decide not to change your code number after all, press Esc and you will be returned to the main menu. Once you have entered your new code number, PERSONAL will check to see if it is the same as your old code number. If so, no change will be made to the files. Otherwise, PERSONAL will access the disk for a few seconds so that it can update all of your entries to reflect your new code number. GETTING HELP ------------ Help is available within PERSONAL at most times. Any time you are asked to select an option on a menu, or when you are typing information in at an entry box, you can press the F1 key and a help box will pop up on the screen. This box will contain information related to the menu or entry area you are currently using. If there are keys you can press which have special meanings, they will be listed in the help box. When you have finished reading the help, press a key and you will be returned to where you were when you pressed F1. There are times when help is not available. When a message such as "Press any key to continue" is displayed, no help is available. In fact, pressing F1 at these times will be interpreted as a signal that you have finished reading the information on the screen. Also, when PERSONAL is busy writing to or reading from the disk, pressing F1 will have no effect. COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS -------------------- PERSONAL will accept up to three command-line options. These options control how PERSONAL will treat network files and what the display screens will look like. One of the command-line options controls how PERSONAL behaves on a network. When running PERSONAL on a network, there are two possible modes of access to its files. The default is non-shared access. Non-shared access is a first-come, first-served type of access. The first user to access one of PERSONAL's files gets access, and any subsequent users have to wait until the first user has finished. While this method will work, it will cause annoying delays when more than one user is trying to use PERSONAL. Therefore, a second mode (shared access) is provided. This allows multiple users to use the same set of files at the same time. This eliminates the delays found in non-shared access. Some delays will still happen when a user requires exclusive access (for example, to delete one of his/her entries); however, these delays are very short and do not occur frequently. PERSONAL will default to non-shared access on the assumption that most users are not on a network. To specify that shared access should be used, specify the option N1 on the command line (i.e. type PERSONAL N1 to invoke PERSONAL). The option N0 exists and will instruct PERSONAL to use non- shared access; however, as this is the default, there is no point in specifying it. Note that the use of shared access requires either DOS 3.10 or higher, or a network BIOS. Another command-line option controls whether PERSONAL uses colour on the computer's display. Normally, PERSONAL will display its screens in colour if you are using a colour display card, or in monochrome if you are using a monochrome adapter. However, some computers have a colour display card with a monochrome monitor. In many cases, colour screens are difficult or impossible to read on such computers. You can force PERSONAL to display its screens in one colour only by specifying the option C0 on the command line (i.e. type PERSONAL C0 to invoke PERSONAL). You can also force PERSONAL to display its screens in colour by specifying the option C1. This is not recommended on monochrome display adapters, as it tends to make the screens hard on the eyes. The other command-line option controls the background on the screen. PERSONAL will default to filling the background with a medium checkerboard- type pattern (using the character ▒). There is a range of five different background shadings that the user can select: Option Background B0 B1 ░░░░░░░░░░ B2 (default) ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ B3 ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ B4 ██████████ To remember the various options, think of the letter N as representing Network, C as Colour, and B as Background. For options which can be either on or off, the digit 1 means "on" and the digit 0 means "off". For the background, the higher the number, the fuller the background. C0 would be "Colour off", and N1 would be "Network on". B3 would produce a fuller background than B1. It doesn't matter whether you type the letters in upper case or lower case. Remember that PERSONAL will only look at the first three options you specify; any others will be ignored. Should you specify two options with opposing meanings (e.g. if you type PERSONAL B0 B1), the later option will override the earlier one (in the example given, the background will be turned on, since the B1 was later than the B0). DIFFERENCES BETWEEN V1.02 AND V1.10 ----------------------------------- There have been many changes made from version 1.02. The following is a list of most of these changes. Several new fields have been added to the database. There is now a third key (called Other). You can use this key to classify people in any manner you choose, and you can use this key to search the database for them. A business phone number and four-digit extension has also been added, as this is information which you often want to store. You can also enter a middle name in addition to first and last names. The method used to find people by first or last name has been modified slightly. In version 1.02, if you entered a character other than a letter as the second or subsequent character of a name, PERSONAL would find everybody in the database. In version 1.10, all non-alphabetic characters are removed from key values for the purposes of searching. If you enter a last name of O'Sullivan, it will still appear as O'Sullivan; however, for the purposes of searching, it is the same as Osullivan. The use of the Esc key has been greatly expanded in version 1.10. You can now use Esc to exit almost all menus and entry boxes (the exception is when adding or modifying data; pressing Esc in either of these cases is not recommended). Version 1.02 would always reorganize its files when you quit, whether it needed to or not. This led to some unnecessary delays when leaving PERSONAL. Version 1.10 will only spend time doing this if you have deleted somebody. Otherwise, it will return you immediately to DOS. The help screens have been expanded. In many cases, there is now a list of keys you can press to perform particular actions. Several help screens which previously contained the same message (e.g. when entering a first or last name, the same help message would be displayed) have been split into separate, more specific messages. If you are using MS-DOS 3.10 or later, or if you have a network BIOS installed in your computer, PERSONAL can now allow multiple users to simultaneously access its data files. In version 1.02, an attempt to do this produced unpredictable consequences, as PERSONAL was not designed for a network environment. Users can enable shared access with a command-line option (see the section entitled COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS for more information). Even if shared access is not enabled, users on a network can share one set of files; however, each user may have to wait until another user has finished using each particular file. PERSONAL now displays a registration number on the title screen. This number identifies the registered user to whom this copy was issued. This helps track how successful users are in distributing PERSONAL and allows those who help spread PERSONAL the most to receive copies of the next version (more information on this can be found in the following section). Extensive cosmetic changes have been made to PERSONAL. These changes were made in order to make its user interface even easier to use. All menus now appear in alphabetical order to make searching for the desired option easier. Screen layouts have been redesigned so that boxes and menus pop up instead of just appearing. For users with a colour display card connected to a monochrome monitor, a command-line option has been added to allow the user to force PERSONAL to use a monochrome display. Also, the user can choose how the background appears. See the section entitled COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS for more information. Version 1.02 always used to ask you to press a key immediately after the initial screen appeared. After you did, it would then access the disk, sometimes taking several seconds. This has been changed. It now does its disk accesses as soon as the first screen is displayed, asking you to press a key only when it can proceed. This documentation file has been expanded to provide more information on using the program, on shareware, and on differences between the versions. A registration form is also included on the distribution diskette to make it easier for you to send in comments and contributions. The installation procedure has been expanded. The documentation now covers installing to floppy disks, hard disks and networks in separate sections. For users installing PERSONAL onto hard disk drives, an INSTALL program is now supplied on the distribution diskette. INFORMATION ABOUT PERSONAL -------------------------- PERSONAL V1.02 was written in September 1988. This version, 1.10, is the second distribution version and was written between February and June 1989. I owe thanks to Andrew Kieran and Andrew Dunn for suggestions which led to some of the features incorporated into this version. As mentioned at the start of this file, PERSONAL is a shareware program. Therefore, I would appreciate it if you would use and distribute PERSONAL as much as possible. If you find the program useful, please send in a contribution to the author at the address below. You will receive a list of other shareware products available form the author. If you contribution is $20 (Canadian) or more, you will be sent a copy of the next version of PERSONAL when it is released. Please send your comments and suggestions on the program. All comments are welcome, so please write and tell me what you like about PERSONAL and what changes you would like to see made. Practical and useful user suggestions will be incorporated into the next version, along with any other ideas I come up with. Users whose suggestions are incorporated into the next version will receive mention in the PERSONAL.DOC accompanying it. Ideas I am looking at incorporating into the next version include data encryption (this was going to be part of V1.10 but technical problems and performance considerations forced it to be excluded), printer/file support, choice of several colour schemes, and a "List all entries to the printer" option. Please write me with comments on these ideas and any other ideas you have. Unless you state otherwise when making a contribution entitling you to the next version, I will distribute PERSONAL on 360K media. If you require 720K disks, please include a note to that effect when you send your contribution and I will arrange to have 720K copies made. When sending a contribution, please include the following information: - Your full name - A complete mailing address, including postal/zip code - The registration number on the title screen of PERSONAL - How you came to have a copy of PERSONAL - Any comments you have on PERSONAL You will find in the file REGISTER.TXT a form which you can fill in and send with your contribution. As an incentive for registered users to distribute PERSONAL, I will keep track of how many registrations come in from each registration number. Users who generate 10 or more registrations before the release of the next version will receive a copy of that version as a token of gratitude, and will be mentioned in the PERSONAL.DOC for that version. Please help spread PERSONAL by distributing unmodified copies of the files on the distribution diskette (PERSONAL.EXE, PERSONAL.DOC, INSTALL.BAT and REGISTER.TXT) for free or for a nominal distribution fee not to exceed $6 (Canadian). Feel free to put the aforementioned files on bulletin board systems. Please send all contributions and suggestions to: Stephen M. Dunn 46 Bloomingdale Drive Brampton, Ontario, Canada L6W 4A3 Thank you for your support of shareware in general, and PERSONAL in particular.