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- Cong_II Manual.
-
- General.
-
- Cong-II is a congressional database and automatic
- correspondence generator.
-
- Cong-II allows you to locate Senate and House members by name,
- state, district, party, body, age, gender, birthdate (month and
- day), committee, subcommittee, etc. Once a member has been located,
- telephone, contact and other information is available.
-
- You may tag members to receive correspondence at most any
- screen. To create letters, you may utilize the built-in editor,
- which includes a spell checker. You may then generate properly
- addressed, personalized correspondence to each tagged member, with
- or without a FAX cover sheet, by pressing Alt-P. The letters may be
- formatted for windowed envelopes, if desired. Letters may be
- printed to a file for import into your preferred word processor, if
- desired.
-
- Ease of Use.
-
- Cong-II has more than enough help built into the program, thus
- you need not study this document with diligence to be able to use
- Cong-II. Three lines at the bottom of each screen are devoted to
- help information. In cases where more room is needed, the F1 key
- pops up an additional help screen. There is also a key-line on each
- screen to remind you of often used keys. F1 provides a list of
- active cmmand keys anytime.
-
- Installation.
-
- Simply place Cong303.exe in your Cong sub-directory and
- type "Cong303 <Enter>" to decompress it. Then type "COii" to begin
- a Cong session.
-
- General Operation.
-
- Use the arrow keys to highlight a menu choice and to move
- highlight bars. Press <Enter> to accept the highlighted item as
- your choice.
-
- Read the bottom three lines on each screen if you have
- questions. They will probably have your answer or will tell you
- how to proceed. Press F1 for a list of command keys.
-
- When you are shown a list of members on the screen, you will
- normally see a locator field at the top of the screen. Enter the
- first few characters of the name you are looking for. This will
- position the list at a name beginning with those letters.
-
- At the top of the screen(s) are data, such as the date, the
- time, memory remaining, etc. Watch your memory. If you call a lot of
- screens recursively, you will run out of memory sooner or later.
- Best to uses "Esc" to return to the previous screen whenever it is
- convenient or when you see that your memory is dropping below 20k or
- so. Anyway, it won't hurt anything if you run lut of memory.
-
- Each of the main menu choices is described below.
-
- Members.
-
- The following keys apply to most member lists: (You need not try
- to remember these keys. All are identified on the screens to which
- they apply.)
-
- Alt-D Show democrats only
- Alt-R Show republicans only
- Alt-A Show both (Parties)
-
- Alt-S Show Senate only
- Alt-H Show House only
- Alt-B Show both again
-
- Alt-C Shows committees.
-
- Ctrl-W Show women only
- Ctrl-M Show men onnly.
- Ctrl-A Show all.
-
- Ctrl-B Show by birth month and day.
- Ctrl-O Show by age, oldest first.
- Ctrl-Y Show by age, youngest first.
- Alt-T Show all by State. (Escape to return to by name.)
-
- "Gray +" Key Tag/Untags the highlighted member
- Alt-G Shows only the tagged members. Alt-G again shows all.
- Alt-U Un-tag all members
-
- Alt-L Select the letter to print.
- Alt-F Toggles the FAX cover sheet On/Off.
- Alt-P Prints the selected letter for all tagged members. After
- printing, you may choose to view your addressed letters on the
- screen or to print them to a file or to your printer. Alt-W prints
- in "window" format. Windowed envelopes are available from RSC or
- your local "Office Warehouse" type store.
-
- Esc Returns
- PgUp/PgDn Moves forward or backward one screen full.
- Ctrl PgUp/PgDn Moves to the top or bottom of the file.
-
- Pressing <Enter> while a member is highlighted will show
- details about the member. When the member's details are shown,
- Alt-C will show a list of the committees that the member is
- assigned to. Pressing <Enter> on a member's committee will show its
- members (just as it does under Committees). Pressing <Enter> on a
- Committee member will show details on the member, etc., etc. (This
- is where you get recursive ... )
-
- Committees.
-
- This main menu choice allows you to view a list of committees.
- This is the same as Alt-C from the member listing. The following
- keys apply:
-
- Alt-M shows only Main committees
- Alt-A shows all again (both main and subcommittees)
-
- Alt-H shows House committees only
- Alt-S shows Senate committees only
- Alt-J shows Joint committees only
-
-
- Pressing <Enter> while a main (or sub-) committee is
- highlighted will show the members of that committee. Members may be
- tagged (and un-tagged) for letters using the Grey "+" key. Pressing
- <Enter> on a highlighted member is the same as under Members (member
- details are shown and Alt-C, from the detail screen, lists the
- members committees). The party, body and gender keys also apply
- where members are listed, as do the oldest, youngest and birthday
- keys.
-
- Edit Letters.
-
- Press <Alt-E> from most screens will take you to the Cong-II
- editor. Pick a letter, press enter and edit, or press Ins to begin
- a new letter. Note that Alt-C duplicates the highlighted letter,
- which then may be renamed and edited as a new letter. Each letter
- has a single letter code and a description field for your use.
- Duplicate letter codes are not allowed. Two line spacing fields are
- provided: the first provides lines between the letterhead and
- date/address lines; the second betwen the address and the dear line.
- Adjust the spacing lines by viewing each letter onb the screen.
- When in the text edit screen area, press F1 for help. There are a
- number of keys available, such as F4 for spelling checks, F5 for
- searches and F7 for Cutting and Pasting (within and among letters).
- Use Crtl-Enter to save and exit.
-
- You do not print letters from letter edit area. You only create
- and edit letters there. You select the members to receive letters by
- "Tagging" them under Members or Committees. You then press Alt-L to
- select the letter text (by letter code) to print. Alt-P then causes
- the letters to be printed to a buffer, where you may view them
- before sending them on to the printer or to a file. A letter is
- printed for each tagged member. If none are tagged, none will print.
-
- Alt-F toggles the FAX cover sheet on/off. Labels may also be
- printed.
-
- Defaults.
-
- This is where you enter your name and address for your letter
- heading and other personal data. Alt-D from the members list will
- also take you to this screen.
-
- Register.
-
- This is where you may print a registration form. Registered
- users receive technical support and updated data.
-
- Technical Support.
-
- Technical support is available to registered users by
- calling (703) 463-7986. You may order and register by calling this
- number.
-
- (The Editor, which allows you to update Cong data yourself,
- is available to subscribers.)
-
- Enjoy.
-
- Don Richards
- (5/04/93)