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Text File | 1991-04-11 | 13.4 KB | 249 lines

DATAKEEPER by Jeff Napier of Another Company Datakeeper fills a huge niche in the computer world that has existed for a long time. For business people, scientists, students, housewives, CEOs homeowners, everyone, there has always been a need to quickly jot notes into a computer, then have fast and simple access when the information is needed. Keeping your appointment schedule in one file, the notes for the book you are writing in another file, an address in another, your sister's birthday in another, Fred's phone number in yet another, and so on does not make any sense. Yet, until now, that is how it's been done. This program is is possibly the fastest-to-use, easiest-to-use, most free-form database in the world! Not only that, it is specially designed to run on any IBM-compatible computer. A hard disk makes it run much faster, but is not necessary. This program is particularly suited to laptop computers in the field. The student can enter notes between classes, the salesman can take orders as the customer speaks, the writer can develop a character or jot down interesting bits of speech as they occur, the researcher can take a laptop and Datakeeper to the library, the cook can locate a recipe while working at the kitchen counter. So that you can experiment with this program without having to enter lots of your own data first, we have provided a fun database file for you. After you play with it a bit, you can rename or delete our database file and start your own. To start the program type DATAKEEP and press [Enter]. The sample database file we have provided contains interesting facts and stories about animals. Try finding info about dogs, clams, dinosaurs, any kind of animal you like. Not every animal will be in the database, of course, but you are sure to find some interesting ones with a few tries. To do it, select FIND INFO from the main menu, then simply type the name of any animal you want to know about. Later, you can delete or rename our database, and create your own. As you'll see, the basic operation of the program is so easy that instructions won't be necessary. Therefore, this is more of a hint file for more advanced operation. As with all software, make a back-up copy and keep the original safe. Datakeeper writes to the disk, so do not use a write-protected disk for your working copy. The program automatically uses a single datafile called DATABASE, which must be on the same disk in the same directory as the program. (Actually, you can use any file located anywhere, but this is the default setting.) The first choice is FIND INFO. To use it, simply type in the word or part of a word you would like to use as a key word to search for. For instance, if you are looking for horse, type HORSE and press [Enter]. You can type just enough of the word to make it unique from other words in the database. You can type HOR and press [Enter]. But if you also have notes on HORticulture, you'll get those too. After Datakeeper finds the first note matching what you are looking for, you have some choices indicated on the bottom line of the screen. You can press [Enter] to find the next matching note. You can press [Esc] to cancel the search. You can press [D] to delete the last note found. Careful, once its gone from the database, it's gone! And you can press [C] which will find all further notes and scroll them past your eyes without stopping. This is good if you just want to see how much is there without reading it, or if you know there are only a few short notes. But how do you then read them - the ones that scrolled away? After the search is done, Datakeeper automatically makes a file called RESULTS. You can use any file reading program or word processor to read the file called RESULTS. Specifically, RESULTS is a file consisting only of the notes matching what you were looking for. If you do another search, the previous results file is wiped out and a new one created. Another way to deal with scrolled away notes is to narrow your search. Look instead for HORSE-DRAWN and you'll only get notes with the words horse-drawn in them. Note: So far as Datakeeper can tell, horse-drawn is not the same as horse drawn. If it was written with a dash, and you look for HORSE DRAWN without the dash, the note will not be found. However, Datakeeper is not case sensitive. HORSE, HoRSe, horse are all the same word. Dates can be a problem unless you always enter them the same way. This is important because it makes a neat and simple scheduler. If you type in your appointments as they develop, you can then type in the date and get your schedule. For instance: On Monday, April 4, you might type: 4-29-92 Get Amy at the airport 2pm. On Tuesday, April 5, you might type: 4-29-92 Fred here at 8 am to rototill the garden. On Wednesday, April 6, you might type: 4-29-92 Make sure to order new printer ribbons. Then, on April 29, You search for 4-29-92 and you get: 4-29-92 Get Amy at the airport 2pm. 4-29-92 Fred here at 8 am to rototill the garden. 4-29-92 Make sure to order new printer ribbons. And there, without any trouble at all, is your schedule! What? You want it in order? No trouble, use your word processor on the file called RESULTS and put these lines in the proper order. You can use a little bit of code after you get a feel for how Datafinder works. For instance, after the phone number of each member of you volleyball team you can put vvv. Then have Datafinder search for vvv and you get a neat phone list of the team. The second item on the main menu is ADD DATA. The second choice on the main screen is ADD DATA. Select this if you want to put new notes into the database. There is no limit to the number of notes your database can have, and there is no limit to its overall size, but each note cannot be more than 16 lines by 68 characters. The ADD DATA option will not let you exceed this size. If the rare case occurs where you need more room for your note, divide it in two and make sure the same key words (which you may want to use to find the note) appear in each part. You can end your note by pressing [Enter] or [Esc]. If you press [Enter] the note will be saved to the database file on disk. If you press [Esc], the note will be canceled. You cannot have any blank lines in the note, because blank lines is how Datakeeper keeps track of the end of one note and the beginning of another. If you need to simulate a blank line for some reason, a single character will make it a non-blank line. For instance, if I - wanted it to appear that there was a blank line above... To make a new paragraph, simply press the [space bar] until you have moved the cursor onto the next line. These are the only controls besides the backspace key. This note adding facility is purposely limited to keep the program simple, small and fast. But there is another way to enter or edit notes. You can use any word processing program in ASCII mode to do surgery on the database file. Make sure the lines are 68 characters or less and that each note is no mare than 16 lines long. Use a blank line between each note, but no blank lines within notes. The third choice on the main menu, called OPTIONS, is the power section for advanced users. Here, you can customize Datakeeper to your own way of doing business. Most items in the OPTIONS menu will make sub-menus pop up. Select EXIT or press the [Esc] key to exit from each sub-menu to return to the previous level. The options you have selected from the sub-menus will last as long as the program is running. The first option on the list is MAIN FILE. You can select this item to change the disk, directory and/or file Datafinder will research. For instance, you might be an author who is doing a book on the history of the United States. You're likely to have an awful lot of notes. And, being the popular author that you are, you also have a lot of friends' phone numbers and addresses to keep track of. And, being an author, you don't have enough money for a hard disk, so your huge database file takes awhile to search from a floppy disk. If you divide it into two files, Datakeeper will work faster. In a way, this is counter to the concept of simplicity around which Datafinder is designed, but there are times where having several separate database files may be necessary. The next option is OUTPUT. Here, you can turn on your printer to capture your results. You can also change the file into which results are written. Normally, Datakeeper makes a new RESULTS file each time it does a search, but you might like to create a file of a different name, or put it on a different disk or in a different directory. Within the OUTPUT menu is also the option of changing the way Datafinder uses your monitor. Normally, Datafinder pauses between each found note until you press a key. If you switch from the default 'PAUSE' to 'CRUISE,' Datafinder will work much faster when you are finding lots of notes, but you won't be able to stop the notes on the screen. You'll have to see the notes on the printer or in the RESULTS file. The next Option is color. Use this to change the colors, or the way Datakeeper looks on monochrome monitors. If you don't like the sound effects, (I find them enjoyable, but I can see how they might seem annoying to others in a quiet office) select SOUND and the sounds will automatically be toggled off. (The menu will then say 'Toggle sound on' because this is what you would do if you selected SOUND again.) It might be too much work to have to reselect your custom files and color choices every time you start Datafinder. SAVE is how you keep all you carefully selected options in effect for every time you use Datakeeper. By selecting this option, a file is created on the disk called DATAKEEP.CFG. Whenever you start Datakeeper, if it finds DATAKEEP.CFG, it will use your chosen options instead of it's defaults. If you ever do something terrible, such as turn all the text and backgrounds green so that you can't see anything on the screen, and then accidentally save the settings to disk, simply delete DATAKEEP.CFG. Then Datakeeper will return to it's original colors and file choices. As supplied, DATAKEEPER comes with a little batch file called DK.BAT. This is so you don't have to type DATAKEEP every time you want to start the program. Just type DK and it will start. Problems ======== No RESULTS file: Disk is full or write-protected. Nothing found: What you were looking for was not in the database you searched. Perhaps the file is missing or the MAIN FILE option has been changed to another name. Perhaps you misspelled when writing to the database or when choosing what to look for. Screen is hard to see: Change the colors option to something more suitable for your monitor. - Jeff - d.b.a. ANOTHER COMPANY February 28, 1991 503-846-7884