Open the application by double clicking on the "ScrapDiary 1.0" icon. You will be presented with a new diary containing one page set to the current date. There is a "Text Item" on this page where you can type in your text. This text item is a default item which appears on all new pages. You can add sounds, movies, pictures and other text items by clicking on the appropriate icon on the "Tool" palette below the bottom left hand corner of the diary page. To place the selected item onto the page, hold down the mouse button and drag the item onto the page. Release the mouse button when you have positioned the item where you want it on the page.
You can reposition and re-size the items by first clicking on the "Select" tool and then clicking on the items to be moved or resized (hold down the shift key to select more than one item or drag the mouse over the items (you will see a selection marquee)). Note that the "Select" tool remains hilited to indicate that items will be selected when you click on them. A selection box is placed around the items you have clicked on. If you want to move these items, simply drag them to a new location with the mouse. If you want to resize them, place the mouse over the corners of the selection boxes and drag with the mouse. You can also cut and copy the selected items to the clipboard or paste items from the clipboard. Note that copied text and pictures from other applications can be pasted into the diary as text and picture items respectively. You can delete the selected items by choosing "Delete Item" from the Edit menu or by pressing the delete key. To deselect the items, click into an empty space or click on the "Select" tool again (it will be unhilited to indicate that diary items cannot be selected) or press the escape key (you may have to press it twice if you are in a text item — once to exit the text item and once to deselect the items).
When you have finished placing items on the page, you can save the diary by selecting the "Save…" menu item in the File menu. You can then open the next page by clicking on the arrow on the right hand side of the scroll bar at the bottom of the page. Similarly, you can open the previous page by clicking on the arrow on the left hand side of the scroll bar. You can also use the calendar window, arrow-keys, and page number to navigate through your diary — see below for details. Also, you can automatically browse through your diary by selecting "Browse Diary" from the "Search" menu (see below).
You can change the size of the diary pages by using the "Grow" box on the bottom right hand corner. The new page size will be used throughout your diary and will be saved along with the data. If you re-size the pages to a smaller size, make sure that you do not hide any of the items on the other pages.
Note: the diary saves your changes automatically when you open another page (see "Automatic Saving" below).
Balloon help is supported for the menu commands and the interface elements of the application windows. Select "Show Balloons" from the Balloon Help menu and move the cursor over the interface elements (window/menu items) to see the corresponding balloon help descriptions.
Adding Text
Click on the "Text" tool in the tool palette and drag it to the location on the diary page where you want it placed. Resize it if necessary using the "Select" tool as described above. If you do not see a blinking caret at the current text position in the text item, click in the text item to activate it, and then type in some text. To change the appearance of the text, choose the appropriate item from the Font, Style, and Size items of the Edit menu. Note that only the selected text and text after the current insertion point is affected. You can also change the appearance of the text item (add/remove scroll bars, change the border) by double clicking on it. You will be presented with a dialog window which allows you to make the necessary changes. Note, that you can also justify the text from this dialog window.
Adding Pictures
Put a picture that you want to add to the diary onto the clipboard using a drawing/paint or some other application.
Method 1: click on the "Picture" tool in the tool palette and drag it to the location on the diary page where you want to place it. Now paste the picture into the picture item. Position and resize if necessary using the "Select" tool as described above.
Method 2: simply paste the picture item onto the diary page by using the "Paste Picture" item from the Edit menu and then position and resize it using the "Select" tool as described above.
Method 3: select the "Import Picture…" menu item from the "Edit" menu and select a picture stored in a file of "PICT" format. Position and resize the picture using the "Select" tool as described above.
The appearance of the picture item can be changed by double clicking on it (you can add/remove scroll bars and add/remove/change the border etc.). You can also position the picture within the picture item by simply clicking on it and dragging it with the mouse (make sure that the "Select Tool" is not selected).
Adding Movies
Click on the "Movie" tool in the tool palette and drag it to the location on the diary page where you want it placed. You will be presented with a dialog window which prompts you to select a QuickTime™ movie. Note that you can only "import" movies and not record them with "ScrapDiary." Once you have selected the movie, the movie item will then be placed on the diary page at the location you chose earlier and a Movie window will open allowing you to play the movie. You can close this movie window at any time. If the QuickTime™ movie has a "preview" picture associated with it, the picture will be displayed in the movie item on the diary page, otherwise a "Movie" icon will be displayed.
You can add text to the movie item by clicking in the space immediately below the "Movie" icon or "preview" picture in the movie item. Resize to display your text if necessary using the "Select" tool as described above. You can change the Font, Style and Size of the text by choosing the appropriate item from the Edit menu, and you can change the appearance of the text item by double clicking on it (see "Adding Text" above). Note that only the selected text and text after the current insertion point is affected.
To play the movie again if you have closed the movie window, click on the movie icon or preview picture in the movie item. To find the name of the movie file and its location on your hard disk, double-click on the movie icon or preview picture in the movie item.
Note: if the "Movie icon is dimmed in the Tool palette your Macintosh is not equipped with the QuickTime extension and you will not be able to import QuickTime™ movies.
Important: do not remove from the disk the original QuickTime™ movie file that you have selected because the movie item in your diary uses this file.
Adding Sound
Click on the "Sound" tool in the tool palette and drag it to the location on the diary page where you want it placed. You will be presented with a dialog window which prompts you to either select a sound file, OR to create a new one. If you choose to open a sound file, then you simply select the sound file with the mouse and then click on the "Open" button (or press the return or enter keys). The sound file must be audio IFF (AIFF) format. If you wish to create a new sound file, click on the "New" button. You will be presented with another dialog window prompting you to give the sound file a name. You will then be asked to select the quality of the sound you wish to record. The options in increasing order of sound quality are "good," "better" and "best."
The amount of time you have available for recording will depend on the sound quality you choose and on how much free disk space you have available. Therefore, to increase the amount of recording time use the lowest quality sound ("good"), and remove unwanted files from your hard disk. Note that for recording speech, "good" quality will suffice. Once you have selected the sound quality, and given the sound file a name, click the "Save" button (or press the return key or enter key). Finally, you will be presented with another dialog window allowing you to record sounds through your Macintosh built-in microphone directly to your hard disk. In this way, you can use your Macintosh as a kind of "Dictaphone." The amount of time you have available for recording is shown in the dialog window. Once you have recorded your sound, click on the "Save" button and the sound item will then be placed on the diary page at the location you chose earlier, and the sound data will be saved to the file you created earlier. You can modify the sound file using other applications such as Sound Edit Pro, but do not change the sound format, because ScrapDiary uses this file to play back your recorded sounds.
To play the sound back, click on the sound icon in the sound item. If you have QuickTime™ installed, you can play back the sound using the standard QuickTime™ controls. To find the name of the sound file and its location on your hard disk, double-click on the sound icon in the sound item.
Again, you can add text to this item by clicking in the space immediately below the "Sound" icon in the sound item. Resize to display your text if necessary using the "Select" tool as described above. Again, you can change the Font, Style and Size of the text by choosing the appropriate item from the Edit menu, and you can change the appearance of the text item by double clicking on it (see "Adding Text" above). Note that only the selected text and text after the current insertion point is affected.
Note: if the "Sound" icon is dimmed on the Tool palette your Macintosh is not equipped with QuickTime™ and the Sound Manager and you will not be able to record or play back sounds using ScrapDiary.
Using the Calendar
Click on the "Calendar" tool to open the calendar. The calendar opens to the date shown on the current diary page. If the calendar was already open when you clicked on the "Calendar" tool, then the Calendar is simply brought to the front (if it was behind the diary page) and the date shown on the diary page is selected in the calendar. To go to a particular diary page, double-click on the appropriate date in the calendar (or select the date in the calendar by single-clicking and then press the enter key). If you want to select the current date, press the command key and the space bar simultaneously.
Note that the pages which contain entries are indicated in the calendar by red or bold type on color and monochrome monitors respectively.
Speech Capability
If your computer has speech recognition software installed, you can have it read the text in a text item (or the text item in a sound or movie item) or read the whole diary by selecting the appropriate menu item from the Speech menu (the speech menu is unavailable (dimmed) if you have an empty diary or do not have the speech recognition software (extension) properly installed). In the latter case, ScrapDiary will also browse through your diary entries.
You can stop the computer from speaking by pressing the command key and the period key simultaneously or by selecting "Stop Speaking" from the Speech menu. If you selected "Read Diary," ScrapDiary will also stop browsing. You can change the computer voice by using the "Voice" sub-menu in the Speech Menu.
Automatic Saving
Because the diary is a disk-based database (the data is read from the disk as needed), any changes you make to the diary will be saved under the following circumstances:
1) when you close a diary page by clicking on the close box of the diary page window
2) when you open another diary page
3) when you quit the application
If you have a new diary open, then you will be asked if you want to save the changes. If you have a previously saved diary open, then the changes will be saved automatically. Any changes you have made to an open diary page will also be saved automatically in a previously saved diary when you select "Print…" from the "File" menu.
Reverting a Saved Page
You can replace the contents of an open diary page with those previously saved by selecting "Revert Page" from the File menu.
Backing up and Making a copy
Because of the automatic saving feature, it is strongly recommended that you make back-up copies of your diary. You do this by selecting "Backup" from the File menu. The backup files have the same name as the ones you are backing up with the prefix "Copy of". You can also make a copy of the current diary by selecting "Save a Copy…" from the File menu. You will then be presented with a dialog window giving you the option of choosing the date-range you want saving.
Important: you MUST choose a different name for the copy when you are presented with the standard save dialog window.
Moving Through The Diary
To automatically browse through your diary:
Select "Browse Diary" from under the "Search" menu (this item is unavailable (dimmed) if you have an empty diary, or if you are already at the only diary entry). ScrapDiary will pause at each diary entry for two seconds. You can stop at any page by pressing the command key and the period key simultaneously.
To move to the next ScrapDiary page:
a) click on the arrow on the right hand side of the scroll bar at the bottom the page, or
b) press the up-arrow key on your keyboard.
Note that the date on ScrapDiary pages which contain entries is shown in red or outline type on color and monochrome monitors respectively, while scrolling.
To move to the previous ScrapDiary page:
a) click on the arrow on the left hand side of the scroll bar at the bottom the page, or
b) press the down-arrow key on your keyboard.
To move to the next ScrapDiary entry:
a) click in the gray region of the scroll bar to the right of the "thumb", or
b) press the right-arrow key on your keyboard, or
c) press the page up key
Note that the date on ScrapDiary pages which contain entries is shown in red or outline type on color and monochrome monitors respectively, while scrolling.
To move to the previous ScrapDiary entry:
a) click in the gray region of the scroll bar to the left of the "thumb", or
b) press the left-arrow key on your keyboard, or
c) press the page down key
To move to the first entry:
a) click on the page number and type in 1
b) drag the thumb in the scroll bar all the way to the left, or
c) press the home key
To move to the last entry:
a) press the end key
To move to any ScrapDiary entry:
a) drag the "thumb" control in the scroll bar, or
b) double-click on the appropriate date in the calendar (see "using the calendar" above).
Note: the arrow keys will not work if you are in a text item because they move the cursor position instead. If you are in a text item, exit the text item by clicking in some empty space or by pressing the escape key. Then you will be able to use the arrow keys to move through your diary.
Finally, you can go to a specific page number by clicking on the page number at the bottom left hand corner of the page. You will be presented with a simple dialog window into which you type in the page number you want to go to.
To select items for resizing/repositioning/copying etc., you click on the "Select" tool and then a) click on the items you want to select while holding down the shift key or b) drag the mouse over the items you want to select (you will see a "selection" marquee). A selection box will be placed around the selected items. If you want to select all of the items on the page, press the command and "a" keys simultaneously or choose "Select All" from the Edit Menu (you must not be in a text item for this to work, otherwise you will select all of the text instead -- remember, you can exit a text item by clicking in some empty space or by pressing the escape key).
To reposition: simply drag a selected item(s) to a new location
To resize: drag one of the corners of the selection box of the item of interest (you can only resize items one at a time)
To delete items: press the delete key or choose "Delete Items" from the Edit menu
To cut or copy items to the clipboard: choose "Cut Items" or "Copy Items" from the Edit menu
Note: that the menu item names will be different to those cited above if single items are selected. For example, if a single item is selected and it is a text item, then "Cut Text" will appear in the Edit menu instead of "Cut Items" . The names of the menu items are updated to more clearly reflect user options.
Pasting/Duplicating Items
Items which have been copied to the clipboard using ScrapDiary (or text/pictures from other programs) can be pasted into the current diary page by selecting "Paste Items" from the Edit menu. The pasted items will be automatically selected for easy repositioning etc. (the "Select" tool will be automatically hilited). Click in an empty space or press the escape key to deselect them.
To duplicate items, select them by using the "Select" tool as described in the previous section, and then copy and paste them or choose "Duplicate Items" from the Edit menu. Again, the menu item names will differ if only one item is selected (see the note in the previous section).
Deleting Pages
To delete a page, select all of the items on the page by choosing "Select All" from the Edit menu (make sure you are not in a text item -- if so, click in an empty space or press the esape key) and then press the delete key or choose "Delete Items" from the Edit menu. Move to another page or choose "Save…" from the file menu to delete the page (blank pages are not saved).
Important: you will not be able to undo this action by "Revert Page" because the page is no longer saved.
Statistics
To get some statistics about an open diary, choose "Diary Information…" from the "Statistics" menu. The statistics you will be shown are the number of blank pages, the number of entries, how full the diary is, the first and last date and the total number of pages.
Printing
To print the diary, select "Print…" from the "File" menu. You will be presented with a standard dialog window where you can select the page range, print quality and number of copies you want printing etc.. The page range refers to the page range of the diary which may differ from the actual number of pages printed; depending on what size of paper you are printing on (you can select this from the "Page Setup…" item in the "File" menu) and the size of the diary pages. Also, blank pages will not print out.
