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HUGE BASE V1.00 =============== INSTRUCTIONS DOCUMENT ===================== Huge Base may seem a bit daunting at first but once you know what you're doing, it's dead easy. This document explains each and every function used in Huge Base. I advise that you read through this document completely to get the full experience out of Huge Base. If I start waffling in the middle of my sentences then don't take any notice, it's just me and my funny ways. ====================================================================== THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ======================= Before using Huge Base you need to know some terms and phrases, like FIELD and RECORD. To find out what they all mean, read the JARGON document. When you've done that, carry on reading this document. Huge Base uses a pop-up menu system. When you see options on top of another, you can select one of them. If you do not want to select any of them, simply click on any other part of the screen. The menu will then disappear and your action will be cancelled. When typing on screen, you can press the following operation keys :- ESCAPE - Aborts the typing. F1 - Clears the entry completely. F2 - Restores the entry to what it was when you started editing it. You can press CONTROL + F (for flip) together to flip between the Workbench screen and Huge Base. Each record in your database can be selected individually. A record is either selected or not selected. This is indicated by a SEL sign located to the bottom right of the screen. When it is lit up in a white colour, this means that the current record that you are viewing is selected. When the SEL indicator is BLACK, this means that the current record is NOT selected. For information about selecting records, read through this document. You can press ESCAPE to abort a function you are currently performing. E.g. If you a placing a field on the screen, press ESCAPE and it will abort. Remember, when you are editing a record, to abort you can press ESCAPE. A message will say EDIT FINISHED. Another way to stop editing the current record is to press RETURN until you get to the last field, Huge Base will automatically finish editing. When typing text, no other operations can perform until you end the typing. This is to ensure that you finish what you are doing. No buttons can be used when in the typing process. There is a message box located at the very bottom of the screen which surprisingly displays messages. All messages and comments that Huge Base wants you to know about are displayed here. E.g. If an operation has failed or completed, a message will appear in the message box. Also, messages which need to be confirmed with a YES or NO are displayed here. Located to the very top of the Huge Base screen is a status box. This tells you the current status of the database in memory. Shown are the number of records, the number of selected records, the number of fields and the current record number being displayed. Sometimes the current record will display one of the following text messages :- [None] - This means there are no records in memory at all. [Criteria] - This means that the search criteria record is currently being edited/displayed. [Fields] - This means that you are now selecting fields by typing in their priorities. When nothing at all appears in the status box, this means there is something on the screen that isn't anything to do with a record at all. E.g. This happens when you are viewing the registration screen or a listing of fields. ====================================================================== THE HUGE BASE MENU SYSTEM ========================= This section explains each and every one of the menu items. When loading Huge Base, you will see two rows of buttons. The top row is the row that is explained in this section. These are main function buttons. "HUGE BASE" BUTTON ================== Use this menu for main Huge Base functions. This splits up into 11 further buttons. DELETE - This allows you to delete a file. It doesn't have to be a database file. Remember that you can't get back what you delete! You will have a chance to change your mind when you have selected the file for deletion. If you select a file for deletion, its info file will be deleted as well if one exists. NAME - This allows you to enter a name for your database. The name is saved inside the file. It can be used as a reminder or to tell other users what your database contains. NEW - Completely wipes the current database from memory. You do however get a chance to change your mind! Remember that you don't have to NEW a database in order to load another one into memory. LOAD - This loads a database into memory. You can only load and save databases previously saved with Huge Base. As I've said above, the NEW function does not have to be used before every LOAD. The NEW function is performed automatically before each database load. Make sure you have saved the changes of your current database before loading a new one. SAVE - This saves the current database to what ever file you want. If you haven't already selected a name for the database, you must choose one now. Data saved in the file includes field data, all records, whether each record is selected or not, which fields are selected (and in what order) and the database name. The three preferences SECURE, ADD ICON and ADD EXTENSION are saved in the file too. SAVE AS - Use this function to save your database under a different name. PASSWORD - Use this to change or add a password to your database. If you already have chosen a password for your database, you must type it again first in order to change it. Remember that passwords have a limit of 20 characters and no less than 4. It is a good idea to write down your password somewhere or make it easy to remember. The passwords are not case sensitive so upper and lower case differences do not matter. Also, numbers will not have any effect on the password. You will not be able to see what you are typing when entering passwords as this is a nice snazzy security feature. Remember that the password will have no effect if you do not have the SECURE function activated. (See the PREFS menu section). To make sure you have typed your password correctly, you are required to type it twice. REGISTER - This displays registration details, when the program was last updated and the version number. MEMORY - This displays system memory information. The values not in brackets represent the unallocated memory. The values in brackets represent the largest section of memory available. ABOUT - If you want to see some stunning graphics then choose this option and see the about screen. QUIT - Do I really have to tell you what this does? Remember that you don't have to quit Huge Base in order to access the Workbench or the CLI. Simply press CONTROL and F (for flip) together. When you want to flip back to Huge Base again, simply do the same. "RECORDS" BUTTON ================ Use this to perform operations on records in your database. This splits up into a further 8 options. PASTE - This pastes the card copied with the COPY function, explained below. You will be asked if you want to paste the card on the current card or make a new card for the paste. Remember that pasting over the current card will overwrite it. You must copy a card before you can paste it anywhere. The only time the copied card will be erased is when the database is erased from memory or when another database is loaded. COPY - This copies the current card and duplicates it in memory. This will stay in memory no matter how many times you paste it with the PASTE function above. MOVE TO - Use this to move directly to a record. Simply type in the record number and you're there in a flash. SORT - This sorts the records into order. Before you use this function you must select one or more fields by using the SELECT function in the FIELDS menu. When you have selected the SORT option, you will be requested to select either ASCENDING or DESCENDING, depending on the order you want your cards to be sorted in. The more records there are, and the more selected fields there are, the longer the sort will take. Be prepared to wait a long time if you have a slow machine and you have a lot of records. PRINT - This function is to print records to your printer. Don't use this function if you haven't got a printer connected or Huge Base will just sit there waiting for you to plug one in! If you have got selected records, you will be asked if you want to print the CURRENT or just the SELECTED records. ADD - This adds a blank record into memory. This blank record will come AFTER the last record in memory. E.g. If you have 10 records, record 11 will be created as a blank record. There are a limit of 60000 records. So if you have a database of peoples names and you know more than 60000 people, then I'm afraid I can't help you. CLEAR - This clears records. If you have selected records then you will be asked if you want to clear the CURRENT or SELECTED records. Remember that this does not delete the card, but simply clears data out of the fields. DELETE - This deletes records. If you have selected records then you will be asked if you want to delete the CURRENT or SELECTED records. This deletes the record completely which means there will be one less card in your database for every card you delete. "FIELDS" BUTTON =============== Use this to perform operations on the fields in your database. This splits up into a further 8 options. LIST - This gives a summary of all of the fields that are currently in memory. SELECT - This allows you to select the fields in your database individually. A new record will appear when you select this function. You must enter the priority number of the field next to the fields you wish to select. The order of the field selection is important, especially when sorting your records using the SORT function. The maximum priority number is the number of fields that you have, if you enter a number higher than this, it will become the maximum value possible. If you enter a priority that has already been entered in another field, it will be ignored and the entry will be blanked. Remember that top priority is number 1 and the last priority is the number of fields. INFO - This function gives information about a field. When you have selected this function, choose a field on screen that you want to get information about. A separate screen will be displayed. This will display relevant information according to field type etc. ADD - This adds a field to your database. This is how you must start a new database as no records can be created if there aren't any fields. Various questions will be asked about your new field in order to define it. Field type is the most important and effective question you must answer. Please see the JARGON document for explanations of what all of the field types are. If your field is an ALPHANUMERIC or a TEXT field type, you will be asked how to format the field. Please see the JARGON document for explanation of these functions. There are a limit of 50 fields. CLEAR - This clears a field of its data. The field is NOT deleted. After this function has performed, each record will have no data in the field that you cleared. MODIFY - This allows you to modify a field. When changing field types, you may lose the data in the field. E.g. Changing from a text field to a numeric field would lose the data in that field. However, conversions are carried out if possible. E.g. Numeric fields being changed to a alphanumeric field would be okay as the conversion is possible. MOVE - This allows to to change the position of a field on the screen. You can press ESCAPE if you change your mind on you don't want to move it any more. DELETE - This completely deletes a field and it's contents. Be sure you want to delete a field as you probably have a lot of data in it! "PREFS" BUTTON ============== Use this to choose your preferences. This splits up into a further 7 options. SOUND - This is a nice snazzy luxury feature. Choose between the listed sound sets. The soundsets are stored in the SOUNDSETS: assign. If you own AMOS then you can create your own soundset if you wish. See the READ ME document for more information. COLOUR PRESET - You can select one of the colour presets to use in Huge Base. Simply click on the preset that suites you. If I was you, I'd stick with the default preset as some (well, most) presets are a bit eye- dazzling. DEFAULT PATH - The path name you enter here will be the default path that databases are looked for the first time you call the LOAD, SAVE or SAVE AS functions. ADD EXTENSION - If this preference is set to YES, an extension will be added to your database file. The extension is "HB". This could come in handy if you have different types of files in the same directory as your databases. This way, you can distinguish between databases and other files just by the file name. ADD ICON - If you select YES for this preference, an icon will be added to your database file. SECURE - If this options is set to NO, any database you save will not be secure. This means that any user with Huge Base can load your database. Selecting YES will secure your database with a password. To select a password choose PASSWORD from the Huge Base menu, explained above. Remember that even if you have entered a password, it will have no effect if the SECURE mode is set to NO. SAVE - This will save the preferences you have set above into a file called HugeBase.PREFS. It will be stored in the S directory of your system disk. Next time you load Huge Base, the preferences will be set to those saved in the file when it was written. Remember about the three preferences ADD ICON, SECURE and ADD EXTENSION, these are saved inside of the database file so they may get changed when you load a database, regardless of your saved preferences. "SEARCH" BUTTON =============== This splits up into a further 4 buttons. FIND STRING - This searches for a string though the whole of the database. If you have selected one or more fields using the SELECT function in the FIELDS menu then you will be asked if you want to search in ALL of the fields or just the SELECTED fields. If no fields are selected, all of the fields will be used. EDIT CRITERIA - This function is the most important function in Huge Base. It allows you to enter search criteria for searching. You can enter in each field the criteria you wish to search on. You use symbols at the start of your string to define the search. The symbols you can use are :- = Equal to > Greater than < Less than ! Less than or greater than (different) ^ Contains Remember, if you are starting a new search then you can select CLEAR to deselect all of the records ready for your next search. If you don't enter one of the symbols above at the start of your string, Huge Base assumes you want an equals (=) sign there. See the special section on searching further in this document for information about how you can use the search function to its full potential. DESELECT - This will deselect all of the records that match the search criteria. Remember that records that don't match the search will remain unaffected, regardless of whether they are selected or not. SELECT - This will select all of the records that match the search criteria. As with the DESELECT function, records that don't match the search will remain unaffected, regardless of whether they are selected or not. "SELECT" BUTTON =============== This is used for selecting and deselecting records manually. This only has an effect on the current record. If the record is already selected, it will become deselected and vice versa. You will know if a record is selected or not by looking at the SEL indicator at the bottom right of the screen. If it is "lit up", this means the record on screen is selected. "ALL" BUTTON ============ This selects ALL of the records. If records are already selected, they will stay selected. This function saves you clicking on SELECT for every record. "CLEAR" BUTTON ============== This deselects ALL of the records. When this has been performed, all of the records will NOT be selected. If you want to start a brand new search, this button comes in handy. "INVERT" BUTTON =============== This is a very handy function. This makes all selected records deselected, and all deselected records selected. ====================================================================== QUICK BUTTONS ============= These buttons are the line of buttons located at the very bottom of the Huge Base screen. The names of the buttons are a give away for what they do really, as you'll find out below. "FIRST" ======= This takes you to the first records which is record number 1. "LAST" ====== This takes you to the last record. "NEXT" ====== This takes you to the next record. "PREVIOUS" ========== This takes you to the previous record. "FIRST SEL" =========== This takes you to the first selected record. This is useful for finding the first card that the SEARCH function found. "LAST SEL" ========== This takes you to the last selected record. "NEXT SEL" ========== This takes you to the next selected record. "PREV SEL" ========== This takes you to the previous selected record. ====================================================================== SEARCHING IN YOUR DATABASE ========================== To get the full potential out of Huge Base's searching facility you must first know what can be done. I might start sounding like you are following the instructions for real, but really I am just giving you an example. Lets say you have a database of peoples names and addresses with these 9 fields :- Surname, forename, date of birth, sex, house number, street, town, city and postcode. Let's say that you wanted to find out all of the people that lived in the town of BURSLEM and had a surname called SMITH. Remember that HugeBase selects or deselects records matching the search so first you must click on the CLEAR button to deselect all of your records. Now select EDIT CRITERIA in the SEARCH menu. Now do this :- Enter =BURSLEM in the TOWN field. Enter =SMITH in the SURNAME field. Now click on SELECT in the SEARCH menu to select all of the records that match this criteria. Your search is now complete. Let's say you want to expand the search. You now want to deselect all of the records that have MALE in the SEX field. (I nearly said "SEX in the male FIELD" then!). To do this select CLEAR from the RECORDS menu to clear the search criteria record. Enter =MALE in the SEX field. Now click on DESELECT in the SEARCH menu. This will DESELECT all records with MALE in the SEX field. Now the following is true about the SELECTED records :- The TOWN field is equal to BURSLEM. The SURNAME field is equal to SMITH. No records have MALE in the SEX field. Now you can see how the search function can be used, you can try various searching on one of your own databases now. ====================================================================== Matt Cartlidge.