ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 Shareware Freeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)

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Text File | 1990-07-08 | 13.3 KB | 433 lines

NAMES Screen 1 Using The Help File You may move around and explore this help file by typing N for the Next screen, P for the previous screen, Q for Quit, or S and a number to jump to a specific screen. Both upper and lower case letters will work. Enter your selection and press the return key. You will return to the main menu and the NAMES prompt "->" when you finish. To exit from NAMES, at the -> prompt, select "Q Quit" or press ESCAPE, and follow directions. - 1 - NAMES Screen 2 What You May Enter At the Main Menu -> prompt you may enter the following: H Help: to retrieve and display this file of information; L Load: to retrieve a file previously saved by NAMES; E Edit: to enter data, browse through data, or make changes; D Drop: to drop some or all records from the current data; F Find: to search for and mark records for later action; M Mail: to make a mailing label file from some or all records; S Save: to save some or all records in a data file; Z Zoom: to use key patterns to quickly find and show items; - 2 - NAMES Screen 3 Q Quit: to exit NAMES and return to DOS; Left arrow: moves to the left in the list of commands; Right arrow: moves to the right in the list of commands; ENTER: selects the currently highlighted command; ESCAPE: the same as selecting the "Q Quit" command; Any other key: an error that beeps and reminds you what to do. - 3 - NAMES Screen 4 The Fields Of A Record Every record in a NAMES file contains a minimum of two required fields, and may have as many as nineteen fields in all. One of the two required fields and one optional field are supplied by the NAMES program itself, while the other required field and the remaining optional fields must be supplied by the user. The "Changed" field is provided automatically by NAMES, and the "Key" field must be provided by the user. Every field has a prompt that appears in columns 1-18 of its - 4 - NAMES Screen 5 line, and a place to enter data in columns 19-80 of the line. The prompts for these nineteen fields appear on lines 7-25 of the "E EDIT" display screen. NAMES automatically inserts the date each record is first created (the "Created" field) and automatically inserts the date each record is changed (the "Changed" field). You may modify or delete the "Created" field, but any modifications you make to the "Changed" field will be ignored and lost when the record is stored. The date a record was last changed is always stored with the record and appears whenever the record is displayed. - 5 - NAMES Screen 6 The "Key" field must be unique for each record of a file, or for each record in the current data. You will be warned if you try to enter a duplicate key. The key may contain up to 62 characters of any kind (letters, digits, punctuation marks, or spaces), but you will find that brief keys, and easy to remember ones, will work best. You might want to use last names (Smith, Jones, Smith2, Jones2, etc.). NAMES converts all letters in key fields to capitals when records are stored. The "Name" field should be filled in with the full name of the person to whom the record refers, in exactly the form it - 6 - NAMES Screen 7 should appear when printed on mailing labels. The "Name", "Address", "City, State", and "ZIP, Postal Code" fields are used when printing mailing labels and envelopes. Capitalization is preserved in these fields when the record is stored, although leading and trailing spaces are removed. The next two fields are both called "Address" and one or both may be used as necessary. The next field is called "City, State" and should contain the name of the city, a comma, and a two-letter sate abbreviation (or Canadian province abbreviation) properly capitalized. The next field of the record is the "ZIP, - 7 - NAMES Screen 8 Postal Code" field, and should contain a properly formatted U.S. ZIP code or a Canadian postal code. The next two fields are called "HOME Phone" and "Work Phone" and are used for that information. No special format is required for these fields. The last nine fields are called "Tag #1", "Tag #2", and so on, through "Tag #9". These fields are used to add remarks or other supplementary information pertinent to each record. Tags, like keys, are automatically capitalized when the program stores - 8 - NAMES Screen 9 them. Unlike keys, however, tags need not be unique; they may be used as often as desired on as many records as necessary. Both keys and tags may be used to search for and mark items, and their effectivbe use will improve with experience. Files And File Names NAMES can produce two types of files, one of which is intended to be input to NAMES at a later time, and the other of which is intended to be printed. While you may use whatever file name you wish for either type of file, NAMES will check what you - 9 - NAMES Screen 10 enter to see if it contains a period. If you supply a file name with no period, NAMES adds one and uses a default extension. The extension ".NMS" is used for data files, and ".LBL" is used for mailing label files. Both types are plain ASCII files and may be freely edited with an ASCII editor such as EDLIN, BRIEF, or WordStar in Non-Document mode. When you choose "S Save" or "M Mail" you will first be asked for the name of the file you wish to create. The program will check for an existing file with a matching name when you ask to create one, and will ask your permission to create a new one if - 10 - NAMES Screen 11 none is found, or to replace it if it is found. When you "S Save" a file, the records you saved remain available for further processing in the NAMES program. You need not "L Load" the file again to continue your work. If you do use "L Load" immediately after using "S Save", you will find you have duplicates of each record in the program's memory. The duplicated keys will have a trailing dollar sign to distinguish them from the original keys. You may search for and mark these "dollar keys" in the "F Find" section of the program. - 11 - NAMES Screen 12 When specifying file names for the "L Load" command, you mayuse the usual DOS wild card characters "?" and "*" to specify ambiguous file names. The program will load data from all files with matching names. You may want to "L Load" data from more than one file at a time, and any duplicated keys will be similarly handled. You ought to change such keys to eliminate the dollar signs before combining the data into a single output file with the "S Save" command. - 12 - NAMES Screen 13 Marking Records Marks are temporary signals placed on records, and are never saved when the records are saved in files. You may mark or unmark records in two ways: in groups with the "F Find" or the "Z Zoom" command, or one by one when displayed on the "E Edit" screen. When browsing through records in the editor, you may move forward or backward to the next record in one of two ways: you may move to the next marked record with function keys F3 and F4, or you may move to the next record regardless of marks with Page-Up and Page-Down. Finally, when using the "S Save", "M - 13 - NAMES Screen 14 Mail", or "D Drop" commands, you may choose to perform those actions on all records regardless of marks, on marked items only, or on unmarked items only. You will use marks to prepare groups of records selected by their keys or their tags, and then to edit, browse through, save, or produce labels, using those items alone. You will also be able to use "Z Zoom" to mark a record by its unique key and automatically display it in the editor. When using "F Find" to mark groups of records, you may - 14 - NAMES Screen 15 search by specific keys or tags, or by "key patterns" or "tag patterns". A key or tag patern matches an actual key or tag that begins with the specified pattern. Thus searching for the key pattern "SMI" will mark all records with keys beginning with "SMI", such as "SMITH", "SMITH2", "SMILEY", "SMISSLER", "SMIRLOFSKY", and the like. - 15 - NAMES Screen 16 The NAMES Editor The "E Edit" screen is a powerful full screen editor, with its own help system. You may move freely around the entire screen while in the editor, but you may enter or change data only in the data entry fields, i.e. lines 7-25 and columns 19-80. Any changes you make will always be saved when you exit, get another record, or get a blank screen. You must remember to use "S Save" to save your changes to a data file before leaving NAMES. If you forget, you will be reminded that your changes have not been saved, and will be able to save them before you exit. - 16 - NAMES Screen 17 Pressing the HOME key once takes you to the beginning of the current data entry field; pressing it twice in succession takes you to the beginning of the first data entry field on the screen; pressing it a third time clears the screen to prepare for entering a new record. Pressing the END key once takes you to the right end of any data already entered in the current field; pressing it twice in succession takes you just below the last field on the screen that contains data. You may use function key F2 to mark or unmark a displayed record, or function key F5 to drop it from the current data. You - 17 - NAMES Screen 18 may use function key F6 in the editor to print the displayed name and address directly onto an envelope. You will be prompted to position the envelope and press ENTER when ready. You may use function key F7 to cancel any changes you have made to a screen, returning it to its condition when last saved. The uses of other editor commands are described in the editor's help system, available with function key F1. - 18 -