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HUGE BASE V2.0 ============== INSTRUCTIONS DOCUMENT ===================== Huge Base is VERY easy to use once you know what every function does and how Huge Base operates. 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. You only have to read through it once and then you will know what everything does. It is important that you read all of this document and not just parts of it as you will make it confusing for yourself and you will probably end up giving up completely! ====================================================================== 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. This section explains little things that you need to know before starting. Each paragraph below explains a totally different item so don't get confused thinking that I'm talking about just one thing. 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. Most buttons have a character which is a different colour from normal and is enhanced by underlining. This is the hot key. If you press this highlighted letter, the button will be pressed, without any mouse action. These are keyboard shortcuts. There will never be two occurrences of the same letter in the same menu. This makes each letter unique to the button that will be activated. 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. F3 - Moves the cursor to the end of the string. F4 - Moves the cursor to the start of the string. 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. There are 10 different pages in Huge Base. Use the left and right cursor keys to move up and down pages. The pages do not hold different databases, they simply are for separate screens for the same database. 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. [Crit-X] - This means that you are in search mode and you are viewing one of the 50 search criteria records. The X stands for the current search criteria record number, e.g. [Crit-21]. [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. Also, descriptor messages appear in the status box whenever possible. Descriptor messages can be turned off using the preferences if you wish. ====================================================================== 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. INFO - This displays information about the current database. Information displayed includes number of fields, file name, file size, time till next autosave etc. 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 or you will lose them. 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, instead, you will see stars in place of the letters. You are required to type your password twice to make sure that you have entered it correctly. Once you have entered your password, the SECURE preference will be turned on automatically if it isn't turned on already. Make sure you remember your password as you CANNOT retrieve a SECURE database back from disk without the correct password being entered first. 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. 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. 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. The copied card will stay in memory until either of the following operations is carried out :- * The database is cleared * Another database is loaded * A field is deleted * A field TYPE is modified * Another field is added 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. The sort will be extremely fast if most of the records are already in order so it is a good idea to perform a sort regularly. There is no progress bar when sorting as it is impossible to calculate exactly how long the sort will take. 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 the SELECTED records. * Note that you need various files and libraries in order to print from your Amiga depending on your printer type. However, if you are using Huge Base from a hard drive, printing should not be a problem. * The necessary printer files are loaded immediately before the first print operation is about to take place. This may take a few seconds if you are using Huge Base on floppy disk. 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 60,000 records. So if you have a database of peoples names and you know more than 60,000 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. 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. You have a choice of 8 different fields. * 1. INDICATOR - This is just to place messages on the screen. No data can be entered into these fields. They are simply just to improve your databases. * 2. ATTACHMENT - An attachment field allows you to attach images, samples, IFF animations, music modules and a user specified executable command lines. Remember that Play16 is required to play samples and FastView is required to view images. The attachment type MUSIC MODULE is used for both tracker and MED modules as Huge Base recognises which file type the music module is before it is loaded. * 3. DATE - A date field contains a formatted date. The date is checked to make sure that you have entered it correctly. There are two types of date format that you can use. They are DD/MM/YYYY and DD/MON/YYYY. Examples of these are 01/01/1996 and 01/Jan/1996. Remember that if you do not know a section of a date or you want to miss it out, simply replace the unknown part of the date with dashes. E.g. If you don't want to enter the month name you may type something like 21/---/1978. This date would be accepted. The same applies to the other date format, DD/MM/YYYY. For that type of date format it's just one less dash, 21/--/1978. * 4. ALPHANUMERIC - These fields can contain text, numbers and symbols. * 5. TEXT - These fields contain text and symbols only. Numeric values are ignored. * 6. NUMERIC - These fields can contain any type of number. This field is not formatted like a FLOATING POINT field or an INTEGER field. Whatever you type is accepted no matter how many decimal places it contains or if it is a whole number or not. * 7. FLOATING - Floating point numbers are entered in these fields. When adding a field of this type you must also state how many decimals places you want to the right of the decimal point. This fields is automatically formatted so you will always have the correct amount of decimals places. * 8. INTEGER - An integer number is formatted so that only whole numbers can be entered. The ALPHANUMERIC and TEXT field types need to be formatted with one of five format modes. You will be asked to choose one of the following :- * A. NO FORMAT - This leaves what you have typed in the field and peforms no formatting routine on the data at all. * B. UPPERED WORDS - This makes the start of every word an upper case letter and the rest lower case. * C. UPPERED FIRST - This makes the first letter of the data upper case and the rest lower case. * D. LOWER CASE - This makes all of the letters lower case. * E. UPPER CASE - This makes all of the letters upper case. There are a limit of 100 fields and each field can be independent. 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. PLAY16 - This preference reverts you to a different screen in which you can easily choose optional parameters of the Play16 program. * MODE - None means that Play16 will try to look for a sample format before playing. If a recognised format is not found, RAW mode is used. RAW mode means that all of your RAW mode preferences will be used. To stop Play16 using (or switching) to RAW mode, set this preference to STRICT. This will force Play16 to play only samples that are recognised. * FAST - If this is set to YES, it means that Play16 will not automatically switch to half the sample rate if the soundfile's rate exceeds 28kHz. * HIFI - Turns HIFI mode either on of off. * VOLUME - Set various volume levels to use with Play16. * OUTPUT - Choose which output device you want to use when a sample is played. * FILTER - Choosing ON will enable the filter for playback, choosing OFF will disable the filter for playback. Selecting auto will allow Play16 to decide whether the filter is on or off, this depends on the sample's quality. * LOOPS - Select how many loops you want the sample to carry out. One loop means play the sample once. See the Play16 documentation in the C directory on the Huge Base disk for futher information and how to use Play16 independently from this program and in the CLI. PRINTER - This preference allows you to select the printer destination path. Usually the printer connected to your computer is called "PRT:" but there are a few exceptions like serial printers which are "SER:". With this function you can also redirect the printer output to a file on a disk if you wish. Remember that you cannot print at all if the printer destination cannot be opened as an output device or it does not exist. DESCRIPTORS - If this preferences is set to YES, descriptor messages will appear in the status box when the mouse cursor is placed over button. This function only works on pop-up menu items. This is to help beginners as the message displays what the button WILL do if you click on it so, if you are an experienced user, you can set this preference to NO to disable the descriptor messages. DATE/TIME - This preference is to set how long it takes for the current system date and time to appear in the message box. Type a value of 0 or a blank string to disable the time and date appearance. Note that if there would be no message in the message box, the time and date is displayed. Well, there's no use wasting a perfectly good part of the screen is there? This will not happen though if you have set this preference to a value of zero which means never appear. MESSAGES - Change almost any Huge Base message that you see by using this preference. A page of messages will appear, use the PREV PAGE and NEXT PAGE buttons to move up and down pages. If you see a message you want to change, simply click on its box and then you can edit the message. Messages are saved with the preferences file so if you want to keep the messages you have changed just use SAVE in the PREFS menu. See further below. BUTTON LIGHT - Make Huge Base look that little bit more like the Workbench (if you must) by setting this preference to YES. This will make each button that is clicked on light up. AUTO SAVE - When this preference is set to YES, you will have to enter the number of minutes inbetween each autosave. When the time has elapsed, you will be requested to save your database. At this point, you can reject the request if you wish. Remember that the autosave will not show any requests to save your database if there is no database currently in memory or no changes have taken place since the last save. AUTO EDIT - If this preference is set to YES, when a new record is created, the edit cursor will be in the first field. This saves you clicking in the first field if you want to enter data into the new card straight away. 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 soundsets if you wish. See the READ ME document for more information. COLOUR PRESET - With this preference you can change any colour to whatever you like. First select which colour you would like to change or if you would like to select a preset. Most of the colour presets are a bit crap so I suggest that you set them yourself. 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 "HB2". 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 option 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 HugeBaseV2.0.CONFIG. 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 that an error will be generated if your disk with the S: directory on is write protected. 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. It is perfectly okay to delete the preferences file as Huge Base will use the default settings. The default settings are always used if the preferences file fails to load. "SEARCH" BUTTON =============== Use this to control searching in your database. FIND AND REPLACE - This function searches through the whole of the database and replaces a string with another string. If you have any selected fields, you will be asked if you want to find and replace in ALL of the fields or just the SELECTED fields. Now, type in the string to be searched for. Then, type in the replacement string. The find and replace will now take place. All occurrences of the search string will be replaced by the replacement string. Remember that the replacement string can be an empty string. In this case, all occurrences of the search string would be deleted. Note that if a find and replace affects a date in a date field and makes it invalid, it will not change so it is perfectly okay to find and replace whilst including date fields in the process. 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 changes the interface of the screen completely. This item is explained in detail at the end of this document, and details of how to use the search facility to its full potential are explained. "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. ====================================================================== INTRODUCTION TO SEARCHING ========================= Huge Base uses a toggle system to carry out its searching. As you know, each record in a database can either be selected or not selected. You can tell by the "SEL" light at the bottom right of the Huge Base screen. Huge Base either selects or deselects a records during a search depending on the criteria which is used. There are 50 different search criteria records available. Remember that these 50 records do not make up the database records. They are used for searching only and are not saved along with any database files. CRITERIA ======== Criteria are the strings of text in which data in your database will match or will not match. There are various commands you can use when entering your search criteria. = Equal to > Greater than < Less than ! Not equal to (different) ^ Contains The symbols are used at the start of your string. Here are some typical examples. =MATTHEW (equals MATTHEW) ^HEW (contains HEW) >12.3 (greater than 12.3) <12-Feb-96 (less than 12-Feb-96) !STOKE-ON-TRENT (different than STOKE-ON-TRENT) SEARCHING IN YOUR DATABASE ========================== To switch to SEARCH mode, select the SEARCH button and then select EDIT CRITERIA. This will change the interface at the bottom of the screen to a totally different format. This will take you into what is called "SEARCH MODE". Here are all of the buttons that you will see and their explanations. TOGGLE BUTTON - Displays either "EXCLUDE" or "INCLUDE" ============= Click on this to toggle between INCLUDE and EXCLUDE. If this is set to INCLUDE, the current search criteria record will SELECT all records that match its criteria. Making this button EXCLUDE will DESELECT all records that match its criteria. All of the 50 search criteria records can be set to either INCLUDE or EXCLUDE as they can be set independently of each other. "SEARCH" ======== This carries out the search using all 50 of the search criteria records. Any records with no data in them are ignored. If some records are selected before the search is started, they are all deselected automatically. All of the search criteria records with INCLUDE as the toggle setting are carried out FIRST, then the EXCLUDE records are processed. "FIRST" ======= This takes you to the first search criteria record which is number 1. "LAST" ====== This takes you to the last search criteria record which is number 50. "NEXT" ====== This displays the next search criteria record. "PREVIOUS" ========== This skips back a search criteria record. "CLEAR" ======= This clears the current search criteria record. "CLEAR ALL" =========== This clears all 50 of the search criteria records from memory so you can start all over again. "EXIT" ====== This exits search mode and returns you to normal VIEW mode. All of the normal buttons will appear again. EXAMPLES OF SEARCHING IN HUGE BASE ================================== This example assumes you have a database of peoples names and in which is uses normal field names. This is only an example, do not try to follow it for real in your own database. 1. Select SEARCH. 2. Select EDIT CRITERIA. This will take you into SEARCH MODE. The first search criteria records will appear. 3. Click into the SURNAME field. Type =SMITH 4. Click into the FORENAME field. Type ^M 5. Make sure the toggle button says INCLUDE. If not, click on it ONCE. 6. Click on NEXT to get to record number 2. 7. Click into the DATE OF BIRTH field. Type ^FEB 8. Make sure the toggle button says EXCLUDE. If not, click on it ONCE. 9. Click on SEARCH. This will carry out the search you have just typed. The following will be true about all of the selected records. "SMITH" is in the SURNAME field. "M" is contained somewhere in the FORENAME field. "FEB" is NOT in the DATE OF BIRTH field. Here are the steps that the search took to get these results. 1. All of the records that had SMITH in the SURNAME field and had an occurrence of "M" in the FORENAME field were selected. These records were selected because INCLUDE was set in the toggle button in search criteria record number 1. 2. Then all of the records that had "FEB" in the DATE OF BIRTH field were deselected. This was done because EXCLUDE was set in search criteria record number 2. Search criteria will stay in memory until any of the following functions are carried out :- * The database is cleared * Another database is loaded * A field is deleted * A field TYPE is modified * Another field is added * You use the CLEAR ALL button in SEARCH mode If any of the above happens, all 50 search criteria records will be lost. ====================================================================== Matt Cartlidge.