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Text File | 1991-02-22 | 12.9 KB | 271 lines

THE GROCERY SHOPPER A Product of Clark Systems Copyright 1991 Ver. 2.1 Welcome to The GROCERY SHOPPER, an unpretentious little program whose sole purpose in life is to make your grocery shopping chores a little easier, more organized and more fun, at least in the planning stages. It won't keep you from having to go to the store, but it might help you get in and out a little quicker. If you've been using the previous version of GROCERY SHOPPER, we're sure you'll find verison 2.1 even easier still. You can now jump directly to the EDIT ITEMS sub-system while in the middle of CREATING a LIST and, when finished, jump directly back to where you left off. Version 2.1 also gives you more SEARCH and indexing capabilities. We hope that you find the GROCERY SHOPPER useful and encourage your comments and suggestions, even if you decide not to register and not to continue use of The GROCERY SHOPPER. Please feel free to contact us at the address given in the SHAREWARE and REGISTRATION section. _______________________________________________________________________ SUMMARY The GROCERY SHOPPER assumes two things. (1) That you normally shop for your groceries at the same store, and (2) that you would prefer to speed up your shopping trip by getting all grocery items in one pass up one Aisle and down the next. The GROCERY SHOPPER helps you accomplish this by making it simple to develop a shopping list of items you normally buy, then printing the list out with the items organized by aisle. The GROCERY SHOPPER maintains a inventory, or database if you will, of grocery items available in your regular grocery store, which you create initially, then add to and maintain as long as you use the program. The minimum information you must maintain in the ITEMS database is the description of the grocery item itself and the AISLE in which it is located. Every time you need something new you simply and quickly add it to the database of shopping items where it is thereafter available to you for future use on a future list. Since the GROCERY SHOPPER includes extensive on-line help, there won't be a lot of detail to be found in this documentation except for generalized information about program objectives, operation and navigational controls. DISCLAIMER Clark Systems and its agents make no claim of any kind, express or implied, including without limitation, any warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. Clark Systems and its' agents shall not be liable for any damages, whether direct or indirect, special or consequential arising from a failure of this program. In no event shall Clark Systems or its' agents be liable to you for any damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or consequential damages arising from use or inability to use this product or any claim by any other party. SHAREWARE and REGISTRATION GROCERY SHOPPER is Shareware, meaning that it is not free but being made available to you on a trial basis. If you use The GROCERY SHOPPER beyond a reasonable trial period you are requested to register your copy with Clark Systems for the minimal fee of $12.00. In turn you will receive one free update as the next one becomes available, access to low-cost future updates, information on other Clark Systems database products and our eternal gratitude which, along with $.75 will buy you a cup of coffee. To register your copy of The GROCERY SHOPPER send your check or money order along with your name, address and preferred diskette size to: The GROCERY SHOPPER Clark Systems 129 Pitney Road Absecon, N.J. 08201 Clark Systems and the GROCERY SHOPPER are not associated in any way with any Shareware distributor, and any fee paid to any such distributor does not constitute registration of The GROCERY SHOPPER. Only payment made directly to Clark Systems constitutes registration as discussed above. The GROCERY SHOPPER may be copied and distributed so long as no fee is charged beyond minimal shipping and handling costs, and provided that all files listed below are included. FILES YOU SHOULD HAVE Grocery.exe Help.dbf Grocery.dbf Help.dbt Grocery.doc Help.tbk Gro_scrn.com Items.frm Read.me RUNNING THE PROGRAM The GROCERY SHOPPER should be run from a hard disk. While it may be run from floppy or hard disk (provided that adequate disk space is available), much of what GROCERY SHOPPER does is disk intensive. Therefore, performance will suffer when attempting to run the GROCERY SHOPPER from a diskette. 1. Summary of Operations The GROCERY SHOPPER has two important operations for the user, creating and printing a shopping list and (2) building and maintaining a database of grocery items . The items database must be developed before the list can be created, however, once the basic database is completed there is little that must be done in future session except add the occasional new item that wasn't purchased before, or modify existing item locations, descriptions, etc. When the GROCERY SHOPPER is started, the user is presented with a horizontal MAIN MENU accross the top of the screen from which various operations may be chosen. In the right center portion of the screen is the item selection box which is where the various grocery items are displayed in order of aisle and, when it is activated with the CREATE A LIST command, where the actual list is made up. GROCERY SHOPPER already has a database of 144-odd items in its' database which, unless you have identical tastes and use the same store as we do, will at a minimum, need some modification. The EDIT ITEMS command will jump the user to the ITEMS sub- system. Once there the user can modify the existing items according to the Aisle, Category and Sub Category the user prefers. In addition, the user can jump directly from an active CREATE A LIST operation to the EDIT ITEMS sub-system to make quick changes & additions. The user should enter as many different items as he or she can think of which are normally purchased, in order to have those items available when it come time to make up the actual shopping list. The GROCERY SHOPPER utilizes the relatively common programming concept of making it feel that the user is going down and coming back up a ladder. Some commands act directly, some take you only one step and some commands when chosen will reveal more commands which are available or which must be utilized. In order to back out of any operation, or move back up to a previous level (consider the initial screen or MAIN MENU the 'top') simply press the <Esc> key. 2. Start Up. Log onto the directory where The GROCERY SHOPPER files are located. Be certain that all files are present, then simply type 'GROCERY' from the DOS prompt. You will be presented with an Introduction screen, the index files will be created then you will be delivered to the GROCERY SHOPPERs' MAIN MENU. 3. Navigational Control The MAIN MENU and the EDIT ITEMS MENU are Lotus-Style Horizontal highlight bar devices. Other menus, such as the one presented when PRINT is selected from the MAIN MENU utilize Vertical highlight bars. Navigation around menus is controlled by use of the arrow, <PgUp> and <PgDn> keys. Each command, or operation on the MAIN MENU and EDIT ITEMS MENU can be selected either by moving the highlight bar to the command and pressing the <Enter> or <Return> key or by pressing the first letter of the command (ie: 'c' or 'C' for Create A List, 'd' or 'D' for Delete). Vertical menus require that the highlight bar be placed on the selection and <Enter> pressed. When using the CREATE A LIST command a highlight bar is activated in the item selection box. Again, navigation is controlled by the arrow, <PgUp> and <PgDn> keys. In addition, to go to the first record press the <Ctrl> and the <PgUp> keys simultaneously. Similarly, to go to the last record, press the <Ctrl> and the <PgDn> keys simultaneously. From the EDIT ITEMS MENU, when ADDing or UPDATEing an item navigation keys work identically as described above. Note that when going to the first or last records, if a FILTER is in effect the first and last records are the first and last in the group FILTERed. 4. MAIN MENU When you select CREATE A LIST the highlight bar is activated in the item selection box on screen. Navigate up and down through the items by using the key combinations described above. When you want to place an item on your list, put the highlight bar on the item and press enter. A checkmark (√) will appear under the "Buy" column. If you wish to enter an AMOUNT, which is not required but may be helpful, press the letter 'a' or 'A'. A field will appear under the 'Amount' column and the cursor will be activated in this field. Type in the amount, which may be numbers or words up to 5 characters long, and press enter. To UN-select an item, press the letter 'D' or 'd' (for delete). If you find an item needs correction, or an item you want on your list isn't in the database, you can jump directly to the EDIT ITEMS sub-system simply by pressing the letter 'e' or 'E'. Once finished adding or changing an item or items, retun by pressing the <Esc> key. A summary of the function of each command/operation and instructions for use is available through on-line help, accessed by pressing the F1 key. 5. EDIT ITEMS Menu When you select EDIT ITEMS from the MAIN MENU you jump 'down' to a new horizontal bar menu which gives you access to individual items. You can flip through these items by using the navigational keys described above until you find the one you want to work on. A summary of the functions of each command/operation and instructions for use is available through on-line help, accessed by pressing the F1 key. HELP All Clark Systems programs, including the GROCERY SHOPPER, including HELP systems which can be edited and changed by the user. When help is called up by pressing the F1 key the cursor is active in the HELP screen. Move around the HELP screens using navigation keys discussed above. If you want to make changes, <Ins>, <Del>, <Backspace> and other keys are available for editing, as in any typical word processor. On some occasions HELP may not have been included. In this case the program will tell you that that portion of the program is Help- less and ask if you want to add some. Respond to the prompt accordingly. If your help screens do not correspond to the program area you are in (ie: a DELETE help screen when you are on the CREATE A LIST command) you probably have a corrupted index. See the PROBLEMS section below for instructions on how to correct this. PROBLEMS In all cases you should periodically back up your files to avoid loss of data due to unexpected problems like electrical outages, spilled coffee, etc. Simply keep a copy of all original files in a safe place and periodically copy all .DBF, .DBT, and .TBK to a separate diskette, either using the DOS copy or xcopy commands, or a backup program. If your files do get clobbered first copy all original files to your operating directory or disk, THEN copy the backed up .DBF, .DBT and .TBK files to that directory or disk. This should help you avoid having to re-enter a lot of data should a problem arise. The only other serious problem might result from corruption of the indexes. Symptoms of such corruption are the inability to find grocery items through the SEARCH function, failure of the program to display or print items which you KNOW should be there, etc. If you suspect such a problem you may correct it easily by erasing all index files, those with the extension .NTX. Do this either individually or with the DOS command 'ERASE *.NTX', without the quotes. The next time the program starts up it will automatically create the needed index files properly indexed. _______________________________________________________________________ ENJOY!