Magnum One

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Magnum One / Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso / d10 / qbook96a.arc / QUIKBOOK.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1990-03-01 | 54.9 KB | 1,651 lines

QuikBook Recipe Manager Version 0.96 Beta User's Guide Copyright (C) 1989, 1990 by Robert J. Butler All Rights Reserved Robert J. Butler 7432 Sheridan Avenue South Richfield, Minnesota 55423 Sysop of Erewhon BBS (612) 866-4178 Fidonet 1:282/36 QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 2 Contents 2 2 Contents 2 Overview 3 License 4 Standard Disclaimer 5 Installation 6 Getting Help 7 Starting QuikBook 8 Configuring QuikBook 9 External Programs 9 Printer Configuration 10 Video Configuration 11 Miscellaneous Configuration 12 Relinking or Rebuilding the Index 13 Working with Single Recipes 14 Adding Recipes 14 Displaying Recipes 15 Exporting Recipes 16 Importing Recipes 16 Working with Groups of Recipes 18 Searching for Recipes 18 Marking Recipes 18 Printing Indexes 19 Technical Information 20 QuikBook Files 20 Why use archives? 21 Import Specifications 22 Quick Entry Quick Reference 23 Credits 24 Registration Form 25 QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 3 Overview QuikBook (or QBook) is a program designed to help you maintain a database of recipes. Recipes are almost completely free-format and are stored as text files. QuikBook will optionally store the recipes in a compressed file using a utility such as PKZip, ARC or LHARC. You can search for recipes using titles and keywords. A recipe can contain any number of 60 character keywords. QuikBook allows you to easily select and work with groups of recipes. The recipe selection function works together with the searching function so you can search for a particular keyword and then select some or all of the recipes that match. QuikBook's Import and Export functions allow for easy exchange of recipes and easy addition of existing recipes files into QuikBook without retyping. QuikBook can also Import recipes that have been exported by Episoft System's MealMaster. Although QuikBook has many configuration options, it comes pre-configured for the average user. You can customize your printer, screen colors, the editor you want to use to edit your recipes, the utilities you want to use if you compress the recipe files, any many more options. QuikBook can be used as a stand alone program, but is designed to be used with an external file compression utility (such as PKZIP/PKUNZIP, ARC, etc) and an external text editor or word processor. If you use a word processor, it must have the capability to save an ASCII (or unformatted text) file with line breaks. QuikBook can be run either from floppy disks or from a hard disk, although a hard disk is recommended. If recipe or archive files are not found, QuikBook will ask if you want it to try again, to allow you to change diskettes on a floppy system. The newest version of QuikBook may be obtained from Erewhon BBS (612) 866-4178. First time callers will be able to download the program. QuikBook is also File Requestable as QBOOK from 282/36 (3/12/2400 baud). QuikBook is also File Requestable as QBOOK from 282/31 (14.4 HST) although new versions may take a day or two to appear there. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 4 License QuikBook is Shareware. It is NOT Public Domain software and it is NOT free software. The program QuikBook, this document and the help screens displayed within QuikBook are all Copyright (C) 1989-1990 by Robert J. Butler. All rights reserved. You may use, copy and distribute QuikBook only under the following conditions: Non-registered users have a limited license to use QuikBook on their systems for an evaluation period of thirty days. Any use beyond this period requires that QuikBook be registered with the author. If you use of QuikBook (or any shareware product) beyond the evaluation period without registering it you are stealing. QuikBook may not be modified in any way for any reason. This includes, but is not limited to, removal of the opening "reminder" screen. The only legal way to remove this screen is to register the program. You may distribute QuikBook to others under the following conditions: 1) You distribute only the shareware version and do not distribute the program or any utilities that are provided to registered users. 2) The program is distributed in its original form and with its original files. You may, however, change from one compressed format to another (ie: from ZIP to ARC) provided all files are kept in the compressed file. 3) If you charge to distribute the program (excluding on- line fees for BBS systems), you must obtain PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION from the author at the address listed on the registration form. You must also CLEARLY AND EXPLICITLY STATE to your customers that the fee you charge does not register the program, and that they are still required to register the program with the author if they use it beyond the evaluation period. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 5 Standard Disclaimer QuikBook is provided AS IS with no expressed or implied warranties. Use QuikBook at your own risk. The author will not be liable for any damages or loss of data resulting either directly or indirectly from the use of the program. The author will not be responsible if the program fails to operate as desired by the user or as described in this manual or the help screens. Put simply, the program comes with absolutely no guarantees. The program has been thoroughly tested, but it is always possible to miss something. Always keep backups of your data. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 6 Installation To install QuikBook, copy the file QBOOK.EXE to the disk you want to use for the program. You may place it in a subdirectory if you want. QuikBook can be told to look for its data files in a directory or on a disk other than the one you put the program in. The DATA directory (see Configuring QuikBook) will contain the help file and the three index files that QuikBook will create the first time you run it. If you don't specify a data directory, QuikBook will look for these files in the directory you run the program from. If you want to use a data directory, create the subdirectory if necessary and copy the file QBHELP.DAT there. QuikBook will pack all of your recipes into a compressed archive file unless you tell it not to (see configuring QuikBook). You can tell QuikBook to store these archive files in the ARCHIVE directory (which can be a subdirectory or a disk other than the one the program is on). If you don't specify an archive directory, QuikBook will store the archive files in the directory you run the program from. If you want to use an archive directory, create the subdirectory if necessary. QuikBook will create the archive files as you add recipes. When you work with a recipe, QuikBook looks for it in the WORK directory. If you are using archives, QuikBook will extract the recipes from the archive and temporarily store them in the work directory. If you are not using archives, the recipe files will permanently be stored in the work directory. If you don't specify a work directory, QuikBook will store the recipe files in the directory you run the program from. If you want to use a work directory, create the subdirectory if necessary. If you have one, a RAM disk makes a good choice for the work directory if you are using archives. If QuikBook can't find a file in the work directory or the archive directory it will allow you to change diskettes. It must ALWAYS be able to access the files in the data directory, however, in will abort if they are not found. The rest of the installation process is done from within QuikBook. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 7 Getting Help Unless QuikBook is busy printing or reading or writing to the disk, the Alt-H key will always pop up a help screen. Many help screens have more than one page, and you can see additional information by pressing the Page Down (marked PGDN) key. Each help screen is linked to related help topics, you can select the topic you wish to view with the arrow keys and then press ENTER. The Help Index is selectable from all of the help screens and lists all of the help topics that are available. Another key that is useful is the ESCAPE key. This key will get you out of wherever you are and pressing it repeatedly will eventually bring you to the main screen. Pressing escape from the main screen will cause QuikBook to ask you if you are sure you want to exit. If you do, press Y, if not, press N. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 8 Starting QuikBook Type QBOOK at the DOS prompt. QuikBook will look for the file QBOOK.CFG in your current DOS directory. If it doesn't find it, it will also look for it in the directory that QBOOK.EXE is in. These two directories are normally the same. The file QBOOK.CFG is used by QuikBook to store your configuration (information on how you want the program to work). If it is not found (and it won't be the first time you run QuikBook), QuikBook will create the file with a default set of options and display the configuration menu to you to allow you to change things. QuikBook accepts three command line parameters. If you have an older color adapter and the screen flickers when QuikBook runs, you can turn on CGA snow checking by typing "QBOOK /S+" at the DOS prompt QuikBook normally writes direct to video memory. This is a fast method of displaying information on the screen, but occasionally causes problems (for example in a multitasking environment). If you want QuikBook to use BIOS screen writes instead of direct screen writes, type "QBOOK /B+" at the DOS prompt. Both snow checking and BIOS writes can be turned on permanently (see Configuring QuikBook). The final command line parameter tells QuikBook that you want to make configuration changes before it tries to load its data files. For example, if you move the data files to a different directory in DOS instead of in the program, QuikBook will not know where to find them. You can type "QBOOK /I" at the DOS prompt and you will go directly to the configuration menu where you can make your changes. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 9 Configuring QuikBook The first time you use QuikBook, it will set up the default configuration and display the configuration menu so you can make whatever customizations you desire. External Programs If you want QuikBook to store your recipes compressed in archive files, you need to tell it what external programs to use to do this. If you don't want to use archive files, just blank out all of the commands dealing with archives (just press the delete key before any other key to erase a data entry field). QuikBook comes set up to archive the recipe files with the shareware programs PKZip and PKUnzip from PKWare. These programs were chosen because they are widely available and they work well. If they are the programs you want to use, you do not need to change the archive commands. If you want to use utilities other than the ZIP utilities, the following commands need to be defined. In all cases, put "%A" in place of the file name where the program is expecting the name of the archive file, and %F in place of the file name where the program is expecting the name of the recipe file. The command to get (extract) the recipe file from the archive. Examples are "PKUNZIP %A %F" for zipfiles and "LHARC e %A %F" for lzhfiles. The command to copy the recipe file to the archive. Examples are "PKZIP -U %A %F" for zipfiles and "LHARC u %A %F" for lzhfiles. The command to MOVE (copy and delete the original) the recipe file to the archive. Examples are "PKZIP -M %A %F" for zipfiles and "LHARC m %A %F" for lzhfiles. The command to delete the recipe file from the archive. Examples are "PKZIP -D %A %F" for zipfiles and "LHARC d %A %F" for lzhfiles. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 10 QuikBook also needs to know what external editor you want to use to edit your recipes. You will need to specify this unless you never want to add or change your recipes. QuikBook comes set up to use the shareware program QEdit, from Semware, again because it is widely available and works well. If you would rather use a different editor or a word processor, the only requirement is that it be able to save files in ASCII (unformatted text) with returns after each line. For the editor command, put "%F" in place of the file name where it is expecting the name of the file to edit. Examples are "Q %F" for Qedit, and "EDLIN %F" for the DOS line editor. Printer Configuration QuikBook allows you to customize the way it prints recipes and indexes. These are advanced options and you do not need to change them if you just want to print the recipes and indexes on a standard 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. Each of the following options can be set differently for recipes and for index printing: Device: This can be a file name, in which case QuikBook will write the recipe or index to the disk file, or it can be a DOS device (such as a printer port). Normally, this is your standard printer device, PRN. The device or file name can also be changed at the time you print. NOTE: printer initialization and deinitialization codes are sent even if you are printing to a file. Page length: This is the number of lines your printer prints on a single form or sheet of paper. You may want to print recipes on index cards, in which case you would change this. You will have to experiment and find out how many lines your printer prints on an index card. Margins: This is the number of blank lines printed on the top and bottom of each page. Init: This is a list of codes to send to your printer to set it up before printing the recipe or index. If you don't understand how to control your printer with escape or control sequences, consult your printer manual before setting these. You don't need to set them unless you want to use advanced printing options. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 11 The codes should be a list of ASCII values that set your printer properly for the way you want things printed. For example, on an Epson compatible printer you can set 12 cpi and a left margin of 1 inch with the following: "27 77 27 108 12" or you can set condensed mode and 8 lines per inch (good for recipe cards) with "27 15 27 48". DeInit: This is the list of codes to set the printer back to normal after printing the recipe or index. The codes should be in the same format as for Init. Bold on: This is the list of codes to turn on bold print. It is only used in the combined index to make recipes titles easier to find. The format is the same as Init and DeInit. Bold off: This is the list of codes to turn OFF bold print. Again, the format is the same as Init and DeInit. QuikBook always expects to be able to print 80 columns across, if you make any changes to the standard printer configuration, make sure your paper width, margins and print pitch provide 80 columns for text. Video Configuration The first time you run QuikBook all screens will be displayed in monochrome (black and white or maybe amber or green depending on the type of monitor you have). If you want to use QuikBook's default colors, you can quickly select them by selecting Video Configuration from the configuration menu and then pressing Alt-C. If you want to go back to monochrome at a later date, you can do so by pressing Alt-M from the Video Configuration screen. If you want to customize your colors, you can tell QuikBook what color attributes to use for each type of screen. The help screen for the Video Configuration screen provides a chart to assist in determining attributes. As was mentioned in the section "Starting QuikBook", you can also permanently turn on BIOS screen writes or CGA snow checking. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 12 Miscellaneous Configuration Search mode: There are two methods of searching available in QuikBook. Quick searches and Full searches. Quick search uses a very fast search method to find recipes. However, only those recipes where the search string matches the beginning of a title or keyword will be matched. For example, if you search on "Chicken", "Chicken Stir Fry" would match, but "Stir Fried Chicken" would not. Careful use of keywords can give you the speed advantage of Quick Search and still give you flexible searches. For example, if you gave "Stir Fried Chicken" a keyword of "Chicken" it would have matched in the above example. Keywords are discussed in more detail in the section "Working with Recipes: Adding Recipes" Full search examines each entry in the index and matches all recipes where the search string appears anywhere in the title or keyword. In the above example, Full Search WOULD match "Stir Fried Chicken, even if you didn't give it a keyword of "Chicken". Full Search is much slower than quick search, but gives you more matches if the keywords are not detailed enough. Menu and QuikBook has two user interfaces, or ways for Quick Entry you to choose functions: Menu mode and Quick modes: Entry mode. You may switch between the two at any time with the F1 key. If you are using menus, you select your choice from the menu and are prompted for any additional information required. Using Quick Entry, your options are a lot more flexible but not as straightforward. You will see a prompt that says "Enter a recipe number or a search string or use Alt keys." The Quick Entry keys are listed in Appendix A, or you can see the list by pressing Alt-H at the main screen. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 13 Cleanup Mode: If you are using archives, QuikBook will normally leave the changed recipes in your work directory (see below) and move them to the archive as a group. If you would rather have QuikBook move the recipes to the archive immediately, you can tell it to do so. If you are using archives, you can tell QuikBook how many recipes you want it to keep in each archive. Copying recipes to an archive tends to slow down when it gets large, so depending on how fast your disk drive is, you may want to make this number smaller. This number is normally 100, and that works well for most hard disk systems. On a floppy disk system you may want to reduce this number to 50 or even 20. If you change the number of recipes per archive, QuikBook will ask you if you want the files converted and convert them for you if you say yes. As mentioned in the section on installation, QuikBook can store its data files, the archive files, and the recipe or work files in separate directories and/or on separate disk drives. If you change one of these directories, QuikBook will ask you if you want it to move the file for you and do so if you say yes. QuikBook needs to have enough memory to load the archive programs and the editor in addition to itself. The Miscellaneous Configuration screen shows you how much memory is available for the external programs, and lets you fine tune the memory usage to allow yourself more memory if you don't have enough. Normally this is not necessary. Relinking or Rebuilding the Index No matter how many safety and error checks are built into a program, there is always the possibility that something can go wrong -- disk errors, power outages, etc -- and damage the data files. The relink option reads the index file and re-sorts it. If searches don't work, relinking will probably fix the problem. Relink does NOT compare the index to the actual recipe files, it assumes the information in the index is correct, but the record links are damaged. If relink doesn't fix things, The rebuild option should be able to fix your database unless recipe files or archives are damaged. Rebuild erases the current index files and rebuilds them by reading the information from each recipe. You would normally only use rebuild if you somehow lost one or more your index files (QBOOK.DT0, QBOOK.DT1 and QBOOK.DT2). QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 14 Working with Single Recipes A "recipe" to QuikBook can be anything at all. It doesn't need to be instructions for preparing a food item. For example, if you have a lot of cookbooks with favorite recipes, rather than typing them into QuikBook you can simply add a "recipe" that is a reference to the page number in your cookbook. This way you can utilize the searching capabilities of QuikBook without having to type in recipes that you already have somewhere else. Other ideas are to store conversion tables or titles of cookbooks that you'd like to find someday. QuikBook makes them easy to find when you need them. Adding Recipes To add a recipe, choose the option from the main menu, or if you are using Quick Entry mode, press Alt-A. If you type in a title before pressing Alt-A, QuikBook will use that title for your new recipe. When you add a recipe, QuikBook creates a file called RECIPE##.###, where ##,### is the number of the recipe being created. If you create a file named TEMPLATE.QBK and place it in your data directory, QuikBook will use that as a template (ie: it will be copied to your new recipe prior to loading the editor) when you create a new recipe. If it is not found, QuikBook will put create a file with a "Title:" line and a "Keyword:" line for you. The first thing you should do is type in the title of the recipe you are adding. If you want to take advantage of QuikBook's indexing and searching capabilities, the next thing you should do is add keywords, which are used by QuikBook to search for a recipe. You do this by typing "Keywords: " (if it isn't already there) on line two and then typing in your keywords separated by commas. If you have too many keywords to fit on a line (80 characters across), just add another line beginning with "Keywords: ". Do not put a comma at the end of a keywords line, even if there are more keywords on the next line. Choosing keywords carefully makes it much easier for you to find the recipe you are looking for. QuikBook doesn't have the capability to search ingredients or the text of the recipe, so it is a good idea to list major ingredients as keywords. The best way to choose keywords is to think in terms of an index in a cookbook: What would you look under if you wanted to find this recipe and couldn't remember the title? You can have as many keywords as you want. Only the first 60 characters each keywords and title are indexed. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 15 Once you have entered your title and keywords, all you need to do is type in your recipe. Each line of your recipe should be less than 80 characters. Once you are done, save the file and exit the editor. QuikBook will add the recipe to the index and move it to the archive if you specified a command to do so when you configured the program. If you deleted the default command and left it blank, the recipe will not be moved and will be left in the RECIPE##.### file. Otherwise, the RECIPE##.### file will be deleted since it is now stored in the archive. Displaying Recipes To display a recipe, choose the option from the main menu, or if you are using Quick Entry mode, type the recipe number and press Enter. You can also display recipes from the mark/view screen by selecting the recipe with the arrow keys and pressing enter (see Marking Recipes). When a recipe is displayed, the title, recipe number and keywords are displayed on top. This header information does not scroll, the rest of the recipe can be scrolled with the Up, Down, PGUP and PGDN, Home and End keys. The Up and Down arrow keys scroll up or down one line at a time, PGUP and PGDN scroll a whole page at a time. Home displays the first page of the recipe, End displays the last. The following Quick Entry keys may be used while displaying a recipe. There is no menu mode while displaying a recipe since the menu would hide the recipe text. Alt-E: Loads the external editor that you specified when you configured the program and allows you to edit the recipe. On exit, if any changes were made to the recipe, those changes will be added to the data files. Alt-T: Allows you to change the title without loading the external editor. Alt-K: Allows you to change or add keywords without loading the external editor. Alt-O: Asks you for a file name and then writes the recipe to the file, adding to the end of any existing text in the file. Alt-P: Prints the recipe. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 16 Exporting Recipes Importing and exporting provide an easy way of exchanging recipes. When you export a recipe, QuikBook writes the recipe, its title and all its keywords into a file along with lines that mark the beginning and end of the recipe. The markers are necessary because one file can contain many exported recipes and QuikBook needs to be able to tell where one recipe ends and another begins. An exported recipe isn't formatted in any special way, aside from the begin and end markers. Exporting provides an easy way to exchange recipes. Just give a file of exported recipes to someone, either on floppy disks or by uploading to a computer bulletin board system (BBS), and that person can quickly import all of the recipes into his or her copy of QuikBook. Exported recipes can also be posted as messages on a computer BBS and other users can save them and import them. To export a recipe, press Alt-O (for OUTPUT) from the recipe display screen. Importing Recipes Importing is the complement of exporting. When you import a recipe, QuikBook reads a file that has been exported by someone else and adds the recipe to your database without you having to type the recipe in. You can also modify a recipe that isn't in the proper format to "fool" QuikBook into thinking it was exported by another QuikBook database. All you need to do is edit the file containing the recipes you want to import into QuikBook and type "-Begin Recipe Export-" (without the quote marks, but with the dashes) on a line immediately before the start of the recipe. Then go to the end of the recipe and type "-End Recipe Export-" on a line immediately after the end of the recipe. There can be as many recipes as you want in a file, but each one must have the begin and end markers. Anything between the end of one recipe and the start of another will be ignored by QuikBook. Recipe text is exactly as described in the section "Adding Recipes". There should be a line in the recipe (preferably the first) identifying the title, "Title: <title>". (you replace <title> with the title of your recipe) If there isn't a title tag, QuikBook will still import the recipe, but will give it the title "<unknown>". QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 17 It is recommended that there also be one or more keywords (preferably following the title line). The keyword lines should start with "Keywords:" and multiple keywords on a line should be separated by commas. There can be more than one keyword line. QuikBook can also import recipes exported from the program Meal-Master, another fine recipe database. You do not need to modify Meal-Master's exports in any way, QuikBook will be able to read them without modification. To import a recipe, choose import from the main menu, or press Alt-I in Quick Entry mode and you will be prompted for a file name. If you press ENTER without entering a file name, a list of files will be displayed and you can choose from them using the arrow keys. In Quick Entry mode you can also type in a file name and then press Alt-I and importing will begin without prompting you for a file name. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 18 Working with Groups of Recipes Often you want to work with more than one recipe at a time. QuikBook's Marked Recipe functions allow you to select a group of recipes to work with. If you choose the "Mark Recipes/View Titles" command from the main menu, or press Alt-M in Quick Entry mode, QuikBook will ask you for a search string (see the next section). In Quick Entry mode, you can also just type the search string and press either Alt-M or Enter and QuikBook will begin searching without prompting you. While in the Mark/View screen you can go directly to the recipe display screen by selecting a recipe with the arrow keys and pressing ENTER. If you press ENTER a second time, or press the ESCAPE key, you will return to the Mark/View screen. Searching for Recipes When you search, you will be prompted for a search string (the keyword or title you want to search for, or just the first few letters of the keyword or title). If you don't enter a search string, QuikBook will assume you want to work with all of the recipes. The section on Miscellaneous Configuration describes QuikBook's two search modes, Quick and Full. Marking Recipes The Marked Recipe screen shows the recipe numbers and titles of all recipes matching the search string you entered. You can scroll through the list using Up, Down, PGUP, PGDN, Home and End. You can mark and unmark individual recipes by pressing the space bar. When a recipe is marked, arrow symbols will appear on each side of the recipe number. To mark all of the recipes in the list, press Alt-M (mark all). To unmark all of the recipes that are marked, press Alt-U (unmark all). Once you have marked all the recipes you want to work with, you need to tell QuikBook what you want to do with them. You can pop up a menu by pressing the F1 key, or you can use Quick Entry keys. If you pop up the menu, you will not be able to mark or unmark individual recipes unless you press F1 again and remove the menu. If no recipes are marked, QuikBook will assume that you want to use the command on just the recipe that is highlighted by the cursor. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 19 The following Quick Entry keys perform the exact same functions as the corresponding menu choices: Alt-D: Deletes all of the marked recipes and removes them from the index and the archive (arc, zip, etc) files. If you are not using archives, the recipe file itself is deleted. Alt-P: Prints all of the marked recipes. Alt-O: Output or Export. This command writes all of the marked recipes to a file of your choice. If the file exists, the recipes will be added to the end. See Exporting. Alt-M: Mark all of the recipes in the list. Alt-U: Unmark all of the recipes in the list. Printing Indexes There are three types of indexes that can be printed: titles, keywords and combined. The title index lists all titles in alphabetical order, along with the recipe numbers (which are assigned in order as you add or import recipes). The keyword index lists the titles alphabetically, but grouped by keywords. For example: The keyword "Candies" would be listed followed by an indented list of the titles of all recipes containing that keyword. Recipe titles are ONLY listed under the appropriate keywords, if a recipe does not contain any keywords, it WILL NOT BE PRINTED in the keyword index. The combined index, as the name suggests, is a combination of the keyword index and the title index. The combined index resembles a good cookbook index where you can look up either a keyword or a title. Titles appear in boldface in the alphabetical listing along with the keywords, they also appear in the indented list of each keyword that the recipe is indexed under. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 20 Technical Information QuikBook was written using Microsoft QuickC version 2.01. The video functions (screens, menus, etc) are performed by Mike Smedley's Shareware function library, CXL (version 5.2). QuikBook Files QBook creates three index files. QBOOK.DT0 is always 8K and simply tells QBook which recipes exist. Each bit in the file identifies a recipe, thus there can be 65,536 recipes maximum. (The zero recipe is used for maintenance purposes, so you really only get 65,535). QBOOK.DT1 is used for indexing and its size depends on the number of recipe titles and keywords. QBOOK.DT2 is a quick lookup title index. It contains as many 61-byte records as you have recipes. These files are stored in the DATA directory defined in configuration. If QuikBook finds the optional TEMPLATE.QBK file in the DATA directory, it will use it as a template for creating new recipes. QBook expects to find the file QBOOK.CFG either in the current working directory or in the same directory as QBOOK.EXE. This file contains the configuration information for QBook. Recipes are given a name of the form: RECIPE##.###, where ##,### is the recipe number from 1 to 65,535. If you are using archives, these files normally won't be physically present (they are kept in the archive files), but if you reboot or lose power while using QBook, they may be there. They will be moved to the proper archive file the next time you run QuikBook. These files are stored in the WORK directory. Finally, the REC##### files contain the RECIPE##.### files. The extension of these files depends on the compression tool you use (there is no extension for subdirectories). For the default configuration, the name is RECIP###.ZIP. These files are stored in the ARCHIVE directory. The ##,### portion of the archive file name identifies the number of the first recipe it contains. For example, REC00100.ZIP contains recipe00.100 through recipe00.199 (if using the default 100 recipes per archive file). QuikBook maintains all these files for you, so all you need to do is back them up regularly in case of disk failure or human error. Make sure you get all the archive files AND the QBOOK.DT? files when you back up the data. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 21 Why use archives? QuikBook stores the recipes as individual files for a number of reasons. Primarily because it is much easier to lose all of your data if all the recipes are stored in a single file. If one of the QuikBook's recipe files becomes corrupt, you still have the rest of your recipes. All of the information about a recipe is stored in the file itself, so even if the index files are erased, they can easily be rebuilt. The disadvantage to storing recipes this way is the amount of disk space used. At first, this may not seem like much since recipe files are often very small, usually less than 1024 bytes. Unfortunately, DOS has an inefficient method of storing files, especially when those files are small. The problem is the cluster size of the disk. The amount of disk space taken up by a file is in multiples of this number. The cluster size is typically 1, 2 or 4K bytes. (On a high density floppy it is 512 bytes and on a low density floppy it is 1K) When you compress recipes into archive files, you have less files and thus less disk space wasted. In an example taken from the author's system, 533 recipes totaling 544,796 actual bytes take up 1,167,360 bytes on a hard disk with 2K clusters. Those same files stored 100 recipes per archive total 388,096 bytes and take up 393,216 bytes of disk space. Those same recipe files moved to a hard disk with 4K clusters take up an incredible 2,199,552 bytes of disk space! That's 75% wasted! Stored 100 recipes per archive, the amount of disk space used shrinks to 397,312 bytes. Storing the recipes in archives does slow things down slightly, so you will have to decide whether time or space is more important to you when determining whether to use archives. On a floppy system it might make more sense to not use archives, since the speed difference will be more pronounced and the disk space wasted less pronounced. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 22 Import Specifications When reading an import file, QuikBook will start loading a recipe when it finds a line containing "Recipe Extracted from" OR "-Begin Recipe Export-". It keeps reading until it finds a line containing "-End Recipe Export-" or IF AND ONLY IF it started with "Recipe Extracted from" it stops when it finds a line that DOES NOT start with two blank spaces, is EXACTLY 77 characters long, and ends with at least eight dashes. It DOES NOT let recipes that started with a "-Begin Recipe Export-" end with a line of dashes, but it does let recipes that start with "Recipe Extracted from" end with an "-End Recipe Export-". There can be text before the first begin marker, and between an end marker and the next begin marker -- QuikBook will ignore it. If an end marker is spelled incorrectly (or a Meal Master import has been changed so the last line isn't as described above), QuikBook will keep going until it finds an end marker or the recipe exceeds one of the size limits set in configuration. If QuikBook comes across a second begin marker while reading a recipe, it just assumes it is part of the recipe. It only stops when it sees an end marker. The begin and end markers are not case sensitive in version 0.96 or later. They must, however, be exactly as described above (without the quotes and with the dashes). There can be no spaces between the dashes and the letter they precede or follow. After reaching the end of a recipe, QuikBook looks for "Title:", "TITLE:" or "title:" and takes the 60 characters following the colon as the title (skipping preceding spaces and ending at the end of the line). Next, it looks for any lines containing "Keyword:", "KEYWORD:" or "keyword:" and expects keywords to be comma separated or on separate lines. If the recipe was a Meal Master export, it looks for "Categories" and identifies individual keywords as starting with capital letters. "Categories" is changed to "Keywords" and commas are added. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 23 Quick Entry Quick Reference From the main prompt, This is what if you: will happen: Enter a recipe number The recipe for the number you selected is displayed. Press ENTER The Marked Recipe screen will be displayed with all titles shown. Enter a search string or The Marked Recipe screen will Type a search string and be displayed showing all titles press Alt-M matching the string. See "Searching for Recipes" and "Marking Recipes" Press Alt-M The Marked Recipe screen will be displayed and you will be prompted for a search string. Press Alt-A The external editor will be loaded to allow you to enter a new recipe. See "Editing Recipes" Type a title and The same as Alt-A, but the press Alt-A recipe will be given the title you entered when it is loaded into the editor. Press Alt-I You will be prompted for a file name to import from and importing will begin. See "Importing". Type a file name and QuikBook will begin importing press Alt-I from the file name you entered. Press Alt-P You will be prompted for the type of index you want to print. See "Printing". Press Alt-C The configuration menu will be displayed. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 24 Credits ARC is a trademark of System Enhancement Associates Epson is a trademark of Epson America, Inc. Meal-Master is a trademark of Scott Welliver and Episoft Systems MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation PKZIP and PKUNZIP are trademarks of PKWARE, Inc. Thanks to the participants of the Fidonet Cooking Echo for giving me the inspiration and incentive to write this program. A special thanks to the people who have Alpha tested this version and provided many suggestions and bug reports: Sheryl LeWinter, Bill Danahey and Mike Avery. Thanks also to the other active participants on the QuikBook Beta and support echo: Ellen Cleary, John DeCarlo, Hobert Keaton, Barbara Tucker. (And to Willie Wilson and John Woodward for carrying the echo for their users). And thanks to the other users who have take the time to send me comments and suggestion. And finally, thanks to my wife, Dori Butler, for helping me make this documentation more readable and understandable. QuikBook Version 0.96ß User's Guide (draft/4) Page: 25 Registration Form QuikBook is Shareware. If you use it beyond the thirty day evaluation period, you must register it. For $20 (US) you will receive a diskette containing the most recent version of QuikBook and a set of QuikBook utilities that are only available to registered users. If you register or have registered a version of QuikBook prior to version 1.00, the following introductory offer applies: If the paid registration is postmarked on or before April 20, 1990 the registration cost is $10 (US). You will receive a diskette with QuikBook 1.00 and utilities when it is released. Please send your registration to: Robert J. Butler 7432 Sheridan Ave. South Richfield, MN 55423 QuikBook 0.96 beta registration form Name:__________________________________________ Address:____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ Fidonet address (if any):_______________________________ If the registration is postmarked on or before 4/20/90: ____ Copies of QuikBook @ $10 each: $__________ If the registration is postmarked after 4/20/90 ____ Copies of QuikBook @ $20 each: $__________ Disk format: 5 1/4" _____ 3 1/2" _____ Comments/Problems: