Magnum One/Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso/d10/qeasy.arc/ADDRESS.DOC

Text File | 1990-07-06 | 12.5 KB | 275 lines

                     T h e   Q u i c k   &   E a s y


                   A d d r e s s  &  P h o n e  B o o k


                               Version 1.0



          The Quick & Easy Address & Phone Book is, as the name
        implies, an easy to use address and phone number manager.
        Quick & Easy allows for searches based on first and last
        name fields, provides listings of your addresses on screen,
        supports a variety of print options, those of a master list
        (all entries), telephone listing (again, all entries), and
        the ability to print single entries on envelopes and/or
        labels, ASCII export capability, as well as a command line
        option, allowing quick look up of a single entry when that's
        all you need.  And every option is just a keystroke or two
        away.

          You will find Quick & Easy extremely easy to use, and
        therefore it is almost entirely self-explanatory, but what
        follows will help clear up any ambiguities and clarify what
        Quick & Easy is capable of.


        Who is Quick & Easy for?

          Quick & Easy is designed with the home user in mind, one
        who likes to keep an up-to-date address/phone listing
        without tons of additional data for each person (birthday,
        anniversary, company, etc.).  I wrote this program due to
        the lack of simple dedicated address managers available,
        commercial or otherwise.  I wanted something for myself that
        was quick, clean, and a breeze to use - preferably without
        spending a large sum of money.  I found that other programs
        either did everything, or did what they did poorly
        (specifically it was the interfaces that irritated me).
        This is the result. If you need all these additional data
        fields, you'll need either another program, or my forth-
        coming business version of Quick & Easy.


        What good is Quick & Easy?

          Quick & Easy will provide instant look up capability for a
        name or address.  The command line option is especially
        useful for when you need that single address or telephone
        number 'now'.  Quick & Easy prints out your entire list of
        addresses, or single addresses.  A nice option is its
        ability to print an address on an envelope, something which
        usually is more trouble than it's worth using many
        applications.  Hopefully, it will make your life a little
        easier.


        What do I need to run Quick & Easy?

          Quick & Easy runs in color or monochrome.  A hard disk
        will make your life easier (and the program run faster), as
        well as allow you to save larger data files (Technically,
        each entry occupies 136 bytes).  Regardless, Quick & Easy
        will work on a single floppy system.  The program is not
        memory resident.


        Running Quick & Easy.

          The first time you load Quick & Easy, you can't do too
        much.  You need to input names, addresses and phone numbers
        first, which will be saved to disk once you decide to quit.
        You should first choose the [A]dd Entry option, type in the
        entry, and either hit F1 to save that single entry, F2 to
        save that entry and continue entering other names and
        addresses, or F3, which is the same as F2 except for the
        fact that the city, state, zip code, and any area codes
        present are preserved and act as the default values for the
        next entry.  Hit Esc any time to exit or abort.  After
        typing in an entry, the entry is automatically sorted (by
        last name) and placed in alphabetical order with the rest of
        the entries.

          Every time you quit Quick & Easy (Esc), it checks to see
        if you've added, changed, or deleted any entries, and if so,
        it updates the file ADDRESS.DAT.  If you have not made any
        changes, it will not bother to save the file.


        Search Options.

          Once you have a selection of addresses, you can [S]earch
        for an entry by either [F]irst or [L]ast name (you need to
        provide the program with either a complete name or the
        first part of the name which you wish to find).  For
        instance, if you wanted to find Scott Kral, you could search
        by last name by only typing in either 'K', 'KR', 'KRA' or
        'KRAL'.  The more incomplete the name, the more entries you
        may have to wade through before you find the one which you
        wish to find.


        Print Options.

          There are several printing options available, ones which
        print the entire list of entries and those which handle
        single entries.  The [T]elephone print option alphabetically
        prints a list of names and their respective home and
        business telephone numbers plus any possible business
        extension.  For example,

         Kral, Scott                [phone]  [phone]

        The [M]aster list provides a printed report containing name,
        and address.  In this case, you'd print out

         Scott Kral, 783 Lurline Drive, Foster City, CA 94404
                 Home: [phone]  Business: [phone]

        Finally, you may print out an entry individually and have it
        centered for envelopes, if you wish.  All you need to do is
        find the entry you want to print (via the [S]earch, [P]rint
        Options or [L]ist menus) and pressing 'p'.  You will be
        prompted for your preferences, such as a title.  If you need
        to print out a list of names and telephone numbers, in a form
        other than the [M]aster list option provides, you'll need to
        export your data file to ASCII and print it out either through
        another program or through DOS (See DOS' Print command).


        Exporting Your Data File.

          As just mentioned, you may some time wish to [E]xport the
        entire list of addresses to an external ASCII file, which in
        Quick & Easy's case provides the file ADDRESS.TXT.  This
        could be useful for use in other programs, such as word
        processors.  If an existing ADDRESS.TXT file exists once
        this option is selected, the older file will be overwritten.
        This is the F1 option.

          You may also [E]xport your data file to a data file under
        the name of ADDRESS.MRG for the purpose of mail-merging your
        data into word processing documents.  It is in the following
        format:

        First Name, Last Name, Street Address, City, State, Zip Code,
        Home Area Code, Home Phone, Business Area Code, Business Phone,
        Business Extention

        This order is important for defining the incoming data to your
        word processor.  If any entries are blank, they are not spaces
        but blanks, followed by a comma.  For example:

        Scott,Kral,783 Lurline Drive,Foster City,CA,94404,123,456-7890,,,

        This would be the result of my record if I had a home phone
        number but no business number or extention.  Each entry is
        separated by a carriage return.


        Command Line Option.

          At any time in DOS, provided both ADDRESS.EXE and ADDRESS.DAT
        are either in the current directory or your path, you may search
        for an individual entry and have it displayed on-screen if found.
        All that is necessary is to type in a last name, or partial
        string, after the ADDRESS command.  For example, searching again
        for 'Kral' without actually entering the program would be accomp-
        lished by the following command:

                              ADDRESS KRAL     (Return)

        If found, the entry will be shown (if multiple entries were
        found to satisfy the search string, you will be given the
        opportunity to scroll through each), else you will be told
        that it was not found. I think you'll find this one of the
        most useful aspects of Quick & Easy.


        Entering Your Data.

          Quick & Easy has both a strength and a weakness in dealing
        with its entries.  Upon entering them, you need not
        capitalize each name, street, and city.  After you save the
        entry, the names and address are automatically set into
        lowercase then the first letters of each string are
        capitalized - something which is convenient, yet may result
        in errors, at least compared to the way you typed them in.
        For instance, if the name DePalma was entered as such, you
        would later see it as Depalma.  Such errors can be changed
        later on through the [C]hange Entry option available at
        several points in the program.  Any changes made through the
        [C]hange option become permanent, therefore overriding the
        changes made previously by the [A]dd Entry option.


        Worried About Memory?

          If you would like to see how you are doing on memory at any
        time, just press 'M' at the Main Menu and in the top left-hand
        corner your total available conventional memory will be shown.
        If you find yourself with under 20k, consider saving your data
        just in case.  There are several checks that will stop you from
        unintentionally running out of memory, but it's better to be
        safe than sorry.


          That's about it; all the remaining options are self
        explanatory.  Don't worry about experimenting.  The program
        always asks your permission before it undertakes a destructive
        or potentially destructive activity.


        Software Agreement.

          If you find yourself using this piece of software
        repeatedly, and find it to be of usefulness, I only ask for
        a $10.00 payment.  This serves several purposes.  It lets me
        know people are using this program, and with satisfaction,
        and therefore will motivate me to continue updating and
        improving Quick & Easy.  It is also some minor return for
        the hours I spent on the program.  Working in software
        retailing, I know that if this program were to be sold on
        the shelf for $10.00, it most likely would become a popular
        item (not unlike many great Shareware programs available
        today).

          You are free to make unlimited copies of this program for
        your use, for your friends, etc.  However, if you operate a
        software  distribution service (Shareware, Public Domain
        service, often  selling disks for $2.00-$5.00), I require a
        one time payment of $15.00 for the right to include this
        program in your library.  After all, you're making a profit
        off my work.

          I hope that you will find this program enjoyable to use
        and become more productive by its use.  However, and here's
        the legal stuff: The program is provided "as is" without
        warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied,including,
        but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability
        and fitness for a particular purpose.  In addition, I cannot
        guarantee that this program is free from all bugs and defects.


        User Support and Comments.

          I would love to hear from you as to your opinions of the
        program, and any recommendations for improvement.  I am
        planning on releasing a version for business users, including
        additional fields such as company name, note fields, additional
        phone numbers, etc., but if you are interested, I can customize
        this program for your personal needs.

          Please send your $10.00 registration (or $15.00 dealer
        registration), comments and other communication to


                          Scott K. Kral
                          783 Lurline Drive
                          Foster City, California  94404


        I'll keep you advised of future updates and upgrades as well
        as other news regarding this, and other future products.
        After receiving your registration, you'll be eligible for a
        free copy of the forthcoming business version of Quick &
        Easy, which will be sent to you.  Thanks for your support
        and I hope you enjoy Quick & Easy.


        (c) 1990 Scott K. Kral