Loadstar 128 #32/q32side1.d64/t.masterfile 96

Text File | 1992-01-01 | 18.6 KB | 436 lines

                         M A S T E R F I L E    9 6

                             by Robert B. Cook

                  Merged with Concatenator by Terry Ricks


 FENDER'S PREMUMBLE: Terry Ricks of San Antonio TX sent me a revised
version of MASTERFILE II (published on LS 128 #14) that had the
Concatenator and the upgrades (from LS 128 #18) merged into the program.
Now you can easily connect data files to each other without leaving the
main program.  Thanks, Terry!  Since searching is one of the most useful
things you can do with a database program, being able to hook separate data
files together is important for full searches of files you might prefer to
keep separate for one reason or another.  Now here are the docs for
MASTERFILE '96 as written by the author, Bob Cook.


    MASTERFILE is a database management program for the C-128.  It's
memory-based and uses SEQuential files.  It will allow you to create your
own database, choose the field titles, the number and length of the fields
and print the records in the form of lists or labels.

    MASTERFILE can lend itself to many applications.  It could, for
example, be used as an appointment calendar, memo pad, address/phone list,
disk label maker, etc.  The easiest way to learn to use MASTERFILE is to
create your own data file using the following instructions.  It's a good
idea to print out this text file by using the Print function of the
LOADSTAR 128 menu.


 Initialize New File
 -------------------

    The first thing you must do is create or initialize your new file.
Choose Menu option 1, Initialize New File.  Any choice other than
Initialize or Load File From Disk will display an error message to let you
know that there are no records or file in memory.  Let's learn how to use
MASTERFILE II by creating a database called "friends".  It will be an
address/phone list.  Put the highlight bar on Initialize New File and press
RETURN.

    You'll be asked for the number of fields.  Enter 7 for this sample.
Keep in mind that when you create your file, you're defining the structure
to which all of your records must conform, so you should carefully evaluate
your choice of fields.  It is possible to change the structure of the file
by using Revise File Structure but if you have a large file, restructuring
it may cause problem.  These will be explained later.

    Enter the following information at the prompts:

 FIELD       TITLE          LENGTH
 ------------------------------------
   1        Last Name          12
   2        First Name         10
   3        Street             20
   4        City               16
   5        State               2
   6        ZIP                10
   7        Phone              12

Note that the ZIP code field allows for nine digits plus a dash, and the
phone field allows for area codes.

    After the last item is entered the approximate amount of record space
will be displayed.  If this amount is acceptable then press Y to return to
the Main Menu.


 Add Records
 -----------

    Then choose Add Records to File.  Enter five or so records into your
file.  You may enter an up arrow (^) whenever you want to repeat the data
from the previous record.  If your friends are all from the same city, this
will save you plenty of typing.

    MASTERFILE will accept most SHIFTed characters, graphics, colons, semi-
colons and commas.  HOME will take you to the beginning of the line.  TAB
or the CRSR keys will move the cursor along the line.  INST and DEL work as
you would expect.

    After entering your records, press the ESC key to return to the Main
Menu.  As a matter of fact, almost ANYTIME you want to return to a previous
menu, press ESCape.


 Manage Records
 --------------

    Next, choose Manage Records.  A new menu will be displayed allowing you
to View, Search, Revise, Delete or Sort your records.  Choose View
Individual records.

    Record #1 will be displayed along with a sub-menu.  As indicated by the
menu, you may step through the records in ascending or descending order
using the + and - keys.  The other options are:

 1.  Goto - You'll be prompted to enter the record number.

 2.  Print - Prints the record currently displayed.  Be sure to have your
printer hooked up and switched on.

 3.  Copy - Allows you to copy a whole record to another, existing, record.
Just enter the number of the record you want the displayed record to be
copied to.

 4.  Revise - Allows you to make modifications to the record currently
displayed.  You will be prompted for the field number that you wish to
revise.

 5.  Delete - Removes the currently displayed record from your file.  Press
X to delete or ESC to escape.  If the records were previously sorted then a
deletion may require a resort.  A message will be displayed to make you
aware of this.

 6.  Exit - Takes you back to the Manage Records Menu.

NOTE:  If you have a block of records to revise or delete, it's more
convenient to use the Revise or Delete Selected Records option, which is
explained below.

    Search for Common Items allows you to search through your file to
locate records with a field containing common data.  At the prompts enter
the field you wish searched, then the type of search, Full, Specific or
Unequal.  Then enter the characters or items you wish to search for.

  Full - search the full length of the field and will display all records
with a match.

  Specific - search only that portion of the field you have indicated.  For
example, if you wish to search the phone field for numbers with the calling
area 456, prefix the search characters with question marks to indicate the
position of the numbers, ????456.  The search will begin with the fifth
character, disregarding the first four, the area code and the dash.  This
prevents the search from locating telephone numbers with 456 in any other
position.

  Unequal - the exact opposite of the specific search, in that it locates
records not equal to the selected characters.  Indicate the position of the
characters just as you would in the specific search.

   Revise Selected Records and Delete Selected Records allow you to revise
or delete selected blocks of records.  The prompt requests you to enter the
range of records.  If you want to revise or delete only one record, enter
it only then press RETURN.  One thing to remember when revising records,
the change you enter affects all of the records in the range you've
selected.

   Sort All Records enables you to sort your records by up to three fields.
Enter the field number for the primary field sort and then the first and
second subsort field.  The subsorts are used when a finer sort is required.
For instance, when alphabetizing your file by name, the primary field would
be field 1, Last Name, and the first subsort would be field 2, First Name.
If both might be identical then the second subsort could be by state or
ZIP.  If a subsort isn't desired, then enter 0 or press RETURN.

    Because file data is stored as strings, numbers are sorted according to
their position within the string, and not by their value.  Therefore,
numbers such as birthdays, (032753), addresses, (050 Main St.), etc. should
be consistent in length and, if necessary, prefixed with zeroes.


 Revise File Structure
 ---------------------

    If, after using MASTERFILE for a time, you decide that your file
structure doesn't meet your present needs, you can make the appropriate
changes quite easily with this option from the Main Menu.

    A new menu allows you to Change the field Name or Length, Add or Delete
a Field, or Reorder the Fields.  Choose an option and, at the prompts,
enter the field number and the change.

    When a field or field name is lengthened, or a field is added, you must
realize that this will reduce the number of available records.  To prevent
the possible loss of some records when the file is almost full, be sure to
have a current copy of your file saved to disk before you attempt this. You
only have to worry about this when you have an almost-full file.

    Also, when adding a field, (unless a field has been deleted in the
current file), the file must be saved to complete the addition of the new
field and then reloaded before you can access the new field.


 Save File To Disk
 -----------------

    Data files have the unique prefix "mf:" automatically added when the
file is saved to indicate that this is a MASTERFILE data file.  A list of
the MASTERFILE files on the disk will be displayed.  Do not enter the "mf:"
prefix.  It will be entered for you.

    If there is already a file of the same name as the one you want to
save, you'll be asked if you would like to rename the existing file.  If
you enter N for No, the file will be scratched.  If you enter Y for Yes,
the file, if it exists, will be renamed with the suffix ":2" to indicate
that this is a back-up or an old version.  Existing files with the suffix
":2" will be scratched.


 Load File From Disk
 -------------------

    This works the same as the Save routine.


 Disk Utilities
 --------------

    For your convenience, this module lets you list the directory, rename
or scratch files, format a disk or change the drive number, and concatenate
(link) files.

    When renaming or scratching files, you are required to indicate what
type of file you are dealing with; MASTERFILE data (mf:), Report (mr:), or
Label (ml:).

    One of the options, Drive Commands, allows you to Validate, Initialize,
Read the error channel and select whether you are in 1541 or 1571 mode. See
your drive manual for disk formatting and drive number info.

 NOTE: Do not, under any circumstances, validate a disk with Geos files.  A
disk with Geos files can only be validated from within Geos.

    The Concatenator module allows you to put two or more data files
together as one file.  Then you can search or work on the whole thing as
one file.  The directory is shown on the screen so you can easily enter the
names of the files you want hooked together.


 Format/Print Records
 --------------------

     After you've entered the desired number of files, you'll probably want
to format them for a report, a list, labels or signs, and then print them
out.  You may also print your records unformatted.


 Format Reports and Lists
 ------------------------

    This takes you to a menu with four options: Define/Review Format, Save
File to Disk, Load File from Disk and Exit to Format Menu.  Choose the
first option, Define/Review Format.

    Your first entry will be the report width.  If you're using a standard
type size of ten characters per inch and paper width of 8 1/2 inches, then
enter 80.  This will give you 80 characters per line with 1/4 inch borders.
Adjustments may be made in the report width for paper or type size that
varies from the above.

    Next, you may enter up to five title lines, all of which will be
automatically centered when printed out.  Go ahead and type in a title or
two.  Then, indicate the number of columns you want, from 1 to 10.  Each
column and field within a column will be separated by one space, so take
that into account.  Let's use 5.

    Column width is determined by the data each column will hold.  The five
columns you specified will hold the following fields: Name, Street, City,
State and ZIP, and phone.  The field lengths are displayed directly above
the prompt to aid you.

    The range shown for column 1 should be (1 to 76), or 80 minus 4 spaces.
If you add up all the field lengths you'll notice that it totals 83,
obviously too wide to fit the 76 columns allowed.  So we'll reduce the
column width for some fields.

    The first column will hold two fields, First and Last Names.  The total
length of these fields equals 22, but because most names will be less than
22 characters, it should be safe to enter 20 for the width.  The fields for
the second column, Street, equal 20.  Enter 18 for this width and 13 for
the city.  The last two column widths are 7 and 18.  The total of the
columns will be the maximum 76 spaces.

    At times it may be desirable to separate two columns with more than one
space.  If so, add an extra column then set the width to the number of
spaces desired minus 1.

    If there are spaces remaining, the next prompt asks you to specify the
number of spaces the columns are to be indented.  If you use less than the
maximum number of columns for data then this feature will allow you to
center the report on the paper.  For our example, there are no spaces
remaining, so this prompt won't be displayed.

    Enter the headings for each column at the prompt.  You may notice that
each heading length is restricted to the width of its respective column;
which means that some headings will have to be abbreviated.

    You're allowed five fields per column.  Enter the fields in the order
in which you want them printed. The first column will contain the name
fields in this order: 2, 1, 0, 0, 0.  First name, Last name, then zeroes
for the rest.  Press RETURN after each number.  Do the same for each of the
remaining four colums, entering 3, 0, 0, 0, 0 for the Street field, 4, 0,
0, 0, 0 for the City field, 5, 6, 0, 0, 0 for the State and ZIP, and 7, 0,
0, 0, 0 for the Phone field.

    The last piece of information required is the columns you would like
totaled, if any.  In this case you'll enter a zero.  If you had data that
you wanted totaled, you'd enter the appropriate column number(s) separated
by commas.

    You should now be back at the Format Reports Menu.  It would be a good
idea to save this format now, so choose Save File to Disk from the Reports
and Lists Menu.  If you previously saved your data file, then the filename
you used will be displayed along with the Report Format prefix "mr:" and
all you have to do is press RETURN.  The prefix indicates that this is a
MASTERFILE report file and allows you to save the data and format its files
using a common filename.

    Load File from Disk works the same way as Save File from Disk.


 Format Labels and Signs
 -----------------------

    The first option, Define/ Review Format, allows you to define your
label format just as you defined your report format.

    Enter the width and height of the label in inches; the whole number
followed by a dash then the fraction. Example: 3-1/2.  You MUST follow the
above format.  Do not leave any blanks.  Enter zeroes wherever a number is
not used.  For our test we'll use a 3 1/2 x 15/16 inch label.  Enter 3-1/2
for the width and 0-15/16 for the height.

    Since printers have many different types of print styles, you can
choose the pitch, or number of characters per inch.  For instance, Pica is
usually 10 cpi, Elite is 12 cpi, Condensed Pica is 17 cpi, and Condensed
Elite is 20 cpi on a Star NX-1000 printer.  This allows you to print longer
fields on your labels.  See your printer manual for the pitches your
printer allows.

    Next, you'll be prompted to enter the number of rows desired. Displayed
at the top of the screen are the maximum number of rows and characters per
row available to you, as determined by the pitch you chose. We'll need
three rows.  You may find it easier to add blank rows in order to center
the rows vertically within the label, rather than adjusting the labels
within the printer for various label sizes.

    If you have a label strip that is more than one label wide, then enter
the number of labels across.  When the labels are printed, a different
record will printed on each label.  Enter 1 for this file.

    Enter the fields for each row just as you did when formatting reports.
For the first row, (First, Last Name), enter 2, 1, 0, the second row,
(Street), 3, 0, 0, and the last row, (City, State, ZIP), 4, 5 and 6.

    And finally, enter the number of spaces to indent each row for
centering, in this case, 0.

    You will return to the Format Labels menu.  Save your label format in
the same manner that you saved your report format.  This file will be
automatically saved with the prefix "ml:" to indicate that it is a
MASTERFILE label file.

    Now let's exit to the Format/Print menu.


 Configure Printer
 -----------------

    Next, let's define your printer functions.  This menu will allow you to
configure up to two printers or interfaces.  Pressing Options 1 or 2 will
cause the arrow to move to the printer chosen.  This allows you to have two
printers hooked up to your computer and to place either one on-line.

    We'll configure printer #1, so set the arrow at Printer/Interface #1
and choose Enter printer Codes.  At the prompt, enter information to
identify the printer, such as its name.  Next, enter the device number, 4
or 5, whichever the printer is set up for.  This is usually 4.

    At this point, if your printer is not attached or switched on, you'll
receive an error message.  You can switch on your printer to continue.  You
can't enter the printer codes unless the printer is connected and on.

    You may configure your printer using up to nine function codes.  These
can be found in your printer manual.  You can enter either alpha or numeric
codes.  For example, to start enhanced printing on an Okidata 120, enter
27, for chr$(27), as the first code and H as the second.  Press RETURN with
no entry to skip a function.

    A submenu will be displayed allowing you to revise the information just
entered, test the printer by printing a string of characters, or exit.

    The printer configuration data is saved along with the MASTERFILE data
file.  If you would like to preserve it, return to the Main Menu and resave
your file.


 Print Records Unformatted
 -------------------------

    This will print your records unchanged and, if you choose, with the
record number.


 Print Reports and List
 ----------------------

    This will print your records using the report format you designated.


 Print Labels and Signs
 ----------------------

    This will print your records using the labels format you designated.

    Each of the Print options above takes you to another menu with four
options:

 (1) Print All Records - prints all of your records in the format of your
choice.

 (2) Selected Records - allows you to print a consecutive block of records.
Enter the record numbers separated by a dash.

 (3) Records with Common Fields - lets you choose the records you wish to
print using the search mode as discussed in Managing Your Records.

 (4) Exit to Print Menu (or pressing the ESC key) will abort printing and
return you to the Print menu.

    And that takes care of this many-menued program.  Any program this
powerful is going to require your attention but we feel certain that it
will be worth it.  You may want to practice printing out formatted reports
and labels to the back side of some used printer paper till you get the
formatting just as you want it.

    Robert B. Cook and LOADSTAR hope you enjoy and use MASTERFILE II for
all your database needs.

                  \\\\\ R - Run   RETURN - Menu \\\\\