Documentation for ReConvert --------------------------- This document describes the usage of ReConvert. Description Selecting the source format Selecting the destination format Using the Source stringgadget Using the GetSource gadget Using the Destination stringgadget Using the GetDestination gadget Converting your projects Troubleshooting Known bugs History All binaries, source-codes and documentation regarding ReConvert is copyrighted to Ketil Hunn 1993-1994. The copyrights stated for the Recall package applies to this program also. Description This utility is implemented with all you database-users out there in mind. As previous releases of Recall did not include such a utility, converting a list of birthdays from a database to a Recall project could be quite a time consuming task. Well, not any more! The whole process is now automated (Automatic for the people, right?). By using this handy utility, you can easily convert your database directly to Recall project format. The program can be run as a stand-alone utility or as an automatic process controlled by Recall Preferences! The utility is self-explaining and easy to use. Explaining the source listview This listview lists all possible source formats of the project. By selecting one of its items, you describe what type or format the selected source-file will be. The selected item will be highlighted. Currently these formats and types are supported: ASCII Recall V1.x Recall V2.x Explaining the destination listview This listview lists all possible destination formats of the project. By selecting one of its items, you describe what type or format the selected destination-file will be. The selected item will be highlighted. Currently these formats and types are supported: ASCII Recall V2.x Using the source stringgadget This gadget is a standard stringgadget, in which the user may enter the name of the source-file to be loaded and converted. The exact path must be included in the filename, unless the file is resident in the currently active drawer. Using the GetSource gadget A more convenient way of selecting a source file, is of course by selecting it in a filerequester. Pressing this gadget pops up a standard ASL filerequester, in which you may select your source file. The selected filename will be copied to the source stringgadget. Using the destination stringgadget This gadget is a standard stringgadget, in which the user may enter the name of the destination file which will be created. The exact path must be included in the filename, or else the file will be created in the current active drawer. Using the GetDestination gadget A more convenient way of selecting a destination file, is of course by selecting it in a filerequester. Pressing this gadget pops up a standard ASL filerequester, in which you may select your destination file. The selected filename will be copied to the destination stringgadget. Converting your project Pressing this gadget starts the converting procedure. The selected file will be loaded in the selected source format and saved in the new destination format under the selected destination filename. When convert- ing large projects, this process may take a while. The gadget will be ghosted as long as the source-name or destination-name are not correct or not entered. If an error is detected when loading the sourcefile, the whole converting process will be aborted and a requester will pop up, explaining the error. If this occurs, please check if you have selected the right source format for the selected file. Describing the ASCII format All ASCII texts in the following format are accepted: EVENT/A,DATE/A,TIME/A,TEXT/M All items must be enclosed in quotation marks '"' and separated by a comma. NOTE! NO comma at end of line! As stated, TEXT may occur as many times as you wish. If these fields do not exist in you database, it should quite easy to create them globally and then save the database as an ASCII-file. As an example, the following lines will be accepted: "Remember","29.8.1993","11:00","To put your jeans on BEFORE your shoes!" "Event2","12.12.1993","00:00" Describing the Recall V1.x format This format is the format used previous to version 2.0 of Recall. If you have an old project which you want to use under V2.x, just select Recall V1.x as source and Recall V2.0 as destination and go for it! The 'old' V1.x-format may also be imported directly into Recall Preferences. Describing the Recall V2.x format Beginning with version 2.0, the format is now standard IFF FORM. This simplifies and standardize the reading and saving of the project, in addition to reducing the project's size by 20%! Troubleshooting How do I load a SuperBase 4 Database file from Recall? First you must save your database in ASCII format. Select Process->Export from the menu in SuperBase 4 and press OK in the next two requesters. Then select the name of your ASCII-database-file and press OK to save. After this, all you need is to select Import->ASCII from Recall Preferences and it will be loaded as a standard Recall V2.x project file! An example script is included in the Scripts drawer and shows how data from a database may be extracted and converted into a Recall project file. The script is copyrighted Thorsten Gau. SEE ALSO Describing the ASCII format Known bugs - When setting the source type to ASCII, any attempt to load a NON ASCII file will crash the program! - The ASCII-module is not very stable and will not accept data in other formats than described. History The ReConvert version follows the notation ., meaning that V2.10 is greater than V2.2. The current version can be printed out using 'Version full RecallConverter' or by selecting Project->About from the menu. Nov.93 V1.0 First released version. 05.Dec.93 V1.1 NEW The program is now localized. NEW Great deal of the source was rewritten to use internal rom-routines. This reduces the size almost 5K! FIX The program did not deallocate all memory used. FIX The default source is now "ENVARC:in file" and default destination is "ENVARC:out file", making it easier to access the ENVARC: drawer. FIX Import from ASCII interpreted the date and time values wrong. (Reported by Dirk Böhmer). FIX Enforcer Hit when accidentally loading certain non Recall IFF-files (such as ReqTools.prefs). FIX It was not possible to save the converted file under the default name. 04.Mar.94 V1.2 NEW Italiano catalogs included. NEW Nederlands catalogs included. FIX ASCII import did not handle commas inside strings. (Reported by Thorsten Gau). FIX ReConvert was looking for the on-line-guide under the name 'RecallConverter.guide', while it in fact was named 'ReConvert.guide'. (Reported by Michael Zielinski). FIX Fixed a bug in the IFF save-routine, which caused a GURU on some machines. FIX Safer IFF-saving. FIX Prefs only allocates memory for the Asl-requester when used. FIX ReConvert caused a guru on some machines, when it was controlled by Recall Preferences.