My address is: Mark M Forrester, 9 Tayview Road, Liff, By Dundee, Scotland, DD2 5PE Software Lister v2.0 (c) 1993 Mark M Forrester. User Guide. Contents. Item. 1. Shareware Notice. 2. Introduction. 3. Using The Gadgets. 4. Menu Items. 5. Conclusion. 6. Appendix A - Using The Convert Program. 7. Appendix B - Improvements Made. 1. Shareware Notice. This program is a SHAREWARE product. If you like and use the program please send £5 to the address found in this file. If this is done you will be added to my registration list regarding future versions or projects. Please send critical evaluations, bugs, improvements e.t.c. to the same address. All mail will be answered. Thank you very much. 2. Introduction. The purpose of this program is not to be the best database program in the world but to be a ready made database for a specific purpose. Since everyone who will use this program will have some kind of software collection it should be of use. As the program is a purpose built database it is ready to use for the intended purpose immediately. No setting up is needed. Simply load and use the program. Thank you. 3. Using The Gadgets. There are two types of gadgets used within the program. These are: - Boolean Gadgets - String Gadgets A boolean gadget is simply one which is either off or on. These are used simply by clicking inside the box in which they sit. Examples of boolean gadgets within the program are: - The 'Done' gadget in the amend section. - The 'Ok' gadget in the requesters. The string gadgets are a little more complex, although still very easy to use. These are empty boxes with some text on the left hand side of them. This text describes what is required in them. To enter a string simply click inside the box of the gadget and a cursor will appear Now you may type in what you like. The amount of characters you are allowed depends on the size of the gadget. The name field is quite large while the disks field is very small. Other facilities are available when in control of a string gadget. These are listed below: - Left and right cursor keys move the cursor within the gadget. - Shift with either of the cursor keys moves the cursor to the far right or left depending which one was chosen - Backspace deletes a character to the left of the cursor. - Del deletes the character under the cursor. - CTRL X clears the gadget. - RETURN exits from the gadget. 4. Menu Items. Next follows a descriptions of all the options available through the menu bar. Each item will be described in detail showing what it does and how to to it. First of all a brief summary of how to use the menus. Once the program has loaded and run the four menus may be highlighted by pressing and holding the RIGHT mouse button. Now, when you place the cursor over the name of the menu all the options available from that menu will be displayed. To select one of the options simply move the cursor down the menu until the desired function is highlighted. The option will be selected when you release the right mouse button. 4.1 Project Menu. All the following items are in the project section of the menus. 4.1.1 New. This command is used to clear the computers memory of any lists which exist. Beware, any existing data entered into memory will be erased when using this option. However a requester will be displayed if the current data has not been saved. 4.1.2 File. This option is used to perform all the disk based operations of the software. When the requester appears it will display the current directory. This can be changed by either clicking on one of the disk gadgets (df0:, df1: or dh0:) or by entering text into the DRAWER gadget. Once the directory is displayed then you may browse though the files with the bar on the right. You may change directory by simply clicking on it within the directory list or by using the small '<' symbol to move to the parent of the current directory. A file may be selected by clicking on it's name in the directory list or by typing it's name directly into the FILE gadget. Once the file has been selected then the operation may be selected. Four operations are valid. - LOAD - SAVE - DELETE - CANCEL LOAD simply attempts to load the requested file in (this file must have been previously created with 'Software Lister v2.0' / adapted with the 'Convert' program or it will not load). SAVE saves the current list to the file which was selected. DELETE removes the selected file from the disk. If this is selected then a requester will ask to make sure you meant what you have just done. If you choose Ok then the file will be deleted. CANCEL leaves the file requester with no operations performed (this may also be done by closing the requester's window). 4.1.3 About. Displays the name and version of the program and also the name of the programmer and any contributors. 4.1.4 Quit. Used to exit from the program. If the user has not saved the current list then a requester will be displayed asking if it should be done. If 'Ok' then the list will be saved as the last filename used or if none has been used then it will be called 'default.dat'. If 'No' is selected any unsaved file currently in memory will be lost and the user will be returned to the workbench. 4.2 Data. All the options in this menu concern changing the data currently held in memory. Data may be added, deleted or amended. 4.2.1 Add A Record. Allows the user to add a single record to the current memory contents. When selected the user will be prompted for all the details about the piece of software. After the name is typed in, the program checks to see if the record already exists. If not the program will continue otherwise an error will occur. Once all the data has been entered the record will be inserted into it's correct position in the list. The list is alphabetically sorted on the NAME field. 4.2.2 Add Number Of Records. Similar to the add a record option except it allows the user to specify how many records will be added at once. Before any data about the software is entered the user will be prompted for the number of records they wish to add. Once this is entered the user will then be requested for the data about each software item until the specified number of records are added. As before, after each record is added it will be inserted into the correct position in the list. 4.2.3 Delete A Record. This option allows you delete a record from the list. When selected you will be prompted for the name of the software item to remove from the list. Once entered the record will be deleted from the list. 4.2.4 Amend A Record. Allows you to change data in a record which already exists. The user will be prompted for the name of the software item which needs amended. Once the name has been entered the record will be displayed on the screen. Now you simply need to click inside the field box of the item you wish to amend and then make any changes. Then press return when finished. This may be done as many times as you like on any of the fields. To exit from this simply click on the 'Done' gadget in the bottom right hand corner of the window. If the name field is changed it will be correctly repositioned in the list. 4.3 Display. All commands in this section are used to display the data in the memory in different ways. 4.3.1 Display A Record. Allows the user to display a record on the screen. Simply type the name of the item to be displayed when prompted. The record will then be displayed on the screen. 4.3.2 Display All Records. Lets you display all the records currently in memory onto the screen. When selected the first record will be displayed. If you wish to continue click on the 'Cont' gadget. This will display the next record. However if you wish to exit at any point then simply click on the 'Quit' gadget. 4.3.4 Display On Producer. Allows the user to display all the items in the list which were made by a specified producer. Select the option and you will be prompted for a producer. Provided there are records which have this producer then a list of all the software items made by that producer will be displayed onto the screen. NOTE: Since not all the data will be able to be displayed on the screen at once the list is split and a number of records will be displayed on one screen. Therefore when one section is displayed you have the option of either continuing with the list (select the 'Cont' gadget) or exiting back to the menu (the 'Quit' gadget). 4.3.5 Display On Type. Displays a list of a specified software type onto the screen. A type is prompted for and once entered a list of all software of that type is listed. For example, a list of games: Shoot Em Up, Platform, e.t.c. Utilities: Text Editor, Copier, e.t.c. The same quit and continue options exist for this as with the 'display on producer' function. 4.3.6 Display List. Displays a complete list of all software currently in memory onto the screen. By selecting the option from the menu a list will be automatically displayed. The same quit and continue options exist for this as with the 'display on producer' function. 4.4 Print. All items in this menu are exactly the same as their 'display' counterparts except that the output is directed to the printer as opposed to the screen. All output will be paginated according to normal A4 paper. If the printer is not ready when any of these functions are called then a delay is given (to correct the error). After the delay a requester will appear allowing the print job to be cancelled. NOTE: Should you require to use a different printer driver than the one on this disk simply copy it into 'devs/printers' directory of this disk and set the printer using the preferences tool (details of how to do this are in the introduction manual supplied with the Amiga). 5. Conclusion. Thanks for spending the time to read the instructions. However, the best instruction is to actually use the software. The user interface is quite friendly so you shouldn't have too many problems. As I have said before, if you do have any problems don't hesitate to contact me at the address I am about to give as all mail will be answered. If you copy this program onto another disk please ensure that this document file is copied along with it. Thanks again for taking the time to read this file. My address is: Mark M Forrester, 9 Tayview Road, Liff, By Dundee, Scotland, DD2 5PE Please support shareware programmers! Thanks again, I look forward to hearing from you. 6. Appendix A - Using The Convert Program. Since version 2 of the program now uses a different file format from that of the previous versions they will not now be compatible with the new program. The Convert program (as the name suggests) rectifies this by changing the original software lister files to the correct format for version 2. This is very simply done. Once the program has loaded two string gadgets exist. One for the input file (the old file) and one for the file which is to be created. Simply enter the full path name of the two files (unless they are in the current directory) into the gadgets. e.g. INPUT: df0:files/games.dat OUTPUT: amiga-games.dat Now click on 'Ok' and the program will convert the file. If any problems occur a requester will be displayed with information on the problem. Note that the file names MUST be different. You cannot for example have: INPUT: games.dat OUTPUT: games.dat But you may have: INPUT: df0:files/games.dat OUTPUT: games.dat Provided the current directory is not 'df0:files/' as AmigaDos takes these as two different file names. When finished just click on the 'Done' gadget. 7. Appendix B - Improvements Made. There follows a list of improvements made over version 1.6 of the program: - File requester now used for easier file handling. - Dynamic memory allocation now used so amount of records storable only limited by memory size. - Much faster operation of the program. - Better look and feel to the program (more standard to the amiga). - Easier to transport to another disk as it has no support files which must be copied with it. Just move the icon to the desired location.