Study Aid Card File (c) Written by James B. Parks The idea for this program came from a study method that I used in college to memorize questions and answers for tests. This method has been expanded so that almost anyone who needs to organize small blocks of data, such as can be done with a 3X5 card file system can do so. This file system is in fact exactly like having an electronic 3X5 card system with a few twists! You can create cardfiles, delete cardfiles, add cards, delete cards,search for specific cards and even print a card or a whole range of cards. I felt memory usage was very important so each card only takes up as much memory as it needs to. This method allowed me to use a test card file of over 1000 cards on a 512k machine! You will however, find that word searches and the like will slow down with very large card files that have cards that are full of data. This program is written in AmigaBasic but don't be fooled, it's easy to use and is relatively well thought out (but you'll be the judge of that!). To use the memory features of the program refer to the 'STUDY AID' portion of this doc file. And now down to business: THE PLEA: This program is offered as SHAREWARE. It may be given to anyone and anyone may use it. You can do any thing you want with it EXCEPT sell it! The one exception is public domain disks which sell for $10 or less. Please include this doc file with any distrubution and keep it in this Arc'ed file format. If per chance you find this program of any value please send $15 to: James B. Parks 5450 W. 102nd Place Broomfield, Co. 80020 THE PROMISE: This is version 1.0 of the Study Aid Cardfile. Version 2.0 is now in the works! Version 2.0 will be in non list protected format and Improvements include: 1) A full blown card editor! 2) Ability to move cards from one cardfile to another! 3) Deep search capabilities! 4) User defined memorization feature! 5) More! All users who register by sending the requested $15 will recieve in the mail the completed version 2.0 on a brand new 3.5" disk,postpaid! What a deal! Could you ask for anything more? Well OK, how about this you get version 2.0 AND a nice little time waster, an original game written by this programmer (yes in AmigaBasic) that will appeal to all of you ruthless types! Now for the bad news. Version 2.0 will not be posted in the "great public domain". Only registerd owners of version 1.0 will get the upgrade. I WILL support this program so send any comments and questions to: James B. Parks CIS(76426,37) PLINK(OHS420) GEnie(J.B.Parks) IMPORTANT: This arc file contains the following files: Version 1.0 - The main program Version 1.0.info - guess DEFAULTS - MUST be in same directory as Version 1.0 CARDFILES - MUST be on same disk as example card files Study.doc - your reading it! Scriptures Verses - example card file Trivia - example card file Renamer - Execute this one to rename de-arced files. THE INSTRUCTIONS: This program is written in AmigaBasic. An Icon is included so just make sure that AmigaBasic is in the root directory of the disk you run from. The file CARDFILES is an index file that keeps track of all the card files on any particular disk. This file will be automaticlly added to a new data disk when you begin to actually set up cardfiles for your own use. One thing to keep in mind is that you should never manipulate card files outside of the main program itself. In other words use the program to delete card files and to create card files, don't use dos or the workbench. The file DEFAULTS carries the user 'preferences' and should be located in the same directory as the main program. If it's not you will start out with an error message and then you'll think I did something wrong! The program is menu and mouse driven and also supports function keys. The easiest way to learn to use it is to Open one of the example card files and start playing around. To use the mouse to move through a card file just use the SHOW selection under the 'Defaults' menu,this will bring up a gadget box on the left of the screen. What follows is an item by item explaination of the Menus: PROJECT: Open - This selection will display all the existing cardfiles on the disk in the data drive. Just select the number of the cardfile you wish to open. New - This selection will create a new cardfile.You will be asked to supply a filename for it. The program will detect duplicate filenames, if you should make that mistake. However the program only knows about the files that are listed in the Index file CARDFILES. If you have any other files on the disk that have the same name as the one you specify you run the risk of over writing it, so be WARNED use a disk that has only cardfiles on it! Quit- Quits the program and returns you to the System. Delete- This selection will present you with a list of the cardfiles. Simply select the number of the cardfile you wish to delete. You need not 'Open' a cardfile to delete it. Info - The PLEA: again; (just in case you lose this doc) CARDS: Add - This selection allows you to add your own cards to the cardfile. There are 3 parts to every card: 1) The Topic (30 chars max) 1 line 2) The Front (100 chars max) 2 lines 3) The Back (550 chars max) 11 lines The Topic and the Front of the card will be displayed on the front side of the card. The two line front will also be shown at the bottom of the screen when the back side of the card is being displayed. NOTE: I realize that the card 'Editor' is crude, but it is very simple to use. Simply type to enter letters and use the back- space key to delete letters! Use to move to the start of the next line, keep in mind however, that each return 'Pads' the rest of the line with blank spaces so be sure to use when you are finished typing information on the card. CHARACTER WRAP: The card Editor has built in character wrap if your not worried how your words are split you can just type without ever hitting return to go to the next line. A 'bell' is also included for those who are more interested in how the card looks. AUTO CENTERING: The Topic will automatically be centered on the front side of the card. The Front and Back will also be centered if they are less than 50 characters each. Auto- centering will NOT occur if you have padded the rest of a short line by striking instead of when you are finished typing. You will soon discover that you have the ability to add cards and delete cards from a card file,however you cannot change an existing card. An 'Edit' feature is now being added to the Version 2.0 upgrade with a full featured card editor which will include auto WORD wrap if desired. Delete- Will delete the card you are now viewing, if you wish. Print - Brings up the 'CARDFILE PRINT UTILITY'. play around with this! DEFAULTS: Show/Hide - Displays or Hides the Gadget Box for mouse use of the program. Change - Allows you to change parameters for: 1)Autoload feature- Will load a specific cardfile on program startup. 2)Autosave feature- See STUDY AID section at end of this doc. 3)Data Drive - This can be any leagal Drive such as 'Df1:".This is set at ":" ,which is the root directory of the disk the program is on. This MUST be changed if you are going to put your cardfiles on another disk. Save - Use this seletion at any time to save the current defaults which include ink color,card color,sound on etc. SEARCH: By Topic - This will find the NEXT occurence of the topic you specifiy. You must spell the topic correctly, how- ever upper or lower case is not important. By Pattern - Searches The FRONT of the card only, for the ONE word pattern you specifiy. You can therfore use the front 2 lines of a card as keywords in searches. I suggest using only one or two words for keywords to cut down on search time. This search also finds the NEXT occ- urence of the pattern, and is not case dependent,how- ever its is punctuation dependent ie: Using the pattern "sea" would stop at the word "Seaside" but not ",Seaside" and would not stop at the word "Southseas". Get it? Card Number - Simply displays any card number you specifiy. STUDY AID: The STUDY AID feature of this program is simply a means to learn and possibly memorize individual cards through the best known learning tool; REPITITION! Heres the Idea: The COUNT feature and the AUTOSAVE work in conjunction to enable you to study for example a master cardfile called "School Work". Which would have cards with TOPICS such as Math, Science, English etc. Each of the cards in the file would have a question on the Front relating to the cards topic. The answer would of course be on the back of the card. During each "memory session",with the AUTOSAVE feature ON the card that was just "memorized" would be AUTOMATICLY saved or added to a cardfile with that cards TOPIC as the cardfiles name.If there is no topic on the card it will be saved to a cardfile named "GENERAL". You can then later review these card files for a test or whatever. AUTOSAVE will NOT work if the topic of the card is the same as the name of the card file it is in. THE SAVED CARD WILL THEN BE DELETED FROM THE MASTER FILE If you dont want this to happen, always keep the AUTOSAVE off (by using Change under the Defaults menu). HERES HOW TO DO IT: With the COUNTS on the upper right corner of the screen will show the word" COUNTS:0". This counter will count from 0 to 100. One count every time the key is pressed. At intervals during the study process the next card will automaticlly be displayed according to the following schecdule: FIRST CARD - 1 repetition(saved if AUTOSAVE is ON) SECOND CARD - 5 reps THIRD CARD - 10 reps FOURTH CARD - 15 reps FIFTH CARD - 20 reps SIXTH CARD - 25 reps SEVENTH - 25 reps This means that each card will have been repeated 100 times over a 7 session period.You must keep adding cards to the master file as it will lose a card at the begining of each memory session. You can suspend the counting process at any time by simply not striking or by clicking on the COUNT gadget or hitting F5. F5 and the COUNT gadget are both toggles.REMEMBER TO ALWAYS START THE MEMORY SESSION ON THE FIRST CARD IN THE FILE, AND RETURN TO THE CARD YOU WERE WORKING ON IF YOU SUSPEND COUNTING FOR SOME REASON. How do you start to use the memory feature? Probably the best way is to do it manually. Start with the SEVENTH CARD in the file and reverse the number of repetitions until you are ready to begin using the AUTOSAVE and COUNTS features together.