DatVer5 Text file. ( Version 5.2 ) Compatibility:- --------------- DatVer5a ( Series 3a ) DatVer5c ( Series 3 classic ) This program is subject to copyright , it is the property of Mark Stevenson, should not be reverse translated , altered or distributed without the express written permission of myself ( It may not be very good but it still took a lot of VERY hard work to get it to run correctly at all and I would like to retain all rights to my shoddy programming technique ) . If you have any comments , good , bad or other please write to me , I welcome any suggestions on any facilities that you may wish to see implemented in a future version , and if possible I may try to include them. Mark Stevenson , Flat 5 Clements Court , Victoria Road , Mablethorpe , Lincs LN12 2AJ This text file is to provide a little help and guidance on how Data-Selector is supposed to work , this way you should be able to tell if it is you not working it correctly or the program itself not working correctly . Data-Selector was written to provide a data searching facility not availiable in the in built Data program , that is the ability to find groups of records ( not just the next or previous ) and , once the group or records has been found , the ability to re-search them for a second search clue . This is all that Data-Selector can do , it cannot edit , add or delete any records , just retrieve them . I will assume that you are familiar with how to install Applications on the system screen and copy them from the floppy disk in to the Psion . If you have not done this then please do so before continuing . You should now have a new icon displayed on the system screen ( for those of you who may be wondering , it is meant to be a picture of a card from a card index file , underneath the word Data , or if you are lucky enough to have a '3a' , 'Data Selector' ) underneath the icon you should have a list of all currently availiable data files ( these must be in a \dat\ directory and have the extension name .dbf ) to start Data-Selector , simply move the highlight on to the name of the file you wish to search . You will now see the name , version and type ( series 3 or 3a ) of the program and a copy- right notice displayed on the screen , after a moment the message "Loading index..." will be displayed and a few seconds later the screen should show the first record in the selected file and a count of record number and total number of records in the left corner ( note that only the first six fields are shown ) this process may take from 1 to 100 seconds or more , depending on the size of database to be opened . Once open the up and down arrows move to the next and last record , pressing the menu button will display the menu bar . You will see the following headings and options ; File , open , exit Navigate , next , previous , first , last ; View , change view ; Search , search all , re-search records found , find all . The operation of most of these is fairly obvious so I won't insult your intelligence by explaining all of them . One of them is less obvious however , that is the 'change View' option , and for those of you who have not rushed ahead and pressed the button already , I shall explain all ; VIEWS. ------ The first time that the 'change View' option is selected you will be asked to set the widths of the database fields to be displayed , this is done by entering the required widths in the displayed dialog box . The figures shown next to the fields in the dialog are the maximum values for that particular field , those shown on the right hand side are the current values ( or if no values have been set for that database the minimum values for that field) you will see that there is a maximum total value , if this is exceeded then Data-Selector will say 'Widths too large' and return you to the widths dialog box for you to alter the widths until they are within the limits set by the program . If you press escape before any widths have been set then the message 'Can't change view' will appear and you will be returned to the record view . It should be mentioned that on the Series 3 version the text displayed will be one charachter less than the value set in the widths , this is to ensure that there is allways a space between fields . Once valid values have been entered as the widths , the table view will magically appear , giving a list type view of the data fields . Pressing the up / down buttons move to the next / previous page , when moving forward , the bottam record moves to the top of the next page and when moving backwards the top record becomes the bottam . The record count is displayed again in the left corner of the screen . Pressing Psion-V to change view back to the record view makes the TOP record the current record ALLWAYS . Whilst in the table view the widths can be altered at will by pressing Psion-W , after altering the widths you are automatically returned to the first record in the current selection , if you press escape and the widths have previously been set the previous values remain valid . SEARCHES. --------- There are two search options ( well three if you count 'Find all' ) they use different methods of searching to maximise speed of the searches , to get the best out of them , read on . The 'Search all' is fastest at searching the whole database for the search clue ( obvious isn't it ) this will locate all the matching records and group them together for easy navigation through them , for instance if you wished to look at all the Philips television faults ( in a Tv fault database ) you would press Psion-S ( search all ) and enter 'Philips' as the search clue ( max of ten characters ) then Data-Select will show 'Searching...' and a count of records found and records searched ( this will only be updated as new records are found so if no records are found you will only see 'Record 1' and then finally 'Found 0' Data-Selector will then re-load the index and return to the first record ) once all matching records have been found you will be returned to the record view and be placed at the first record , the count will display the number of records and the current position in the left corner ( IE 1/214 ) . If you then wished to find the Philips televisions with line faults , press Psion-R ( re-search records found ) and enter 'line' again a count of record being checked and matching record found will be displayed ( this is updated after every record ) if no records are found then the message 'No records found' appears and you are returned to the previous record set . The records can be re-searched as many times as you want , each time reducing the number of valid records . FILES. ------ Data-Selector will create a data file for each new database you use the table view on , this contains the value of the widths for that particular file so each file can have different widths to suit the type of data in it . To do this it uses the first and last letter of that files name to use as the name of its width settings , it follows therefore that if the first and last letters of two data files are the same Data-Selector will use the same width file for both ( IE if you had a fault database called 'Tv's' and a phone database bellonging to Trevor called 'Trev's' then they would be forced to share the same width file ) the other problem that would occur if this were to happen is that you would be unable to have both files open at the same time . The simple way to work around this is to ensure that all files either start OR finish with a different letter or number ( IE in the above example re-naming 'Trev's' to 'Trevor' will correct any errors ) EXITING. -------- You can only exit Data-Selector correctly by pressing Psion-X whilst in Data-Selector itself , using any other method may cause memory to be tied up . You cannot exit by highlighting the open data file in the system screen as it will show '(name of open data file ) is busy' . To change the file currently open press Psion-O and select the file to open from the list shown in the dialog box . Pressing escape at this point will close Data-Selector .