Mobile Pages Format (mpf) example   21st June 1996

This .zip file contains an example of a fictitious recruitment database, 
in Mobile Pages Format (mpf).  It should be reviewed in conjunction with 
the mpf file specification, available via our Web pages.  

The data simply needs to be processed by Mobile Software's 'Pages Generator' 
package, in order to produce a Mobile Pages database.  It intentionally 
contains a number of simple 'errors', in order that you become familiar with 
the way such errors are reported by 'Pages Generator'.  We recommend that 
you copy the 2 x .dbf files into either your \dat or your \app\pages 
directory on your Psion 3a, and then use the demonstration version of 
'Pages Generator' to build a Mobile Pages databases.  (If you are using the 
Psion Emulator on a PC, copy the files into \mobpages\dev-m\dat on your PC).  Simply select the 'Build Mobile Pages' option.  You'll also have to create your own 'configuration file' using Pages Generator.  Select the 'configure' option and enter the required information.

This .zip file, mpf_eg.zip, is supplied with the following files :

eg1_data.xls    - Excel 5.0 spreadsheet of example database in Mobile Pages Format
eg1_menu.xls    - Excel 5.0 spreadsheet of menu definition file

eg1_data.txt    - 'Tab' delimited version of eg1_data.xls
eg1_menu.txt    - 'Tab' delimited version of eg1_menu.xls

eg1_data.dbf    - 'Psion DATA' format version of eg1_data.xls
eg1_menu.dbf    - 'Psion DATA' format version of eg1_menu.xls

mpf_eg.doc      - Word 6.0 version of this file
mpf_eg.txt      - Text file version of this file

Files starting with 'eg1_data', above, are effectively the main database 
that will be processed to generate a Mobile Pages database.  This fictitious 
recruitment demonstration database uses 5 of the available 6 fields for text 
search purposes, being 'Name', 'Address', 'Town', 'City', and 'Postal area', 
respectively.  Fields 7 and 8 are used to store telephone and fax number.  
Field 9 contains up to 255 characters of 'comments', that will be displayed 
with this record.  Fields 10 onwards define which items from 'eg1_menu' 
(see below) are associated with this database record. 

Files starting with 'eg1_menu', above, are the corresponding files that will 
be used to generate the search criteria menus that the user can select items 
to search from, within 'Pages Viewer'.  The first column is the 'group' an 
item belongs to.  The second column defines the 'item's' name.  The third 
optional column defines the help the user will see when the Psion 'help' key 
is pressed over this menu item, within 'Pages Viewer'

Finally, you'll note that we've supplied the 2 files, ie eg1_data and 
eg1_menu in 3 different formats.  Remember that 'Pages Generator' processes 
files in Psion DATA format, ie .dbf files.  Our 'Personal Pages Generator' 
package, aimed at people who want to create Mobile Pages databases from 
relatively small amounts of data, processes these .dbf files, directly on 
the Psion 3a.  However, at the other extreme, the 'Professional Pages 
Generator' package is usually used to process data from corporate database 
systems, that might range from Microsoft Access, to Excel, to dBASE to 
Paradox, etc.  Whatever the package, the user can always create either 
'comma' or 'tab' separated text files.  We've therefore given an example of 
the 'eg1' database in Excel format and as a 'tab' separated .txt file, 
output from Excel.  The 'Professional Pages Generator' package includes the 
tools to convert the .txt files to .dbf files, ready to be processed by 
'Pages Generator'

Mobile Software Ltd                     Tel/Fax : +44-(0)-181-906-0002
Email : sballan@cix.compulink.co.uk
Web : http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mobile_pages