SHOPPER






















September 21, 1987





TABLE OF CONTENTS


OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

SYSTEM CONVENTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

CATEGORY MAINTENANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

ITEM MAINTENANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

PRINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

REMOVE DELETED RECORDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

UPDATE INDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

SET COLORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

DEFAULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

EDIT/CREATE PRINTER TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

QUIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

ALWAYS AVAILABLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

DATABASE FILE STRUCTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

FILES USED BY THIS SYSTEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

PRODUCT SUPPORT & REGISTRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16







OVERVIEW

We got the idea for this program from a public domain program written in
BASIC called SHOP authored by Harvey and Susan Scali. Their program was good
in concept but placed severe limitations on category and item files. We also
found we were making too many trips to the supermarket, doing too much impulse
buying, and in general wasting time and money. Now we have a handle on what we
spend, we rarely run out of things, and handle the nuisance of grocery shopping
more efficiently. It does look a little strange to people, seeing us running
around the supermarket with a computer printout, but what the heck!

The program is offered to the public as is, and no responsibility is
assumed for any damage arising from its' use. It is hoped that you find it
helpful in the drudgery of grocery shopping. The program runs on a PC, PC/XT,
PC/AT and compatibles. It requires 256k of free memory and one diskette drive.
It was written in dBase III, using the CLIPPER compiler from NANTUCKET
CORPORATION under DOS 3.2. A printer is also required for printing the
Shopping List.

The program lets you create shopping categories, i.e., DAIRY, PRODUCE,
MEATS, CANNED GOODS, etc., as you choose. Within each category you can create
item types - for example, in the DAIRY category you might have MILK, EGGS,
BUTTER, etc. You can create, change and delete categories and items. You also
assign to each item a description, an allocation (how many of the item should
be on hand), the in-stock position, and a price. As you use items, you would
keep a record and periodically update your shopping list in the program. When
you are ready to actually do the shopping, you would print the list. It would
show the category, the items within the category by name, description, how
many to buy, the price, extension, and expected total. After having shopped
you would update the item file with what you actually purchased. For more
efficiency, you can arrange the categories in an order that approximates the
layout of aisles in the store or stores you shop at. That way the printed list
will be such that you can literally proceed through the store from one end to
the other, and not have to jump around on the list or in the store. You can
specify 3 store layouts. Initially it will require some work to determine your
categories and items, to figure what each allocation should be, and to know the
prices. Use of the program will give you more familiarity with these details,

as you shop and note what you spend and how often you buy an item. You can
then adjust accordingly. You should back up your files, for safety's sake, and
in the event that you mess them up with changes, etc., beyond repair.













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SYSTEM CONVENTIONS

All menus use light bars with each selection starting with a different
first letter. You may make a selection using the cursor control keys followed
by return, the HOME and END keys, or by typing the first letter of the menu
prompt. When selecting from a windowed option (categories, items, printers),
the same keys apply as do with light bar menus with two exceptions: 1) The
Page down and Page up keys work as you would expect; 2) When you type
alphanumerics you enter search mode instead of selecting the choice beginning
with the key pressed. In other words, if you are searching for PAPER TOWELS
you may search by type P A P E R. This may be enough to find the item,
however, if there is an item named PAPER PLATES in the same category, the light
bar will stop at the first occurrence that matches. You may press the
backspace key to delete the last key pressed from the search. The selections
are alphabetically organized for easy searching and are not case sensitive. To
cancel the name search, press a cursor directional key, home, end, page up,
page down, escape, or return.

The key may be used to abort just about any process, adding/editing
records, printing, etc...

































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CATEGORY MAINTENANCE

Categories must be set up prior to entering any items. You may use this
procedure to add, edit and delete categories. Along with the category name,
there are 3 fields for sorting purposes. These fields are best used as aisle
numbers for the stores where you shop. Different categories may have the same
sort number for the same store (since different categories may be found in the
same aisle). We found that keeping many specific categories versus less more
general categories works better. You may have as many categories as you
desire.
"Set store names" can be used to enter the names of the 3 stores which you
frequent most often.

Category names must be unique, duplicates (case not withstanding) are not
allowed. You may change a category name once it has been entered, items
entered in it will be updated automatically. You cannot delete a category that
has items entered against it.




































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ITEM MAINTENANCE

Once you have set up some categories, you are ready to add items. This
procedure allows you to add, edit, and delete items. You may also move items
from one category to another by using the F2 function key when displaying the
item in edit mode. The current category is always displayed on the status line
located at the bottom of the screen. The DESCRIPTION field may be used for
manufacturer and/or quantifying information. Suppose that as an item name you
have entered CREAM CHEESE, you may for example enter PHILADELPHIA 8 oz. in the
description field. The ALLOTTED field should contain the number which you wish
to always have on hand. The IN STOCK field should contain the actual quantity
on hand and the PRICE field is just that.

When the shopping list is printed, all items where the IN STOCK is less
than the ALLOTTED amount are selected. We find that we have included many
items in our ITEMS file which we do not wish to have an allotment for, in this
case we have entered zero as the allotment. When we need to include such an
item in our shopping list, we enter a negative value in the IN STOCK field.




































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PRINT

There are currently 3 reports available:

1. Detailed listing
2. Shopping list of items needed
3. Fridge listing

The detailed listing prints the entire item file sorted by category in
ascending order grouped by category. The report is formatted to fit on
standard 8 1/2" by 11" paper 80 characters across.

The Shopping list prints only those items which meet the condition of the
IN STOCK amount being less than the ALLOTTED amount. After selecting this
report you will be further prompted to select the order (either by one of the
three stores or alphabetical by category) to be used. This way, with report in
hand, you can literally go down the list and walk aisle by aisle fetching the
items listed. After you have finished shopping, you should then update the
IN STOCK fields of the items purchased. The report will sub-total the cost of
each category and also grand total the expected amount. The report is
formatted to fit on standard 8 1/2" by 11" paper 80 characters across.

The Fridge listing is a 4 column report suitable for tacking on your
refrigerator. It is arranged in ascending order by category, however, only the
item names themselves are printed. We use this list to either mark things
which we have used or things which we may need. Before you are ready to go
shopping, you should take this list and update the IN STOCK fields for the
items marked appropriately and then print the shopping list itself. The report
is formatted to fit on standard 8 1/2" by 11" paper 135 characters across
(compressed print required).























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REMOVE DELETED RECORDS

When you delete a record (either category or item), it isn't actually
removed until this option is run. This is done to speed processing time.
Therefore, if the ITEM file record count shows as 176 and you delete 5 records,
the record count will not change to 171 until this option is run. I recommend
this procedure once a month or so. By running this procedure, you decrease
the size of the data files by the number of records removed. This procedure
also updates the indices (see next page) upon completion.












































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UPDATE INDICES

This procedure updates the indices used by the CAT and ITEMS databases. It
should not be necessary to run since the indices are maintained as records are
added, edited, or deleted. However, if for some reason the indices become
corrupt, you may need to rebuild them using this option.















































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SET COLORS

This option is for COLOR monitors only. It allows you to select the text
foreground and background colors as well as the enhanced selected and
unselected colors. You may also set the border color to be used (because of a
known problem with EGA cards, borders have no effect).















































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DEFAULTS

There are 4 variables which you may change to customize the program to your
particular needs. The delays can be changed to speed up or slow down the time
in which status and error messages are displayed. The tax rate is used in the
shopping list report for total calculation. The printer table selection sets
the system to use the appropriate printer codes for underlining,
initialization, etc...













































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EDIT/CREATE PRINTER TABLES

This option allows you to edit or create printer tables. All printer
tables will have a PAT extension. These PAT files are standard dBase III
memory files which contain the codes for specific printer features. If your
printer does not support a feature, leave the appropriate field blank. The
strings are entered ala Lotus style.














































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QUIT

You guessed it! This is the proper way to leave the shopping program. It
closes all files and restores the PC to the state prior to execution. Failure
to do so may result in loss of data.
















































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ALWAYS AVAILABLE

There are 3 options available to you during most operations:

1. Cursor movement definitions
Pressing F1 will display on-line help of cursor movement keys

2. Calculator
Pressing F10 will display a simulation of a basic pocket
calculator. This program was written by Guenther Daubach. I
have included it in case a quick calculation is necessary during
editing. The calculator functions are self-explanatory except
that pressing X will take the value in the calculator's display
and enter it in the current field you are editing.

3. Go to Shell
Pressing Ctrl-F1 will return you to the WordPerfect Library if
the program was called from it, otherwise, an error message
informing you that the shell is not present is displayed. For
those of you unfamiliar with the WordPerfect Library (WPL), WPL
is a menu manager program with many useful desktop utilities
included. I use it all the time and haven't found one better.
It is manufactured by WordPerfect Corporation, the same
manufacturer which produce the word processor, WordPerfect. If
the WPL is found, you are returned to the shell with program
memory resident.



























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DATABASE FILE STRUCTURES


Structure for database : CAT.DBF

Field Field Name Type Width Dec
1 CATEGORY Character 40
2 STORE1 Numeric 2
3 STORE2 Numeric 2
4 STORE3 Numeric 2
** Total ** 47



Structure for database : ITEMS.DBF

Field Field Name Type Width Dec
1 CATEGORY Character 40
2 NAME Character 30
3 DESCRIPT Character 20
4 ALLOTTED Numeric 2
5 IN_STOCK Numeric 2
6 PRICE Numeric 6 2
** Total ** 101





























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FILES USED BY THIS SYSTEM

CAT DBF The category database file
ITEMS DBF The items database file

SHOP EXE The executable program

CAT MEM Memory file containing the store names used
COLORS MEM Memory file containing current color selections
ID MEM Memory file containing the defaults selected

CAT NTX The category index, indexed on the category field
CAT_S1 NTX The category store #1 index, indexed on store #1
CAT_S2 NTX The category store #2 index, indexed on store #2
CAT_S3 NTX The category store #3 index, indexed on store #3
ITEMS NTX The items index, indexed on category and item

EPSON PAT Printer table for most Epson printers
LASERJET PAT Printer table for the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet printers


































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PRODUCT SUPPORT & REGISTRATION


I am always updating the program, adding features and the like. If you
wish to register with me, I will notify you of updates. To register, send me a
letter with your name, address, daytime phone number and a donation ($25
suggested) to the name and address below. You may also include suggestions
and/or comments.

You are free to distribute the program to whomever you like as long as no
fee is charged, and all files included in this package are distributed as well.




John Agusta
27 Yorkshire Drive
Wheatley Heights, New York 11798



John Agusta - Programmer, Chef
Ewa Agusta - System designer, Wife (also a pretty good chef!)


Happy Shopping!



























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