Category : Databases and related files
Archive   : PC-ORG.ZIP
Filename : ORGANISE.TXT

THE PC-ORGANISER



TABLE OF CONTENTS


1. Introduction

2. About the User Instruction Booklet

3. How the Organiser resides in your PC

4. Installing the Organiser.

(a) Floppy Disk Machines

(b) Hard Disk Machines

(c) All Machines

5. Personalising the Organiser.

6. Some Basic Features

7. Leaving the Organiser

8. Using the Calculator

9. Using the Diary

10. Using the Cardfile and Address Cards

11. Dialling

12. Using the Word Processor

13. Templates

14. Services

15. Function Keys.



INSTRUCTION MANUAL

1. Introduction

The Organiser is a shareware version of Triangle Publishing's
"PC-Organiser". It is designed to give you an electronic
information file and increase your personal productivity.

The program is (C) Clasma Software Limited 1988. "Clasma" and "A-
La-Carte" are trademarks of Clasma Software Limited.


2. About this User Instruction Booklet

Operation of the Organiser is designed to be intuitive, but there
are a few keystrokes which you need to learn. In particular,
operation of the Function Keys (the row marked - along
the top of the keyboard), is vital to a mastery of the Organiser.
You may wish to compile a quick reference card detailing your
favourite actions (see the list at the end of these
instructions).

3. How the Organiser resides in your PC

It is possible to use the Organiser like any other program.
That is, load it when you want to use it, and then Exit back to
MSDOS when you have finished.

There is, however, a much more powerful mode of operation, which
can be used if your computer has 512K or more RAM. This allows
you to load the Organiser once, and then "hide" it while
continuing with other work. When required the Organiser can be
instantly recalled by pressing a special key combination. When
used in this way the Organiser is called "Memory Resident". If
you are using a floppy disk machine, when you recall the
Organiser, it will expect to find the disk from which it was
originally loaded in Drive A. This is so it can read the
information there and provide suitable Help Menus for you.

WARNING. If you are using any other "Memory Resident" programs at
the same time as the Organiser then conflicts may occur. In
particular you should exercise care when unloading Memory
Resident programs. Only unload them on a "last in, first out"
basis.

The Organiser automatically saves any changes you have made to
disk. This happens after a delay, to reduce usage of the disk
drive motors. On the top line of the screen the message "Not
Safe" indicates that there is some information waiting to be
saved to disk. The message "Safe" means that the disk is
entirely up-to-date. You could even switch off your PC without
first Exiting from the Organiser, and your information would be
preserved. However, this is a bad habit, and therefore not
normally recommended.


4. Installing the Organiser.

The Organiser comes to you on a single disk, either 5.25" or 3.5"
depending on your order. We recommend that you make a copy of
your disk for security purposes before installation - see your
MS-DOS book for instructions on this.

(a) Floppy Disk Machines

We recommend that you do not put any other programs on the floppy
disk which you will use with the Organiser, because you will
create a number of data files, and the more disk space you leave,
the smaller the likelihood that you will run out of space!

Once you have copied the files on to an empty disk, place the
disk in drive A or B, change the logged disk drive as necessary
(by typing ": " ), and then type "ORG
".

You will then see the copyright message, followed by the Main
Menu.

(b) Hard Disk Machines

We recommend that you install the Organiser in a separate
directory, called "ORG". You can do this with the command "MD
ORG" - see your MSDOS Manual for further details.

When you have copied all the files to your new directory, type
"ORG ", to load the program.

You will then see the copyright message, followed by the Main
Menu.

You should now see a dark (highlight) bar positioned over the
words "Recall by Index". If this is not the case then it is
possible that the monitor setting requires adjustment. Press
to bring up the Services Menu, then select "Other".

(Incidentally, you can select an option from a menu either by
moving the highlighted cursor to your choice and pressing
, or by pressing the initial letter of the choice. Where
there is more than one choice, doing this will select the ones
which begin with that letter.)

From the "Other" menu, change the "Color Monitor" setting to suit
your own monitor. You may find that you are getting some flecks
of interference on the screen, in which case, try selecting "Yes"
to "Snow Suppression".

To implement your new choices and return to the Main Menu, press
. The words "Recall by Index" should now be highlighted. If
you have a Colour Monitor, you can select the Services Menu again
by using , Other, and then choosing "Color". The colour
combination of whichever window is displayed can then be altered
as you require.

The Organiser always displays its menus and information in
Windows. These will become very familiar as you use the
software.


5. Personalising the Organiser.

As an initial exercise in using the Organiser, we will change the
identification which appears in the top left-hand corner of the
screen.

Press again, and choose "Other". Whatever you type on
the line "System Name" will subsequently appear in the top left
hand corner of the screen, as well as at the top of some of the
menus.


6. Some Basic Features

There are some basic features of the Organiser which we should
mention at this stage.

(a) The Undo facility. This is provided by the key,
and will replace any field which you have inadvertently removed.
This feature is very useful should you happen to make an entry
into a field unintentionally.

(b) The Delete facility. You can delete the original contents of
a field by typing at the very start of the field.

(c) Accepting changes. Press to accept changes you have
made to a window and return to the Main Menu. Whenever you press
, the Organiser will save the information on the screen and
subsequently write it to disk. There is not normally a key to
press which will comprehensively abandon changes, restoring all
the original entries or values.


7. Leaving the Organiser

To leave Organiser permanently, select the Main Menu Option
"Exit" and then confirm with or Y.

You should now be back at the A> or C> prompt at the top of a
clear screen.

To leave the Organiser with it remaining Memory Resident (that
is, available immediately without the time-consuming reload
process) then press . This can be done with any
screen display showing - you do not have to be at the Main Menu.
You can then continue to use your PC for other tasks. (NOTE: You
must use the left-hand key if your keyboard has more than
one.)

If you do this, you will see on the screen the last display prior
to loading the Organiser.

To restore the Organiser from memory, press again,
which restores the Organiser to the exact point at which it was
last used. The Organiser will overlap any existing text, and
will restore any underlying text when you have finished using the
Organiser.


8. Using the Calculator


Perhaps the simplest of the Organiser's tools is the Calculator.
Operation of the Calculator can be initiated in a number of
different ways.

- if the main menu is showing, select Calculator.

- if you are elsewhere within the Organiser, press .

- if the Organiser is memory resident and you are running
some other DOS application, press -(left hand
!)

If you have been following the manual this far, the main menu
should be on the screen, so select Calculator (using the cursor
keys and ), or by simply typing C.

Your PC numeric keypad is particularly suitable for entering
values into the calculator (don't forget to select "NumLock" if
you have this key). The key also acts as "=". After a
few seconds a Help Window will appear at the bottom of the
screen. This Help Window is typical of those you will see
whenever you use the Organiser. To see the Help Window without
delay, simply press . This key will always provide relevant
help, whenever you are doing with PC Organiser.

Now press to "put away" the Calculator and return to the
Main Menu. It is always possible to return to the Main Menu by
pressing , perhaps a number of times. The Calculator can be
summoned from anywhere within Organiser (when the Main Menu would
not normally be on the screen) by pressing . If you are not
within the Organiser, and the Organiser is Memory Resident, the
calculator can be summoned by pressing . To put away
the calculator with the Organiser remaining Memory Resident,
press . (Always use the left hand key for
these actions)


9. Using the Diary

The Diary can only be entered from the Organiser Main Menu.
Select the Diary entry by typing D or by using the cursor keys
and . The current date is always displayed in the right-
hand corner of the Screen, and the Diary will normally appear
with that day on the screen, clearly marked out by a large
rectangle. The cursor keys, and are
employed to move around from one day to another and one month to
another.

To make a short remark on the Diary on a particular day, simply
type (up to six characters) and press .

(a) The Menu Key

This is perhaps the most important key to remember when using the
Organiser. The range of options at almost every point in the
Organiser, the range of options available can be found by
pressing .

From the Diary Menu, you can select "Show" to demonstrate the
appointments for a particular day.

If there are more than four appointments, then the
and keys could be used to view selectively.
Alternatively, you can use the combination followed
by "Move" and "Size" to relocate the window showing your entries
at the top of the screen and then increase the size of the window
to cover the entire screen.

To make an entry in the Diary, move the cursor to the date you
require and then press followed by "New Entry". A window
will open in which you can enter the times of your appointment
and a description. If you leave the times unchanged, the
description will appear without any times.

The choices at the bottom of the box are important. If you
select:

- "Note", the entry will be displayed as a simple Diary Note.

- "Alarm", the program will sound a bell and flash details
of your appointment on the screen even if the program is
Memory Resident at the time.

- "Past", you can signal that an appointment has been
concluded. You can display details of a past appointment by
using the "Show Entries" option, then pressing with
the cursor over the appointment you wish to change.

- "To Do" and "Done" are powerful commands to allow you to
manage tasks which need to be done as soon as possible, but
which have no particular date. To set a "To Do" task, move
choose that selection when entering the description, and
each day (until you signal that the task is "Done") the task
will be displayed with all your other appointments. HINT:
The Organiser sorts in numerical then alphabetical order. To
prioritise your list of "To Do" tasks, put a priority figure
as the first character, eg "1 Call Doctor" and "9 Pay
taxes". They will then appear in order of priority.

(b) The "Show" Key

The second most important function key to remember is , the
"Show" key. When you press this key, the Organiser immediately
goes to work searching through its database (which we'll come to
in a moment) and displays a list of everything which corresponds
to the word which the cursor is currently over. (In the Diary,
the Organiser reads the entire line and matches the first word
which it finds corresponds to an entry).

The "Show" key can be used almost anywhere in the Organiser to
find further information (if available) concerning any item under
the cursor.

(c) Find Notes

Another very useful capability of the Organiser is to find a
particular piece of information automatically. The option Find
Notes (after selecting ) is in the Diary Menu, but can also
be called up by holding down and pressing .

Using this option, you can find any text used in the Diary for a
particular period. Don't forget to move the cursor to the
beginning of the period you wish to search. Once you have typed
in the text to be searched against (and to be excluded, if
appropriate), select the period and press to start the
search.

(d) Changing Diary Information

To change any Diary Entry, locate the entry you wish to change by
going to the date, or using "Find". When you have opened the
window showing the entry, press and you will see the
original box in which you entered the details. You can change
them as you wish and press to save the changes.

(e) Cut and Paste

If you wish to copy information from one place to another within
the Organiser, you can use to Cut/Copy and to Paste
text. For example, if you wished to copy an entry in the Diary
from one date to another, you could open up the first entry as
described above in (d), and place the cursor in the description
field. Pressing would Copy the text into the Copy buffer.
You could then move the cursor to the date where you wished to
copy the text, select "New Entry" and place the cursor in the
description field again. Pressing would copy the text into
the new description field.

The Cut and Paste are very powerful and can be used on
almost any field you wish.

(f) Deleting Diary Day Notes

When a Diary Day Note is highlighted it can be deleted simply by
pressing the key. A small window requesting confirmation
will appear.


10. Using the Cardfile and Address Cards

The Organiser is capable of storing indexed information in one of
two formats - Address Cards and General Cardfile. Each entry in
either format has a single "Index" which can be used to Recall
the information directly. It is also possible to search all the
information for a particular word or words.

(a) Creating a new card

To open a new Address Card, select "New Address and Cardfile"
from the Main Menu, then the appropriate choice. You will then
see an empty card which you can complete as required. When you
have filled in the necessary fields, press to save and
exit. The name you have entered in the "Index" field is the word
which will be searched when you use the "Recall by index"
function or the Show key.

(b) Recalling an Address Card or Cardfile by Index

First make sure you are at the Organiser Main Menu and then
select "Recall by index". Then enter the letter(s) which you wish
to search. You do not have to be precise in your search, because
the Organiser will display everything which fits the letters you
entered. If there are more than one entry, a window will display
all the choices, and you can move the cursor to the one which
matches and press to display the Card.

Earlier or later records can be accessed by pressing
and keys. The information can be modified simply by
moving the cursor down to the main field in the window and making
the corrections.

It is possible to go directly into Recall by Index by pressing
.

(c) Show and Flip

You may remember the use of the Show key in the Diary. This
key can be used to call up, for example, a Cardfile from
information contained on an Address card, simply by positioning
the cursor over a field on an Address Card, and pressing .

If you have a Card which corresponds to the line of text under
the cursor, the relevant Card will open over the top of the
original Card. You can bring the later to the front of the screen
by using the or "Flip" key. This can be used as many times
as you wish until the Card (or Diary or whatever) which was
obscured in at the front of the screen.

(d) Deleting an Address Card or Cardfile

To delete a Card, first open it using "Recall". Then press
Menu, and select the "Delete" option.

(e) Searching Address Cards and Cardfile

It is not always easy to remember the Index under which you filed
a particular piece of information. Imagine, for example, you
know there is an Address Card containing the word "Hotel" but you
cannot recall the Index entry. Firstly, select "Search for Data"
in the Main Menu.

Then select "Address Cards", and type in the word "Hotel" in the
window, followed by to start the search. If the Organiser
finds anything, it will display the first Card which it finds. If
there are more, you can use "Page Up" and "Page Down" to page
through the choices.

The same facility exists for the Cardfile.

It is also possible, if you are have already accessed one card,
to search other cards of the same type by pressing or
by selecting the relevant entry in their menus.


11. Dialling

(a) Installation

This function requires a modem. To install your modem, use the
Services Menu followed by .

DO NOT alter any of the values in the upper half of the window,
unless you are using an external modem, in which case select
"COM1".

In the lower half of the window you should enter the dialling
code of the telephone line you would normally use for making the
calls. This is so that later, when the Organiser dials a number,
it knows not to add the code for what would be a local call.

In the "Methods.." field the values shown are most suitable for
general use. The 9, (where the comma is required to give a pause
in the dialling sequence) is where you put the code for obtaining
an outside line from your switchboard. Accept any changes you
have made by pressing .

(b) Using the Dialler

To invoke the Dialler, first open the Card from which you wish to
dial. (You can also dial any number by placing the cursor over
the number). Otherwise type in the number you wish to dial.

If you wish to test the operation of the dialler, then use a
number such as the speaking clock or weather forecast.

To terminate the call without speaking, press before
the other person answers. To speak to the other person, pick up
the phone when he/she answers and press .


12. Using the Word Processor

A simple Word Processor is available, accessed from the Main Menu
by selecting "Word Processor", and a window will open for you to
enter the name of the document.

(a) Opening a Document

To start a new document or edit an existing one, just type the
name you want in the window. If there is already a name present,
simply replace it if it is not the document you require. When
editing an existing document, it is often helpful to press
to see a list of word processor documents already on the disk.

(b) Editing a Document

Select the Word Processor Menu by pressing and the Editor
Setup from pressing . These two menus provide you with
the more common functions of a Word Processor.

Cut and paste are available when editing text. The
area to be cut is marked out with the cursor keys. Press
to confirm. The Organiser will ask if the marked area is to be
deleted (i.e. you are moving the marked area) or not.

(c) Printing

One of the Word Processor Menu choices is "Print Document". If
you have an Epson or IBM compatible printer attached to the
parallel printer port on your PC, then you can print immediately.
If you are using a different type of printer or the Serial
interface, then refer to (14) below and the section on Printer
Setup.

You can also print any window of the Organiser by pressing
to print the contents of the top window. If you
select then "Printer", you will be able to choose the
format of a window print.


13. Templates

The Organiser allows you to keep 6 user-definable templates for
use in creating standard form letters and other documents. The
system is supplied with a Letter, Memo and Order, together with
Templates A, B and C.

(a) Editing a Template

Templates can be edited either by the Word Processor or by
selecting the Templates option of the Main Menu.

Select the "Letter" Template. You will see that the words
starting with "@" are replaced by the corresponding contents of
the current Address card - or by the obvious values. The "qq"
marks where the cursor will be positioned when the template is
first used.

A full list of all the variables available for use in a template
is given in Template A.

(b) Using Templates

To use a template, first Recall an Address Card. Then press
and select the "Letter/Memo/Orders etc.." option. If you select
"Letter" from the second menu, the computer will take a moment to
draft the letter, and will then display a personalised letter,
which you can edit as you wish.

To print the letter press and select the Print Document
option or to store it, press .

The Organiser will always keep the latest document on disk, ready
to be referred to or updated. It is also possible to store older
documents and access them as well.

(c) History of Correspondence

The "View History" option from a Card will display all stored
template documents. To display a document, move the cursor to the
desired document and press . The History lists all the
previous saved correspondence relevant to that Address card.

(d) Notes

As well as a list of previous correspondence, the History of an
Address Card can contain Notes. From the Address Menu select the
"New Note in History", and enter your note in the window
displayed.

The History will be updated each time a new note is added.


14. Services

There are many extra facilities of Organiser which are set up
using the Services menu. This is produced by holding and
pressing .

(a) The Alarm will sound at a specified date and time if one is
entered. The allotted message is then displayed on the top line
of the screen. Note that this Alarm is lost when you switch off
the machine. To enter an Alarm for a future date, use the Diary.

(b) The Colour menu can be selected if the Colour Monitor option
of Other Settings is turned ON.

(c) The Size and Move options allow you to choose a new
position, and where appropriate a new size, for the current top
window.

(d) The Printer options are found by selecting "Printer". A range
of PDF files can be seen by pressing while editing the last
field. Choosing the correct PDF file means that the Word
Processor will send suitable codes to your printer.

The PC's normal parallel port is called LPT1 and the Serial port
is COM1. Output to a file with an ASCII PDF selected may be used
to export documents from Organiser.

(e) The Other Settings Menu allows you to select a number of
self-explanatory options. The Help screens will automatically
appear after the delay shown. Set this to "0" to turn off this
option.

The "Save Delay" option governs the period between each time your
computer automatically saves the contents of the screen.

Setting any delay to zero will disable that option.

(f) The Dial option. Select Com Port COM1 if using an external
modem or COM2. The remaining fields in the upper half of the
window, the Modem Prefix and Hangup delay should not be altered.

NOTE: Many menus within the Organiser contain short-cuts not
specifically mentioned in this manual. You will often find the
option you require by pressing .


15. Function Keys.

While you are using the Organiser each of the function keys has a
specific purpose. When the Organiser is Memory Resident, those
options on - can still be used, but you must also hold
down the left hand key.

To put the Organiser in and out of background press .


Function Key With

Help Dial
Flip Main Menu
Calculator
Recall Find
Cut Service
Paste Create
Variable Print
ASCII chart Undo
Show
Menu