October 2001 - Lantica Software, LLC
Contents
1. and F10 finishes defining the text to be copied lt ctrlhom gt lt end gt lt rgt gt lt 10 gt moves the cursor to beyond the end of the first line of the document and completes the copying of the field name there leaving the cursor at the start of the field name HR1 lt alti gt THEN lt sp gt Clear lt sp gt lt end gt This sequence uses Alt I to change to Insert Mode the insert key merely toggles between insert and overtype modes so you can t be sure what it s doing The text THEN Clear is then typed in front of the field name End moves beyond the field name and the closing bracket is typed completing the construction of the new first line of programming lt home gt lt dn gt lt f 4 gt goes to the start of the line below and F4 deletes the current word TE ELSE lt sp gt lt enter gt types the word ELSE followed by a space then the opening French brace followed by a carriage return Try These Block Operations You might not be aware of the power of Q amp A s text block operations When you press F3 Delete block or F5 Copy block or the like you can then define the text to be included by using the cursor keys You can also use Home End Page Up and suchlike but you can also use two additional little known techniques You can type a character to select forward to the next instance of that character This can then be repeated with the same or other charac2. 15 When the printer still won t print after 20 tries send the job to all 68 printers in the company One of them is bound to work 16 Don t learn the proper name for anything technical We know exactly what you mean by My thingy blew up 14 17 Never use on line help On line help is for wimps 18 If the mouse cable keeps knocking over the photo of your cat lift the computer and stuff the cable under it Mouse cables are designed to have 20 Ibs of computer sitting on top of them 19 If the space bar on your keyboard doesn t work blame it on the mail upgrade Keyboards are designed to work with half a pound of muffin crumbs and nail clippings in them 20 When your software program asks you Are you sure Click on that Yes button as fast as you can Hell if you weren t sure you wouldn t be doing it would you 21 When you find a computer support person on the phone with his bank sit uninvited on the corner of his desk and stare at him until he hangs up We don t have any money to speak of anyway 22 Feel perfectly free to say things like don t know nothing about that computer crap We don t mind at all hearing our area of professional expertise referred to that way 23 When you need to change the toner cartridge in a printer call computer support Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task and printer manufacturers recommend that it be performed only by a professional engineer
3. Post in Q amp A 5 0 you might get some inexplicable results If after entering the Post From and Post To database names you are returned to the File menu when you press Enter with no other apparent activity try this Check to see that the Post To database has an indexed Speedy field The Batch Posting operation requires that the matching field in the target or Post To database is indexed If there is no The Quick Answer e October 2001 such field in the target database Q amp A 5 0 just leaves you at the File menu with no explanation In Q amp A 4 0 however the following appropriate message is displayed under these same conditions There are no speedy fields in the target database See Pg 3 31 of User Manual Alec Mulvey 15 Expanded Memory a cont d from page 13 to perform this test before purchasing any new computer for use with Q amp A 1 Turn the computer so that the right side of the case is facing you If it s a Compaq or Gateway model use the left side instead If it s a notebook gently turn it over If it s an HP Dell or WinBook select another model 2 Place your left hand palm facing down against the case 3 Place your left ear close to your left hand 4 Firmly rap the knuckles of your left hand with the knuckles of your right hand 5 If you hear a faint but audible echo then ECHO is ON and this computer is equipped with Expanded Memory Have the salesperson take one of these to the c
4. Q amp A users are always asking us whether this or that new PC from this or that computer maker comes with Expanded Memory Expanded Memory is crucial to Q amp A 5 0 and useful to Q amp A 4 0 Many of today s PC sno longer support it Of course it s our job to know which specific computer models out of the hundreds on the market support Expanded Memory even when their makers own sales staffs and The Quick Answer e October 2001 technical support people are utterly clueless So The Quick Answer Labs decided it was high time to come up with a sure fire test that any bumpkin could use to find out if a computer does or doesn t have Expanded Memory After months of exhaustive research and testing on countless computer models we re happy to report that we were able to develop the following test Be sure Concludes on next page 16 13 How To Keep Your Computer Support People Happy 1 When you call us to have your computer moved be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards baby pictures stuffed animals dead flowers bowling trophies and children s art We don t have alife and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours 2 Don t write anything down Ever We can play back the error messages from here 3 When a computer support person says he s coming right over go for coffee That way you won t be there when we need your password It s nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver
5. breed size coloring ability to work with people ability to work with other dogs acting experience Continues on page 3 sesame Macros Scriptsand Sesame Over the past few months we ve received a number of calls and emails from folks wanting to know whether our new database manager will be able to convert their Q amp A for DOS macros or Q amp A for Windows scripts We d like to address this issue fully so that you can understand what it involves What are macros really In Q amp A for DOS a macro is a sequence of keyboard keystrokes Q amp A stores whatever keys you press while you record your macro then presses those keys for you automatically when you later run it Custom menus are essentially just containers for the keystroke macros you ve recorded and placed on them as menu selections Q amp A for Windows doesn t have keystroke macros but it does let you create scripts that automate tasks such as retrieving a set of database records printing a report running a Mass Update and the like You can run such scripts from a common scripts menu or attach them to form buttons In Q amp A for Windows a script becomes part of the database in which you create it Not so in Q amp A for DOS where any macro can be launched from anywhere in the product What issues are involved with macros There s one quality that all Q amp A for DOS macros including custom menus share they do no
6. this would throw away A Word1 would now contain cuddly and Word2 would now contain flop eared Remaining would contain Cocker Spaniel who s always ready to play If cuddly flop eared and cuddly failed to match to CODE then another Mass Update to throw away a word would eliminate cuddly Eventually it would get to Cocker Spaniel which would be extracted Summary Data conversion can be a major effort You may need to convert simply to get more value from the data you already have You may need to convert in preparation to migrate your application to another platform including Sesame The techniques described here help automate the process so that it is manageable Unfortunately there is no way to eliminate entirely the involvement of humans who know and understand what the data has to say This simply tries to minimize that effort by combining the talents of those humans with the data crunching capabilities of the computer and Q amp A John Dow is the creator of a host of valuable Q amp A utilities including DTFDATA DTFDOCTR and DTFWIN and he developed the patch that enables Q amp A for Windows to run in Windows 2000 He is also a principal of Lantica Software LLC www johntdow com 412 973 9473 John has posted at his Web site www johntdow com the sample DOG and CODE databases featured in this article The databases are supplied in both Q amp A 4 0 and Q amp A 5 0 versions and
7. Userid user time minutes on Str Date Ending at Str Time 2000 There must be a manual carriage return after the next to last quote Admin is assumed to be the administrator s login name Press F8 from the Program Spec and type 2000 in the On Exit Field ID In the field before this one put a navigation statement that says on leaving the field go to the same field this will prevent users from entering the field even though it is hidden from them Next in the first field of the database add the following program lt 1 XPost C QA5 User strtime Userid Time Time user Now design a simple two field database called STRTIME DTF for inclusion in each user s C drive in a folder named C QA5 USER The first field is named Send your Q amp A questions to Help The Quick Answer Marble Publications Inc 1927A Harbor Blvd Costa Mesa CA 92627 or email to mailbox quickanswer com Include your name address phone and your Q amp A version number and whether DOS or Windows and a detailed description of the problem We ll publish those questions we feel are of general reader interest individual responses aren t possible The Quick Answer e October 2001 User Text and the second field is named Time Hours Make the User field a Speedy field Now create one record with the local user s login name in it Here s how it works On ent
8. passwords 4 When you call the help desk state what you want not what s keeping you from getting it We don t need to know that you can t get into your email because your computer won t power onatall 5 When computer support sends you an email with high importance delete it at once We re just testing 6 When the computer support person is eating lunch at his desk walk right in and spill your guts We exist only to serve 7 Send urgent emails in ALL UPPERCASE The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery 8 When the photocopier doesn t work call computer support There s electronics in it 9 When you re getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home call computer support We can fix your telephone line from here 10 When you have a dozen old computer screens to get rid of call computer support We re collectors 11 When something s wrong with your home PC dump iton a computer support person s chair with no name no phone number and no description of the problem We love a puzzle 12 When a computer support person tells you that computer screens don t have cartridges in them argue We love a good argument 13 When a computer support person tells you that he ll be there shortly reply in a scathing tone of voice And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly That motivates us 14 When the printer won t print re send the job at least 20 times Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes
9. A choices are structured differently and are in different positions requiring different navigation In Sesame multiple databases can be made part of a single application Remember Sesame is not a flat file database manager like Q amp A Although it has all of the ease of use of one it is hierarchal or relational using the term loosely in nature This means that its internal structures and pointers are different It also means that a lot of what you were required to do with macros in Q amp A you may be able to do with routine database programming in Sesame Finally with full Windows like form layout control in Sesame you ll probably modify your database screens once they ve been converted The bottom line We ve looked at all this long and hard and feel that it would be irresponsible of us to even think that we could take all the infinite combinations of the above issues into account and ever hope to get them 100 correct under all conditions There are too many variables For this reason alone it has long been standard industry practice not to attempt to convert or import one program s macros or scripts into another We feel that the risk of compromising your data by attempting to somehow convert them from Q amp A for use in Sesame would be too great Sesame will come with its own automation features and that s how it should be Bill Halpern President and CEO Lantica Software LLC se Expanded Memory A Sure Fire Test
10. In other cases there may be a list of standard terms perhaps even an industry standard list For example in the medical field there are standard diagnosis terms complete with a numeric coding scheme and this information is readily available in computer readable form Assuming that we don t have a complete list of coded terms up front we ll have to create the list as we go That means we need a report in the DOG database that lists terms that have yet to be extracted from the free text field At any point in the conversion process this report can be run to find terms that are not yet in CODES After adding new terms to CODES we ll run through the iterative process again to extract information using these new terms Sc Print Multiple Report Copies ws Need several copies of a report No problem if your fingers can stretch from Alt to F10 At the Report Print Options screen which we all pass quickly over there s a line where you can insert printer control codes have an HP Laser et 4 and in the manual for it there are printer codes for number of pages For HP Laser et users the code consists of the Escape character a left arrow an ampersand a lowercase L the number of copies and finally a capital X To produce the Escape character you hold down Alt F10 while pressing 27 on the numeric keypad So the code looks like this The Quick Answer e October 2001 lt amp 1 X You ll then get copies of y
11. O amp A doesn t show you the changed setting if you go through the process again It will be the same as it was the last time you successfully set it Resetting it for every Q amp A session is just a waste of time and effort Preview to Screen My problem is this When doing a screen preview of a report I get the error message QADFONT OVL is missing The database seems to work properly otherwise This happens only on one machine a new one Four or Five years ago ran the Q amp A 5 0 Speedfix patch when I got my first Pentium and have been using the same QAL EXE file successfully ever since until now So I ve just about run out of ideas and hope that this might be a familiar issue to you or others Any ideas Charley Concludes on page 16 Use Macrosto Help Program Your Database Part 3 WE Quick Avec MuLvey N the two preceding instalments in this series I ve shown you some of the ways I use macros to automate Q amp A database form redesign and programming This saves time and helps avoid those all too easy typos In this final instalment I d like to take you through another case study This time it s a single macro I used to reprogram a database The macro took me about an hour and a half to refine but the effort was well worth it Why Because the same programming had to be changed in 149 pairs of fields Once perfected the macro reprogrammed the database in about five minutes If I d had to re pr
12. Spec for Iterate should clearly only select records in which Word1 is not blank As you iterate the number of records will therefore either be reduced or stay the same If the number of records stays the same between iterations that fact is an indication that nothing was altered on that specific iteration At that point you should run the report to see what remains to be coded and then add more records or aliases for existing records into the CODE database This report should like the Mass Update only report records in which Word1 is not blank The Quick Answer e October 2001 Refinements 1 In one of the databases where I used this process the words to be recognized were not dog breeds and attributes but medical terms Some medical terms are very long Furthermore we had to allow for three word phrases so the database had not just Word1 and Word2 but also Word3 Putting together three long words in order to do a lookup into the Alias field in the CODE database would be a problem with Q amp A because key Speedy values can only be 16 characters if they are to be unique Examples Respiratory Therapist is 21 characters and it s only two words Pulmonary Respiratory Diseases is 30 characters I used the following technique to get around the 16 character limitation In the equivalent of the DOG database I maintained a copy of Word1 Word2 and Word3 in additional fields and removed the vowels from the copies W
13. contain Dachshund Word2 would contain Terrior and Remainder would contain mix The original Description field itself is not altered by this process so it remains available as a check on the accuracy of the process If you re using Q amp A for DOS you might want to redesign the database to move it to a back page Now create and save a Mass Update Iterate Spec to process the information in Word1 Word2 and Remainder Conceptually it s quite easy to describe what it has to do This Mass Update should join together the contents of Word1 and Word2 into a temporary field and use that combination to lookup into the Alias field in CODE The Quick Answer e October 2001 Example if Word1 Great and Word2 Dane then try to find Great Dane in the Alias field in CODE In our example this would be found so use XLookup to find the value of the Type field in CODE This would of course be breed so the Mass Update should then XLookup the Term field in CODE and put what it finds Great Dane into the Breed field in the DOG database Yes yes I haven t mentioned the Breed field yet You also need to add Color Acting Experience and other fields to the DOG database Example if the Mass Update had looked for Alsatian and found it in Alias the Term field would contain German shepherd and that s what would go into the Breed field in DOG Thus the nonstandard term Alsatia
14. currently running Windows applications Try it hold down the Alt key it must be the left hand Alt key for non US keyboards and press the Tab key until the application you want to switch to is highlighted But what if you want to start a new application Well it depends on whether you re running Q amp A in full screen or window mode Ina window If you re running Windows 98 or later you ll probably have a toolbar to the right of the Start button down on the Windows Taskbar By default it s at the bottom of the screen but can be moved This is called the Quick Launch Toolbar and it s very handy See Figure 1 You ll probably have icons on it for Internet Explorer and Outlook Express There might also be another icon with a pen over some paper called Show Desktop Clicking on this icon minimises all running applications That is they continue to be active but shrink to icons on the taskbar The Windows desktop is then exposed in full By the way notice that there s a Q amp A icon on my Quick Launch Toolbar Yes this toolbar is customisable You can remove any icons you don t want and put on it any icons you like You do x ad e nma aAwN Figure 1 Icons including your Q amp A icon on Windows Quick Launch toolbar this simply by dragging a shortcut icon from the desktop to it So once you have your Q amp A icon set up correctly on your desktop drag it onto the Quick Launch Toolbar Hold down the C
15. field name might contain spaces then the following sequence without the commas would accommodate it F7 comma F10 Escape Right Arrow F5 Left Arrow F10 This leaves the cursor on the comma in front of the field name and the F5 sequence selects beyond the field name to the character with the left arrow reducing the selection to exclude just the lt sp gt IF lt sp gt lt end gt lt sp gt lt caps gt lt caps gt lt sp gt types this text around the field name resulting in IF CodeHR1 lt gt lt home gt lt enter gt restores the blank line above this new line lt ctrlend gt lt sp gt adds a space and the closing French brace at the end of the programming lt ctrlhom gt lt f 11 gt lt ctrlend gt lt f 10 gt goes to the top of the field and copies the whole of the programming to the Q amp A 5 0 clipboard lt f 6 gt lt tab gt lt f12 gt closes the field editor for the first Code field tabs to the second Text field and pastes the programming there lt 6 gt lt dn gt lt end gt lt bks gt opens the field editor for the second field moves to the second line starting with ELSE and deletes the opening French brace at the end of the line End Backspace 11 lt dn gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt moves to the line below and deletes it along with a further six lines of
16. lt enddef gt Clearly this macro is meaningless as such But I ll take you through it step by step with the hope that you ll find use for some of the techniques it contains The Quick Answer e October 2001 As ever with macros it s worth applying some thought to how and where they will start and finish This macro is activated by pressing Ctrl P from the first of the pair of fields the code field It ends by tabbing from the second field to the next field and stopping If the next field is the next code field as it usually is then you simply press Ctrl P again If there are other fields in between you simply tab to the next code field and press Ctrl P there lt tab gt lt f 6 gt lt f11l gt lt ctrlend gt lt f 10 gt tabs from the code field to the next field the text field The F6 opens the field editor for the field so you can now take advantage of the word processor features The F11 invokes the copy to clipboard feature available in Q amp A 5 0 Ctrl End selects all the text in this case all the programming to the end of the field and F10 performs the copy If you re using Q amp A 4 0 then you can instead use Ctrl F5 to Copy block to a temporary ASCII file such as Temp and confirm you want to overwrite Temp lt f 3 gt lt ctrlhom gt lt f 10 gt Here you re at the end of the programming F3 deletes a block Ctrl Home selects to the start of the field all the programming and F10 comple
17. sp gt lt end gt lt sp gt starts a new line indents and adds a space and a semicolon at the end of the line lt home gt lt up gt lt enter gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt enter gt adds a couple of blank lines to separate the programming statements for clarity lt f4 gt lt f 4 gt lt sp gt THEN lt sp gt deletes the word ELSE and replaces it with THEN This line now reads THEN HR1 xlu phrases CodeHR1 Lang Code Unique rs text lt 7 gt lt 10 gt lt esc gt is the neatest part of the macro F7 starts another search Figure 1 The top section of the Search Options box The Quick Answer e October 2001 This time the text searched for is the symbol F10 performs the search There is no need to set it to Manual as Q amp A retains this setting from the last search The Escape then leaves the cursor sitting on the which is right after the field name lt ctrllft gt moves left one word and has the effect of placing the cursor at the beginning of the field name In this particular instance the field name is always one word in this case CodeHR1 lt f5 gt lt f5 gt lt f10 gt F5 commences a copy The second F5 extends the selection to include the word Since the cursor is on the start of the field name this selects the field name F10 confirms the selection lt home gt lt up gt lt f10 gt copies the field name to the line above If the
18. to Marble Publications Inc The Quick Answer 1927A Harbor Blvd Costa Mesa CA 92627 Phone 800 780 5474 or 949 722 9127 Fax 949 722 9127 mailbox quickanswer com On the Web at www quickanswer com Q amp A is a trademark of Symantec Corp Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders This publication is intended as a general guide It covers a highly technical and complex subject and should not be used for making decisions concerning specific products or applications This publication is sold as is without warranty of any kind either express or implied including but not limited to implied warranties for the publication quality performance merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose Marble Publications Inc shall not be liable to the purchaser or any other person or entity with respect to any liability loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this publication Articles published in The Quick Answer do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of Marble Publications Inc Reach Us Phone 800 780 5474 949 722 9127 Fax 949 722 9127 Email mailbox quickanswer com Web http www quickanswer com Mail Marble Publications The Quick Answer 1927A Harbor Blvd Costa Mesa CA 92627 USA path to the folder when it accesses a specific database But when run from a computer with even a slightly different setup either can produce totally
19. unpredictable results Dependent on user s setup In Q amp A 5 0 macros can even run external programs which again are dependent on the individual computer s configuration Concludes on page 13 The Quick Answer e October 2001 Standardize Text a cont d from page 1 Defining the problem Given a free text field in a database with many thousands of records we need a one time conversion process to extract coded or standardized information from this field This process must meet several criteria 1 It must recognize phrases in addition to single words For example Great Dane names a breed Note that great watchdog is a different use of the word great and should not confuse the recognition of Great Dane 2 It must allow for variations including spelling errors abbreviations and alternative terms A German Shepherd might also be entered into the text field as German Shep police dog German police dog German shepherd dog shepherd shepherd dog or even Alsatian 3 It must require minimal human intervention The assumption is that we don t have time to go through all records recoding them one by one On the other hand some human effort will be required to enter the information to be used in the coding process 4 It must maximize the effectiveness of the process although it can t be expected to be perfect We re a small business with limited resources 5 Finally the list of coded or
20. 6 gt lt dn gt lt f 5 gt lt end gt lt 10 gt lt ctrlhom gt lt end gt lt f 10 gt lt rgt gt lt rgt gt lt rgt gt lt del gt lt del gt lt del gt lt del gt lt ctrlrgt gt lt lft gt lt lft gt lt lfit gt lt lfit gt lt del gt lt del gt lt del gt lt end gt lt lft gt lt lft gt lt del gt lt home gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt ctrlrgt gt lt ctrirgt gt lt 5 gt lt lft gt lt 10 gt lt ctrlhom gt lt end gt lt rgt gt lt 10 gt lt alti gt THEN lt sp gt Clear lt sp gt lt end gt lt home gt lt dn gt lt f 4 gt ELSE lt sp gt lt enter gt lt sp gt IF lt sp gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt del gt lt f 7 gt THEN lt dn gt lt dn gt M lt 10 gt lt esc gt lt enter gt lt sp gt lt end gt lt sp gt lt home gt lt up gt lt enter gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt enter gt lt f 4 gt lt f 4 gt lt sp gt THEN lt sp gt lt 7 gt lt f 10 gt lt esc gt lt ctrllft gt lt f 5 gt lt f 5 gt lt f10 gt lt home gt lt up gt lt f10 gt lt sp gt IF lt sp gt lt end gt lt sp gt lt caps gt lt caps gt lt sp gt lt home gt lt enter gt lt ctrlend gt lt sp gt lt ctrlhom gt lt f11 gt lt ctrlend gt lt f10 gt lt f 6 gt lt tab gt lt 12 gt lt 6 gt lt dn gt lt end gt lt bks gt lt dn gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt ctrlend gt lt bks gt lt f6 gt lt tab gt
21. R1 ELSE IF Lt CodeHR1 1 THEN XusR PHRASES English RS Code 10a 10p CodeHR1 IF Lt CodeHR1 1 THEN Clear CodeHR1 j i IF CodeHR1 lt gt THEN HR1 xlu phrases CodeHR1 Lang Code Unique rs text Field HR1 gt IF CodeHR1 THEN Clear HR1 ELSE IF CodeHR1 lt gt THEN HR1 xlu phrases CodeHR1 Lang Code Unique rs text The problem was that whereas in the example above where the field name for the second field is HR1 it s just as likely to be Respiratory System much longer and two words The techniques As before the tools I used were those splendid Q amp A Write word processor features I ve mentioned before that it is well worth learning these You will see a number of them used here and I will explain them as they appear It s worth noting though that the whole technique relies upon the use of one of these word processing features in an original way so read on As before I have used field names throughout Here s the macro in full lt begdef gt lt ctrlp gt lt name gt Change lt sp gt Prog lt vidon gt lt tab gt lt f6 gt lt f11 gt lt ctrlend gt lt f10 gt lt f3 gt lt ctrlhom gt lt 10 gt lt 6 gt lt capstab gt lt f6 gt lt ins gt lt rgt gt lt enter gt lt ctrlend gt lt sp gt lt enter gt lt 12 gt lt del gt lt f6 gt lt f
22. This free back issue of THE QUICK ANSWER is provided courtesy of S same The Monthly Newsletter for Sesame Database Manager http www insidesesame com Read a Free Issue of Inside Sesame AND L SOFTWARE LLC Makers of Sesame Database Manager Compatible with Symantec Q amp A http www lantica com Standardizing FreeText G Answe That s because it s not only easy to create them in the first place but Jonn T Dow OST Q amp A databases will look somewhat different today than they did when they were first designed Q amp A makes it extraordinarily easy to modify and enhance them over time The very success of a Q amp A database can cause a business to grow and to change with that growth and the growing business can in turn bring about the need to transform little by little the databases it depends on One of the changes that might eventually be required of a database is a greater degree of standardization of the data For example with Q amp A it is very easy to create a field as a text field and then enter the text in virtually any form on the fly Furthermore finding records is so easy with Q amp A s Retrieve Specs that it doesn t matter that the information wasn t standardized when it was entered If you do a search and distrust the results because you got too few hits you can easily modify the search and try again However as the database grows in size the people using it will beco
23. ated in the Main menu Utilities Set Global Options Q amp A Database Files directory It cannot be found using the usual path notation in the XLookup command Charley Sawyer Cambridge MA The Quick Answer e October 2001 It s good practice to lay out your programming for clarity lt sp gt IF lt sp gt inserts a space to indent the line types IF and then another space in front of LT lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt capsf4 gt lt capsf4 gt lt del gt moves down three lines and then deletes Shift F4 the delete line key combination the two lines IF CodeHR1 lt gt THEN And the final lt del gt deletes a character on the IF Lt line reducing the indent so that the corresponding IF s and THEN s are lined up lt 7 gt THEN lt dn gt lt dn gt M lt f 10 gt lt esc gt starts a Search or a Search and Replace operation THEN is the text searched for The two down arrows take you to the Method options Here you do not use your arrow keys to select the method because Q amp A remembers the last settings You need to set this search method absolutely so M is typed for Manual Replace With is left blank See Figure 1 An F10 keypress then performs the search and the cursor is placed on the next instance of the word THEN Escape is now pressed This has the effect of leaving the cursor on the first letter of THEN lt enter gt lt
24. c Not universally runnable Q amp A macros are dependent on the individual user s setup Two macros that perform the very same actions are totally different if one user has Q amp A s Automatic Execution set to Yes and another has it set to No The latter needs an extra Enter keystroke at every menu choice If you have more than one printer installed a macro can select the correct printer for that particular computer setup and print job If you have your databases in different folders a macro can include the The Answer Editor Publisher Tom Marcellus The Quick Answer ISSN 1052 3820 is published monthly 12 times per year by Marble Publications Inc 1927A Harbor Blvd Costa Mesa CA 92627 USA Cost of domestic subscriptions 12 issues 109 Outside the U S 129 Online edition 79 Single copy price 11 outside the U S 12 50 All funds must be in U S currency Back issues are available upon request for the same price as a single copy POSTMASTER Send address changes to The Quick Answer 1927A Harbor Blvd Costa Mesa CA 92627 Copyright 2001 by Marble Publications Inc All rights reserved No part of this periodical may be used or reproduced in any fashion except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews without the prior written consent of Marble Publications Inc Address editorial correspondence HELP questions or requests for special permission
25. e line IF Lt CodeHR1 1 F5 starts the block copy End selects to the end of that line and F10 confirms the copy Q amp A will now be asking you to specify where you want the block of text copied lt ctrlhom gt lt end gt lt f10 gt places the cursor at the start of the first line then moves to the end of the line where the F10 completes the copy The effect of this is to copy the first line above itself where it will now be edited lt rgt gt lt rgt gt lt rgt gt lt del gt lt del gt lt del gt lt del gt deletes LT in front of the field name lt ctrlrgt gt lt lft gt lt lft gt lt lft gt lt lft gt lt del gt lt del gt lt del gt moves forward beyond the field name and deletes the 1 characters lt end gt lt 1ft gt lt lft gt lt del gt deletes the within the quotes All this leaves the new first line reading we here u Winning Emails to Tech Support We salute the compositionally challenged for their heroic efforts to communicate their Q amp A issues by any means The following mail messages were received asis Just not enough Holy Grails to meet demand From S Date Mon 25 Jun 2001 12 40 14 EDT Subject Q amp A reports To bill pcta usa com im trying to print out a complete waiting list but i get this error message no records were found that meet your retreive quest Why some small companies stay that way From lt a To lt bill pcta usa com g
26. e re interested in capturing Now that Golden Retreiver has been extracted we re left with great watchdog It would probably be good to make the T g process smart enough to ee automatically remove the comma when it appears at the beginning 9 like this so that instead we have AI great watchdog However x commas should not be discarded d A immediately because they serve to delineate multiword terms such as Great Dane and Cocker Spaniel You can see that the iterative process is in fact a nested iteration We alternate between adding new terms into CODE and extracting information from DOG based on the terms defined so far in CODE This nested iterative process could be time consuming if the database with the free text field is too large This processing time can be reduced by working offline with a subset of the original database Copy the design of the master database to a local hard drive and then copy a randomly selected small subset of the data into it If you have 50 000 records in the master database on your server copying 5 000 records into your copy on the local drive would be a good start If your records have a sequentially assigned record number you could get a 10 sample by copying every record for which the last digit is some particular digit such as 3 This local DOG database can be used to add the new fields and programming required for this process It can also be iteratively
27. ering a CASE record in Add Data or Search Update mode the programming statement in the first field automatically posts the time of entry to the STRTIME database without making any changes to the CASE record Then on leaving the record where a change has been made the programming in the hidden field uses that time and creates a string like the following adding it to the top of any previous entries in the field USERNAME in this record for 1 minutes on 2001 09 09 Ending at 20 54 If no changes are made to the CASE record no entries are made to the hidden field Pressing Escape lets the user exit with no messages if no changes have been made to the record The only people that can see the tracking fields are those with administrative rights The one caveat is that making a change that takes less than one minute will generate a message that the user was in the record for 0 minutes There it is Each CASE record keeps its own internal report of all the different times spent with a customer The variations on this approach are wide open By the way Sesame will make this much easier because you ll be able to program and track Modified at the individual field level and you ll be able to store values as system variables without having to use fields Will Q amp A Run in Windows XP l have been reading a lot about Microsoft s new Windows XP operating system and have been very impressed with the reviews to date I think I will wa
28. f dogs in that Description field Great Dane Dachshund Terrior mix friendly Pedigree Cocker Spaniel afraid of other dogs black Golden Retreiver great watchdog A cuddly flop eared Cocker Spaniel who s always ready to play You can see that anybody reading these descriptions will have no problem understanding what is meant by them Nevertheless there are several problems First there s no standardization of the information We only know the color of one of the dogs We know something about the disposition of only The The Do It Yourself Guide to Q amp A 1 Standardize Free Text John Dow 2 Sesame Seeds Macros Scripts and Sesame 3 Tip Print Multiple Report Copies 5 Tip Windows Me Not for You 6 Help Edited by Bill Halpern Tracking User Time Does Q amp A Run in Windows XP Setting Graphics Mode e Screen Preview Not Working 8 Use Macros to Help Program Your Database Part 3 Alec Mulvey 9 Winning Emails to Tech Support 10 Tip Print Lengthy Report Headers 13 Tip Test for Expanded Memory 14 Keep Computer Support Happy 15 Tip Switch Apps Easily 15 Tip Batch Posting Glitch MARBLE PUBLICATIONS two of the dogs Second there are spelling errors terrior and retreiver Clearly searching for the right dog would be much better if the database did not have one free text field describing each dog but a set of fields with standardized information These fields might be
29. heckout stand for you If you re purchasing several be sure to inquire about a discount Happy Halloween J eff Noreman s company Nexus Unlimited 516 753 2125 custom builds computers with Expanded Memory Help a cont d from page 7 If you re starting Q amp A for DOS by running QA1 EXE that s your first and biggest mistake You should always start Q amp A with QA COM To do otherwise can open the door to inexplicable oddities in the way Q amp A performs and in the way it can t seem to remember settings you ve made The QADFONT OVL file must reside in the same directory as your Q amp A program files If it s corrupt or damaged you ll get the message that it s missing We will send you a copy of a good QADFONT OVL It s required for screen previews to work Try copying this file into your Q amp A 5 0 program files directory If the above doesn t work try renaming your QA CFG file A corrupt QA CFG file could be the culprit By renaming the old one you ll cause Q amp A to create a new one the next time it starts You ll lose all your default settings installed printers default file paths and the like so you ll have to redo them Bill Halpern is co owner of Professional Computer Technology Associates PCTA in Newtown Pennsylvania and is President and CEO of Lantica Software LLC 215 598 8440 bill pcta usa com www pcta usa com ie N The 1 Info on the Q amp A successor product www q
30. henever combining Word1 and Word2 or Word1 Word2 and Word3 if the original words formed a string longer than 16 characters the Mass Update logic switched to the words without vowels to create a shorter string While removing vowels might well introduce ambiguity in what the original word was in practice it seems to have worked just fine presumably because vowels in medical terms in the English language have a lot of redundancy to use an information theory term In other words it s pretty safe to do this Examples Respiratory Therapist becomes RsprtrThrpst which is only 12 characters Pulmonary Respiratory Diseases becomes Plmnr RsprtrDsss which is 16 characters Concludes on page 12 Qc Me Not for You ws Quick Answer reader and veteran Q amp A consultant Henri Laborde Southern California reported the results of a recent conversation he had with a knowledgeable Gateway employee He was told by the employee that as of about three months ago the latest Windows Me update no longer supports Expanded Memory in any way shape or form on any PC But as Bill Halpern pointed out with good reason in last month s Help column you should avoid Me like the plague in any case Q amp A 4 0 for DOS can make use of available Expanded Memory to speed some operations Most Q amp A 5 0 operations won t work without it Hel p Epitep BY WILLIAM HALPERN Tracking User Time luse Q amp A 5 0 and feel tha
31. me less and less familiar with the details in it Additionally it will probably have more variability because more people will have been entering data that is not standardized Therefore searches will begin to miss records that should have been retrieved Employees searching the database either won t realize they ve missed records or they won t be motivated enough or have time enough to try different searches In a situation like this the need to standardize a vast collection of data will become painfully apparent In this article TIl sketch out how you can do this I am not going to get into any programming details because each situation will be different Setting the stage For the sake of discussion let s say that we have a business called Canine Casting of Hollywood Our customers are dog owners who want to place their pooches in commercials TV shows and movies We need to be able to quickly and reliably find the right dog whenever a casting call goes out Originally the owner of the business worked alone and entered all the information Today there are 20 employees half of whom enter new data and nearly all of whom do searches attempting to find the perfect dog for the next Eddie Murphy talking animal flick The business began with a few hundred dogs on a typed list now there are 30 000 dogs in the DOG DTF database The Description field is a text field used to describe each dog Here are some sample free text descriptions o
32. n would be replaced with the standard term German shepherd Example if the Mass Update looked for friendly Pedigree it would find nothing in the Alias field in CODE That s because friendly Pedigree is not a phrase we want to standardize or encode The Mass Update should therefore try to find friendly instead That is if it tries and fails to match two words it should try to match one word If the Mass Update matches either one or two words it should then shift over the values in the Word1 Word2 and Remainder fields If two words were matched then the next two words should be pulled from Remainder and loaded into Word1 and Word2 If only one word was matched then Word2 should replace the contents of Word1 and the next word should be pulled from Remainder and loaded into Word2 In the Initialize and Iterate Mass Updates care must of course be taken to handle the fact that sooner or later there will no longer be any words to pull from Remainder If the original Description was merely Poodle then Word1 would contain Poodle and Word2 and Remainder would both be blank If the original Description was Great Dane then Word1 and Word2 would contain Great and Dane and Remainder would be blank After one or more iterations for some records Word1 Word2 and Remainder will all be blank because everything in those fields will have been recognized and removed The Retrieve
33. nt to upgrade my computers to this O S as soon as it is available However Q amp A has to be able to run in it for me to even consider it Do you know if this is possible Linda Here we go again another new operating system that supposedly won t support legacy DOS programs I recently installed the Windows XP RC 2 release candidate 2 pre release version on one of our computers here at PCTA The first test was to see if Q amp A for DOS would even run it Guess what it does Windows XP is basically the same as Windows 2000 and as far as Q amp A is concerned behaves just like that O S I did have to edit the system ini file to rem out the EmmExclude statement in the 386Enh section just like you have to do in Windows ME But after that Q amp A had plenty of memory and I was able to set the properties for both Expanded and Extended memory Q amp A was extremely fast in this new O S It will run both ways in a window or full screen All of the conditions that apply to running Q amp A in Windows 2000 The Quick Answer e October 2001 apply to Windows XP You ll have to play around a bit to get the window size correct and you can t drag a batch file to the desktop to create the shortcut with the appropriate properties You have to do it the same as we ve specified for Windows 2000 See the May and June 2000 issues along with the September 2001 issue What s more Lesspace com also ran flawlessly on the new system S
34. o once more Q amp A keeps on going and going and going We haven t tested whether Q amp A for Windows runs in Windows XP But you ll most likely need John Dow s NTFIX patch in any case Find out about NTFIX by visiting John s Web site at www johntdow com By the way all preliminary testing of Sesame shows that it also runs perfectly in Windows XP Keep in mind that all of these comments are based on a pre release copy of Windows XP with minimal testing of Q amp A s basic features All indications are that everything will be fine but we ll let you know as soon as it s released and we can get our hands on a copy for more testing Setting Graphics Mode I just installed Windows 2000 on my Compaq Presario 7474 and my Q amp A 5 0 does not save the setting for the graphics card That is every time I start Q amp A have to Install graphics card on the Utilities menu Is there any way to save the setting Steven I don t know why you would even bother with this setting It s only useful if you re going to be attaching picture files to your Q amp A database and want to use the Bitmap viewer that comes with Q amp A 5 0 to view them If this is the reason you re trying to set the graphics mode then you should know that Q amp A creates a bitmap cfg file in the Q amp A program files directory If for some reason you ve gone to Utilities Install graphics card and made a change that change will be saved in this file But
35. ogram those 298 fields manually it would have probably taken me all day and a boring day to boot The task In the database in question there are many pairs of fields a code field that s filled in via an XUserselect pick list and a corresponding text field They each had identical programming except for the field names and other variables The programming was laid out for clarity with indents and so forth and this was consistent across the fields Ineeded to move some of the programming from the second text field to the first code field and make other changes Beyond that you don t need to know any more and I won t attempt to explain the programming It s just a couple of chunks of code that need to be manipulated Clearly a macro would help but the obstacle was the fact that the field names were of variable length and consisted of one or more words This ruled out a macro that simply moved around the programming geographically it needed some intelligence Here s the Before programming for the two fields Field CodeHR1 gt IF Lt CodeHR1 1 THEN XusR PHRASES CodeHR1 j English RS Code 10a 10p Field HR1 lt IF CodeHR1 lt gt THEN IF Lt CodeHR1 1 THEN Clear CodeHR1 ELSE HR1 xlu phrases CodeHR1 Lang Code Unique rs text And the After programming DOS Field CodeHR1 gt IF CodeHR1 w THEN Clear H
36. our report all the page 1 s first followed by all the page 2 s and so on But it works It s easier if you put the code in with a simple macro using any symbol you choose for the number of copies then manually replace that symbol with anumber Check your printer manual to find out if there might be similar codes for your printer Roger Skidmore Isle of Wight UK Taking the sample descriptions listed above suppose initially we load Great Dane and Dachshund into the CODE database and run through the DOG database to extract and encode information The process would recognize and extract Great Dane and Dachshund but leave the remainder of the text untouched The report of uncoded free text would report the following Terrior mix friendly Pedigree Cocker Spaniel afraid of other dogs black Golden Retreiver great watchdog A cuddly flop eared Cocker Spaniel who s always ready to play Perhaps next we would then enter friendly and Golden Retriever as terms among others See below to learn how the incorrectly spelled Retreiver is handled After running through the DOG database again the list would be reduced to this Terrior mix Pedigree Cocker Spaniel afraid of other dogs black great watchdog A cuddly flop eared Cocker Spaniel who s always ready to play Now that friendly has been extracted the process would be able to look at Pedigree This might be a term w
37. p A is an isolated and protected DOS program Sesame is not a DOS program Windows also reserves some of the standard Q amp A function or F keys for its own use Many of these reserved keys could be buried in your macros and could produce unpredictable results if invoked in an actual Windows program Macros launching macros Q amp A will let a macro call another macro or a custom menu just compounding the above issues Where s the macro file A Q amp A macro file can be named anything it doesn t have to be qamacro asc If it s named something else and is loaded by your Q amp A startup shortcut or even manually there would be no way for a program other than your copy of Q amp A to figure out what it was In the same vein some users set up different macro files for different users and different computers For example have one user where the computer is set up as the Billing system For any other user a completely different set of macros loads A Q amp A for DOS macro file can be located anywhere and is not attached to a specific database Q amp A makes no distinction regarding this type of link Major differences between the two programs While Sesame will convert a Q amp A database with its data form programming and other customized features Sesame s screen layout is different from Q amp A s Its database paths and filenames are different In addition Sesame s menus while containing the familiar Q amp
38. processed to build the list of terms in CODE The CODE database will have three fields Term Contains a term defined by this record Examples Cocker Spaniel or black Type Indicates what the term is A Cocker Spaniel is a breed while black is a color Alias Variations on the term Variation might be caused by abbreviations or simply alternate names for the same dog as mentioned above in reference to German Shepherds Variation might also be caused by common spelling errors as shown by Retreiver and Terrior The Term field is a unique indexed field The Alias field is an indexed keyword field Details Since this is a one time data conversion and it is to be done on an existing database with many thousands of records doing it with Q amp A requires Mass Updates First add several new fields to the DOG database Since we need to recognize two word terms Great Dane but not three word terms add the fields Word1 and Word2 Also add a field named Remainder Create and save a Mass Update Initialize Spec that processes the Description field to put the first word into Word1 the second word into Word2 and anything that s left over into Remainder In doing this processing you will probably do some cleaning up such as eliminating d various punctuation characters For example you might transform Dachshund Terrior mix by removing the Thus Word1 would
39. programming not required in this field lt ctrlend gt lt bks gt lt f6 gt moves to the very end of the programming and deletes the closing French brace and closes the field editor lt tab gt lt enddef gt Finally the macro tabs to the next field which is usually the next code field where the macro can be run again for the next pair of fields Conclusion I ve shown you some of the tricks I use when redesigning and programming What they have in common is the use of Q amp A s Write tools especially Search and Replace and Search alone along with shortcuts to select text and to move through text It really is worth learning these tricks and using macros to save time and frustration whenever you have repetitive tasks Alec Mulvey is a director of Lantica LLC and also owns Keyword Training amp Consultancy in Ascot near London England He has been building Q amp A applications and training clients for 11 years Keyword Training is the UK distributor for the International English edition of Q amp A Fax 44 1344 884 111 alec keywordtraining com www keywordtraining com Standardizing Text a cont d from page 5 2 Your data may contain many words that you ultimately decide are not worth keeping when you standardize Consider A cuddly flop eared Cocker Spaniel who s always ready to play Perhaps the only thing of value in this wordy string is Cocker Spaniel The problem is to find some way to remove the ex
40. some credit to Keith since he and I both worked out over the phone the theory behind the process Here are the requirements or conditions e Users can t be aware that they re being tracked e We must somehow record a starting time for record modification or adding a new record without generating a record modified flag e The tracking must be capable of recording multiple entries ior e Viewing a record without making any changes must not count as a timed event The tricky part and the key to this problem is saving a variable the time of day that the user enters the record and then using that variable only if a change has been made to the record The solution involves two databases One is the CASE DTF database where users work with the records and enter their updates and the second is a database not seen by the users that tracks record entry times in CASE This second database which Ill call STRTIME DTEF is best kept on each user s local hard drive in a location that won t appear on their usual list of database files screen In the CASE database preferably at the end of the form add a field that will be hidden by using field level security to make it No Access to regular users Place the following program in this field lt 2000 If Modified and Userid lt gt Admin Then 2000 Userid in this record for Str Time Totime XLu C QA5 User strtime
41. standardized values must be useable for future data entry to maintain good quality data entry from this point on These are the basic requirements that I used for two separate clients in recent months Obviously any particular situation might require changes to them or quite likely additional requirements Overview of the process First we need to teach Q amp A about all the terms and their alternative forms that are to be recognized in the free text fields We ll do that by putting the information into a new database designed especially to hold the various terms For lack of a better name this database can be called CODE DTF Next we need a process that will go through the entire database using the information we ve entered into the CODE database to extract the nuggets of information from the free text field in the DOG database This process will be iterative removing another term with each pass Eventually there will be nothing more to be removed and the process will be complete Finally after all the information has been extracted in standardized form the information we ve entered about the terms will be used for future data entry into DOG DTF to ensure the standardization we require Teaching Q amp A about the terms may not be possible without looking at the actual data For example with dogs we may not have a complete list of all the breeds and the other terms that we ve been using in the free text field
42. t Subject qa 5 0 Date Wed 25 Jul 2001 15 55 20 0500 I have a small company with only 7 qa and it s great to see all in one as I m registered with Kennedy software also but as I read your info it s all included we have just recently begun changig to new computers and not having to partin the drive is great I have order one today if there is nay info you might have please e mail IF CodeHR1 W lt home gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt lt dn gt moves the cursor to the start of the line following line ELSE HR1 xlu phrases CodeHR1 Lang Code Unique rs text lt ctrlrgt gt lt ctrirgt gt positions the cursor at the start of the second word the fieldname HR1 lt f5 gt lt 1ft gt lt f10 gt The F5 commences a copy operation Q amp A invites you to use the arrow keys to define the block of text you want to copy Typing the equals sign then tells Q amp A to select the text up to the next instance of an equals sign This takes us beyond the field name regardless of how long it is whether it is one word or many or even if it is on the next line This technique can prove very useful It can be further adapted by typing the same character again for the second instance or another character This way you can select from the cursor position to the first lt following the first for example The left arrow key moves the cursor back one to omit the
43. t I m pretty good with programming However this one has me stumped I have a feeling that Q amp A has the power to do it but I just can t get all the steps to work Here s what I need to have happen I manage a large group of sales reps and they are all graded and paid based on their efficiency in handling customers and their problems need to be able to track how long a rep is dealing with a customer and their problems If there is a problem the reps modify the case record I want to see how long they are spending without letting them know that lam tracking them I don t want to see time spent if a record hasn t been modified My idea was to have the record do time calculations in a hidden field with field level security based on entry time and exit time using the Modified function But I found that as soon as put in the entry time whether there is any other change or not Q amp A thinks the record has been modified In addition if the user just presses the Esc key he or she is presented with the message that their changes have not been saved giving them the hint that something is going on Any ideas Keith Normally I wouldn t classify this as an Help type of issue since it s so involved and secretive But I could see so many uses for a feature like this that I decided to share it with Quick Answer readers This will only work in Q amp A 5 0 since it uses the XPost feature found only in that version I must also give
44. t specify a known or common starting point In other words they don t include where from what position on which screen they are permitted to start Q amp A lets you record and run a macro starting from anywhere in the product You can record a macro designed to be run from the seventh field of the second page of the INVOICE database and no person or machine looking at just that macro would be able to tell where that starting point was If such a macro were to be run from any other location it could have disastrous results like deleting records or databases or even assigning passwords to previously un password protected databases which we see all too frequently Dumb things Q amp A macros are wonderful time saving tools but because they re dumb they re potentially dangerous They cannot handle or even recognize exceptions If they trip over something that should be there but isn t they ll just keep banging away until they ve run out of keystrokes For example if you record a macro that does something with a file a database a Q amp A Write document ora supplementary text file and that file is not exactly where the macro expects it that macro will run amok Even a fairly benign macro that finds some particular records then does something with them can wreak havoc in your system if it was recorded to expect at least one such record to be present and one day no such records meet the macro s Retrieve Spe
45. ters This includes a period to highlight sentences and the Enter key for carriage returns to highlight paragraphs In our example programming characters can be used The second technique is that you can press the same block operation key F3 F5 etc and Q amp A will expand the selection in this sequence 2nd key press select word 3rd key press select sentence 4th key press select paragraph 5th key press select page 6th key press select whole document Try this in a Q amp A Write document Very cool Sc Print Lenthy Report Headers amp Footers s At Q amp A s Report Define Page screen there s no apparent way to have more than 77 characters of text in a single line of aheader or footer But you can work around this In a separate support database make a field for each line of text you want to print as a report header or footer Text of any length can be entered into this field Now in the principal database at the Report Define Page screen enter a programming statement in this form on the appropriate header or footer line PG XLU SUPPORT DB KEY EXT KEY FLD FLD EXT DATA 10 You can define a font and size for that line The length of the text in the header footer line of the printed or previewed Report will be determined by the the font size definition for that line There s an oddity connected with this technique though The support database can be found by the Report only when it s loc
46. tes the deletion This clears the field of all its programming Modified programming will replace it later lt f6 gt lt capstab gt lt f6 gt closes the field editor for this field and Shift Tabs to the previous field the code field and opens its field editor lt ins gt lt rgt gt lt enter gt lt ctrlend gt lt sp gt lt enter gt switches to Insert mode when you enter a field Q amp A always reverts to Overtype mode and moves one character to the right beyond the gt character The Enter creates a new line Ctrl End moves the cursor to the very end of the existing programming then a space is typed followed by a semicolon and finally a new line lt 12 gt pastes the clipboard contents If you re using O amp A 4 0 then you ll instead have the macro press F8 Options Document Insert a Document temp to insert the file you saved earlier lt del gt lt f6 gt lt f6 gt deletes the gt character that starts the programming from the other field that has just been pasted The two F6 s then close the field editor and reopen it I m not sure why I did this perhaps to check that the programming is valid Anyway it has the effect of cancelling insert mode and returning the cursor to the start of the field programming A Ctrl Home would do the same but watch out for that Insert Overtype mode The Quick Answer e October 2001 lt dn gt lt 5 gt lt end gt lt f 10 gt moves down a line to th
47. tra words without too much effort I have used two techniques In the first data was exported from the DOG database s Word1 and Word2 fields ata point when iterations were no longer finding matches in CODE In this example Word1 would contain A and Word2 would contain cuddly Remainder would contain the rest of the description This data was exported to a comma delimited ASCII file with records like this A cuddly flop eared Cocker Spaniel who s always ready to play great watchdog We then used a text editor and removed from this file records which contained text to be kept Since we want to ignore A cuddly that record is left But if we want to retain watchdog although not great watchdog the second record would be deleted We are then left with records identifying terms that are to be ignored These records are imported into the CODE database and a Mass Update on CODE flags them by setting the Type field to IGNORE Then when the next Iterate Mass Update is run on DOG it will find A cuddly and know to ignore those words Another technique is simply to have a Mass Update run through DOG and delete Word1 In English this is saying Since nothing in DOG currently matches CODE 12 throw away the first word in each DOG record in case there s something behind it that will eventually match In the record in which Word1 A and Word2 cuddly
48. trl key as you do this so that you copy rather than move the shortcut If you re running Windows 95 you won t have the Quick Launch toolbar and know of no way to add it To minimise all windows you can right click on a blank area of the taskbar and select Minimize all windows or you can use the keyboard technique described below Full screen Full screen users wanting to run anew program are probably used to either exiting Q amp A or pressing Alt Enter to put Q amp A into a window then minimizing it There s an easier way however It involves using the Windows Logo key shown here a This is one of the new keys added to the Windows 95 keyboard which has been standard since that time There should be one of these keys on each side of your spacebar If you press this key by itself the Start menu pops up You can then run any program on the Start menu But often you have a convenient shortcut on your desktop or on the Quick Launch toolbar If you press the Windows key in conjunction with the M key you Minimize all Windows and presto your desktop is 100 available to you This works in Full screen or window mode in Windows 2000 Me 98 and 95 If you don t have a Windows 2000 keyboard you can buy one for under 15 If you don t even have Windows 95 then it s about time you got a new computer Alec Mulvey ob Why Batch Posting Might NotWork 2 When trying to set up a Batch Post File
49. uickanswer com Q amp A Tipsand Ideas Searchable Solutions Database Complete Back Issue Index 1990 to date e Dozens of Free Files to Download swer Comprehensive Topic Index 1990 to date Full Database Applications li e Info on Online Subscription Benefits Q amp A Consultants Directory online e Links to Useful Web Sites amp More Ne A MARBLE PUBLICATIONS October 2001 1927A Harbor Blvd 389 Costa Mesa CA 92627 USA 16 First dass The Quick Answer e October 2001
50. use different techniques to select codified entries during data entry In the Q amp A 4 0 version you can type the first few characters of the entry to lookup a match In the Q amp A 5 0 version built in pick lists for the selections are used Ed The Quick Answer e October 2001 Sesame Seeds a cont d from page 2 If it ain t there you re in trouble Q amp A macros can select items on lists such as Reports or saved Specs either by typing the name of the item always the preferred method or by recording multiple arrow or tab keystrokes to navigate to the item This kind of operation depends on the available items and or screen layout where the macro is running If you re using custom menus navigation to a standard feature like Report Print a Report Database name perhaps including the path Report Name can be totally different from another user doing the same thing using Q amp A s built in menus Incompatible key assignments Q amp A will let you rename assign to a macro any key or key combination on your keyboard For example to do list selections regularly use a macro that requires simply pressing the key on my keyboard Q amp A contains some keyboard accessible features that will be different in any real Windows program For example in Q amp A 5 0 you have the F11 and F12 internal clipboard copy and paste keys These are reserved keys in Windows They work in Q amp A running in Windows only because Q am
51. with a master s degree in nuclear physics 24 When something s the matter with your computer have your secretary call the help desk We enjoy the challenge of dealing with a third party who knows nothing about the problem 25 When you receive a huge 30Mb movie file send it to everyone as an email attachment We ve got gobs of underutilized disk space on the mail server 26 Don t even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks Somebody else might get a chance to squeeze a memo into the queue 27 When you lose your car keys send an email to the entire company People out in Pofadder like to keep abreast of what s going on 28 When you run into a computer support person at the grocery store on a Saturday ask a computer question We do weekends 29 Don t bother to tell us when you move computers around on your own Network computer names are just a cosmetic feature 30 When you bring your own personal home PC in for repair at the office leave the documentation at home We ll find all the settings and drivers somewhere 31 Keep it crashing The Quick Answer e October 2001 uick Switch from Q amp A to Another IP Application Easily If you run Q amp A for DOS in a window or even if you don t there s no need to abandon what you might be doing in Q amp A and exit the program to perform some task in a Windows application You re probably aware of the Alt Tab keyboard shortcut that toggles you between all
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