Money 97

1.Introduction

2.Requirements

Money97 is not that demanding. It requires Kickstart version 3.0 (v39.xx) or above and MUI 3.x. It should run with 200kb of memory (not tested). In addition MUI itself consumes some hundred kb of RAM, no matter how many MUI applications you start.

You need locale.library for locale support and an apropriate catalog file for your language. Currently German and English (built-in) are supported.

If you would like to change the toolbar icons and wish to use a non IFF format, you'll need the correct datatypes installed in your system.

3.Installation

The most simple way to install Money97 is to use the supplied script for the Installer. Installer is not included in the archive and should be somewhere in your command path, e.g. in the C: directory. The script is both English and German and can also be used to update or remove Money97.

You can also copy all files of this distribution into a directory of your harddrive by hand and the program will work, but since you surely will not need all included files, please take a look at the following notes to find out, which files you want to keep and where to copy them.

Installation notes:

1. Money97 is localized. You can install other languages than English (built-in) by copying the "catalogs" drawer to the Money97 directory. At the moment only a German catalog is included.

2. The drawer "images" includes a set of 16 color buttons which will be used for the toolbar of the program. The Money97 archive also includes lha's with a set of 8 color buttons and two sets for MagicWB by Bastian Kinne which you can copy to "images/" alternatively. Note, that you can create your own button sets too.

3. Several documentations are included in this archive and you can copy one or all of them to a drawer called "Docs" in your "Money97/" directory. Choose a language first (English and German at the moment) and then the type of documents you wish to keep. At the moment the following formats are available:

   a.ASC	Plain ASCII Text.
   b.Guide	AmigaGuide document - please note, that this one is needed if you want to use the online help!
   c.DVI	LaTeX document which can be used for a nice printout of the manual.
   d.HTML	Hypertext format for WWW-Browsers. You can always read the newest version at http://home.pages.de/~CON-fusio/ and download the actual version of the program here.
   e.GIF	Some screenshots are included which can be displayed from the Guide and HTML documentations. Please note that Money97 may look very different at your system according to your personal MUI configuration.

   Important note: If you wish to use the built-in online help functions make sure, that either the English or the German version of Money97.guide is placed in the drawer "Docs/" in the Money97 directory, do not leave it in Docs/English or Docs/German! You also have to copy the GIF images and the "RegForm" document in your preferred language to "Docs/" if you wish to use them with the Guide or HTML documentation.

4. An example project named Test.hcp is included and can be installed optionally in the Money97 drawer.

5. The installation script can be copied too, e.g. if you want an easy tool to update or delete your installation of Money97.

6. If you are installing a registered version of Money97, the supplied keyfile can be installed either to the program's directory or S:

7. Currently included are 16col program icons and MagicWB icons by Bastian Kinne. Install the ones you prefer.

4.How to use Money97

Please select the kind of documentation which fits your needs:

4.1 Quickstart

4.2 Tutorial Project

This tutorial is just a quick way to make you familiar to the most important functions of Money97. It's kinda short, but I hope it's sufficient. I will now start to create a simple project for two or more years in a step by step manner.

Let's assume the project should start in the year 1997 and hold the following periodical costs:

Further let's assume we have some costs that occur only once. Let's say, during the first months of 1997 I buy some PC parts:

Feel free to replace these examples with your own ones, but please select similar occurences since this will show you how to realize the different types of entries.

1. Ok, now how do we get this working? First we start the program by double clicking at it's icon. We said that we wanted to create two or more years. So we first add a new year by clicking at the "Add" button at the lower right of the register page labeled "Years". All buttons at this page refer to a year (in fact the selected year).

2. First we will enter the repeating costs. These costs are refered to as "fix costs" in this documentation and the program. As you will see the fix costs editor provides some very simple methods to enter repeating costs. Instead of using the month editor each time, you can generate great numbers of entries with only one single fixcost entry.

   Since we want to start these costs in 1997 we have to make a double click at the year entry for 1997 in the list to make it active again. To enter the fixed costs we hit the button labeled "fixed costs" and the fix cost editor should open. The first line of this window indicates the first year the fixcosts you can define now will start. This might be a bit confusing, since all fixcosts are displayed in the list, even those which are defined to start in other years. You can easily get information about the start year of a fixcost entry by looking at the "start" column of the list.

   By the way, you can get information about most of the objects of this program by moving the mouse over it and wait until a help bubble opens, describing the object's function.

3. Lets enter the first fix cost, assurance for the car, 504.-, two times a year. To do this click at the string gadget labeled with "Title", enter "Assur. for car" and hit return. At the "Section" field to the right you can now assign the actual entry to a group. By clicking at the pop up button near this string gadget you see the three groups "Private", "Business" and "Others". These groups can not be edited, but as shown later on you can easily add more groups. You will always get a splitted sum for these three groups in all lists, your own groups are always added to the "Others" section. Perhaps you are using your car for "Business" or "Private", so you can choose the right option for you now.

   Let's now consider the assurance we are just entering is for the car of your daughter Elli, so you might want to choose a different section "Elli". You will discover that this section is not included in the pop up list yet. Please enter "Elli" by hand now and I will show later on, how to put "Elli" into the pop up list. The cost occurs two times, but every year so we choose the correct value for the cycle gadget in the period group "2 times EVERY year".

   After you finished this, you'll see that the second half of the months entries in the cost group is disabled. This is not a bug but a feature: We pay our assurance in january and july, so we simply enter the costs in january, Money97 will automatically assume the same price to occur 6 months later and inserts it for july too. After this click at the "Add" button. Don't feel confused, the cost for july is not shown in the string gadget for july, take a look at the list view instead. Now we have defined our first fixcost.

   You now can easily check in the list view all values you entered. You see the title of your entry, the cost, the section and when these costs start and end. In addition you see a table of all months after this. If a cost defined by your fix cost entry occurs in one of these months, it is marked with a "x", else with a "-".

   If you entered something wrong, double click at this entry, change your settings and click at "Update" when finished. You can also select "Add" to add the modified entry and this way keep the old entry too. You can use this as a simple cut & paste if you have to enter similar costs several times.

4. Second fix cost of our example (assurance for appartment, one time a year in october) is done the same way, except for the selection at the period cycle gadget. Enter the title and section for the "appartment assurance" the same way as above and select "EVERY year" at the cycle gadget, since this cost appears every year. You will see all month fields enabled. We supposed this cost will occur in october, so we enter 208.50 into the october field and hit the "Add" button - done.

   Note: You may have costs that occur every year, but with different prices in different months. You can define them using the same position for the cycle gadget and enter the different values into the months fields. "Add" will then automatically create the according fix costs entries for each of them. If you do this, don't worry about the unusual display in the list view. This is because several different costs can't be displayed in a single line of the list without adding a confusing layout to the window. The title will be of a different colour to indicate this and the costs column will be empty. You can check your monthly settings with the month editor as shown below.

5. We now want to add the rent for out appartment. Click at the string gadget labeled "Title" and enter "rent", then select "Private" or whatever you like for the "Section" field. Rent has to be paid every month and every year, so we select "EVERY month EVERY year" at the cycle gadget. Only the field for january will be enabled, Money97 expects the entered cost to occur also every following month. We therefore enter 450 and press the "Add" button.

   Let's assume you moved to this appartment in may and you do not have to pay any rent for the first four months of the year 1997. In this case you should enter the values above starting with 1998 and enter a second entry for 1997 only. Choose title and section, then select "EVERY month THIS year starting with..." at the period cycle gadget. You will see, that the cycle gadget to the right will be enabled. Select "may" here and the field for "may" will be activated. Enter your rent here and Money97 will generate an entry for your rent which starts in may of 1997.

---

And now we are done with the repeating costs of our simple example. It might be a bit confusing in the beginning, but will soon be familiar to you and remember that flexibility is often paid with less comfort (have a look at unix :). We are done here, so click "OK" to close the fix costs window.

Now have a look at the status bar at the bottom of the main window and you'll see, that Money97 has created 22 single cost entries out of our 4 fix cost entries, so was it worth the complicated definition? Further more if you add a new year all fix costs you already defined will automatically be active for this new year too. You may try this by clicking at the "Add" button at the "Years" register page. If you do so, please double click at 1997 in the list again, since we are not yet finished with this year in our example.

---

But at first: I promised I would explain how to get "Elli" into the list of sections. Let's do this. Press the right mouse button for the menu and select Edit/Preferences or hit the button with the cash in the tool bar. This will open the preferences editor. You can ignore the first register page with the general preferences at the moment, select the second register page labeled with "Sections". A list view and some buttons should appear. Editing the list is quite easy and there's not much to say about. Hit "Add" and the entry gadget becomes enabled. Enter "Elli" and hit return. The section called "Elli" is added to the list and now becomes available in all section pop up lists of the program. Since we are finished here, hit the "OK" button to close the preferences editor.

---

In our example some costs for the computer parts are left, so lets add them too. First make sure that the year 1997 is selected and then select the "Months" register page. You can check the selected year by having a look at the field at the upper right of the months page.

1. Let's assume the board for our computer is bought at january 2nd, so we select the january in the list and either hit "Edit" or double click at the month entry. The month editor window will open. In the list you already see some bold faced entries which can easily be recognized as fix cost entries because no date is supplied (and because they're bold!). By the way, you can not edit these fixcosts here, you will have to use the fix cost editor again for this. Now select the date field and enter "2". You don't have to insert the whole date since month and year are defined by the selected month and year at the main window. You can see what month is selected by looking at the line above the list.

2. The "Title" gadget becomes active and we enter "Board" here. By default Money97 remembers the 20 last titles it didn't know so far. You can increase or lower this number at the first register page of the preferences editor. As "Section" entry we might enter "Private" or try to use the new defined section "Elli" from the list. To do so click at the pop up button near the string gadget and a list with sections should pop up, containing the section "Elli" we recently defined. You select a section from the list by double clicking at it. White sections are default sections, which can't be modified nor deleted, black sections are user defined.

3. Finally we add 290.00 at the costs entry field and hit the "Add" button. Done - the cost entry should appear in the list now.

4. Adding the cost entry for the GFX board is quite easy, now you know how it works. Leave the month editor, since the selected month is january 1997, by hitting the "OK" knob. Double click at the february entry in the list and the month editor for february will open, displaying one fixcost entry. Enter "25" at the date field, "GFX-Board" at the title field and select "Elli" for the section (if it's to be Elli's computer) and insert a 290.00 into the cost field. "Add" creates the new cost entry. Hitting "OK" closes the month editor and you can have a look at the overview of costs in the main window. Play around a bit with the help bubbles to learn about the display.

4.3 Usage Section

This section describes all functions of Money97. It is really recommended that you read this section and check things out on the fly - this way you'll understand the inner workings of Money97 more easily. Operating Money97 may seem to be a bit complicated in the beginning, but I needed to make it this way to offer biggest flexibility.

A.Main Window

Links: [Menüleiste] [Jahre] [Monate] [Dazu] [Entfernen] [Fixkosten] [Statuszeile]

A.1 Years Register Page - (Part of main window)

A.2 Months Register Page - (Part of main window)

Links: [Menüleiste] [Jahre] [Monate] [Listview] [Edieren] [Summenefeld] [Statuszeile]

A.3 The Toolbar

The toolbar let's you access the different parts of Money97 more easily. The buttons have the following functions (from left to right):

A.4 The Status-Display

The status display at the bottom of the main window informs you about the current project. It shows...

• the project's name
• the number of years in the project
• the total number of cost entries
• the sum of all costs over all years in the project

B.The Fixcost Definer

Links: [Infoleiste] [Listview] [Beschreibung] [Periode] [Monatseingabe] [Aktionsknöpfe]

B.1 The Information Line

B.2 The Fixcost Listview

B.3 The Description Group

B.4 The Period Group

This group contains two cycle gadgets which together define the period of the new or marked fix cost. The left gadget defines a period, the right defines a start month. The right gadget is only needed for the last two of the "Period" entries you may choose from the left cycle gadget which need to define a starting month. It will be disabled for the other selections.

This may be best understood with an example:

Selecting:
"Every Month Every Year, Starting with"
at the left gadget will enable the right gadget and setting this to
"July"
will result in a fix cost which will appear every year during the months
July, August, September, October, November, December.

B.5 The Months Group

B.6 The Action Knobs Group

The buttons at the bottom of the fix cost editor will do the following:

• "Add" your actual data as a new entry to the list of defined fix costs.

• "Remove" deletes the selected fix cost entry from the list.

• "Update" the selected entry with the fields' contents.

C.The Cost Editor For A Specified Month

Links: [Listview] [Eingabefelder] [Aktionsknöpfe] [Summenfeld]

This editor is used for costs that occur unregularly or just once, e.g. your last holiday, the Ferrari you bought yesterday, etc.

C.1 The List Of Costs For A Month

C.2 The Summation Group

C.3 The Entry Fields For A Cost

C.4 The Action Knobs

The buttons have the following functions (from left to right):

• "Clear" the contents of the field to allow a new entry.

• "Add" the contents of the fields as a new entry.

• "Update" the marked entry with the fields' contents.

• "Remove" the marked entry from the list.

D.The Preferences Window

Links: [Allgemein] [Kategorien] [Titelspeicher] [Währung] [Zahlenformat] [Startjahr]

D.1 The First Register Page - General Prefs

This register page contains some subgroups with general preferences for Money97. The upper group "Title memory" defines the behaviour of the program when the user enters unknown titles for cost entries. The maximum number of titles the program remembers and shows you in all pop up lists can be changed using the slider. If more titles than defined are entered, the oldest titles will always be removed. The names of all titles used in a project will be saved with the project file.

D.2 The Second Register Page - Section List Prefs

Links: [Allgemein] [Kategorien] [Kat. edieren]

E.The Pull Down Menus

Project

• About
  Shows some info about Money97

• About MUI
  Shows some info about MUI

• User
  Shows some info about the user who registered this copy of Money97

• New
  Clears all data and starts a new project

• Open
  Loads a previously saved project

• Save
  Saves the actual project (1)

• Save Prefs
  Saves the actual preferences (1)

• Print
  Dumps the selected entry to your printer (2)

• Quit
  Exits from Money97

Edit

4.4 Hints for using Money97

5.Copyright Notice

6.Registering Money97

To use Money97 without restrictions, you need to register. The unregistered version of Money97 will not save any project files nor load and save prefs files. Crippled software is a bad thing, but using shareware without paying for it is even worse.

Please send me a small amount of money for my work and time and I'll in reply send you the newest version of Money97 plus a valid keyfile which enables all the currently disabled functions. This keyfile stays valid for future versions which are minor updates or bugfixes.

7.Author

You can contact me at

Christoph Rickers Karlstraße 30 38106 Braunschweig GERMANY

or via EMail:

8.Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for contributing to this product or just supporting me (no order)...

   My father         -  for his support as long as he lived!

   My girlfriend     -  for her love and encouraging company during hard times!

   Stefan Stuntz     -  for his great @{"MUI" link mui} 3.x

   Eric Totel        -  for his great MUI-Builder program  which helped me a lot
                        in learning to program MUI and designing the GUI.

   Stefan Becker     -  for his great ToolManager 2.1

   Dietmar Eilert    -  for the phantastic GoldED/Pro - the best editor ever!

   Kai Philippsen    -  for his great support with the homepage, the installer
                        script and lots of documentation.

   Bastian Kinne     -  for the great icons he has drawn. (If you had ever seen
                        the icons - I had drawn)

MUI is a system to generate and maintain graphical user interfaces. With the aid of a preferences program, the user of an application has the ability to customize the outfit according to his personal taste.

MUI is distributed as shareware. To obtain a complete package containing lots of examples and more information about registration please look for a file called muiXXusr.lha (XX means the latest version number) on your local bulletin boards or on public domain disks.

If you want to register directly, feel free to send DM 30.- or US$ 20.- to

9.History

 Version 0.91b

   - initial release - (internal).

 Version 0.92b

   - created german catalog file.

 Version 0.93b

   - some major changes to online help handling
     (removed some nodes).

   - reworked outfit of fixcost editor to be more informative
     on low resolution screens.

   - turned color of negative values from blue to white.

   - introduced compare hooks to multicolumn lists, to appear
     sorted.

   - introduced start year entry, to modify the start year of
     the project.

   - reworked the sorting of section lists, that default lists
     appear at the top, the rest (sorted) below.

   - corrected the catalog files.

   - removed bug in the "project not saved" reminder.

   - reworked the behaviour of the "other" "section".
     It's now not a simple section, but sums up all other
     sections which are not "business" or "private".

   - removed bug with "update button" in the fixcost editor.

 Version 0.94b

   - removed further help nodes, to provide even better online help.

   - (re)introduced the ballance object in fixcost editor window.

   - made some minor adjustments to the online documentation and
     started to develop the HTML documentation...

   - created new screenshots, since outfit had changed again and
     calculated new thumbnails - since AdPro is much better in this
     than so called professional software at the PC.