"Windows in Time" User Instructions. Revised: 8 Dec 1994 Copyright 1990-1995 Steve Estvanik / Cascoly Software / All rights reserved. Contents: INTRODUCTION INTERACTIVE HISTORY DISPLAY REPORTS TIME CHANGES PEOPLE EVENTS EDITING EDITING OUTSIDE "Windows in Time" REQUIREMENTS SHAREWARE REFERENCES 1. INTRODUCTION How old was Paul Revere when he rode into history? When were the gospels written? How old was Napoleon when the Declaration of Independence was signed? How many years separated Cortez and Michelangelo? In War & Peace, how old is Natasha when Napoleon captures Moscow? Cascoly's "Windows in Time" historical timelines programs examine these questions and many more. Unlike conventional paper chronologies, "Windows in Time" lets you decide which people and events to include, developing new insights and tracing patterns across different eras and cultures. "Windows in Time" is used by history and art students, Bible scholars, genealogists, teachers, writers and others interested in exploring historical relations or cultural events. It's also helpful to lawyers and other profressionals who need to establish and demonstrate chronological or complex events. "Windows in Time" is also distributed under the title "BIBLE-TIMELINE for Windows". The same program is used for each, but the datasets provided are different. In the discussions that follow, the term "Windows in Time" applies to both programs. Registered users receive the complete set of datasets for BOTH programs, so you need register only one or the other program. Cascoly also offers a DOS version of CHRONOS. All programs use the same CH1 datafiles, so you can switch between DOS and windows versions. 2. INTERACTIVE HISTORY You can begin your explorations immediately using the Timeline and Reports options and the sample datasets that come with WIT. More are provided when you register. Some of the additional datasets include: MILLENUM covers the period of the first millenium, from about 900 to 1200. It concentrates on the evolving struggle between Christian and Muslim worlds and beginnings of nations. RENAISS covers the Renaissance period in Europe from about 1450 to the end of the 30 Years War in 1648. It emphasizes the interaction and ferment among political, religious and cultural events. REVOLT covers the historical period from the American Revolution thru the French Revolution and Napoleonic era to the Civil War (1750-1860). It concentrates on the course of political and technical revolutions. TWENTY covers the twentieth century. An eclectic collection of people and events from our century. CINEMA traces directors, actors, pictures and events from Intolerance, Potemkin and Gold Rush to Goodfellas and Dances with Wolves. WW2EUR contains a dataset of the European theatre of WWII. WW2PAC contains a dataset of the Pacific theatre of WWII. (Thanks to David Shideler for the WWII datasets.) BIBLE-1 These datasets cover the Biblical & Classical eras. GENESIS Abraham - Joseph (approximately 2000 BC - 1600 BC) EXODUS Moses - Saul (approximately 1400 BC - 1100 BC) KINGS Saul - Daniel (approximately 1100 BC - 800 BC) BABYLON Daniel- Esther (approximately 800 BC - 500 BC) GREECE The Hellenistic Age (approximately 500 BC - 200 BC ) ROME Roman Republic & early Empire (approximately 200 BC - 200 AD) Note that for any of the times before about 800 BC, the dates for Bible characters is traditional or speculative at best, since there is no corroborating historical material. Many of the dates given for subsequent Bible events is also subject to debate. But that's the beauty of an interactive program -- you can modify the datasets as you wish, based on your own research or beliefs. Cascoly Software is always interested in receiving updated or alternate datasets created by users, and we will make them available to other users. Any of these can be used as the basis for a new dataset. Open the dataset, then use the SaveAs option to save it under a different name. You can then delete, edit or add other people and events to form a new dataset. 3.1 TIMELINE Timeline from the menu to display the data. You can scroll thru the timelines, switching back & forth from People and Events. The two timelines are independent, so you can resize each of them -- perhaps choosing a narrow people timeline and a wider events timeline. You can also fill the screen with one of the timelines. Click on any item and the details will appear. You can use this as an additional way to edit or delete data. Printing -------- Click on the menu item Print when you want a hardcopy. Setup lets you choose Portrait or Landscape for printouts. On standard pages, Portrait gives you 80 characters across, while Landscape gives 102. You can give less than these numbers, and the printout will still be accurate. This can be useful if you'd like wider margins, for example. However, if you enter a larger number (eg, 90 for a Portrait), then some of the characters will be missing from each line. The Timeline is printed so that it can be reassembled into a rectangular wall chart. In some cases, there will be blank pages, but these are provided to make it easier to reconstruct the chart. The program prints the first X years (for example, 1-80 in standard Portrait mode), then the next X (eg, 81-160), until the entire span is covered. REPORTS ------- Several reports are possible. Either the People or Events file can be listed. You can choose which items to include on the report in the setup form. Factions, Occupations, Groups and Nations can also be printed for reference. 3. TIME CHANGES "Windows in Time" combines people and events into files called datasets. These are the two basic elements of "Windows in Time". This section describes how to use the People & Events portions of the program. Examples can be found in the datasets provided with the program. 3.1 PEOPLE "Windows in Time" considers 2 main types of information -- People and Events. As you might expect, People records store information about historical persons or fictional characters. Of course, you can also use the People records to store information about companies, agencies or other entities with lifespans. You can add or edit these records using the People entry window. If you don't know the exact birth or death years, you can enter an approximate one. (Note that, since the month and day are left out, age calculations can only be accurate to within a year. For years before 1700, there are additional discrepancies, since the acceptance of the Gregorian calendar reform did not occur everywhere at the same time. English speaking countries did not start using the new calendar until the mid 1700's and Russia accepted the reform only after the 1917 Revolution.) Also, if you decide to create a current dataset, containing living persons, you could set the 'death' year to some arbitrarily high value, such as 2030 or 2050, so that future ages can be calculated. You can assign people to factions that you define using the Faction option of the People entry form. This lets you group people into logical categories of your choosing. These might be national or political, such as Union, Confederate, British or French. You can also define occupations, such as artist, musician, statesman and poet. (Note, in the shareware version, you need to change these groups outside the program. Use Notepad or other text editor to edit the lists at the end of each CH1 file). 3.2 EVENTS The second main data element is the event. This is a specific historical happening. It could be a battle, a political act, or the publication date of a famous novel. You can append a 2 line description, along with time of the event (a starting and ending year). Events use groups and nations in a similar fashion to factions and occupations for people. Two nations are allowed for each event. Events may be either specific years or of longer duration (eg, The French Revolution or the Han Dynastry). For the former case, just enter the same date for both starting and ending years. 3.3 EDITING People and Event items are added, edited and deleted in a similar fashion. From the Main menu choose either the People or Events. The appropriate entry form appears. Use the combo box to select a particular person or event. (These are sorted by date.) Use the Next and Prev buttons to move forward or backwards within the list. Use the Delete and New keys to remove or add people. To change information, enter new dates, or names, and use the list boxes to select groups, and factions. You can enter up to 2 lines of descriptive material. When you finish, the program will prompt you if there were changes. These changes remain while you're running the program. To make the changes permanent, you'll also need to do a Save of the file. (The program ask you later if you forget and try to exit without saving.) 3.4 LIMITS "Windows in Time" can handle any number of people and events (actually there is a limit of about 30,000 of each, but that's a bit more than most users will need.) However, the timeline does have a Windows imposed limit of 32,000 characters. A rough estimate of number of people that can be displayed is the range of years times the number of people. Thus a 500 year range will hold 60 people, a 100 year range will hold up to 300 people. In practice, the capacity is actually larger. If the entire timeline does not fit on the screen, you can select a smaller subset to show. 3.5 EDITING OUTSIDE "Windows in Time" The WIT/Chronos files are standard ascii, so you can edit them in any word processor that handles ascii files. Be careful, though, that you keep the number of lines exactly the same. Thus you can change the text of a line, but do not add or delete lines. The files include some headers to help you locate position. Several users have information in other databases that might be interesting to convert to "Windows in Time" format. You could do this manually, reentering all the data. You could also write a basic program that handles the conversion for you. We can do the conversion, if you want. Contact Cascoly Software for details. Successful conversions have been done from spreadsheets, Advanced Revelation, xBase and Paradox format. If you want to try to experiment or edit these files, be sure to make backups first. The format of the files is: CH1 format: # of people # of events { person # name of person startyr, type endyr, type Desc1 Desc2 faction # occupation # { event # name of event startyr, type endyr, type desc1 desc2 group # nation1 nation2 } { faction # description color } { occupation # description color } { group # description color } { nation # description color } Thus, if you are careful, you can add or delete information outside of the program. For example, to add a person, increase the first line by 1, then insert the appropriate lines for that person in the file. People and events are stored in order of birth year or event year. You can leave a blank line if you want to skip, eg, the description line. The "Windows in Time" file format was purposely designed so that it could be easily edited outside of "Windows in Time". This is useful for mass updates or adding large blocks of information. Note that the Windows version doesnt use the color designators, but these are still necessary for compatibility. 4. REQUIREMENTS "Windows in Time" requires Windows version 3.x. You must also have a copy of VBRUN300.DLL in your WIT or \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. You will have received a copy of VBRUN300 if you got WIT from Cascoly. If you downloaded it, check with the BBS or Online service, since this file is commonly kept separately to save download time. 5. SHAREWARE & THE ASP This program is shareware, which is a means of distributing software. Under the shareware concept, software may be freely copied and passed along to others, or distributed through bulletin board systems or national networks. Shareware is a means of distributing software. Under the shareware concept, software may be freely copied and passed along to others, or distributed through bulletin board systems or national networks. As a recipient of a shareware program, you may use the software for up to 30 days to determine if it meets your needs. If you want to continue to use the program after that period, you must register it. When you register "Windows in Time", you receive: * A copy of the latest version of the program * Additional bonus datasets * Bonus Cascoly program * A free introductory account on CompuServe including a private User ID number and password, $15 introductory usage credit, and a complimentary subscription to CompuServe Magazine, - a $30 value! * A minimum of 90 days online support via CompuServe or by telephone. Support by mail is also available, if accompanied by a SASE. A deluxe version of WIT is also available. To register a program, choose the Register item from the main menu. You can then enter your ordering information and print out an order form. Cascoly Software is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. You can contact the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536 . 6. REFERENCES Several example datasets are included to illustrate the range of studies possible using "Windows in Time". Users are encouraged to send interesting datasets to Cascoly, and we will include them in future updates. The example datasets were compiled from a variety of sources. Some good starting points would include the 'Who Was Who' books that can be found in the reference section of libraries. Another good source is an unabridged dictionary. They often have a section on famous people. Some historical periods have special dictionaries that are useful. GENERAL: "Book of Chronologies", The NY Public Library, (Prentice Hall: 1990). "Chronicle of the World", Jerome Burne, ed, (Ecam, 1989). "The Timetables of History", Bernard Grun, (Touchstone: 1982). "The Timetables of Science", Alexander Hellemans & Bryan Bunch, (1988). BIBLE ERA: "Archaeology of the Bible", Gaalyeh Cornfeld, (1976). "The Bible Timeline", Thomas Robinson, (1992). "The Book of J", Harold Bloom, (1990). "The Macmillan Bible Atlas", Yohanan Aharoni & Michael Avi-Yonah, 1977. "The Unauthorized Edition", Robin Lane Fox (1992). SPECIFIC TOPICS: "Oxford History of the Classical World", Boardman et al.(Oxford Press,1986). "The Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars", David Chandler, (MacMillan:1979). "A History of Narrative Film", David A. Cook (WW Norton, NY: 1981).