Welcome to FastBase (Print this file out !) ------------------- FastBase is the latest creation from me, the indefatiguable ABR. I'm not normally one to blow my own trumpet, but I really think that this database is quite something. Spend a little time with it yourself, and I'm sure that you will agree with me. Anyway, this is the limited shareware version that has some of it's capacity curtailed. This is what you get... Maximum fields: 20 (total of all databases in memory) Record memory: 10,000 bytes. Quite a lot really, aren't I generous ? Maximum databases: 5 In the registered version you get 200 fields, unlimited record memory and up to 22 databases, so it is well worth registering You also get a bound, typeset manual that alone is worth the registration fee. Registering your support ------------------------ Registration details may be found in the main program "About" box, but I'll tell you again anyway. It costs a mere 20 pounds sterling, that should be sent to the address below... Andrew Brown 2 Ullswater Drive Wetherby West Yorkshire LS22 4YF ENGLAND (UK) Disclaimer ---------- Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that FastBase performs as documented, neither the author nor anyone else connected with FastBase can accept any responsibility for any damage, material or financial, occurring as a result of the use or misuse of FastBase or it's supporting programs. Sorry if that sounds frightening, but it has to be said. A Red Faced Programmer ---------------------- OK, I'll admit it, I'm a berk. There are three functions available in FastBase, both to queries and calculated fields. They are not documented in the manual for one very good reason, I forgot what the parameters mean (this is embarrassing). You see, I copied the formulae from a financial book, didn't document them, and lost the book. The three formulae are... @PMT(a,b,c) Payment ? @PV(a,b,c) Present value @FV(a,b,c) Future value The only thing I can remember is that the parameters are the same type as, and are in the same order as the equivalent functions found in SuperCalc spreadsheets. If you can work out the parameters, feel free to modify this README file. Right, I'm off to go and melt into a pile of embarrassed slime in the corner of the room, uuurrrrgggg... New Feature ----------- You are now able to print images that you have attached to records, as long as you own one of the supporting printers or a compatible model. To print an image, simply double-click on it. A dialogue box will appear from which you can set the image's dimensions, and select a printer. To select a new printer, click on the current printer's name, and select a new one from the menu that appears. The two "Aspect" buttons alter the corresponding dimension, so that it is in proportion to the other one. Note that this is the pixel ratio, not the ratio of your printer's dot dimensions. Both colour and monochrome images may be printed, with the former being dithered before being printed. If you own a printer that is not in the list of those supported, then please send me photocopies of the parts of your printer's manual that deal with bitimage graphics. I will use the information to develop a driver specifically for your printer. ---------------------------------------- UPDATE VERSION 1.01, September 19th 1991 ---------------------------------------- 1. Holding down Control while the program loads will stop any queries being auto-loaded. Don't let go of Control until the program is fully loaded and ready to start. 2. If you give a file the name AUTO.FB, and place it in the same folder as FASTBASE.PRG, it will be auto-loaded when you load FastBase. To stop it being auto-loaded, hold down Alternate until the program is fully loaded and ready to start. 3. The Undo key now correctly aborts the Query, Search, Mailshot and Print dialogues as should originally have been the case. 4. A driver has been added to the "Print image" function to enable you to print to a disk .IMG file. By entering the resolution of your printer, the new .IMG file will need no resizing before being printed using an ordinary art package. 5. The Undo key correctly terminates alert boxes via a "Cancel" button, if present. I really don't know how this one escaped the initial testing ! 6. Two more operators have been added to formulae. You may use the '&' and '|' symbols to represent logical "and" and "or" functions. This should greatly improve readability of formulae that previously used lots of @AND and @OR functions. For those that understand, these two have been given a higher priority than all the other mathematical operators. These operators are available to both calculated fields and query/search etc. filters. 7. You can now move windows freely about the desktop wherever you like. Previously all window movement was constrained to the visible area of the desktop. Don't know why I constrained them in the first place ! 8. New query/filter function. The function @REC (no parameters) returns the sequential number of the record being analysed. -------------------------------------- UPDATE VERSION 1.02, October 19th 1991 -------------------------------------- 1. Fields may be hidden from view. A new entry appears in the field attributes menus, called "Hide". With this flag set the field is not drawn in the window. This is the only effect that hiding the field has. It can still be referenced by all the normal functions, it may even be clicked on and dragged around the window (if you know where it is !). To reveal all the hidden fields, select the "Unhide all" option from the "Dbase" menu, "Display" sub-menu. All the hidden fields will be revealed. 2. New feature. Fields may be marked as "Importable". Only fields marked as such will be imported into when using the "Import" option. When a field is created it is made "Importable" by default. This option is useful when the data you want to import does not exactly match the structure of your records. Remember that the number of items separated by commas on each line of the CSV file being imported must exactly match the number of fields per record marked as "Importable". If this is not the case, things will not come out as expected ! 3. A bug that caused excessive carriage returns to be written out when exporting a CSV file has been fixed. I bet you think we programmers never test our programs, of course we do (honest) ! 4. Another bug that caused colour database backdrop images to be saved out incorrectly has been fixed. -------------------------------------- UPDATE VERSION 1.10, November 9th 1991 -------------------------------------- 1. The graphing function. See separate on-disk manual "GRAPH.TXT" 2. Pressing and holding the right mouse button, brings up the "File" menu as a popup. This can be more convenient than moving the mouse to the top of the screen. To make the "Database" menu appear rather than the "File" menu, double-click the right mouse button. The top menu bar will flash very quickly to indicate the change. Further double-clicks of the right mouse button will advance to the "Record" menu, and so on. 3. Dragging fields around is much more friendly than before. Don't click and hold the mouse button, just click once and move the mouse around. You get a co-ordinate display and long cursor to aid the positioning. To set the new position click the left mouse button again, to abort without setting the new position click the right mouse button. 4. As a complement to the "Importable" option (detailed above), fields may now be marked as "Exportable". Only fields marked as exportable will be exported when you do an "Export" operation. When a field is created it is made exportable by default. The combination of import- able and exportable flags should enable you to change the structure of a database once it is created - normally a very tricky operation. --------------------------------------- UPDATE VERSION 1.11, December 24th 1991 - Merry Christmas ! --------------------------------------- 1. A new function for printing labels has been added to the "Process" menu. The label control panel that appears operates in exactly the same way as the query panel. Use the "Setup" button to tell FastBase how your labels are laid out. The width, height, top margin, left margin, horizontal gap and vertical gap are measured in characters. If your labels are on continuous tractor-fed paper with equal spacing between EVERY row of labels, then select the "Continuous" button. If your labels come on very definate pages, then select the "Pages" button and enter the number of rows per page into the "down" field. The "Fields" button selects the fields to print on the labels. Note that you may specify the database to get the field from with a "." as usual. You may have up to 20 label definitions in memory at any one time. 2. Any label files (*.LBL) saved in the same directory as FastBase will be auto-loaded when FastBase is loaded. To stop this auto-loading, hold down the right shift key when FastBase is loading. Do not let go until the program has loaded. I am currently implementing a database management language for FastBase. This will be available in a future release. At the moment you can only use the editor available from the "Program" option. The editor options may be found by pressing the right mouse button over an editor window. Please note that this section of the program is NOT complete, it's not even well tested yet so do not use it in ernest please ! -------------------------------------- UPDATE VERSION 1.12, Late January 1991 -------------------------------------- NOTE: Files created with previous versions of FastBase are NOT compatible with this new version. However, things aren't that bad. Firstly note the field names and types of your database. Now export this database using the "export" option. Now quit and load version 1.12 of FastBase. Create a new database, with identical fields to the one you had before. Now use the "import" option to get your data into the new database. New features: 1. Your fields may now have their own colour (colour monitors only of course) and styles. 2. ASCII text files may be attached to records in the same way as images can be attached. Clicking on the "View text" icon will bring up an editor type window that you can use to view the text. 3. A bug in the import routine that caused quoted text to be imported incorrectly has been fixed. 4. There are 3 window arrangement options that automatically place windows in a convenient arrangement for viewing. 5. There is now no distinction between formulae available to calculated fields and those available to queries. Formulae in calculated fields may now refer to records in parallel databases. In support of this change, two new options have been added. The "Recalculate" option under the "Record" menu recalculates any formulae in the currently displayed record. The corresponding option in the "Database" menu recalculates all formulae in the current database. These options may need to be used if updates have been made to a parallel database that cause formulae in another database to become out of date. The "auto-recalc" options cause the entire database to recalculated automatically each time it is changed. 6. The "Required" flag has been moved from the field dialogue to the field menu's. This makes it accessible after initial field definition. 7. A "Unique" flag has been added to the field menu's. Selecting it means that data entered in that field must be unique within the database. 8. When entering a date into the "Add record" window, pressing Insert causes today's date to be entered. 9. Numbers may be shown as dates. This is useful if a calculated field refers to a date from a parallel database. Formatting the resulting number as a date will cause it to be displayed correctly. The date setting options may be found in the field menu. 10. A bug that caused a sort on numbers with small differences has been fixed. You may now specify a secondary sort key that will be applied to all records that are the same under the primary key. The sort itself is now a great deal faster due to an algorithm improvement. ------- CREDITS ------- 1. Thanks a lot to Gavin Hutchinson for the loan of his Naksha mouse when my Atari blob expired prematurely during the development of this program. Those Naksha's are so damn good he nearly didn't get it back ! To anyone thinking of buying a new mouse, I recommend the Golden Image optical variety, they're so light that they make the ball-ed variety feel like trundling breeze-blocks ! 2. You, yes you ! By obtaining this program you are supporting the share- ware concept. If (when) you decide to register, you will be in direct contact with the programmer, not a bunch of suits. All requests for improvements and additions will be taken seriously, no matter how trivial they may seem. ---------------- STUFF & NONSENSE ---------------- Anybody that wants to email me can do so, my address is... asb@cs.nott.ac.uk For those that like to drool over excessive power, the host machines are a cluster of Sun's, each with 64Mb RAM, running Unix with impressively massive monitors ! ...finally: "Read my MIPS, no more VAXES" G. Bush, President USA.