                 Quick Instructions for VIDEOS Database
                 --------------------------------------

   The VIDEOS database will track up to 2350 movies, depending on how
much free base memory you have.  This should be more than enough for
most people.  It's fast and does some neat things for you.  Using it is
easy.

MAIN MENU -  Just use the ARROW keys to move the highlight bar, and press
             ENTER to select the highlighted option.

ENTER MOVIES - The main screen is like a card index, where you can see a
             list of card headings, a dozen or so at a time.  This makes
             it quick and easy to find a given movie.  To ADD a movie,
             simply press INSERT, and a card will pop up, allowing you
             to enter the movie information.  To EDIT or DELETE a movie,
             use the ARROW keys, PAGEUP, PAGEDOWN, HOME and END to move
             the highlight bar to the desired movie, then press ENTER to
             EDIT the highlighted movie or DELETE to delete it.  Press
             F1 to see a help screen and ESC to return to the MAIN MENU.

             You can SEARCH the index for a movie by pressing CTRL-S.
             You will be presented with a SEARCH FIELD form - you need
             to choose which field the search will take place in.  Use
             the ARROW keys to move the highlight bar to the desired
             field and press ENTER to select it.  Then you will be shown
             a "TEXT TO SEARCH FOR" form.  Simply enter the text you
             wish to search for and press ENTER.  The SEARCH function is
             very fast and will move the highlight bar to the card that
             matches your search selection, if found, or to the end of
             the index if not found.  To search for the same item again,
             press CTRL-A.  This is handy for locating text which may be
             contained in several movies, and you just want a certain
             one.

             Entering information on a card is straightforward.  If you
             are ADDing or EDITing a card, simply type in the text and
             press ENTER at the end of each field.  You can change
             fields by using the UP and DOWN ARROW keys, or pressing
             ENTER.  You can even use the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys,
             INSERT, DELETE and BACKSPACE to edit text if you wish.
             Pressing ENTER on the last field saves the card.  Pressing
             ESC aborts that card and returns to the index.

             If you are DELETing a card, the card will be displayed to
             verify deletion.  Press ENTER to delete it or ESC to abort
             back to the index.  You can delete multiple cards by
             holding down the DELETE key (only ESC aborts), but be
             careful not to delete more than you want.

             Macros - instead of using macros, you can define repetitive
             text even easier with this PC version (yes, we started on a
             different computer).  Simply enter information on a card in
             either ADD or EDIT, then press ALT-F1 through ALT-F10 to
             COPY an image of the card.  Then, anytime you are ADDing or
             EDITing another card, simply press F1 through F10
             (whichever one you defined), and the COPY image will be
             PASTEd onto that card.  The PASTE function is special in
             that it only changes fields that had defined text in them -
             so you can PASTE onto a card that already has information,
             replacing only the fields you wish to replace.  Macros are
             saved to or loaded from a video file automatically whenever
             you load or save a file.  This feature is very handy for
             repetitive movies such as serials which you record every
             week that have much the same info.

CHANGE MOVIES - Changing movies allows you to change ALL of your movies
             at the same time, without having to go in and change each
             card (yuck!).  It works a lot like the SEARCH function,
             except you also enter the text you wish to REPLACE the
             searched text with.  The REPLACE function starts at the
             position the highlight bar was on when you exited the
             index, so if you want to replace ALL matching cards, make
             sure you are on card #1 before you leave the ENTER MOVIES
             index.  After changing, a form pops up telling you how many
             cards were replaced.  Press ESC at any time to abort the
             CHANGE process.

SORT MOVIES - Rather than slow you down by sorting every time you enter
             something, the movie cards are sorted only when you request
             it, using this option.  Use the ARROW keys to select either
             alphabetical, numerical, or chronological (this last one is
             mainly used by the report feature for determining blank
             tape areas) and ENTER to do it.  Press ESC to return to the
             MAIN MENU instead.  Always sort numerically before doing a
             TIME LEFT report.  If you want to save the movies in their
             newly sorted form, make sure you use the SAVE MOVIES option
             before quitting.

LOAD MOVIES - Select this to LOAD a movies database file.  Enter the
             name of the file you wish to load, or ESC to abort.  If
             there is any problem, the program will alert you.  Any
             macro cards you defined will be loaded also.

SAVE MOVIES - Select this to SAVE a movies database file.  Enter the
             name under which you want the file to be saved (it will
             contain both movie information and macro cards).  If there
             is any problem, you will be alerted.  If there is a file
             with the same name, it will be overwritten.

PRINT MOVIES - You can print full reports of all the movies or just
             some of them.  You can print to the screen (for quick
             checks) or to a printer.  First you will be presented with
             a SEARCH FIELD form and "TEXT TO SEARCH FOR" just like
             doing any other search.  Press ESC on either form to
             default to ALL movies.  Next, you have a choice of 3
             reports.  One is your standard form with lots of
             information.  The second is your SUBJECT/TYPE to help
             locate specific subject matter.  The third is a special
             report for finding out how much time is available as blank
             tape space.  (When using the third report option, TIME
             LEFT, be sure your tapes are sorted in NUMERICAL order
             first.  Otherwise it will generate incorrect results).  Use
             the ARROW keys to highlight one and ENTER to select.
             Finally, select a destination with the OUTPUT form, SCREEN
             or PRINTER, using the same keys.  ESC exits. You can pause
             output to the screen with CTRL-S.  Any key resumes.  Note
             that the TIME LEFT report even displays how much time is
             left at each possible recording speed.

EXIT -       Just select this to exit the program.  If your file hasn't been
             saved, you'll be alerted.


ENTRY FORMS - The forms are in a format which has proven convenient for
             several users (myself included), for maintaining databases
             of about 500-1700 movies, with information we thought
             useful.  To make best use of these forms, it is suggested
             that you follow some suggestions for field usage, although
             of course you are free to use the entry fields any way you
             wish.  A sample file, SAMPLE.VID is provided so you can get
             an idea of how to use the fields on the forms.

          Load Date - This field is filled in automatically whenever
             you ADD a new movie, using the format YYMMDD (year, month,
             day), based on your computer's current date setting.  This
             makes it very convenient to do searches or reports based on
             when you recorded movies.  For instance, you could use it
             to indicate which movies you recorded recently and haven't
             watched yet.

          Tape Number - It is suggested that you use the format
             "001.01", "001.02", etc to number the tapes/movies, much
             like a DOS filename, with 3 digits for the tape number,
             followed by a delimiter like ".", followed by the title
             number (or letter if you wish) for consecutive movies on
             the same tape.  The TIME LEFT report option uses the first
             3 digits of the tape number to total movie time on a tape.
             All movies with the same first 3 digits are assumed to be
             on the same tape.  You are free to use other methods for
             things like Laserdiscs (LZ-001, etc).

          Tape Length - This is just like the indicator used by the tape
             companies, T120 for 120 minute tapes, T160, etc.  You only
             need to enter the middle digit (1-9 are allowed).  This
             should cover all the most popular (and even less popular)
             formats.  The TIME LEFT report uses this field to compute
             the amount of blank space on a tape by making it the total
             time available.  Leave this field blank if you /don't/ want
             this tape included in the TIME LEFT report (for instance, a
             Laser or a store-bought movie, neither of which would ever
             be recorded on).

          Type of Film - Use this to divide your movies into categories,
             such as Movie, Cartoon, Serial.  You can then get reports
             on just the type wanted.

          Subject - Use this to divide your movies by subject matter,
             such as Comedy, Drama, Action/Adventure, Thriller, etc.
             That way if you're in the mood for say, a comedy, you can
             just print out a report of comedies and make your choice
             easier.

          Name - Just enter the movie name here.  There's lots of room
             for full titles.  It's a good idea to put determiners like
             "The" and "A" at the end of a title, preceded by a comma
             (like "Gnome King, The").  Otherwise finding a movie can be
             harder than it might be (lots of movies start with "The").

          Actors - Some people like to choose movies to watch by actor.
             By entering key actors here (you can separate them with a
             comma or whatever), you can print out a list of movies with
             Sean Connery or whomever you like best.  The actor you're
             looking for can be anywhere in the Actors field.

          Date - Just put the year the movie was made here, like 1965.
             Remember, you can search by date too.

          Speed - Movies can be recorded at SP, LP and EP speeds (SP
             uses a full 120 minute tape and EP uses a third of it).
             It's important to enter the speed you recorded the movie at
             here so that the TIME LEFT report can figure out how much
             of the tape each movie used.  If you also have Laserdiscs
             in your database, you may wish to use CA=CAV (30 min per
             side), and CL=CLV (60 min per side).

          Time - Enter the length of the movie here, using the typical
             format HH:MM (hours and minutes), for instance 01:30 or
             00:30.  If you use this format, the TIME LEFT report can
             generate correct results for blank space left.

          Tracking - Some people like to keep track of the quality of
             their recording, or how it was recorded.  You can use
             anything you like here.  Here's what we use:

             Linear  - (source anything) recorded onto a linear track
                       VCR
             Lo-Fi   - recorded from a non-Hi-Fi VCR to a Hi-Fi VCR
             Hi-Fi   - recorded from a Hi-Fi VCR to a Hi-Fi VCR
             LV-Fi   - recorded from a Laserdisc w/o noise
                       reduction/non-digital to a Hi-Fi VCR
             CX-Fi   - recorded from a Laserdisc with CX noise reduction
                       onto a Hi-Fi VCR
             Di-Fi   - recorded from a Laserdisc with digital sound to a
                       Hi-Fi VCR
             TV-Fi   - recorded from a TV to a Hi-Fi VCR
             DIGIT   - a laserdisc with digital sound

          Fidelity - Generally, most recordings come in one of 2
             flavors, Mono or Stereo.  You might also want to indicate a
             second audio track (2Audio or Multi).

          Surround - You can use anything you like to indicate if it has
             surround sound, such as Yes or No or just leave it blank.

          Rating - The standard rating can go here, G, PG, R, etc.

          Code - You can also include a code here for what type of
             material is contained in the movie (many guides do).  Some
             movies are rated R for language only, for instance.  This
             might help you select what material is appropriate.  We
             use:

             A=Adult, F=Family, C=Children, V=Violence, EV=Extreme
             Violence, S=Sex, N=Nudity, L=Language

          Director - Many people like to keep track of who directed a
             movie.  Here's a place for it.

          Studio - You can enter the studio responsible for the movie
             here, such as Paramount, Universal, etc.


That's it!!!  This movie database is distributed as AnyWare (free).
Written in C (from scratch which is pretty dumb but I needed the
practice) by Bozo Bob.  Files should include:

               VIDEOS.EXE - program
               VIDEOS.TXT - these instructions
               SAMPLE.VID - sample video database

Please direct any messages to CSERVE #76270,660.  P.S. - will probably
write a conversion program later to convert these video files to
something standard (and more useful, probably), like a Windows database,
so we don't have to type all these movies in again later.  Will upload
that too when the time comes.  Enjoy (?)


