METZ Phones METZ Software, Inc. Support (206)-641-4525 P.O. Box 6699 Sales 1-800-447-1712 Bellevue, Wa., 98008-0699, U.S.A. International (206) 641-4525 Fax (206) 644-6026 CompuServe: [75300,1627] METZ Software is pleased to announce our support forum on CompuServe. Type GO WINAPC, choose 3 - Libraries, then 7 - METZ Software to visit our forum. Drop us a note anytime! Overview METZ Phones is a personal/customer information manager for Microsoft Windows. With Phones you can maintain lists of names, addresses, phone numbers, and notes. If you have a Hayes compatible modem, Phones can automatically dial your phone. Several print options are included as well. Non-registered users This release is a demonstration version and as such is not to be sold. Phones may only be distributed for free (or at cost) as the following group of files: PHONES.EXE, PHONES.TXT, PHDIAL.XLM, PHDIAL.TXT ADVANCED.XLM, ADVANCED.TXT, WINWORD.TXT, METZ.ORD, METZPROD.TXT. These files may not be modified in any way. Use for purposes other than evaluation requires payment of the registration fee. Once you register and receive a license number you are automatically allowed to upgrade to future releases. It is important that you register this application to help insure continued support and development. Our intention is to provide useful, user-friendly applications at a low cost, and your support helps make that possible. All available functionality is enabled in this version to provide you the ability to effectively evaluate this application. Ordering information is included in the file METZ.ORD or available by contacting METZ Software. All orders will receive a disk containing the latest versions of our products. Using Phones If you have trouble dialing a number, make sure that your configuration is correctly set. Phone numbers are not validated and are assumed to be in a Hayes compatable format. Please do not set the dialing prefix to ATDT or ATDP as this prefix is automatically set by Phones when dialing a number. The dialing prefix is meant to allow you to issue Hayes commands prior to dialing such as speaker control, etc. See your modem reference manual for the Hayes commands available. The filesize of a phone list is limited to about 50-60K (check the dos filesize) which should be sufficient for average usage. But, you can create as many separate Phones files as you want, and my find your phone lists more manageable this way. For example, you could break your list into files alphabetically or categorically. We have tried to be as consistent with Microsoft Windows interface specifications as possible. Please see the Microsoft Windows User's Guide for more information regarding the Windows interface. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome, and help make this application a better product. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent any commitment on the part of METZ Software. No warranties of any kind are associated with this product. Thank you for your support. File Descriptions PH.EXE or PHONES.ZIP - Archive file containing the following files: PHONES.EXE - The METZ Phones program. (required) PHONES.TXT - This file. WINWORD.TXT - Text of a WinWord macro for DDE Dialing. METZ.ORD - METZ Software order form. METZPROD.TXT - METZ Software product descriptions. COMM.TXT - Text from Microsoft regarding the use of COM3 & COM4. PHEXCEL.ZIP - DDE macros for Microsoft Excel PHDIAL.XLM - Sample Excel macro for DDE Dialing. PHDIAL.TXT - Text of a Excel macro for DDE Dialing. ADVANCED.XLM - Sample Excel macro for Advanced DDE Dialing. ADVANCED.TXT - Text of a Excel macro for Advanced DDE Dialing. Also included with METZ Dialer are more advanced macros for Word for Windows and Lotus 123 for Windows which can easily be modified to work with METZ Phones. Simply change the references of Dialer.exe to reference Phones.exe. ------------ METZ Phones version history ------------------ Hints * Place the name of your Phones file in your WIN.INI 'Load' line, i.e. load C:\WINDOWS\PHONES.PHO. This will automatically icon Phones with that file. Plus, the file is not actually loaded by Phones until the icon is opened, saving time and memory. * If you use Com ports 3 or 4, please read the contents of the file COMM.TXT. Version 3.49B * Maintenance release. Version 3.49 * The DDE HANGUP no longer closes Phones. * Phones now will read CardFile files over 64K in size. Since Phones is limited to a file size of 64K, you will be given the opportunity to create a new file for each 64K of data read from the CardFile file. * Phones now will read METZ Dialer files. Dialer saves its information as a file called DIALER.DPN. Simply open the DIALER.DPN file from Phones to load it. * A problem loading Cardfile data in low memory conditions has been fixed. * Pressing Alt F S (File Save) no longer jumps the current phone selection to the S's. Version 3.48 * Phones will now read in Cardfile files! Simply open the desired file from the File Open menu and Phones will do the rest. Phones will parse each card and place the index in the Phones name field. Phones will also parse the index for a valid phone number, and place it in the first phone number field. You will also be asked whether the cardfile data should be placed in the Phones address fields. Responding NO will result in the data being placed in the notes fields. Data that won't fit in the address field will be placed in the Notes. Phones will do it's best to parse the cardfile data, you may need to 'touch up' some entries once they have been processed. The cut and paste menu items should make this task quite easy. Phones ignores any bitmaps contained in the cardfile file. * Advanced DDE commands have been added. The included Excel macro ADVANCED.XLM (ADVANCED.TXT) demonstrates the new DDE commands. [DIAL(phone#)] - dials the phone# without displaying the "Pickup the phone" message. [HANGUP] - Hangs up the modem/phone. [CLOSE] - Closes Phones. The brackets and parenthesis are required, and spaces are only allowed within the phone #. * WINWORD.TXT is the text from a WinWord macro to dial selected phone numbers from Word. Version 3.47 * Phones will check the screen coordinates contained in the .PHO file and alter them if they are off of the screen. This was a potential problem if you copied the file to another machine with a lower screen resolution. * Pressing Alt+S when adding or modifying a name would cause a newline in the address or notes fields if the cursor was there. This has been fixed. * Phones now has true CSV (Comma Separated Value) file support. CSV files can contain quote marks around fields and Phones will parse them correctly. Version 3.46 * The Speed Dial option inadvertantly selected the last number available instead of the first available number. * On some printers, the last line of a printed page was getting chopped off. To prevent this, one less line per page is printed. Version 3.45 * A Speed Dial option has been added to the Dial menu. Speed Dial simply dials the first number available for a selected Phones entry. No statistics are kept when speed dialing. The Function key F3 will cause Phones to Speed Dial a selection. * 3 additional Norwegian characters are added to the Phones character buttons if your country is set to Norway from the CONTROL.EXE. Version 3.44 * Version 3.43 had a bug which caused an error when saving a file under Windows 3.0. This has been fixed. Version 3.43 * This version has some changes and options addressing the dialing speed and modem compatibilities: Phones now performs modem initialization the first time a number is dialed. Subsequent attempts to dial a number will skip the initialization process. Should Phones have trouble dialing an number more than once, please add the following line to your WIN.INI file: [METZ Phones] -- find this header hayes=0 -- add this line If you have a truly Hayes compatible modem, try adding the following line to the Phones section of your WIN.INI file: [METZ Phones] -- find this header hayes=1 -- add this line Remove this line if Phones has trouble dialing or disconnecting. * An obscure bug when printing single columns has been fixed. Version 3.42 * The Dialing prefix was inadvertantly appended a second time when dialing from the Dial screen. A number that appeared as 9,555-5555 wound up being dialed as 9,9,555-5555. This has been fixed and only affects users of the dialing prefix. Version 3.41 * The Control-User dialog was improperly handling the button selections for the Double Click and Enter defaults. Version 3.4 * You can now use the Enter key within the Address and Notes fields in the various Phones dialog boxes. Ctrl Enter works as well. While the Common User Access specification defined CTRL ENTER as the mechanism within which you are to add a newline to a multiline field, it is not obvious or intuitive, because of this, we have decided to support the enter key within these fields. * Pulldown menus have been added to the following dialogs: Add Entry Modify Entry Dial The pulldown menu contains Undo and Clipboard functions. * Phones now abbreviates it's title bar while iconic. This should improve the icon appearance under Windows 3.0. * Phones will now detect if there is no dialtone when dialing. * The Control-User dialog now allows you to specify the default action to perform when you double click on an entry with the mouse. * The Dial Pad now supports alpha-numeric phone numbers. * If you make changes to a phone number on the Dialing dialog, Phones will ask you if you want to save those changes when you select exit. * Phones did not work with some older or non-standard Hayes compatible modems. This version now should work on a wider variety of Hayes "compatible" modems. The performance of the dialing process has been improved as well. * An option to display various area codes and country codes has been added to the File menu. The values can be sorted numerically or alphabetically. * Printer Setup and Exit have been added to the File menu. * The configuration dialog will ignore the preliminary modem command if it is set to ATDT or ATDP as this is already automatically generated by the dialing process. * It was possible to encounter a system error using a large Phones file (about 64K) under Windows 3.0. Phones will now display a message stating that the maximum number of entries has been reached instead of failing. One other system error problem was fixed as well. Version 3.31 * The Merge option was resizing Phones to the screen position of the file being merged (if a Phones 3.3 file). Merge now does not affect the current screen position. * The width of the main listbox has been made slightly narrower when running under Windows 3.0 to prevent display of extranious characters. Version 3.3 * This version is compatible with Windows 2.x and 3.0. * Phones now can dial a number via DDE. A sample macro for Excel is included (PHDIAL.XLM). Be sure that you have configured your modem with Phones. When using Microsoft Excel, load PHDIAL.XLM, then, to dial a number, select a cell in your spreadsheet which contains a phone number and press CTRL+D (Control D). Phones will then begin the process of dialing the number. A dialog box will appear asking you to pickup the phone. Press OK after the number has been dialed and your phone is off hook. * A preliminary modem command has been added to the Control Modem dialog. This field can be set to a modem command you wish to have sent just before Phones dials a number. For example, some users need to turn the speaker on, so they would place ATM1 in this field, and Phones will issue an ATM1 to the modem before dialing. Other possible uses would be for volume control. See your modem reference manual for the command options and syntax. Note, only certain commands are useful for this option. The ATDP or ATDT commands are automatically added to a phone numbers when dialing, and are not intended to be placed in this field. Is there a need for a post dialing modem command option? * Several modifications have been made to improve the dialing process and modem compatibilities. * Phones now saves it's screen position with each of your files. After sizing or positioning Phones to your liking, select Save to have Phones store the screen position with the current file being used. Previous versions of Phones saved only one position regardless of the number of files in use. * The size of the notes has been increased from 300 characters to a maximum of 600. * Phones will now dial phone numbers containing characters. Each character is translated to the corresponding number on a normal phone dial pad before dialing. (i.e. 555-SNOW will be dialed as 555-7669) The characters can be upper or lower case. * A 'Print 4 Columns' button has been added to the Print dialog. Selecting this button will cause Phones to print a condensed 4 column listing of each name and with the three phone numbers. * DialPad has been added to the Dial Menu. The Dial Pad is useful for speed dialing temporary numbers. * The Print dialog now lets you specify extra blank lines, this is useful when you are formatting output for labels, or want extra lines between each persons information. * The Print dialog now has a selection for printing Notes. * The Dial dialog now has Save and Cancel buttons. Use Save to save the information on the screen (some of the information is changed automatically when you dial a number), and Cancel to discard those changes. While dialing a number, the Cancel button will disconnect the modem, rather than cancelling the dialog. If you make changes to any of the first three phone numbers, Phones will ask if you want to save those changes as well when Save is selected. This is useful when you dial a number that has been changed and you wish to update that information immediately. * A 'Merge...' option has been added to the file menu. This option allows you to combine data from another file with the currently loaded file. * A 'SideKick file...' option has been added to the file menu. This option will create an output file that is compatible with the DOS Sidekick application. * When you select one of the buttons containing the letters of the alphabet or press letters A thru Z, Phones will now scroll the first selection found to the top of the listbox (if the selection was not already visible). * The Dial dialog will now dial a number when the focus is on a button or phone number field and the enter key is pressed. * The Dial dialog now has automated dialing. Depending on your modem, the busy signal will be detected or Phones will disconnect from the modem after 10-160 seconds of ringing. You can now pick up your phone at any time before or during the dialing process. * The dialog screens for add/update/delete of names have been resized to fit on CGA screens. * Phones will now parse a file containing comma separated values. Use a file extension of .CSV so that Phones will know that the file is of this type. (This is also a convention used by Microsoft Excel.) Records are terminated by a Carriage Return, and each comma causes Phones to skip to the next field. The address is broken up into 4 separate fields so that Phones can parse it correctly. Examples: name,home,work,other,address,address,address,address,notes,date,time,calls name,home,work,,address,address,address,,notes Phones will also output a file of this format if the filename you save to has an extension of ".CSV". The output process replaces existing comma's, line feeds, and carriage returns with spaces before placing comma's between the fields. * The dial dialog now displays the notes and allows you to update them while you are making a call. * The Paste option was not setting an internal modification flag which in some instances would not ask if you wanted to save the changes to your file. Version 3.22 * Auto-Save now allows you to exit gracefully if the file is blank. Version 3.21 * Print to a file was missing the linefeed when the phone number is blank. Version 3.2 * Versions 3.0 & 3.1 contain a minor bug where the time and number of calls are not saved correctly. That problem is now fixed. * The Control/User selection now has an 'Auto-Save file' checkbox. When this is checked, Phones will automatically save your file instead of asking you if you want to save the changes. Uncheck it when you don't want to save changes. * The Dial dialog has been modified so that the available phone numbers appear in edit fields, and the buttons which dial the numbers appear to their left. This was done so that laptop users can remove an area code before dialing a number when they are within that area code. Changes made to the phone numbers on this screen are not saved. * The phone numbers on the Dial dialog now appear with the dialing prefix attached. * If no filename is passed to Phones via the command line, Phones will look for a file named "PHONES.PHO" in the current path and display it if found. * If you select 'use Find criteria' on the Print dialog, the Find dialog will appear if not present. Version 3.1 * A Print with find option allows you to print only names which meet the current Find criteria. You can place a keyword in the notes and then use that keyword to print only those names. This option is part of the Print selection and requires that Find dialog be active so that Print can obtain the current Find criteria. * The clipboard is now supported. You can transfer complete records between instances of Phones, or paste the name and address into another Windows application, such as Write. * The clipboard can be used to move/copy values between edit fields in dialog boxes. Use Shift Delete to cut, Shift Insert to paste. * Phones will now remember it's last position and size for it's first instance, unless it is Zoomed or Iconed. Subsequent instances use the default position provided by Windows. * Dialing prefix - several users requested this feature. Useful when you have a telephone line that always requires a prefix. (i.e. '9,') This value can be set via the Control - Modem pulldown. * Several users have requested font support within Phones. By printing to a file and loading that file into your word processor, the font possibilities are endless! Version 3.0 * The file format has been changed so that more information can be maintained with each entry. Phones will automatically convert your old file to this new format. (When you save the file it will assume the new format.) * Each name may now have: - Up to three phone numbers. - Up to 300 characters of notes (including carriage returns). * The date and time of the last call is now logged with each name. * The address information is now in one single edit field. * The address and notes fields allow carriage returns. * The Find option allows two search strings. You may specify that both fields must be found in a record. The entire record is searched, including notes. * Menu items which require a selection are greyed when no record is selected. * The Control menu now has a User selection. You may specify the titles to be used with each of the three phone numbers allowed, and specify the default action for the enter key. * When Dial is selected, a dialog box now appears. Each phone number available for the name is displayed as a pushbutton. Simply select the button containing the number you wish to dial. You may enter an optional number in the edit next to the 'Dial->' push button. Press the 'Dial->' button to dial that number. * A Status option has been added to the File menu. Status will display the number of entries you have in your current phone list and the number of characters currently used. * The print routine is fairly flexible, but your input regarding desired output would be appreciated. The notes are not printed by this version. Any suggestions on a format? Version 2.2 * We have added a licensing interface which will allow registered users to obtain free updates. Once you register and receive a license number you are automatically allowed to upgrade to future releases. It is now important that you register this application to help insure continued support and development. Our intention is to provide useful, user-friendly applications at a low cost, and your support helps make that possible. * The Help menu has been set up to contain the following: Licensing Info - information regarding the application license. Enter License Number - method with which you enter a license number. About - copyright info. * The Find option now is modeless. That is, you can keep it active while you are using Phones, which makes it easy to switch between Find and normal activity. * The listbox now has a maximum width of the combined name and phone number. * The Page Setup menu item has been combined with the Print menu item. You can now additionally specify the number of copies and/or reroute the output to a file. The output file can then be pulled into your word processor where you can manipulate it (fonts, etc) into a customized format.