		 		Searcher
				********
                    Program and all documentation are
		   Copyright (c)1992 by Todd A. Johnson
			 Member of the I.A.A.D.

This program runs in ST high resolution (Monochrome) and ST medium
resolution (color.)

GEnie(tm) and Aladdin(tm) are trademarks of their parent company and
are not in any way associated with this utility or its author.

Synopsis
********
Searcher is an offline Aladdin (GEnie) library file browser and
searcher. You simply type in a word to search for and SEARCHER tries
to locate a match for that word in any of the Aladdin file libraries
you have accumulated from your calls to GEnie. For example, if you're
looking for a program called FONTGZOT.ARC on GEnie, you can type in
"font" and Searcher will locate all occurances of the word in the
library. If you enter "gzot" the search will probably be a little
better refined to your particular interests. (All those zillions of
fonts that are on GEnie won't be found by SEARCHER this way.)
 

WYSIWYG
*******
You should have received the following files inside of the original
SEARCHER.LZH archive:

SEARCHER.PRG - The main program file
SEARCHER.TXT - This text
README.TXT   - Any version specific notes

Shareware
*********
Searcher is distributed via Shareware which means that if you try the
program and you decide you'd like to continue using it, you must pay
for it. Shareware authors usually release their products in this
manner to keep the price low and distribution as widespread as
possible.  Advertising is by "word of mouth" which in this case means
give copies to all of your friends and upload the original archive to
all of your usual BBS hangouts. Advertising, distribution and
packaging costs are therefore absolutely zilch for the developer. You
pay only for the programmer's development time and future support.
Please support Shareware authors by paying them for their work.
 
The Price
*********
SEARCHER's price is only $10.00 which I feel is really quite
reasonable if you find the program useful. The GFA BASIC 3.5E
source code is also available for an additional $10.00. The commented
source code is chock full of really nifty GEM routines you can
incorporate into your own programs using this amazing language.
 
Send your payments to:

Todd A. Johnson
2250 Tyner Street, Unit #4
Port Coquitlam, B.C.
Canada, V3C 2Z1

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Installation
************

You can run SEARCHER in either of two ways. The normal method is to
double-click the SEARCHER.PRG file name. It will then execute.

The second method is to rename SEARCHER.PRG to SEARCHER.ACC and copy
SEARCHER.ACC to your boot directory (usually A:\ if you don't have a
hard drive and C:\ if you do.) Don't put SEARCHER.ACC in any folders
or it won't run. Then reboot your computer (either by resetting it or
cycling the power.) SEARCHER will install itself as a Desk Accessory
and show up under your Desk menu. You need only select the 'Searcher'
name from your Desk menu to activate the program.

Usage
*****
SEARCHER presents itself as a dialog box in the middle of your screen
with no menu bars or windows complicating things. The first order of
business after you've ran the program is to SELECT A LIBRARY FILE by
clicking the button with that name at the bottom of the dialog box.
You'll be presented with a standard GEM fileselector with which to
choose the library file. Once a library file is loaded, its name will
appear in the dialog box where FILENAME.EXT used to be.

Locating a Library file
***********************
 The library file you choose will normally be within the folder you
keep your Aladdin programs in. They will almost always have a .DAT
filename extender. The one containing the list of Atari ST Roundtable
files is usually called "ATARISTR.DAT", the Softlogik (PageStream)
RT's library file is called "SOFTLOGI.DAT." Any of these Aladdin DAT
files may be used and searched. Any time you've used Aladdin to
provide you with a list of GEnie downloads, Aladdin has created a DAT
file for that Roundtable's list or added to the one that already
exists from previous calls.

** NOTE: If you've never had Aladdin list the files available on
GEnie, you won't have the necessary data files available to make use
of this utility. You can use Aladdin's 'CHECK FOR NEW FILES' command
to take care of this for you. Make sure you read the Aladdin manual
before doing this so you know EXACTLY what you're doing.

Browsing through the files
**************************
After having loaded a library file you can browse through the files
by using the "fader" on the right hand side of the dialog box. By
dragging the fader's "knob" to a lower position, you've scrolled down
through the library file by an equivalent amount. If you drag the
fader's knob all the way to bottom, you will be viewing the last file
available in that library. Usually, but not always, that file will be
the oldest one available. An easier way to step through the files one
at a time is by clicking on the up arrow button and the down arrow
button.  Again, the up arrow will move you towards to the newer files
(usually) and the down arrow will move you towards the older ones.

 
SEARCHING for a file
********************
The real purpose of this program is to FIND the files you may be
interested in downloading without having Aladdin log onto GEnie to do
it. Why log onto GEnie to search for information that is already in
your posession? Here's how it works:
 
SEARCHER searches through the loaded library file starting at the
position of the "fader" and progresses in the direction that the
"Search Direction" buttons indicate. You can change the search
direction simply by clicking on the appropriate direction button.
(Humour me with this "fader" thing. I know it's an unusual interface
device. I'm a concert sound engineer by profession and I LIKE faders.
And like most professionals in that business, we like to start them
off at the very top. <grin>)
 
The first step is to type in a 'search string.' A search string is
simply a snippet of text that you're expecting to find in the
library. If you're searching for clipart, you may want to use "img"
(without the quotes) as a search string. When you click the SEARCH
button, SEARCHER will start scrolling through the files looking
for a match to that string.  If it finds one, it will stop searching
and ding the system bell and show you the GEnie file that contains
that string. To continue searching, just click the SEARCH button again
or press the RETURN key which is linked to the SEARCH button.
 
Other search strings you may want to try:

degas, font, gfa, source, nude, calamus, game, gif, c.f.johnson,
music, z-net, double-click, mono, adventure, modula, etc.

Use your imagination. Search for whatever word might turn up in the
description, filename or uploader's name of the files you'd be
interested in. It doesn't have to be a complete word either; SEARCHER
will locate partial strings as long as they match what you've entered.
 
Options
*******

CASE SENSITIVE
--------------
By default SEARCHER is NOT case sensitive. It will match any
combination of upper and lowercase. Anything goes as long as the
actual letters match. If you specifically want an EXACT case match,
you can click in the little square beside the words "CASE SENSITIVE".
I'm not sure why you'd want to do that, but heck, it's there if you
need it.
 
SEARCH DISPLAY
--------------
If you want to see all the data zooming by as SEARCHER searches for
your string, click in the little box to the left of SEARCH DISPLAY (or
DISPLAY SEARCH or whatever I put there.) Please realize that this will
slow down the search process by OVER 10 TIMES. Let me reiterate that,
if you keep the search display off, the search will be nearly 10 times
faster. If you're lonely, have plenty of time to spare and the Busy
Bee just doesn't do it for you, you'll always have the option of
trying to read the text that's going by at 200 MPH. I personally get
a headache just thinking about it.
 
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SPEED CONSIDERATIONS
********************
SEARCHER can search amazingly fast for files. The absolute fastest
method of searching is to keep the SEARCH DISPLAY turned off. You'll
only see the busy-bee icon while the search progresses when in this
mode. On my Mega-4 with an AdSpeed 16mhz accelerator and a rather slow
(40ms) hard drive, SEARCHER will complete an unsuccessful search (for
the word 'farkle') through the maximum of 10,000 records in 42 seconds
flat.  Since the data transfer rate of your drive is so detrimental to
this program, you will probably get even faster search speeds if you
have a faster hard drive than I do. (Though this also depends on any
drive caches you're using.)
 
As soon as you turn the SEARCH DISPLAY on, TOS has to send all those
words to the screen and that consumes tons of valuable time.
Performance can be greatly enhanced here by using a graphics
accelerator such as Codehead Software's Quick ST. If you don't already
own such a utility let me mention right here and now that I think
NOBODY should be using an Atari ST without such a utility installed. I
can't recommend Quick ST enough. Turbo-ST is another excellent choice.

There is very little speed difference between using CASE SENSITIVE or
not. When this is turned ON, searches will progress only very slightly
faster. Not really enough to worry about. (The blind-farkle test is
only about 4 seconds faster on my machine.)

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That just about sums it up.  The "INFO" button at the top-right is
fairly self explanitory. If you need help with that, just send an
extra $10 and I'll send you a full page INFO BUTTON manual along with
a striped SEARCHER beany sporting an autographed propellor on top.

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Another note: Aladdin has a limitation in that it will only store a
maximum of 10,000 GEnie files in a .DAT file. Once your .DAT file
reaches the size of 940,000 bytes, you've hit that limit. GEnie's
Atari ST Roundtable currently has many more than 10,000 files so you
will never be able to do a COMPLETE GEnie search with this utility.

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Credit where credit is due:
 
If it weren't for the excellent GEM/Atari programming tips and advice
given by Darren Stevens (Mind Over MIDI Productions) and Jeff D.
Koftinoff, this program would have been much less interesting (and
much less stable.) Thanks guys. Any bugs that happen to show up in
this program are my own fault and not theirs.
 
Thanks also to all those beta-testers that didn't provide any
feedback. With friends like you, who needs bugs.  <chuckle> (I know,
you're VERY busy people.)
 
..Todd
