NOTE: THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES VBRUN300.DLL, NOT NECESSARILY
INCLUDED WITH IT.  SEE SECTION V. FILES BELOW FOR DETAILS.

BirdData 2.2
Bird Breeders database/record-keeping program.

Print this file for easy program instructions.

©1992-1993 All rights reserved

By Don Bradner
Arcata Pet
600 F Street
Arcata, CA  95521

Compuserve address 76130,1007

Contents of this file:

   I.  Program Description
  II.  Program Requirements
 III.  Installation
  IV.  Getting Started
   V.  Files that make up BirdData
  VI.  Troubleshooting
 VII.  Registration and distribution

I. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION.
BirdData is a custom database for the types of records useful
to bird keepers.  The program is oriented towards the
needs of Parrot breeders, but may be useful to pet owners as
well.

Baby bird records include identification information, fields
for 6 items of user-defined data, and weight data for 121 days
(day 0 through 120).  Weight information may be shown
graphically for individual birds and various groupings of
birds.  Baby bird data is placed in 10 user-defined groups.

There is a search function for baby records that allows
searching for a text string among any of the identification
items or the six user-defined items.

A handy daily-weigh function will locate all babies that are
120 days old or less on a specific date, and allow weights and
comments for that date to be entered.  This is useful both for 
daily entering of data, or for entering groups of written info 
maintained on a per day basis.

Pair data includes identification information, information on
bird origins, free-form date-stamped diary entries, and ongoing
egglaying data.  The program will calculate hatchdates, based
on user input or prior data.

Pet data includes identification and origin information, plus
the same date-stamped diary info as the pair entries.

Most records and lists may be printed to provide permanent
records.

Full documentation is included in the form of a Windows Help
file.  When you desire help, press your F1 function key for
context-sensitive help, or press the help key if you are in a
dialog box.

II. Program requirements.

BirdData requires an IBM compatible 286 or better, running
Windows 3.1, with at least 4 megs of RAM.  A mouse is required.
About 2 megs of hard-drive space are required to install, and each
bird record will use about 4K of disk space.

BirdData has the ability to associate picture images with individual
records.  If this feature is used, manipulation of large images may
require 8 megs or more of memory, and more is always better.  A
monitor and video card capable of 256 colors is recommended for
viewing of photographic images. If your monitor/card setup is
capable of true color (16 million colors), BirdData will handle
files with that color depth. Generally, such cards will perform best
at 32,000 or 65,000 colors rather than 16 million, and it is
unlikely that any quality will be lost.

III. Installation.

If you obtained BirdData by downloading it from a computer
Bulletin Board (BBS) or another online source, one necessary
file may not have been included.  You will need a file called
VBRUN300.DLL, which is almost always available from any source
that would have BirdData.  On BBS systems the file will
usually be called VBRUN300.ZIP or VBRUN3.ZIP.  If you obtained
the program on disk, the file should be included and may be
called VBRUN300.DL_.  If it is missing, contact the supplier of
the program.  Registered versions obtained from the author
should always include VBRUN300.  If the file is included with 
the program it should be installed by the setup procedure; if 
it is independently obtained it should be unzipped and placed 
in your Windows\System Directory.

To install BirdData, insert the disk in your computer and
choose File/Run from the Program Manager.  Enter A:Setup or
B:Setup as appropriate and follow the prompts.  (If the program
files are already in a directory on your hard disk, enter the
appropriate path instead of A: or B:).

NOTE: Setup will not run if any other program is using VBRUN300.DLL
or any other library file used by the program, including recent
versions of BirdData.  An error message will be generated, and you
must end all such applications before retrying the installation.  To
be safe, it is best to have only Windows running before installing
BirdData or any other program.

IV.  Getting Started.

If you installed the BirdData icon into its own program group, open
that group.  Otherwise, you should install the program icon in an
existing group.  Open the group that you want to add the program to,
and choose New from the File menu.  Select "Program Item," and then
browse for the program.  It is BDATA22.EXE.

Double-click the BirdData icon to start the program.

The best way to familiarize yourself with the program elements
on screen is to press the F1 key, which will display a help
file. You may graphically choose different program
elements to see an explanation of their function.

Now click the "New Bird" icon (the "chick-in-shell").  Select a
category and input a baby's information.  Don't worry about getting
everything right; you can always edit it or delete the record later.

Add a couple of additional records, then try out the other
program elements as they relate to those records.  When you are
comfortable, you can convert any paper data you have to the
BirdData format and begin to use the program on a daily basis.

V.  Files that make up BirdData.

The files are compressed on the disk.  They are listed here
with their compressed and uncompressed names.  If you remove
BirdData from your system, be careful about deleting any
file with a .DLL or .VBX extension, since it might be used by
another program (save a copy just in case).  The setup program
only copies a file to your disk if it does not find the file
already or if this file is newer.

References to the BIRDDATA directory mean the directory you chose
during installation for the program files.

Compressed      File Name        Type and where installed

BDATA22.EX_	BDATA22.EXE    Program, BIRDDATA directory
BIRDDATA.HL_	BIRDDATA.HLP   Helpfile, Windows directory
BIRDDATA.IN_    BIRDDATA.INI   Data file, BIRDDATA directory
                SETUP.EXE      Setup Program, not transferred
		SETUP.LST      Used by Setup
SETUPBDT.EX_	SETUPBDT.EXE   BirdData Setup, Windows directory

VBRUN300.DL_	VBRUN300.DLL Library File, Windows\System directory
***note:  VBRUN300.DLL may not be included if the program was
obtained from an online source.  It will have to be obtained to
run the program and the setup program.  From on-line sources,
it is usually VBRUN300.ZIP or VBRUN3.ZIP.  If the program was
obtained on disk then the file should be included; if not,
contact the source of the disk.  If the file is obtained
separately, it must be installed in your Windows\System
directory BEFORE you run setup.

VER.DL_		VER.DLL      Library File, Windows\System directory
SETUPKIT.DL_	SETUPKIT.DLL      Ditto
CTL3D.DL_       CTL3D.DLL         Ditto
IMK.DL_         IMK.DLL		  Ditto
MHRUN300.DL_	MHRUN300.DLL      Ditto
KNIFE.VB_       KNIFE.VBX         Ditto
MH3D200.VB_     MH3D200.VBX       Ditto
MHCM200.VB_	MHCM200.VBX       Ditto
MHCOMD.VB_      MHCOMD.VBX        Ditto
MHGCAL.VB_      MHGCAL.VBX        Ditto
MHIN200.VB_	MHIN200.VBX       Ditto
MHPC200.VB_     MHPC200.VBX       Ditto
MHSP200.VB_     MHSP200.VBX       Ditto
MHTO200.VB_	MHTO200.VBX       Ditto

                BDATAREG.KEY       Registration key, BIRDDATA directory
***Note: BDATAREG.KEY included only with registered versions.

	        README.TXT     This file

*.IC_           *.ICO             Icon files, BIRDATA\ICONS 
subdirectory There are a number of custom icons included with 
BirdData; they were drawn by the author or by Sally Blanchard.  
Sally's all have a file name beginning with 'SB'.  You may use 
these as you wish, to replace the bird group icons in the 
program defaults.  Use the "toolbox" icon to locate the icon 
settings.  There is also a blank icon included to use as a 
template for creating your own icons.  You will need an icon 
editor; there are many free and shareware editors available.

BirdData will make a one-line section addition to your WIN.INI
file.  This entry tells the program the directory path to the
program files.

BirdData will create a number of .DAT files and .INI files in
your BIRDDATA directory for the storage of data.  If you follow
good backup procedures, these are the most important to
backup.

BirdData creates some temporary files with .TMP extensions.
Under normal use, the program will clean these up when it
exits.  If the program crashes, it will clean them up the next
time it is run and then exited normally.

VI.  Troubleshooting.

If you receive a Windows error about a  "SUB OR FUNCTION NOT
DEFINED" which crashes the program, it usually means that you
have an older version of one of the files in your path.  The
most likely culprit is MUSCLE.VBX, which is used by a lot of
programs.  BirdData installs this file in your Windows\System
directory.  If an older version is in your Windows directory,
it may not have a necessary function, and will be loaded ahead
of the System version.  Delete older versions of the file and
try again.

Other errors will frequently relate to a corrupted .INI file.
You may load BIRDDATA.INI into Windows Notepad or a similar
text-only editor and look for obviously bad entries.  Always
make a backup of the file before changing any entries, since it
is easy to make problems worse.

Printing problems:  This release generally fixes problems which 
have plagued earlier releases' use of the printer.  There still 
may be problems with an HP Deskjet 500C, solutions for which 
have been elusive.  If you are using this printer, try using 
the generic Deskjet 500 driver, or if you are already using 
that driver try the 500C Windows driver that ships with the 
printer.  Users have reported problems solved both ways!

Picture related problems:

If you have an image that BirdData will not display, it may be
in a format that cannot be used.  There are some variations of
.GIF and .PCX that are known to make problems for BirdData.  If
you can load them into another image editing program you may be
able to save it in a usable format.

BirdData expects image file names to match their formats.
If you have a .BMP image but give it a .GIF name, the program
will not be able to read it.

VIII.  Registration and Distribution.

BirdData is shareware, and may be registered for $25.  A
convenient form for registration is included below and in the
Help file (and may be printed from there).  Until you register,
there will be a startup screen asking you to register which you
will have to respond to.  When you register, this annoyance
will go away. Otherwise, this version is complete and
un-crippled in any way.

Commercial use:  BirdData may be used commercially, as long
as there is a registered copy for each computer/terminal that
is using it.

You may freely distribute BirdData as long as no fees are
charged for the program, and all necessary files are included.
If you are a registered user, do not distribute the file
BDATAREG.KEY, which identifies you as the user (This
identification shows up in the startup logo).

The author is very interested in feedback from users.  Please
feel free to make contact at the address shown at the beginning
of this file with any comments/questions/problems.


BirdData
Registration Form
Version 2.20
Send this form with $25 to:


	Don Bradner
	Arcata Pet
	600 F Street
	Arcata, CA 95521

Name:                 __________________________________________

Mailing Address:      __________________________________________

                      __________________________________________

City & State:         __________________________________________

Phone number (Optional) (         )______________________

If you wish, you may pay with a credit card:
Card type:  _VISA    _MasterCard   _AMEX    _Discover

Card Number:  ___________________________________

Expiration Date: _________________

Signature: _______________________________

Disk Size wanted:   _5-1/4    _3-1/2


To help the author please answer the following (optional)

Where did you get BirdData:

__BBS or online service

__Software service  Which one?___________________________

__Friend

__Other ____________________________________

Tell me what you like about BirdData:

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

Tell me what you would like me to add or change in BirdData:

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________



