@@ PERSONAL INVENTORY is an interactive filing system that keeps track of your personal inventory. A sort/selection criteria in the ITEM REPORTS is provided so that you can select specific items within a room. Items can also be split up by cost or purchase date. To use the inventory system successfully you will want to first delete the sample items present in the database by pressing "d" followed by ENTER at the INVENTORY MENU. Start off by entering the name and room of each item. Do not worry about serial numbers, model numbers, purchase prices, etc. After entering the items, print out a worksheet that you can now carry around to record the serial numbers and other information. Now enter the extra information and reprint an item list. A contextual help system is available throughout the program to aid you in using the system. Press the F1 key (FUNCTION 1 KEY) and a help window will appear upon the screen similar to the one you are viewing now. It will give you brief and informative messages about the screen currently being viewed. The ESC key can be used to exit menus and stop re- ports at any time. This indicates that you are finished looking at the display on the screen. This key is used GLOBALLY through the system as an escape hatch. It is ALWAYS available. The TAB key behaves like the ESC key. The LEFT ARROW Key will move left one field while you are updating a record. The RIGHT ARROW Key will move right one field while you are updating a record. The UP ARROW Key is used to move up one field if you are in an update mode or the menu options are showing. If you are in the INVENTORY MENU it will move to the prior record. The DOWN ARROW Key is used to move down one field if you are in an update mode or the menu options are showing. If you are in the inventory main menu it will move to the next record. The F2 Key (FUNCTION 2) is used to make a copy of the screen. Each time F2 is pressed, the current screen is appended to the file "screen.sav" in the current directory. This has the advantage over pressing SHIFT PRTSCRN in that screens are paginated correctly. The F10 Key (FUNCTION 10) is an information screen which displays where you can contact the author (me) about enhancements or updates. @@ It is from this page that you can add, delete, change, or search for items. Enter: a - add a new item d - delete an old item i - change the index ENTER - change/modify the item Press the UP or DOWN arrow to view the previous or next item. Enter the first few characters of the item name you are searching for if the INDEX is set to "item name". Enter the first few characters off the room if the index is set to "room name". For example: to find the camera item enter "ca". @@ Enter 'y' to save the changed information on this page. Enter 'n' to discard changes. @@ Press "y" if you wish to add this item permanently to the database. Otherwise press "n" - the item will not be added to the database. @@ Press "y" if you wish to permanently DELETE this item from the database. Otherwise press "n" - the item will remain in the database. @@ Enter the full name of the item. If there is a quantity of items enter : shirts - 20 Enter ESC, to get out of the update mode. @@ Enter the serial number. Law enforcement officers will often not release recovered items unless the owner can identify them by a serial number. Enter ESC, to get out of the update mode. @@ Enter the model number. Enter ESC, to get out of the update mode. @@ Enter the purchase date. Examples: To select a date of Nov 23, 1987 simply enter: "23Nov87", or "112387". other examples: "23JAN87" "23 Jan 87" "23 jan 87" "012387" "01 23 87" SHORTCUT FORMAT EXAMPLES "." - today "+1" - tomorrow "-1" - yesterday "+1w" - one week from today "-1w" - today last week "+1m" - this day next month "1+1m" - first day of next month "+thu" - next thursday from today "-wed" - last wednesday "+1w" - next week "-1w" - last week "+2m" - 2 months from today "1+1m+fri" - 1st friday of next month "+wed" - next wednesday "-tue" - last tuesday "-1y" - last year All date arithmetic expressions are relative to today, unless the date expression starts with a number (i.e. 5) which stands for the fifth of this month. So 5+2w is equivalent to 2 weeks from the 5th day of the current month. @@ Enter the room where the item is currently stored. @@ Enter the price of the item. Do not enter dollar signs or commas. For example: to enter a price of twenty five dollars and 18 cents - enter 25.18 To input $1,232.33 - enter 1232.33 To input $100.00 - enter 100 @@ Enter a short comment, perhaps a description of the item. @@ Inventory Menu - Add, delete, update and search for items from this menu. Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to change the selection bar or enter an option number. Also, you can change the index from this menu. The default index is the item name, you can change it to room name, which effectively sorts the entries by room name. @@ Inventory Reports - Print listings of items from this menu. The items will be sorted by the current index set from the Inventory Menu. @@ Press 'y' to finish this session. All files will be flushed and closed. Press ESC or 'n' to continue working. @@ Print screens that have been saved using the F2 save screen function. The screens have been saved in a file called "screen.sav". Each time F2 is pressed, the current screen is appended to this file. @@ Discard screens that have been saved using the F2 save screen function. The file "screen.sav" in the current directory will be cleared. @@ Change the printer setup string, printer codes for use with the custom forms, printer port and margin set- tings. Use your printer manual to change some of these set- tings. @@ Change system parameters - error bells on or off, file system SYNC frequency, defaults for room name when adding new items @@ Enter "m" if you have a monochrome screen and the shades are not acceptable. Enter "c" if you have a color screen. @@ Type "y" to turn on the error bell - it will beep at you if you make an input error. Type "n" to turn off this bell. @@ This field allows you to specify how often you desire to "sync" the file system. The internal file structure needs to be physically updated occasionally. The smaller this number is, the more often the file system will be SYNCED. Of course, small values for the sync will slow the program down when adding many entries to the system. This may be intolerable on a floppy based system. When entering many items into the database, you may wish to set it to 10. After entering the items, for maximum file integrity, set it to 1. Personal Inventory automatically sync's its files on exit. Be sure to exit the program by pressing the ESC key and answering "y" to the exit prompts. DO NOT exit the program by turning off the computer or pressing CTRL-ALT-DELETE. This may destroy the index files in which case you would have to reload all your data from scratch. It is advisable to make backups of the system after making significant changes. @@ If you experience a snow effect on the screen. Enter "y" to this question. The screen will be drawn to minimize this effect. This may occur on some CGA monitors. @@ The "printer end-of-line" is used to control the printer output at the end of the printed line. There are 4 options to set depending upon your printer. You may have to do a little bit of experimentation with this to get it right. Once it is set correctly, it will not have to be changed (as long as the switch settings on the printer do not change). Option 1 newline character 2 carriage return character 3 newline then carriage-return character 4 carriage-return then newline character 1) Output is double spaced - try setting option to "cr". 2) Output is overprinting or printing on one line - try setting the option first to "nl" and if that doesn't work, try out the options "nl/cr" or "cr/nl". 3) Output is jagged like: This is an example of a jagged line. Try changing option to "nl/cr" or "cr/nl". @@ Press any key to continue to the next page of the re- port, press ESC to stop the listing. @@ Press ENTER to see all reports on the screen. Select the "printer" to send the reports to a printer - directly. Select "capturefile" to send the output to an ASCII file. The output will be appended to an existing file. While the report/form is printing you may press SPACE which will pause the printer, or ESC which will abort the printout. @@ Type "y" and the changes made to the parameter page will be saved into the data files. Type "n" and the changes will be discarded and the old values will be retained. @@ Enter the full name of the file you want to save the output of the report to. Examples: report1.out a:reportsmar.87 If the file exists and is ASCII, Personal Inventory will APPEND to it. If it isn't ASCII, you must make another selection. @@ Personal Inventory cannot make contact with your printer. Make sure that the printer is online and has paper. @@ The output file "screen.sav" has been printed. Press any key to continue. @@ The output file "screen.sav" has been cleared. Press any key to continue. @@ Enter "y" to delete the screens previously saved in the file "screen.sav". Otherwise, enter "n". @@ Enter "1" - for LPT1:, "2" for LPT2: or "3" for LPT3 as a printer port. Personal Inventory doesn't currently support a serial printer port, however, you can direct the output of the report using the "capturefile" option and print the report from DOS upon exiting. @@ Enter the number of columns that you want the printer to start printing. I.e. if you enter 5, Personal Inventory will advance 5 spaces on each printed line. @@ The end of the report/form has been reached. Press any key to continue. @@ Set this field if you want to speed up the process of adding new entries. When you type in "a" at the Inventory Menu, the ROOM field will automatically be set to the default. @@ This report lists all items present in the database allowing different selection criteria. @@ The attributes that aren't present in the database for each item: cost date purchased model serial number will be printed using underlines. Print a worksheet off and use it to update items. @@ Enter "i" for item name and "r" for room name. The index will be changed so that you will be able to recall the items by name or by room name. @@ Enter the sequence of decimal codes that will place the printer into the mode desired (e.g. 16 pitch or "NLQ" - Near Letter Quality) See your printer manual for ASCII control codes. For example: sending 'ESC F' to the IBM Proprinter will turn EMPHASIZED PRINT ON. This would correspond to entering decimal 27 then 70 into the printer setup string. printer setup : [ 27] [ 70] [ ] [ ] What follows is a short, incomplete list of common ASCII decimal codes. COMMON DECIMAL ASCII CODES: 27 - ESC 32 - SPACE 8 - BACKSPACE 9 - HORZ TAB 10 - LN FEED 12 - FORMFEED 13 - CAR RET 14 - SO 15 - SI 33 - '!' 34 - '"' 35 - '#' 36 - '$' 37 - '%' 38 - '&' 40 - '(' 41 - ')' 42 - '*' 43 - '+' 44 - ',' 45 - '-' 46 - '.' 47 - '/' 60 - '<' 61 - '=' 62 - '>' 63 - '?' 1 - 'CTRL-A' 65 - 'A' 97 - 'a' 48 - '0' 2 - 'CTRL-B' 66 - 'B' 98 - 'b' 49 - '1' 3 - 'CTRL-C' 67 - 'C' 99 - 'c' 50 - '2' 4 - 'CTRL-D' 68 - 'D' 100 - 'd' 51 - '3' ... ... ... ... 25 - 'CTRL-Y' 89 - 'Y' 121 - 'y' 56 - '8' 26 - 'CTRL-Z' 90 - 'Z' 122 - 'z' 57 - '9' @@ If you wish to send an initialization string to the printer every time a report is printed answer "y" to the question. If you answer "n", Personal Inventory will not send a printer string. @@ To print out the report now, enter "y". Otherwise, press ESC or "n" to quit. @@ This page allows the selection of items based upon your personal criteria. For example, we may wish to select all items purchased with a value of at least $1000 stored in the garage. Enter "i" to sort by item name or "r" to sort by room name. @@ If you wish to print out the items in a single room or a group of rooms enter "y" at the prompt. @@ Enter the first few characters of the name of the room you want to select. For example, if we wish to view all items stored in the garage enter - From: gar Thru: gar The room can be truncated to the first few characters of the name. @@ Enter the first few characters of the room to be selected. For example, if we wanted to view the contents of the bedrooms we would enter: From: bedroom Thru: bedroom @@ To select those items purchased between two different dates, enter "y" at the prompt. @@ Enter the first date range in which to select items. Items purchased on or after this date will be printed. Enter dates in the following format (excluding the quotes): "23JAN87" "23 Jan 87" "23 jan 87" "012387" "01 23 87" @@ Enter the last date range in which to select items. Items purchased on or before this date will be printed. Enter dates in the following format (excluding the quotes): "23JAN87" "23 Jan 87" "23 jan 87" "012387" "01 23 87" @@ Enter a price in which to select items. For example if you wish to view those items purchased for over $500, enter 500 at the prompt and enter "g" at the relation prompt. To view those items with a value of less than $1,000 enter 1000 here and "l" at the relation prompt. @@ Enter "l" for "less than" or "g" for "greater than". This field is tied to the Purchase Price field.