Chip 1996 January/Chip_Special_Best_Web_Sites_01-96.iso/pc/share/wissen/i_blast2/manual.txt

Text File | 1995-11-14 | 21KB | 546 lines

                     Internet Site Blaster



               Copyright (c) 1995 by William Hogg M.D.

                       ALL RIGHTS RESERVED



Introduction


The Internet Site Blaster (tm) uses a database format. Each page of
Internet information is considered one record, unless you are in the
table view, when one record will correspond to one line of the table.
The individual text areas on a page where information can be entered are
known as fields. The entire collection of records is called a database.

Each database has its own particular characteristics which, with
Internet Site Blaster, are described in what is known as the File
Definition. An Index organizes the information in one field in such a
way as to allow rapid access to that field's information. The Internet
Site Blaster can have an Index on one or more fields. If you like, you
can make indexes on each of the four fields in the database.

The program ships with an index already assigned to the Description
field. You will need to create indexes on other fields for yourself.

After you start the program, go to the File menu and select "Indexes".
You will be shown the Indexes dialog box. Next, highlight the name of
one of the fields by clicking on its name on the left. Then select
"Add" and this field will be transferred to the right side and an Index
will be created when you leave this dialog box. It is recommended to at
least create indexes for the Description and the Address fields.


The Icon Bar provides quick access to the most commonly used functions:



The Form View

This is the most commonly used view for entering, viewing, and working
with data. There are other views however, which at times can be more
useful to you than the form view.



Table View

The Table View displays many records at one time for easier viewing of
groups of records. The layout of the table view can be modified so that
as much or as little of any field shows on the screen.



Save Record

When you have added or changed information in the database, you can use
this icon to save your work. Any time that you make changes in the
database you will be prompted to save the new information.



Add Record

To add new information, choose this icon to begin entering new Internet
data.



Change Record

When information needs to be edited or modified, select this icon to
begin entering the desired changes in the Table View. In the Form View,
simply click on a field to begin data entry.



Delete Record

When you need to destroy a record, then select this icon. You will be
prompted to make certain that you want to delete the record.



Registration Benefits

Choose this icon to view the benefits of registration and the bonus
database and utilities that come with the Registered version of Internet
Site Blaster.



Help

The Help Button to the far right of the icon bar can give you access to
this help file from within the program.



Group Find

Group Find is found on the icon bar at the bottom of the screen.
Information is gathered into a group if it meets certain search criteria
that you specify.



Find First Matching Item

Find First will locate an individual record that meets the criteria you
have selected for your search. The searching must be done on an indexed
field, unlike the Group Find that can search indexed and non-indexed
fields. The results are immediate, even when searching through an entire
30,000 record database. If the exact match is not located, then Find
First will make its best guess for a record that provides a close or
approximate match.



Pause

Also on the lower icon bar, the icon with the double bar is present to
allow you to pause in the process of performing a database operation.
De-select the icon to resume the paused procedure.



Stop

The solid square icon adjacent to the Pause button, allows you to
terminate any database operation in progress.



VCR Controls

The controls for traveling through the database are similar to those
seen commonly on a video cassette recorder (VCR). The buttons on either
end take you to the beginning or the end of the database instantly. The
double arrows pointing to the left take you rapidly through the database
to the beginning. The double arrows pointing to the right allow you to
scan rapidly to the end of the database, similar to Fast-Forward on a
VCR. The single arrows pointing left and right move one page, or record,
at a time. The single arrow pointing up is used only in the Table View.

Each function of the VCR buttons has a keyboard counterpart. For
instance, the left and right arrow keys can take you one record backward
or forward in the database. If you hold the left or right arrow key
down, then the database will be rapidly scanned in the chosen direction,
just like the Fast-Forward or Fast-Reverse keys. The PgUp and PgDn keys
will also emulate Fast-Forward and Fast-Reverse. The Home key and the
End key will jump to the first page and last page of the database,
respectively. If your mouse hand tires easily, the keyboard approach to
navigating can prove helpful.



Displaying Internet Information


There are two ways to view Internet information from within the database:

The Form View:

This view is the main view from which you will enter data, perform
searches, and move through the database. Both the top icon bar and and
bottom icon bar contain all of the basic functions you will need for
most activities. The menus allow other, more complicated procedures to
be performed. These commands are discussed in the Menu Command Summary.


The Table View:

It is helpful sometimes to be able to view the Internet information in
the database in a table format. This is true particularly when search
criteria are specified and the files matching that criteria are
collected into one set. By using the Table View, you can view the
Internet sites matching the search criteria very quickly to find sites
of interest easily.

The layout of the table view can be changed by adjusting column sizes
with your mouse by using the Layout command under the Edit menu item.
See Menu Command Summary .


Finding Internet Information

One of the most important uses of a database program like this is the
ability to search for specific information. When you know specifically
what you are searching for, you want to use the Find First function:

The key to using the Find First function is to use this on the
appropriate indexed field. If the item you are searching for is to be
found in the description field, then you must make sure that you have
the index set to "Description" or the search will produce undesirable
results. If you are searching for something in a particular Category
field, then "Category" must be set as the index. If you have no indexes
assigned, this icon will be dimmed and unavailable. Go to "Indexes"
under the File menu to add indexes to the database.

When you select the Find First function, you will be asked to fill in
box called "Key Lookup" which look like this:

The term "Key Lookup" means that the search will be made on a particular
indexed field.

For instance, you might use the Find First function to locate the first
instance of "Governmental" in the field "Description". The look-up is
almost instantaneous no matter what the size of the database is. You
will see the particular Internet site that matches the search item
presented to you.

If you were to search for "Governmental Agencies" , you will notice that
there is not an exact match, so the search function finds the first
match that comes close to the search criteria. The Internet site
presented to you may be titled "Government Agency" instead. The message
at the bottom of the screen will tell you that an exact match was not
found.

When you are not sure of the exact word or terms that you want to search
for, then you can use the "Group Find" function to find all of the
records that are close to your search word or phrase.

This function will not only find the first occurrence of a specified term,
but will goup all of the files in the database that match the search
criteria. You can then work with these as a subset of the whole database.
To return to the use of the whole database you can click on the icon, and
it will no longer be depressed. You can then resume working with the entire
database as desired.

There are several important things to know about using the "Group Find"
function.

For the "Group Find", you will be asked to fill out a "Group Display"
dialog box, like the one above. By simply clicking on the desired field
to search on, then the operator (usually the "LIKE" operator), then
entering a value and selecting "Ok" on the bottom button, you will have
designated a search formula by which records will be found.

In the example above, Description is clicked on, then "LIKE", and then
the word "movie" is entered into the value box. The button at the bottom
of the screen will say "Value" on it. When the word "movie" is entered,
the Value button is clicked and the button changes to "Ok". Clicking on
this button again will start the search.

If you know exactly what you want to find, just enter the word, by
itself, like "movie". However, if you want to find all sites that have
the word movie, or movies anywhere in the description, then the use of
the wildcard * is helpful. By entering the value as *movie* you will
find a much broader range of sites that have to do with that topic.

After the first site is found, the search will stop on that particular
Internet site. If you press the Fast Forward icon at this time, then the
search will continue through the whole database. Once it is finished
searching, it is interesting to look at the group of sites collected by
going to the Table View. It takes a few moments to display the table,
but it helps you to see what your search has produced. Again, when you
press on the Group Find icon, it will no longer be in the depressed
position and you will be returned to the entire database.

As tempting as it may be, do not use the other symbols and numbers for
your searches as you will not get usable results. The equal sign is
intended for mathematic functions that are used to search on, not
applicable in this database.



Entering Internet Information

The Form View is the mode that you will use when you are entering
Internet information into the database. Select the Add icon to begin a
new page. If the page already exists, simply click the mouse on the
desired field and enter data. Then press the Enter key to go to the
other fields. You can enter data into the other fields or just
repeatedly press the Enter key until you leave the form. You will be
asked if you want to save your information.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you do not press Enter to leave the form, you must
select the Save icon to save your work before you move to other pages of
the database, or it will be as if you never entered the information.

If you use the Table View to enter information, you must first select
the Add icon to add a new page, or the Change icon to modify information
already present. When you have completed your data entry, you must
select the Save icon to save your work.

Importing Data: One of the ways that you can quickly add Internet
information to the database is to import information. By selecting
"Import" from the File menu, you can add information from a specially
prepared text file. First of all, the text file must be pure ASCII,
meaning there must be no embedded control codes in the file like many
word processors insert. Usually a word processor has the ability to save
text as plain text or ASCII format. Text editors generally save the text
as ASCII text.

The preparation of the text file is simple. All you have to do is put
the Internet Site Description and Address on the same line, separated by
an "@" sign (without the quotes). The description should come first,
followed by the address like this:

The Internet Pearls Index@http://www.execpc.com/~wmhogg

If you are including Category and Notes information, then you need to
place them in the order Description, Address, Category, and Notes, each
separated by the "@" symbol. Each line begins a new page, so all
information for one site must be on one line.

When you select "Import" from the file menu, you will be shown a dialog
box in which you should indicate which file you want to import. It is
best to try this with a few records in one text file, so that if there
are any mistakes in preparing the file, only a few records will have to
be deleted to rectify the problem.



Utilities

There are several useful utilities in the Internet Site Blaster. The
most useful Utility is the Export command, found under the File Menu.

The Export function allows you to copy Internet information from the
program to your hard disk. It allows you to select which Internet Sites
to export by entering a search term or phrase, such as "game". The
program then looks through the database and selects all of the sites
that have "game" in their Description field, and copies them to a file
you specify on your hard disk, such as "game.txt". Just as with other
search functions in this program, the results are usually better when
you add a wildcard symbol, *, to each end of the word or phrase.
Entering " *game* " , instead of just "game", will find the term "game"
no matter where it appears in the Description field.

The resulting text file will contain entries such as this:

3-D/Virtual Reality Games@http://www.cts.com/~pcs/3d.htm
Crafts, Hobbies, and Games@http://tezcat.com/web/hobbies.html

This is the format that the program's utilities in the registered
version use to convert the Internet information into Netscape Bookmarks
or Mosaic Hotlists. The Export function lets you select information to
copy from Site Blaster based on keywords. Try using the Export function
with search terms such as *HTML*, *Game*, *Book*, or *Fun*.

A very important utility is the built-in text editor that can be
selected from the menu or by pressing the [F8] function key.

From the text editor you can open text files that contain Internet
information that you want to add to the database. You can also
cut-and-paste information from the database to the text editor and save
this in a text file.

When using the cut and paste method of adding information to a text
file, you select the information by holding the left mouse key down and
dragging it across the desired text in the database field. This will
mark the text to be copied. Then go to the Edit menu item and select
"Copy". The information is then saved to the clipboard for you to copy
into the text editor or other Windows applications, such as your WWW
browser, if it allows.

Certain browsers do not allow direct pasting into their program from the
Windows Clipboard, such as Netscape. Instead, you have to import the
site information into the bookmarks. The Registered version of the
program includes a utility to convert information from Internet Site
Blaster into Netscape (tm) Bookmark format. The same utility can be used
with the Mosaic (tm) WWW browser as well.

If you are pasting into the text editor, the next step is to set the
focus to the text editor by clicking the mouse within the text editor
window, and then press the keys CTRL-V to paste the information from the
clipboard.

The Table View is particularly helpful here because you can highlight
all of the fields for one site on a single line and then copy the
information to the clipboard from all of the fields at once. You
highlight a site in the Table View by using the Up and Down arrow keys
to position the bar over the site you want to copy. Then go to the Edit
Menu and select "Copy".

The other utilities include functions to tell you about the Status of
the file and of the system. You can close the window after the report is
displayed by double-clicking on the window control in the upper left
corner of the report.

You can also perform displays of any directory you choose as well as
perform common file functions such as copy, rename, display text files,
etc.



Menu Command Summary


FILE:

Print - Print current page info.

Print Setup - Choose printer options.

Page Setup - Specify page format.

Indexes - Allows you to add or remove field indexes.

Import - Import Ascii-delimited file into database.

Export - Export Site Blaster information to a Text file.

Exit - Quit program.



EDIT:

Cut - Remove marked information from a field and place it on the Windows
clipboard.


Copy - Copy marked information from a field and place it on the Windows
clipboard.

Paste - Place the contents of the Windows clipboard at the cursor position
in a field or the text editor (Use Ctrl-V to paste in Text Editor.

Delete - Remove marked text permanently.

Layout - Change the width of the Description field in the Table View.  Use the mouse to adjust
the width and then click.



VIEW:

Table - Show data in Table format.

Form - Show data in Form style.  This is the default view.



DATA:

Add - Add a new blank page to enter new Internet information.

Change - Modify the information on the present page.

Save - Save the present page to file.

Remove - Delete the present (Current) record, or a Group of records
matching a specified set of criteria. You will need to fill out the
Filter Dialog box to specify which records to delete. The procedure is
the same as in Group Find, except that these records will be removed,
instead of grouped together.



UTILITIES:

Text Editor - Edit text files from within the program. Paste Internet
information from the clipboard into the Text Editor.

Status - Gives information on the status of the the file and on the
system.

Directory - View any directory from within the program.

Files - Perform file operations from with the program.



OPTIONS:

Icon Bar - Set the position of the Icon Bar.

Status Bar - Toggle the Status Bar on and off.

Selection Bar - Set the position of the Selection Bar

System - Change or set the working directory. The other settings should not
be modified.

Display - Set the display font size. The other settings should not be
modified.



Registration Benefits

 1. Put the power of the Internet at your fingertips. Search over 30,000
Internet Sites in the Registered database with descriptions and
addresses, showing how these sites can be reached. By using the Windows
clipboard, or the Export command, you can copy information from Site
Blaster for use with your favorite WWW browser.

 2. With Registration, you will also receive a utility to convert the
Internet Site Blaster site information into Bookmarks that can be
imported into the your Netscape (tm) browser. This way you can export
Internet Sites from Site Blaster and make them immediately usable by
your Netscape WWW program. The utility will also convert site
information into Mosaic (tm) Web Browser Hot Lists.

 3. Receive "The Internet Primer", a Windows Help file that bursts with
useful information on numerous Internet topics including Searching the
Internet, Internet Starting Points, Using HTML, Designing Web Pages,
Accessing Free-Nets, Software Libraries, Internet Tutorials and Guides,
Internet Access Providers, Helpful Computer Magazines on the Internet,
What's New, What's Cool, What's Hot, Corporate Computing, and a Complete
Listing of the Virtual Libraries available on the Internet.

 4. Only the Registered version of Internet Site Blaster is continually
edited and updated. To have the newest links and the latest updated site
information, you'll need the Registered version. As the web grows, the
sites are becoming more interesting and more entertaining. Only the
Registered version will give you info on what is currently hot on the
Internet.

 5. No shareware messages.

Even though the Registered database is extensive, it requires little
disk space and maintains blazing search speed. You can print out the
Order Form in the text file "Order.frm" that can be found in your Site
Blaster directory.

Registration is only $38.00 (U.S.) plus S&H, for the full program, and
only $25.00 plus S&H for the Site Blaster Lite, which is similar to the
full program in every way except that the database is limited to 15,000
Internet Sites.



Ordering

To order the Internet Site Blaster, simply fill out the form found in
the file "Order.frm". Print this out and mail it with your payment to
SoloTech Software. You will receive the most recent version of the
program. While every effort will be made to mail your order quickly,
please allow 7-14 days for delivery. For Credit Card orders see the
information in the "Order.frm" file.

New! The Internet Site Blaster - Lite. Contains the same program
features and registration benefits as the full program but has only
15,000 Internet Sites in the Database at a reduced price. See
"Order.frm" for details.