Address    Address book with auto-dial

by Mike Fowler


Address is a comprehensive Desktop address book. It not
only enables you to store and retrieve addresses and phone
numbers, but will also format and print address labels, and
has a dialler facility to dial numbers on tone (DTMF)
phones.

Address is loaded by double-clicking on the !Address
icon in a directory display or clicking on the icon in the RISC User Menu System, whereupon it loads itself on the icon bar. It may also be loaded by double-clicking on a previously-saved Address file, in which case the application will be started and the Address file will be loaded, with the Address Book window opened to display the first card of that file. If Address was loaded by the first method, clicking on the icon on the icon bar displays a blank address card, ready for new entries.

A new Address file can also be loaded at any time by dragging it to the Address icon on the icon bar, or to any open Address
window.

Clicking Menu over the Address icon on the icon bar
displays the following options:

Info		Displays information about Address.
Address	Opens the Address Book window.
Phone		Creates a list of phone numbers, from which one
		may be selected for dialling.
Quit		Cancels the application.

ADDRESS BOOK WINDOW
Selecting the Address option from the icon bar menu, or
starting the application by double-clicking on an Address
file in a Filer window, displays the Address Book window.
This window displays individual cards from the Address
file, or if no file is loaded, a single blank card with several fields into which you can enter the address data. Pressing Return moves on to the next field, whilst the up and down cursor keys move to the field above or below, respectively. Entries can be edited in the usual way, so Ctrl-U clears the entry, while Backspace and Delete delete the character to the left of the cursor, and Copy deletes the character to the right. A new card which has just been completed, or changes to an existing card, must be stored by clicking on the Update button in the bottom right-hand corner. Note that clicking Update will cause an asterisk to appear on the right of the title bar, indicating that the contents of the file have been changed, and warning that the new version of the file should be saved. The number of the current card is displayed, together with the total number of cards, in a box at the bottom left of the window (e.g., 5/20).

Additional cards are created by clicking Menu over the Address Book window, and choosing Insert. A blank card is created, and the card number and total card number adjusted accordingly. New cards can be inserted anywhere in the file and can be sorted alphabetically by surname by choosing Sort from the same menu.

A card can be cleared by clicking on the Clear button at the bottom of the window and the original contents prior to any changes or clearing can be restored by clicking on Restore, provided the card has not been updated (i.e., Update has not been clicked on).

If either of the two telephone entries contains a number,
then the corresponding Dial button will be active,
otherwise it will be greyed out (note that when a number has
just been entered, the button is not active until Update
has been clicked on and the card has been stored). Clicking
on a Dial button will play the corresponding tones through
the computer's speaker, and placing the mouthpiece of a
tone-operated phone near the speaker will cause the number
to be dialled. It is possible that certain phones and certain models of
computer may not work well together, though it is unlikely that a wrong
number will be dialled in such a case - the dialling will fail altogether.

The Label button in the bottom left-hand corner is used to indicate whether an address label is to be printed for this card.

The arrow buttons above the Label and Update buttons allow you to move to other cards in the file. The < and > buttons move to the previous and next cards respectively, while the << and >> buttons move directly to the first and last cards in the file, respectively.

If the current card has been changed, but the amended card
has not been stored (by clicking on Update), any action
which would cause the current card to be removed from the display (such as closing the window, or clicking on one
of the arrow buttons to move to another card) will cause a
warning box to appear, and the message 'Changes not stored - continue?' to be displayed. Clicking on OK will continue
with the intended action and the changes will be lost;
clicking on Cancel will cancel the intended action and
keep the current card displayed - it can then be updated before
carrying out the intended action.

MENU OPTIONS
Clicking Menu anywhere in the Address Book window displays
the Address menu, showing the following options:

Info
This is a repeat of the Info option on the icon bar menu.

Index
This option is toggled on and off by clicking on it, as indicated by the presence or absence of a tick. When ticked, a thumb index appears to the right of the Address Book window, enabling cards to be located more quickly; clicking on a letter moves to the first entry whose surname starts with that letter (or first entry of a higher letter if no such entry exists).

Search
Choosing Search causes the Search window to be opened, which enables entries to be found by entering a search string; this option is described more fully below.

Save
Moving to the right of this option displays a Save window. Entering a file name (leafname) and dragging the Address icon to a Filer window will save the file; if a file has previously been loaded into Address, its full pathname will be displayed, and it can be saved by clicking on the OK button (the file name can be edited first, if required).

Print
Moving to the right of this option displays a submenu with two options, allowing either this card or all cards to be printed. Cards are printed in a simple list format with fields in the order shown in the Address Book window (empty fields appear as blank lines), and with dashes separating cards. See the section below on printing.

Labels
Choosing this option leads to the Labels window, which enables label formats to be defined, and labels to be printed.

Insert
This option creates a new blank card, as described above. Cards can be inserted at any point in the file, but it is necessary to store the entries in a new card before moving to another card (or quitting the application) by clicking on the Update button in the Address Book window.

Delete
This option deletes the current card; note that a deleted card cannot be restored (except by reloading the file), so be sure you want to delete it.

Clear all
This option deletes all cards, leaving a single blank card (as if the application had just been started, without loading a file). Because of this drastic action, a dialogue box will be displayed seeking confirmation; the option will only continue if OK is clicked.

Sort
This option performs a simple sort, sorting cards alphabetically on surname (if there are several cards with the same surname, they will be in random order; sorting on forename as a secondary key may be considered as a future enhancement).

SEARCH
Choosing Search from the Address menu causes the Search window to be opened, which enables cards to be found by
entering a search string. Type in the string to be found in
the Search for: box; a number of options are then
available. If All is selected, the application will search
every field in every card, which may be slow for a large
Address file; alternatively, cards can be found by searching
on their Quickref field only (if this contains something),
thus speeding up the search. If Ignore case is ticked, the
application will not take account of upper and lower case
when trying to match the search string, thus 'smith' will
match with 'Smith', 'SMITH', 'sMiTh', etc., otherwise case
is taken into account. Clicking on this icon toggles its
state. Clicking on Search or pressing Return will
initiate the search, starting at card 1, and if a match is
found, that card is displayed in the Address Book window.
Clicking on Repeat will continue the search, and any more
matches will be found. When no more matches are found, Not
found is displayed in the Search window. The search window
is closed by clicking on its Close icon.

LABELS
Choosing Labels from the Address menu causes the Labels
window to be opened, which enables label formats to be
defined and name and address labels to be printed. Labels
are defined in terms of the number across a sheet, which can
be 1, 2 or 3, and the number of rows on a sheet. The
dimensions of the label are defined as follows:

Horizontal pitch
This is the distance between the left-hand edges of adjacent labels across the sheet.

Vertical pitch
This is the distance between the top edges of labels in adjacent rows.

Print width
This specifies the printable width within a label.

Print indent
This specifies how far from the left-hand edge printing should start.

Initial offsets - horizontal, vertical
These allow for left and top margins respectively within the label sheet.

These dimensions are increased and decreased by clicking on
their associated up and down arrows - note that some
dimensions are inter-related, so that it will not be
possible to go above or below a particular value, depending
on the value of other related dimensions.

A default label format is loaded when the application is
first run; this is held in a file named labels in the
application directory. An alternative format can be saved,
once changed as described above, by clicking Menu in the
Labels window, and choosing Save format, this new
format will be saved in the same file, overwriting the previous
format. The saved format can be reloaded by choosing Load
format from the Label menu.

To allow for the situation where labels have already been
used in a sheet, the facility is provided to specify the
first label position. This is counted across the rows, up to
and including the first unused label.

Print pitch can be selected as one of four values: 5, 10,
12, 17 characters per inch (see the section on printing for
details of setting up your particular printer).

Labels can be printed for all cards or for selected cards. If the latter is selected, then only those cards which have their Label icon ticked will be printed.

Labels are printed by clicking on Print, or pressing
Return. The first line of each label is constructed from
the title, initial letter of the forename, and surname,
e.g., Mr. J. Smith, or Mr. & Mrs. C. Brown. Address lines
and postcode are then printed; if there are less than 4
address lines, the postcode is moved up, avoiding blank lines. A
maximum of 6 lines is printed per label.

The Label window can be closed either by clicking
on its Close icon, or clicking on the Cancel button. In
the latter case, any Label icons on Address cards which
are ticked will be unticked.

PHONE DIALLER
In addition to dialling numbers by clicking Dial on
individual cards, numbers may be selected for dialling from
a phone number list. Choosing Phone from the icon bar menu
opens the Phone Dialler window, which displays phone numbers
from all cards in a scrolling list. Clicking on a line
highlights that line and removes the highlight from any
other line previously highlighted, and the corresponding
number may then be dialled by clicking on the Dial button.
Alternatively, a number may be directly entered by clicking
on the radio button at the bottom left of the window, and
typing the number in the box provided. Note that numbers
cannot be selected from the scrolling list unless the radio
icon at the top left is selected. The Phone Dialler window
is closed by clicking on its Close icon or on the Cancel
button.

PRINTING
In order to provide the correct spacing between labels, and
to allow for different printing pitches, a number of printer
commands are used. The application has been set up for the
Canon BJ10e Bubblejet printer, but different commands will
need to be defined for different printers. These are set up
in PROCprinter_codes at line 650 in the !RunImage Basic
program, and their purpose is documented there. To change a
command, find the required command in your printer manual,
and edit the corresponding line in PROCprinter_codes, then
save !RunImage within the Address directory.

QUITTING ADDRESS
Choosing Quit from the icon bar menu will close down
Address, and remove its icon from the icon bar. If the file has been updated but has not been saved, indicated by the presence of an asterisk on the right of the title bar, a dialogue box will
appear, displaying the message 'Address file has been
modified'. Clicking on Discard terminates the application
without saving the file - changes are lost. Clicking on
Cancel keeps the application running, and gives you the
opportunity to save the file before quitting.


 Copyright RISC User 1994
