Contents
Practical PhoneBook

by Gary Chizhevsky, 1993

Welcome to Practical PhoneBook Help

Help Contents

Overview

Features

How to...

Menus

Registration

History of changes


Overview

Practical PhoneBook is ... hm ... a phone book.  It is meant to be very easy and fast to use.  Special care is taken to provide the program with an attractive and polished look.  The program's purpose is to help you organize and manipulate your telephone directory efficiently.  The program is designed to work as easily with keyboard as with mouse.  It strictly follows the best Windows user interface traditions, and thus, should take no time for you to learn if you know anything about Windows.  However, if you are a novice to the Windows environment, extensive on-line help, that you are reading now, will explain to you every detail of the program.  In addition, if you click the right mouse button on anything in the main window, a context-sensitive info box will pop up and explain what that element of the main window does or means.

To fill your phone directory, all you need to do for each entry is add a name and phone#, and specify what kind of phone# it is (work, home, car, etc.).  For any other information, like secondary phone# or address, you can use 'Notes' section.  For dialing purposes, the program uses the main phone# only.  Thus, if you want to be able to dial several phone numbers for the same person, have several entries with that person's name and different phone numbers in the directory.  All phone book entries are listed in alphabetical order, and consequently, are easy to locate by simple browsing.  There are, of course, more sophisticated methods available for searching entries by name, phone#, or text from notes, should the need arise.

Keep in mind that this is a shareware version of the program.  Thus, you are obligated to register if you decide to keep using the program.  See Registration section for more information.


List of features
Features

Practical PhoneBook:

1. Allows to store about a thousand phone book entries with up to 32000-letter notes per each entry (more that enough), 64K of notes all together.  Names are 24 characters max., phone numbers - 29.

2. Stores files as text, so they can be edited in any text editor if desired for some reason.  Make sure notes are enclosed in square brackets.

3. Features array of graphical push buttons along the bottom of the main window.  The buttons are associated with the most commonly performed functions.

4. Presents a list of phone book entries that occupies most of the main window.  If the main window is resized, the list is resized accordingly.  To the left of each list entry is an icon that tells whether there are any notes attached to the entry.  If the icon is crossed out, there are currently no notes for the entry.  Only name and phone number are shown in the list.

5. Includes a menu with the same functions as those available through push buttons at the bottom, plus some less frequently invoked commands.

6. Has search box that pops up automatically when a letter is typed and searches for the list entry as you type.  Also, has Alphabet box as an alternative method for searching by name.

7. Allows to dial a phone number through a Hayes-compatible modem.

8. Loads file specified as the command line parameter, if any, when application is started, or if file is not specified as command line parameter, loads the last file used.

9. Remembers the screen position from the last time it was run.

10. Provides a context-sensitive Info box at the click of right mouse button.


How to register
Registration Info

Practical PhoneBook is a shareware product.  That means you are permitted to use it free of charge only for a trial period (about 1 month).  After that, if you like the program and would want to maintain friendly relations with the author, please, send me $10 to the following address:

Gary Chizhevsky

39639 Leslie St. Apt. 160

Fremont, Ca 94538

USA

Registration will entitle you to receive future free upgrades and my gratitude.

Also, send me any comments about the program, suggestions and criticism.  I am eager to accommodate your reasonable requests and send you improved versions.


Menu choices
Menus

File
	New	Create new, empty phone book file.
	Open	Open existent phone book file.
	Save	Save currently open phone book file.
	Print All	Print all phone book entries.
	Printer Setup	Set default system printer.
	Exit	End program.
Entry
	Add	Add entry.
	Edit	Edit currently selected entry.
	Delete	Delete currently selected entry.
	Print	Print currently selected entry.
	Notes	Show notes for currently selected entry.
	Dial	Dial currently selected entry's phone #.
	Find by Phone	Find entry with a specific phone #.
	Find by Name	Search for entry by name as you type.
	Find by Notes	Find entry by a piece of text from notes.
Settings
	Alphabet Box	Show or hide Alphabet box.
	Dial Settings	Set dial parameters and phone information.
	Display Settings	Set viewing options in Display Settings dialog box.
	Print Settings	Set printing options in Print Settings dialog box.
	Font	Set font of the phone book list.
Help
	Contents	Open PhoneBook help.
	About	General program information.


Available operations
How to ...

Do what?	Here is what you use:
Add entry	Add button, or Entry/Add menu, or <Insert> key. Each phone book entry must have a name; phone number and notes are not required. Warning: When entering notes, make sure you do NOT put right square bracket character ']' in the end of line, since square brackets are used internally to identify end of notes.
Edit entry	Edit Button, or Entry/Edit menu.
Delete entry	Delete Button, or Entry/Delete menu, or <Delete> key. Once an entry is deleted, the empty trash can picture on the Delete button changes to full trash can picture.  After the file is saved, the trash can looks empty again.
Print one entry or entire list	Use 'Entry/Print' menu to print the currently selected entry. To print the entire list, choose 'File/Print All' menu. Use 'Settings/Print Settings' menu to set priniting options in Print Settings dialog box.
View notes	Notes button, or Entry/Notes menu, or double-click on the notes icon in the phone book list.  If the notes icon to the left of the entry is crossed out, there are no notes for the entry.
Dial phone number	Dial button, or Entry/Dial menu, or double-click on the entry. To set dialing prefix, tone or pulse phone type, com port number, and redial if busy option, choose 'File/Dial Settings' menu.
Find entry by name	Choose 'Entry/Find by Name' menu, or <F5> key, or use Alphabet box, or simply start typing the name.  A search box will automatically pop-up and search as you type.  This is the fastest method to find an entry by name.  The search is case insensitive.
Find entry by phone#	Choose 'Entry/Find by Phone#' menu, or <F6> key.  You may enter a beginning part of a phone# (or the entire phone#).  The first phone# that starts with the same characters will be found.  The search begins with the first entry after the one currently selected and after it reaches the last entry continues with the first one.  If no entry is selected, the search starts with the first item.  The search is case insensitive.
Find entry by piece of text from notes	Choose 'Entry/Find by Notes' menu, or <F7> key.  The search is case sensitive.  Otherwise, it is conducted in the same fashion as when searching by phone#.
Get help	Choose 'Help/Contents' menu, or <F1> key for extensive on-line help, or use pop-up Info box for quick help about items on-screen.

Selecting phone book entry.

Whenever an operation is performed on a phone book entry, the entry must first be selected, except when adding an entry.  An entry can be selected by clicking on it with mouse, or moving the selection bar to it by <Up> or <Down> arrow keys, or by using the search box, which automatically pops up when a letter or number is pressed.  The search continues as you type.  After the desired entry is highlighted, clicking outside the search box or pressing <Esc>, or <Enter> will remove the search box from screen.

Performing an operation on the selected entry.

To determine what operation to perform on the selected entry, see the table above.  Also, as an alternative to clicking on Edit, Delete, Notes, and Dial buttons, an entry can be dragged onto the button with the left mouse button to achieve the same effect.

Keyboard note.

To use a graphical button at the bottom of the main window to perform any of the actions described above with the keyboard, press <Left> or <Right> arrow keys, or <Tab> or <Shift><Tab> keys to move bold black border, indicating input focus, from button to button, and <Enter> or <Spacebar> to push a button.  If you press <Right> arrow key when you are on the right-most button, or <Left> arrow key when you are on the left-most button, the input focus will move to the phone book entries listbox.


 Display Settings

The following display options can be set:

	Show phone# type
Uncheck this option to remove phone# type (home or work) from the display of phone book listing.

	Show name & phone# in columns
Check this option to display names and phone numbers in two fixed-size columns.  The width of the first column is equal to the width of the widest name.  That means that if all but one names are 10 letters long, and 1 name is 24 letters long, there will a whole lot of empty space wasted in the list of entries.


Print Settings

The following printing options can be set:

	Notes
Check this option to print notes along with name, phone#, and phone# type (home, work, etc.).

	Print Style: at most 1 entry per page
Check this option to print 1 entry per page.  If notes option is on and notes take more than 1 page, they will continue to be printed on the next page.  The next entry will start with a new page.

	Print Style: continuous
Check this option to print one entry after the other, separated by a horizontal line, with as many lines of text as will fit on a page.


Changes from version 1.0 to 1.1
History of changes

From version 1.0 to 1.1

New features

1.  Alphabet box for searching entries by name.

2.  Pop-up info box for quick help about on-screen items.

3.  Dial function was not very smart in reporting results of dial operation (BUSY,  NO DIALTONE, etc.). Once the phone# was attempted to be dialed, the user was on his/her own.  There was no redial or time out feature.  Dialing is now improved.  A message box pops up if phone# is busy, or no carrier is  detected, etc.  There is a time-out set up in the modem automatically.  So, after  about a minute, the modem quits and posts "No carrier" message.  Redialing if busy feature can be set in the Dial Settings dialog box to repeat dialing a phone# until it's not busy.

4.  If no file is specified as command line parameter, the file that was used last is automatically loaded upon start-up.

5.  Drag 'n' Drop. Instead of selecting an entry from the phone book list and then clicking on a button to perform an operation on that entry, now user can click on an entry and then drag it onto a button and drop it to perform an operation.

6.  Font and size used to display the phone book list can be changed now.

7.  Display Settings dialog box, where user can set phone book list viewing parameters.

8.  Search by Notes allows to search for an entry by matching the text user enters to entries' notes.  Both search by notes and by phone# have been enhanced to be forward circular searches.  In the original version, search by phone# always resulted in the same entry found, if the user's input remained the same.  Now, the search starts with entry following the one currently selected, and after the last entry, wraps around and continues with the first one.  In addition, if search is successful, the user's input is remembered till the next search.

9.  Print Settings dialog box, where user can set printing parameters.

For additional information on how to use the listed features, see How to section.

Bug fixes

1.  When phone book entries listbox had the input focus and a letter was pressed to invoke pop-up search box, the search always resulted in the second matching entry found, if there were more than one matching entries.  Bug fixed.

2.  Sometimes modem stayed on-line after the conversation.  Bug seems to have been fixed.

3.  F1 - F12 and Ctrl+letter combinations caused search box to pop up.  Bug fixed.

4.  If notes were longer than about 250 characters, the program crashed when the user tried to edit the entry.  Bug fixed.

5.  If no entry had notes attached to it, the file did not load.  Bug fixed.

6.  After load file operation was aborted, certain operations caused the program to crash.  Bug fixed.

Changes in Practical PhoneBook.

From V1.1 to V1.1a

New features

1. In dialing, modem init string can now be user-defined, which will make dialing more reliable.

2. Only one instance of the program can be run now, with the first instance automatically activated when the second instance is attempted to be run.

3. The user can enter anything in place of phone# type in "Add" or "Edit entry" dialog box.  Previously, only work and home phone# types were allowed.

Bug fixes

1. Find by Phone# and Find by Notes searches crashed if no item was selected.  Bug fixed.

2. Find by Notes search showed wrong notes if search was unsuccessful.  Bug fixed.

3. Sometimes modem would not initialize.  Bug fixed.


Alphabet Box

Alphabet box can be used to find an entry starting with a particular letter.  Choose 'Settings/Alphabet Box' menu, if Alphabet box is not shown on screen, then press or click on a letter button to find the entry starting with that letter.  If Alphabet box is shown, but not currently active (main window is active), then press <Alt><F6> to switch between main window and Alphabet box, if you want to use keyboard. To close the Alphabet box, choose 'Settings/Alphabet Box' menu again, or select Close from the system menu (the usual way) of the box, or press <Esc> when the Alphabet box is active (has active caption bar color).

Example:

Suppose, you have several names starting with 'H' stored in the phone book.  Open the Alphabet box by choosing 'Settings/Alphabet Box' menu, then click on or press 'H', and the first entry with the name starting with 'H' will be highlighted.


Context-sensitive information box
Info Box

Click right mouse button anywhere in the main window to get info about the element of the main window you clicked on.  The info box will pop up and explain the function or meaning of that element.  To close the info box, click on it using any mouse button, or press <Enter> or <Esc>.