QUOTE FOR THE DAY, FOR WINDOWS Version 1.0 (c) Thomas Tuerke, 1990 "Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond districts of the mind." - W. R. Alger FOREWARD -------- This little Windows 3 app will display one of many quotes that it keeps on file. It chooses one randomly when it is first invoked, and can subsequently choose another at regular intervals. The default is to choose one every twenty-four hours, for those of you who keep your machine on continually. FILES ----- Quotes are kept in a file normally called QUOTE.DAT. The file must be in the Windows directory, or mentioned in the WIN.INI file; (more on that below.) The file is simply a text file, containing one quote per line. The text is 'formatted' when it is read in, making quotation marks and apostrophes more attractive (instead of those aweful minute and second ticks), as well as providing the ability to place line-breaks wherever you want them. The format is one that I use in other programs, so for consistency I kept it the same here. Consequently, the string is interpreted from OEM to ANSI when read in; if you use foreign marks, use the IBM version (Alt-132 for 'a' with an umlaut, for example) rather than the Windows character set. The rather nice side effect of this, though, is that any PC text editor or word processor that can save text files (PC-8 bit, with CR/LF end-of- lines, specifically) can be used to create your own file of quotes. Currently, restrictions are placed on the size of the file (128K) and the length of the quote (1024 bytes). Finally, placing an acknowledgment to the author can be done by separating the quotation (which I like to enclose in quotes) with the three characters space-dash-space. For example, "I think, therefore I am." - Descartes "Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum: I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." - Ambrose Bierce (That's two quotes up there; pretend that the second had a case of word- wrap.) The result of this is that the main body of the quotation will be displayed in a large face, while the author's name will appear in a smaller face, and right justified. If you omit the three character sequence, everything will be displayed large. Similarly, if you wish to place a dash in the quotation, I suggest you use '--' with no spaces on either side. QUOTE will look for the name of the file in WIN.INI first. It's section name is called [Gravesend Quotes], and it looks for the label QuoteFile= Full path and filename are allowed. If that is missing, it will look for the file QUOTE.DAT in the Windows directory; if it still can't find anything, it will tell you to insert the mention into WIN.INI. FEATURES -------- If you want to have the quote refreshed periodically, you may also put the line "Minutes=" followed by some number, representing the number of minutes until another quote is picked. Minutes=60 will pick a new quote every hour; Minutes=1, once a minute. Minutes=0 will refresh the quote every five seconds; I used this for endurance testing, but you may like to have a new quote that often. If this line is omitted, Quote will wait 24 hours before picking another one. I envisioned that Quote would be put in the load= list of files to load upon bootup; therefore, it will never launch in a minimized state. If it's first in the list, you can ponder the profound thought each morning (?) while the rest of the environment loads. Double-clicking in the window (while the cursor is a bubble caption) will minimize Quote to take it out of the way. FORMATTING FOOTNOTES -------------------- The logic that formats the quotes and apostrophes causes double quote characters to be alternately open and closed sexed quotes, so "Hi" will appear as ``Hi'' upon the screen. Nesting double quotes isn't possible; you'll have to manufacture immitation double-quotes by using the ` and ' characters: "He said ``hi'' (or ''hi'') to Sue.", but for the most part, you probably wouldn't want to put double quotes within double quotes anyway. Double-quote characters appearing immediately after a digit remain double-ticks. Apostrophes are a little more involved. Apostrophes that appear immediately before spaces are converted to opening single quotes. Those that follow non-numeric characters are converted to closing single quotes (this is adequate for uses of apostrophes like O'doule, it's, as well as closing quotes.) Apostrophes appearing after digits remain single ticks. In-line breaks are provided by the vertical bar character. For example, "This is on line one | And this is on line two" causes that string to be broken onto two lines. FUTURE FEATURES --------------- I am considering adding dialog support, so that you won't have to manually set values by means of WIN.INI, as well as a handful of other little touches, like being able to copy the quote into the clipboard, and searching through the file for a specific word. But right now it's a nice little gem that's barely a dozen K out on disk, and not all that much in memory. If there's something that you'd like to see, get in touch with me FINALLY ------- If you like Quote, use it in good health. If you would like to, feel free to add to or remove quotes from your copy of the file. If you like it enough to pass it on to your friends, thank you; all I ask, though, is that you do the contents of the program itself, this documentation, and the quote file intact. If you like the app enough to send a monetary thanks, feel free to send a check to the following address: Thomas Tuerke 441 San Carlos Way, Novato, CA 94945 Gravesend BBS is also a good way (the best way, actually) to get a hold of me; the number is 707-795-4939, up to 2400 baud supported (so far). Other avenues are on UUCP as jandel!tmt@uunet.uu.net, and on CIS at 76370,1674.