MCBase: the Music Collection dataBase system. Revision history Author: Harry Doldersum Weerselose straat 26 7623 DA BORNE The Netherlands, Europe. Phone: +31 (0) 74 266 8480 Fax: See phone. Standby on request. Host: See phone. Standby on request. Electronic mail addresses: CompuServe: 100270,2132 InterNet: 100270.2132@compuserve.com MCBase revision history list: Feb. 15th, '97 Updated version 2.3e to 2.4: a new release. Following changes and improvements have been made: - 1) The behavior of the Find dialog has been extended with a "preset" function, to (when one or more data dialogs are already present on the desktop) display that record from a database, that was either most recently focussed or most lightly to be needed. (This is de pending on the instance that invoked the Find dialog). This provides a timesaver when, for example, a user wishes to reselect the same record again, in both editing and browsing. When using the Find dialog with the "Browse" options, all browsing is now based on alphabetical order. (For reasons, that have now escaped me, I had used a non- alphabetical approach in previous versions). Also, the Find dialog's preset option is used during browsing, to automatically find the first valid match for a selected item. - 2) An additional button, called "Album edit mode", has been added to the "Browse an album" dialog, that enables a direct connection between this dialog and the "Edit/add an album" dialog. This allows you to switch freely between browse and editing functions on album record level, while carrying the currently browsed album with you to it's edit dialog. Together with the already existing "browse/edit" functional switch on song record level, editing your collection is now more flexible and productive than ever. - 3) Normally, MCBase checked the FILES=xx statement in your config.sys during initialisation to verify that the setting is sufficient to open all databases, indexes and other user files. Recently, a user re ported that this wasn't enough for his specific con figuration: it still could occur that MCBase would crash on a runtime error # 4: "Too many open files". Therefor, an errorhandler routine has been added, to respond to these cases. MCBase still won't be able to run without a proper FILES=xx setting, mind you: this routine merely takes care of a more graceful shut down. Also, this initialisation check on the FILES=xx set ting in your CONFIG.SYS file could cause problems on systems using MS-DOS's multi config option: only the first appearance of FILES=xx would be read by MCBase's routine. Since adding the errorhandler made this check obsolete anyway, the check has been removed from the MCBase executable. (It is still being used in the installation utility, however). - 4) Minor changes to the utilities GenMCB and MCBCnvrt, mostly related to the above. - 5) Last modification to be mentioned, is the change of the ascii text file extensions. Up until now, all files related to MCBase documentation have had an extension of ".MCB" in order to express that relation to the user. Since this can disturb the process of opening these files with utilities like Windows' Notepad and such, all ascii text files now have the extension ".TXT" instead. Please note that the WordPerfect versions of these files now carry the ".DOC" extension. Apart from the above modifications, a new order taking service has been added, who's also capable of accepting ONLINE orders through their (!secure!) Internet website pages. You can find all the relevant information in the file ORDER.TXT. In case you would like to go to their page now, here's the URL: http://www.shareit.com/programs/100256.htm Dec. 20th, '96 Updated version 2.3d to 2.3e: a maintenance release. Minor change: a dialog box has been added, to draw the users attention to the ORDER.MCB file, where the pricing and order info can be found. Also, some minor modifications were made on the documentation and support files. Sep. 14th, '96 Updated version 2.3c to 2.3d: a maintenance release. Major changes to the ordering information: a new (lower) registration price (US$30) and a new distributor for the United States (who is able to deliver from stock) have been added: Pik A Program Inc. in New York, NY. As a result of this, the registration and order information has now been removed from the manual file and has been relocated to the file ORDER.MCB (a copy of this file, in WordPerfect version 5 format, has been added to the MCB_WP5.LZH archive (see below) for your convenience). Also a small modification to the disclaimer and a minor program modification have been made. May 7th, '96 Updated version 2.3b to 2.3c: a maintenance release. Minor modifications to the license agreement. Mar. 23rd, '96 Updated version 2.3a to 2.3b: a maintenance release. Improved picklist functionality: under (very) rare circumstances, it could occur that a picklist opened without showing it's data. Also added a new registration agent: Kelly Data GmbH in Germany. (See our orderform for full details). Mar. 5th, '96 Updated version 2.3 to 2.3a: a maintenance release. MCBase's manual and revision document, which has always been included as a disk file, are now available in two file formats: in plain ASCII text format and in WordPerfect version 5 format. As always, the ASCII version is installed in the MCBase directory, while the WP version of these files are stored on the MCBase Master Disk, in the archive file MCB_WP5.LZH. (You may use included LHA archiver utility to extract the documents from the archive). Also made some minor extensions to the registration key system. Feb. 14th, '96 Updated version 2.2 to 2.3: a new release. Improved the background functionality with which the memo editor dialog is closed: under circumstances, it could occur that not all record selection commands were re-instated when closing the memo-editor in an unexpected manner. Improved browse dialog functionality: when editing records, picked from the browse dialog, it might occur that the user deletes an entry. Since the browse dialog resides on the desktop during these edit functions, it will still contain that record (therefor: still available for selection). If this record is re-selected, you will now be given a message concerning the records "deleted"-status. When (re-)invoking a browse dialog it will contain the valid records only. (Undeleting a record is, of course, *always* possible with the main edit dialogs (until the record is physically removed by the "pack"-function) In the protected mode version, memory usage for one of the browse dialogs has been modified: now the picklist dialog for "browse for songs by title" also uses virtual memory, like all "edit & add..." picklist dialogs. (The other browse dialogs still use ram memory only, since it is faster). Motivation was, that (while browsing a large database set) one could run out of memory on systems with only 2Mb EMS/XMS memory. Modified the behavior of the "Device access error": it is no longer a fatal error. Nov. 23rd, '95 Updated version 2.1 to 2.2: a new release. The "Browse for ..." picklists in the Protected Mode version (MCB_X86P.EXE on your MCBase Master Disk) are now controlled and loaded by index, instead of filtering the entire data base set for the matching data. On larger databases, this results in a tremendous improvement on data access time. Due to memory shortage, this approach cannot be implemented in the MCB_XT and MCB_AT executables. Note: MCB_XT is a version for (fast) XT-systems, MCB_AT is a version for AT-systems with less than 2Mb RAM memory on board). Also solved a problem with the picklists eventhandler, that appeared to be unable to handle some special keys while focusing on the picklist contents. Nov. 6t, '95 Updated version 2.0a to 2.1: a new release. Due to modifications in the default behavior of the dBase access routine library (HALCYON, by Griffin Solutions), the FIND dialog would no longer position itself at the nearest match, when an exact match could not be found, but positioned itself at the end of file instead. The FIND dialog is now restored to it's documented behavior: to position itself at the NEAREST MATCH, when an exact match is not found. Apart from the above, the default file search mask for the editor object has been changed from "*.*" to "*.TXT". Also an additional button has been added to the Browse dialog, called "Song edit mode", that enables a direct connection between the "Browse a song" dialog and the "Edit/add a song" dialog. This allows you to switch freely between browse and editing functions on song record level, while carrying the currently browsed song with you to it's edit dialog. This is very helpful, while editing songs that are related to each other in some way: once they are collected in a browse option's picklist, editing is just a mouseclick away. Unfortunately, the layout of the configuration file MCBASE.CFG needed to be changed, in order to further accomodate the ability to store desktop objects in the configuration file. The user will therefor need to create a new configuration file. Then there also were some minor modifications. Oct. 10th, '95 Updated version 2.0 to 2.0a: a maintenance release. Minor modifications to the PACK routines, the picklist dialogs and the documentation. Added hotkeys to the memo selection dialogs, used by the various "Browse..." options. Added a routine to check (the first appearance of an) "FILES=xx" setting in CONFIG.SYS. If the setting is found to be to low, you will be notified about this, after which MCBase terminates operation. (If MCBase is UNABLE to locate your CONFIG.SYS file, you will receive a warning message about this, after which MCBase will continue operation). Aug. 17th, '95 MAJOR NEW RELEASE. Release of the new MCBase V2.0: a fully event driven, mouse controlled, object oriented, dBaseIII+ compatible, relational-to-the-max, windowing database management system, with handy dialogs, to set your personal configuration preferences. The only REAL database system for the music collector. July 10th, '95 Updated version 1.1f to 1.1g: a maintenance release. Modifications to registration key recognition routine. Registration was recognized, but the databases evaluation limits weren't correctly unlocked. Mar. 22nd, '95 Updated version 1.1e to 1.1f: a maintenance release. Documentation updates (and program changes, see below). Added a new VendInfo record, according to the latest standard, in order to comply with the new set-up for the ASP CD-rom distribution. Added a (file based) registration key system to MCBase. This will enable a registered user, with a valid registration key, to turn any V1.x shareware copy into a personally registered version: MBase will look for the excistence of the registration key file and will present itself as a registered version *if* the registration key is found to be valid. (If not, it will continue to behave as a shareware copy). Also added a small (set of) sample database(s), so that the user will be able to "play around" with the system, without having to enter data first. May 25th, '94 Updated version 1.1d to 1.1e: a maintenance release. Documentation updates (and program changes, see below). Added a VendInfo record to the documentation and modified the distribution-policy to be more "friendly". Also added a possibility to accept credit card orders, using PsL's order processing services. Finally, I removed the encryption on MCBase's executable code. As it seems, some computers COULD have had trouble running MCBase because of this encryption. Mar. 22nd, '94 Updated version 1.1c to 1.1d: a maintenance release. Documentation updates (and small program changes) in order to comply with ASP requirements. Mar. 14th, '94 Updated version 1.1b to 1.1c: a maintenance release. Corrected a SERIOUS error in the documentation, discribing the locationcode. For tapes, the first 5 (!) digits of the (12 digit) locationcode are reserved for the actual tape number, instead of the discribed 2 digits. (The screen report for tapes is scanning for the first 5 digits, to find the first and last entry belonging to a certain tape). See the updated section 8 in the documentation for further information. Also elimitated a possible GP-error in the protected mode version. Mar. 5th, '94 Updated version 1.1a to 1.1b: a maintenance release. Modified all "Add" functions, to stay active until the user decides that he/she is done. (Artist and Album "Add" fuctions were left after adding 1 entry. This was based on the idea that one would process the data one album at a time). Eliminated the possible occurance of an "error 100: Record out of range" while printing the reports. (It could occur under certain circumstances). Eliminated a possible counting error in the "Artist overview"-report. Also made some minor modifications. Jan. 7th, '94 Updated version 1.1 to 1.1a: a maintenance release. As mentioned in the documentation of the previous versions (in section "Future plans"), the processing speed of printer option "Songs by artist" needed to be increased. In this update, this processing speed has been successfully increased to a normal level. I've also included a function to cancel any running printjob by pressing the ESCape-key. Nov. 24th '93 Updated version 1.0c to 1.1, a major new release. Eliminated the need for a pre-selection on databases with more than 1000 entry's. (Credit for this goes to Griffin Solutions, who managed to realize virtual memory usage in their GS_dBase routine library: Thanks, Richard!). The "Allfield Editor" is added to the application as a standard item and also added is an separate "Append" option, so a user does not need to go through the "Edit"-selection list if he or she simply wants to "Append". The menu structure has been a bit modified to accomodate the above mentioned additions. Also, the bank adress has been altered to the adress of the Rabobank's headoffice in Utrecht. Last, but not least, a new pricing schedule is introduced, to enable a low-budget registration on the project. This is done by the introduction of two diffent types of users: a BASIC and a DEDICATED user, of wich the latter has a very interesting discount on future updates. See the ORDER.MCB document for further information on registration options and prices. Oct. 5th, '93 Updated version 1.0b to 1.0c, a maintenance release. Eliminated two errors that occured in the album selection list for option #7, "View albums by artists". 1) When returning from the reportscreen after viewing an album (WITH the additional artistname display activated), the program would generate a NEW album selection list for the artistname that appeared on the bottom of the report screen, instead of using the original artistname that was selected by the user. 2) While walking through the albums of the different artists, a heap error (#203) could occur. The memory of the album selection list wasn't properly released. Also eliminated an error in option #4, "Query on artist". A messagebox, to allow albumtitle display with each song title, sometimes appeared without a valid reason. Last, but not least, I added the following text to the ORDER.ME document, in order to prevent further questions on the subject: REGISTRED MCBASE USERS can receive MAINTENANCE UPDATES for shipping costs only. (NOTE: CompuServe users can receive their maintenance update through CompuServe mail, minimizing the need for shipping costs, thus FOR FREE!). (Same goes for users who can download it from my private host system, wich is standby on request). Aug. 19th, '93 Updated version 1.0a to 1.0b, a maintenance release. Eliminated an error that could cause the system to be caught in an endless loop, if the last record in a database file was a "deleted" record. Also improved some text in a messagebox, displayed while the function "deleted" was processing the album database. June 22nd, '93 Updated version 1.0 to 1.0a, a maintenance release. Some reportscreens had a bit of trouble with uncleared screens. The data from the previous information on the screen was sometimes not fully erased, which garbled the new information. June 19th, '93 First release, version 1.0, of the MCBase database system.