Copyright: Visual Help ® 1993-1994 Firas Bushnaq


Topic1
QUICK SHOPPING LIST

Welcome to Quick Shopping List! This program was designed to make your life a little easier so we will not try to bore you with a lot of technical talk. Lets get right to the point.

When you start Quick Shopping List, you will see a folder with two tabs. The two tabs are (1) PREPARE LIST and (2) LIST MAINTENANCE. Normally you will work in the first folder (Prepare List). But first you have to set up the categories and items you normally shop for. You do this by clicking on the LIST MAINTENANCE tab.

Categories can be different classes of foods such as Dairy, Meats, etc or it can be different types of stores such as Drug Store, Grocery Store, etc. How you use categories is up to you. To create a new category or store, click the ADD button on the left side of the screen, type the category description, click the SAVE button. To delete a category, click on the category in the list to highlight it, click on DELETE. To edit the spelling of a category, click on the category in the list to highlight it then either click the EDIT button or click in the area where the description is. Click SAVE to save the change.

Source items are things that you normally shop for such as tomatoes, potato chips, etc. These are maintained on the right side of the screen. The command buttons for items (ADD, DELETE, EDIT, etc work the same way as they do for categories. Here are a couple of pointers. (1) If you want to add several items under a category, first click on the category on the left side of the screen, then start adding items. That will cause the selected category description to be filled in for you automatically. (2) Whether working with categories or source items, you must always click the appropriate SAVE button to save what you put in. (3) Some people have asked how you might organize by aisle number. You can do this two ways. Either set up categories for the various aisles or prefix your source item with a number such as 1-tomatoes, 1-potatoes, 2-milk, 3-cheese, etc.

 Click Here for Instructions on Preparing Lists


Topic2
Preparing Lists

If you have set up your categories and the items you normally shop for, you are ready to prepare a shopping list. When you start the Quick Shopping List program, you will start on the first TAB  (PREPARE LIST). Here are guidelines on how to prepare your shopping list:

1 	Click on one of the categories on the left side of the screen. Source items for the selected category will be displayed in the lower left side of the screen. To put one of the source items in your "current list", just click on it. If the item is alreay in your current list, you will hear a cuckoo sound (if you have a sound card). The cuckoo sound means the item is already in the list and will not be added again. Now click another category and click on the items under that category that you want to add, etc.

2 	The right side of the screen is your "current list". Each time you click on one of the source items on the left side of the screen, it is added to your "current list". If you leave the program, it retains your current list. So you can add things to your current list as you think about them during the week, for instance. Each time an item is added to your current list, the program recalculates the dollar total for your current list. This helps a lot if you want to stay in a budget and you have entered the unit cost information for your items.

3 	The QUANTITY buttons on the lower right portion of the screen are for changing the quantity of an item in your current list. To change the quantity, click on the item in the current list, then click on the quantity you want to buy. Notice the total will change.

4 	The REMOVE button at the bottom of the screen removes a single item from your current list. To use this, click on the item you want to remove in the current list, then click the REMOVE button.

5 	The CLEAR ALL button at the bottom of the screen clears your current list of all items.

6 	The PRINT button at the bottom of the screen prints your current list. This list is sorted by category and extended as to cost if you have entered unit cost information. Some people do not bother with the cost information. This is ok. Others think it is vital. It's your choice, of course. It is not required.