OVERVIEW -------- ROMCAT provides a keyword oriented search of CDR/CMX clipart on your CorelDRAW CD's. Thumbnails can be displayed. To get users "up and running" as quickly as possible, a prebuilt catalog of keywords from the D1 version of DRAW5 is provided. Users with DRAW3 or DRAW4 can rebuild the catalog using their CD's. Starting with version 1.4 of ROMCAT, it is no longer necessary to catalog the thumbnails to get the preview function. Provided the source CD-ROM is online, the thumbnail can be displayed directly from the CD-ROM. Users with multiple CD-ROM (or network) drives can configure a list of the drive(s) to be searched for thumbnail lookups. IF YOU'RE UPGRADING FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION OF ROMCAT ----------------------------------------------------- 1. Please note that ROMCAT's design is to "reopen the most recently used catalog". If the catalog you last used is ANYWHERE on the hard drive after installing this upgrade, ROMCAT will open the old catalog rather than the new CLIPART.ROM provided with this upgrade. To get around this, do a File / Open Catalog to open the new catalog. 2. This version of ROMCAT can read catalogs built by any previous release. If you wish to continue using catalogs for previous releases, you can make multiple ROMCAT icons in the program manager and pass the catalog name as a command line parameter. 3. Some keywords in DRAW5 are quite long. It is recommended that you switch the screen layout to the "horizontal" view. Use the "Options" menu, "Screen Layout" to do this. For new users of ROMCAT, the horizontal layout is now the default. INSTALLATION ------------ 1. Place the three files (ROMCAT.EXE, ROMCAT.HLP, and CLIPART.ROM) in a directory of your choice, for example C:\CLPCAT. 2. In the Windows program manager (or desktop manager you are using), add a program item to a group of your choice. Specify: Description: Clipart File Finder Command line: C:\CLPCAT\ROMCAT.EXE Working directory: C:\CLPCAT Substitute the actual drive + directory where you put the files in step 1. Press OK. 3. Launch the program. 4. If your system has MORE THAN ONE remote drive (CD-ROM's and network drives count as remotes) you may be prompted with a "Drive Search List" screen. Edit the list of drives to match the letter(s) of the drives where clipart disks will be mounted. 5. If you're upgrading ROMCAT from a prior version, look at the title bar. If it says something other than "Clipart File Finder (Prebuilt Catalog for CD5 Rev D1)", it has opened an older catalog; you'll need to select the "File" menu, "Open Catalog", and open the newer CATALOG.ROM file provided with this upgrade. 6. If you're using a prior version of DRAW (3 or 4) you'll need to see the section "Rebuilding the Catalog" to build a catalog for your version of DRAW. HOW TO SEARCH THE CATALOG ------------------------- 1. To search for a keyword, first make sure the "Keyword" button is turned on in the "Search By..." box in the upper right corner of the screen. Then start typing in the input field. As you type, the words in the box immediately below will scroll. When you see the word you want, click on the word with the mouse (or hit the tab key and move through the list with the arrow keys). As soon as a keyword is selected, a list of the related files appears in the other list box. Each file shows the DOS file name, the volid of the disk (which conveys Disk #1 or Disk #2 for DRAW4/5), and the directory path name where the file can be found. IF YOU CANNOT SEE THE ENTIRE PATH NAME: single-click on any file and the path name will be displayed in the message bar at the bottom of the screen. 2. To locate personalities and portraits, start by typing the person's FIRST name. Most (or all) the people clipart files have their keyword references in first + last name order. 3. To locate a file using the thumbnails in the clipart book, first click on the "File Name" button in the "Search By..." box. Then type the name printed below the thumbnail. Note that in the book the lower case L's and 1's look the same. Once the thumbnail is entered, the matching file names will show in the filename listbox. Since this is a generalized file finder, files with extensions other than .CDR (and .CMX in DRAW5) may show, so pick the file with the correct extension. 4. If you still haven't found what your looking for, there is a facility to do a global search for a series of characters occurring anywhere within a keyword or file name. Example: Suppose you're looking for a portrait of Bono, but there is no keyword that starts with "Bono". Pull down the Options menu and select Global Search, type Bono, and press enter. Both the keyword and file name indices will be searched and all occurrences of Bono will be shown. ONCE YOU'VE FOUND YOUR CLIPART AND WANT TO IMPORT IT ---------------------------------------------------- This procedure applies to importing files with an extensions of .CDR and .CMX: 1. With a list of files showing in the list box, single click on the item you wish to import. 2. Pull down the options menu and click on "Import Selected Drawing". 3. If ROMCAT asks you to provide the drive letter where the corresponding disk is mounted, mount this disk and if necessary change the drive letter, then press "Continue Launch". 4. The clipart file will be imported into the current drawing. (If CorelDRAW is not already running, it will be started). Shortcut: For a CMX file, you can double-click on the file to import. For a CDR file, set the double-click action using the Options menu (you only need to configure this once), then double-click the CDR file to open or import. REBUILDING THE CATALOG ---------------------- Use this procedure to build a catalog for a different version of DRAW. Occasionally it may be helpful to rebuild the catalog after receiving a new maintenance release of DRAW because the clipart directory structure may change. Before proceeding, consider: a) The current ROMCAT has been tested with CDR/CMX files created under DRAW versions 1 thru 5 (maintenance release D1) only. At the time of this writing, there is rumor that the format of the CMX may change in a later maintenance release of DRAW5. b) Typical disk space requirements for a full catalog are: DRAW3 DRAW4 DRAW5 Full catalog with only keywords 165KB 238KB 343KB Full catalog with keywords and thumbnails* 13MB 17MB 25MB *Note: Starting with version 1.4 of ROMCAT it is NO LONGER NECESSARY to catalog thumbnails to get the preview function. Thumbnails can now be read direct from the source CD-ROM. The only practical reasons to catalog thumbnails are (1) if you have lots of disk space and want faster performance, or (2) you are building a catalog to be placed on a network server for many users to access. If you use a compressed disk (Doublespace, Stacker, etc.) multiply the above estimate by 1.5 and use the resulting value when checking the projected free space on the drive. If you use the "selected directories" feature you can reduce the space requirement. c) Typical catalog build times using a double-spin CD-ROM drive: 30 minutes for the DRAW3 CD, 45 minutes for DRAW4, and 60 minutes for DRAW5. If you use the "selected directories" feature you can reduce the run time. Lack of CD-ROM caching can worsen the run time. d) All CD's to be placed in a single catalog must be processed during a single catalog build run. e) The process of sorting and cross referencing takes a considerable amount of memory. On a 4MB or smaller system, run time will likely increase. Here's the steps for building your own catalog: 1. Pull down the File menu and select "Build New Catalog." 2. You will be prompted to enter a title. Enter something like "Clipart File Finder" or just leave it blank. 3. ROMCAT will prompt for a DOS file name for the new catalog to be built. Enter a name of your choice. You will probably NOT want to overwrite the original CLIPART.ROM file. 4. ROMCAT will ask for the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive. Mount a CD in the drive, wait for the drive to come ready. 5. If you wish to select the clipart directories to be scanned, select the "Selected Directories" from the drop-down lists. The text on the left-hand push-button will change from "Begin Scanning Disk" to "Build Directory Select/Exclude List". Press this button and follow the instructions on the next screen to select the directories to be scanned. 6. Click on "Begin Scanning Disk". While reading the clipart drawing files, the program will display its progress as a percent complete. 7. When scanning completes, a statistics box will be displayed. At this point you have the option to "Read Another Disk" or indicate you are "Finished Reading Disks". The process repeats at step 4 if you elect to read another disk. 8. A number of search tables will be built, sorted, and written to disk. When the process completes, the new catalog will be opened you may begin your search requests. If you've included thumbnails in your catalog, the thumbnail is displayed when a file is selected in the filename list box. ROMCAT will remember the "last opened catalog file," so you will come back to your new catalog the next time you launch the program. NOTES ----- 1. Lack of CD-ROM caching can adversely affect performance during catalog builds and also during "on the fly" lookup of thumbnails from CD-ROM. It is strongly recommended that SMARTDRV from DOS 6 (or equivalent) be used to cache the CD-ROM. 2. If you make changes to your system that cause the drive letter associated with the CD-ROM to change, access the Options Menu, select "Drive Search List", and update the drive list with the new drive letter(s). 3. If you experience persistent problems opening or importing clipart, this quite often an indication that the OLE registration entries for CorelDRAW have gotten corrupted or deleted. To correct this, locate the file CORELDRW.REG (typically in the CONFIG subdirectory of Corel) and double click this file in the Windows File Manager. This should correct the problem. 4. Three state map files, MIMAP (Michigan), MNMAP (Minnesota), and MSMAP (Mississippi) have their keywords transposed. When doing searches, these files will not list under the expected states. This applies to the .CDR versions of the files in DRAW3 and DRAW4 as well as the .CMX equivalents in DRAW5. This is not a bug in ROMCAT. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --------------- CorelDRAW is a registered trademark of Corel Corporation. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER ------------------------ ROMCAT.EXE and ROMCAT.HLP are written and copyright 1993-1994 by Paul P Schaefer (CIS 76334,177). All rights reserved. ROMCAT is free software. It may be freely distributed so long as it is neither modified nor sold. ROMCAT is made available on an 'as is' basis. The author makes no warranties, expressed or implied. In no way shall the author be liable for any damages resulting from the use of this software.