Recipe Management System Shareware Guide !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!! !!!! !!!! The Recipe Management System is SHAREWARE NOT FREEWARE !!!! !!!! !!!! !!!! After trying the Recipe Management System, if you would !!!! !!!! like to continue using it, you are expected to register !!!! !!!! your copy with the author by sending $25.00 (U.S. funds) !!!! !!!! along with your name and address to: !!!! !!!! !!!! !!!! Jon T. McEwen !!!! !!!! P.O. Box 15619 !!!! !!!! Seattle, Washington 98115-0619 !!!! !!!! !!!! !!!! When you do, I will send you a users guide and a letter !!!! !!!! of registration that will provide you with instructions !!!! !!!! on how to turn off the startup screen, disable delays, !!!! !!!! and allow you to directly import Meal-Master recipes. !!!! !!!! Please distribute the Recipe Management System to your !!!! !!!! friends and colleagues. When you do, please make sure !!!! !!!! you give them the original self-extracting file !!!! !!!! (RMS_V150.EXE) or, copies of the following files: !!!! !!!! !!!! !!!! RECIPE.EXE main program file !!!! !!!! RECIPE.DAT main database file !!!! !!!! RECIPE.IX database index file !!!! !!!! RECIPE.CAT recipe category list !!!! !!!! RECIPE.CFG configuration file !!!! !!!! README.TXT this file !!!! !!!! !!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK-YOU FOR TRYING THE RECIPE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM The Recipe Management System (RMS) is the easiest way yet to store, retrieve and share your recipes using your Personal Computer. RMS features include: character oriented windows, context sensitive pop-up help, full mouse support and a full featured editor for easy formatting of preparation text. The main difference between RMS and other Recipe programs is the user interface. When you start up RMS it goes straight into the browser where you can scroll through all of your recipes in one of three orders, Recipe Name, Category or Main Ingredient. You can find recipes by entering search criteria in any of the fields (multiple fields too) or tell it to only browse recipes that satisfy a search criteria (called a Filter). The keys you use to browse are the keys you're already used to, PgUp, PgDn, Up and Down arrows or you can use your mouse. When you find the recipe you want, press Enter (or click the mouse) and you're instantly in the editor. From here you can modify serving sizes, quantities, preparation and more. To get back to the browser, press Ctrl+Enter. There is much, much more to the Recipe Management System, BE SURE TO REGISTER YOUR COPY so you can get a copy of the RMS Users Guide and take full advantage of all that RMS has to offer! Page 1 Recipe Management System Shareware Guide REQUIREMENTS: The Recipe Management System has the following minimum system requirements: 490,000 bytes (480K) of free conventional memory, and 1 MB of disk space (to install on a hard drive). RMS should run on any 100% compatible IBM PC under DOS or WINDOWS. CAPACITIES: - Maximum ingredients per recipe: 25 - Maximum preparation size (bytes): 4,096 (4K) - Maximum recipes per cookbook: 2,147,483,647 INSTALLATION: !!!!!!!!!!!! NOTE TO THOSE UPGRADING FROM 1.0 or 1.01 !!!!!!!!!!!! If you want to keep any changes you made to the cookbook that comes with RMS (RECIPE) DO NOT COPY OVER THE RECIPE.DAT OR RECIPE.IX FILES! Version 1.5 will update the index file the first time you open a 1.0 or 1.01 cookbook. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RMS_V150.EXE is a self extracting compressed file. Pass the name of the subdirectory you want RMS installed in when you call it, or run it from the subdirectory you want it installed in for example: C:\>MD C:\RECIPE C:\>RMS_V150 C:\RECIPE If you have copies of the individual files listed above, just copy them to the desired location on your hard drive for example: C:\>MD C:\RECIPE C:\>COPY A:*.* C:\RECIPE STARTING THE PROGRAM: The Recipe Management System can be run from DOS by executing the RECIPE.EXE file. If the subdirectory you installed it in isn't in your PATH, move to the subdirectory prior to calling RECIPE.EXE, OR specify the location when calling (I.E. C:\RECIPE\RECIPE). RMS can also be installed as a Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) program so that it is available to pop up over other DOS programs that may be running by calling it with a /R parameter (i.e. C:\RECIPE\RECIPE /R). In it's dormant state it only occupies 6K of memory and will swap other programs in memory out to disk when the hot key (ALT+F1) is pressed. RMS can also be run under Windows by creating a new program item in the window of your choice and entering the following in the program item dialog box: Description: Recipe Mgmt System Command line: RECIPE.EXE Working directory: C:\RECIPE (or wherever you installed it) Shortcut key: None Page 2 Recipe Management System Shareware Guide TEST DRIVE: When you first start up RMS you will see the start-up screen welcoming you to the shareware version. Press enter twice and after a five second delay you will see the browser. It shows you a screen full of recipes in the current cookbook in recipe name order. Use the PgUp and PgDn keys to navigate through the recipes one screen at a time, use the up and down arrows to navigate one recipe at a time. When you see a recipe that you want to take a closer look at, just press the Enter key and you'll be in the recipe editor. When you're done, press Ctrl+Enter (hold down the Ctrl key while you press Enter) and you'll be returned to the browser. Along the bottom of the screen are the F key assignments (F1-F10) here is a brief description of their meanings: F1-Help Brings up a help window that will give you information relative to what you are currently doing. F2-Add Brings up a blank recipe in the recipe editor and allows you to add new recipes to the current cookbook. F3-Del Deletes the current recipe (RMS asks for confirmation of the deletion first). F4-Find This allows you to search for something in the cookbook. It brings up a blank recipe where you enter your search criteria. Fill in as many fields as you want and press Ctrl+Enter to initiate the search. RMS uses two periods as a "wildcard" so if you want to search for a recipe whose title started with Chicken, you would enter Chicken.. in the name field. If you wanted to find a recipe that contained onions and cheese in the ingredients, you would move to the ingredient section and type in ..onions.. on one line and ..cheese.. on another. TIP: If you want to find the next occurrence, just press Alt+N! F5-Order By default the browser is in recipe name order, but you can also browse the recipes in category or main ingredient order. Once you find a recipe whose main ingredient is Salmon for example, by pressing the F5 key you can bring together all of the other Salmon recipes in the current cookbook! F6-Filter A filter is a subset of recipes that satisfy some search criteria. Enter your search criteria the same as for a Find (see F4 above) and RMS will search through the cookbook and show you only the recipes meet your selection. The number of recipes in the filter is displayed in the top right of the window. Page 3 Recipe Management System Shareware Guide F7-Cfg Here you can modify your RMS configuration to suit your needs. You can specify colors, printer ports (or files), and several other things. F8-Book This is where you can change to a different cookbook (or start a new one). It presents you with a list of cookbooks in the current subdirectory (any file that ends with .DAT) and allows you to select one. F9-Shop Once you have marked recipes (see MARKING RECIPES below) you can tell RMS to gather all of the required ingredients together and print out a shopping list. F10-Pack Packing the database will recover space occupied by deleted recipes. Unlike other recipe programs however (and even some commercial database products) RMS will reuse space occupied by deleted recipes when you add new recipes. For this reason packing really only makes sense if you have deleted several recipes and don't plan on adding any. MARKING RECIPES: If you are interested in several recipes for printing, exporting or printing a shopping list, you can "Mark" them by pressing Alt+M. You can mark them either from the browser or from the editor. When you do, you will see a checkmark to the left of the recipe in the browser or in the Mark field in the editor. The number of recipes currently marked will appear in the browser window header. IMPORTING/EXPORTING: One of the greatest features of RMS is the ability to export and import recipe files. If you want to share a recipe you've created with someone else, mark it (Alt+M) and press Alt+X. RMS will ask you for a file name and then write the recipe out as a structured ASCII file. You can give this file to another RMS user who can then import it (Alt+I) into their cookbook. If you are a registered RMS user, you can also import files that are in the Meal-Master format. That means that if you (or anyone you trade recipes with) keeps their recipes in Meal-Master, or you see a recipe on a bulletin board that is in the Meal-Master format, you can import it directly into RMS! Page 4 Recipe Management System Shareware Guide TECHNICAL: The Recipe Management System uses a balanced B-Tree algorithm to handle the storage and retrieval tasks. Indexes are maintained in the .IX file that allows RMS to quickly and efficiently find and retrieve recipes (if it can use an index). If you are searching for a recipe on a non-indexed field RMS searches the cookbook sequentially (a task that takes decidedly longer). Unlike other recipe programs, RMS always maintains the order of the recipes for you based on their name and there is no restriction on duplicate names (you might have several Beef Stew recipes). RMS will automatically detect problems with the index file (if it gets deleted for example) and will automatically rebuild them if needed. But your best protection is always BACKUP,BACKUP,BACKUP! There are many ways to do backup your cookbooks, if you have PKZIP or some other file compression program it doesn't take long and minimizes the impact on your hard drive. Failing this, you can export all of the recipes to a text file that can be imported if needed (this results in a file that is smaller than the corresponding .DAT file) or you can have RMS back up your cookbook for you every time you exit (this results in a .BAK file that is that same size as the .DAT file). If you have RMS back up your cookbook and want to use the .BAK file follow these steps (the following example assumes that the cookbook name was RECIPE): 1) Rename the RECIPE.DAT file to X.X 2) Erase the RECIPE.IX file and rename RECIPE.BAK to RECIPE.DAT 3) Start the Recipe Management System, it will ask if you want to rebuild the index file, tell it yes and it will run through the file and rebuild the indices. Once you have verified that the cookbook has been recovered, you can delete the X.X file. The B-Tree algorithm has earned a well-deserved reputation for speed and dependability but it's best to be prepared. I even keep a backup of my favorite cookbooks on separate disk in case of hard drive failure. THANK YOU: Thank you for taking the time to try the Recipe Management System. I decided to write it after trying several shareware and commercial recipe programs and found them to be either too cumbersome, too limited or too restrictive. It has taken over five hundred hours of programming to get RMS this point and there are still more features I would like to add. If you have any suggestions about features to include in future releases, please take the time to write them down on the following registration form and send them to me along with any other comments you might have (even if you don't want to register your copy). Jon T. McEwen 2/14/95 Page 5 Recipe Management System Shareware Guide ================= REGISTRATION FORM ================= Please complete the following registration form: Name (please print) ______________________________________________ Address __________________________________________________________ City ___________________ St/Prov __________ Zip/Code ___________ Country (if not USA) __________________ Phone/FAX _______________ Comments _________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Enclose $25.00 and send to: Jon T. McEwen P.O. Box 15619 Seattle, Washington 98115-0619 Thank-You in advance for your registration. Page 6