Copyright: Copyright ® 1992-1993, Sanjay Kanade
Citation: (Help was generated using WhizNotes 1.0)


Basics of Help generation

If you own or purchase the Windows help compiler then you can convert your WhizNotes into Windows help files. Creating jumps from one topic to another is as easy as a drag and drop. Imagine, this help file which you are reading, has been created by exclusively using WhizNotes along with the Windows help compiler. No other word processor was required! If you have ever tried to create Help files then you already know how complex it is. WhizNotes makes this process incredibly simple.

You must own a Windows Help compiler

To take advantages of WhizNotes help generation, you need to purchase a Windows help compiler. If you already own a Windows Development Kit or a compiler which allows you to generate Windows applications, then you might already have the help compiler. See your compiler's documentation for more details.

If you do not have a Help compiler then you may contact Microsoft to find out how you may purchase one.

It is important to note that just the help compiler and WhizNotes are enough to create a Windows help like this one, which you are reading. You need not have another RTF editor, unless you want to further edit the RTF file generated by WhizNotes.

Setting up the Help Compilation environment

Let us assume that the help compiler executable is HC31.EXE. Before doing help generation in WhizNotes, you must use Windows File Manager to associate the file extension HPJ with HC31.EXE. See Windows documentation for details. If the help compiler is not on your DOS path then it is better to type in the full path name of the help compiler in File Manager association.

Once you have setup this environment, you are ready to generate Windows help from your WhizNotes.

Prepare your WhizNotes to take advantage of Windows help

If you have inserted Jumps or Refs from one topic to another then WhizNotes converts them to proper Windows Help jumps and references. This is very convenient. For details, see Inserting a jump to another topic.

Generating Windows Help

To create a Windows help file, from your WhizNote window, select menu Tools-Create Help. A dialog box appears which allows you to choose various options when generating Windows help file. For details see WhizNotes Help Generation Dialog Box.

After that Help compilation is started in a DOS window and when the compilation terminates, your help file is generated with the same filename as your WhizNotes file, but the extension is HLP. WhizNotes gives you an opportunity to test this generated help. You can also test this help at any time by selecting menu Tools-Test Help. You can also directly test it by double clicking from File Manager.

Licensing information

Remember that owning the Registered version of WhizNotes is necessary so as to be able to distribute these HLP files generated by WhizNotes. WhizNotes puts some of its own identifying information in encoded form, so that it is possible to find out whether a help file was generated with WhizNotes. Hence it is in your best interest to buy a Registered copy of WhizNotes, before distributing any of these files to your customers.

Registered version provides extra features

Many of the advanced features available in the Registered Version can not be included in the Shareware Version to conserve space. For example, the special WhizNotes commands to produce BOLD, ITALICs, BULLETED LISTS, INDENTATION, etc which have been used to enhance this Help file is available only in the Registered version. Author can not release partial enhancement features in the Shareware version. Chances are, that by the time you get this Shareware Version, the Registered version may have many many extra features which Author is improving upon.

It is important for you to understand that this version of WhizNotes is just a beginning. Author is working on improvements constantly.  It is in your best interest to Register.

Also see

Please register to support the author.


Basics of WhizNotes printing facilities

WhizNotes allows you the following features when it comes to printing your topics:

Printing from an open topic window

If you are in an open topic window then you can print the contents of that single topic without any special headers or footers except for the page numbers. This is more or less like the simple Notepad and may be useful to print isolated topics, letters etc.

Printing from a WhizNote window

Printing a single topic

Real power of WhizNotes printing is visible from a WhizNote window. Here if you select and print a single topic, WhizNotes will introduce special headers and footers when printing.

Printing multiple topics

If you select and print multiple topics then WhizNotes will also produce a table of contents at the end, which you can move to the front after printing.

Printing all the topics

You can also print all the topics contained in a WhizNote file. This is similar to printing multiple topics, but applies to all the topics.

Please note that WhizNotes always uses a suitable fixed size font when printing your topics.

Special note

Although you may feel that WhizNotes does not provide you any control over fonts, headers and footers; please remember that WhizNotes is a text organizer. Rather then focus on the document presentation features it primarily concentrates on topic management and document creation/review faciltities in all its features. It gives you sufficient options to print one or more of your topics selectively for reviewing and provides better features in overcoming certain Windows problems, which other text editors do not address. For example, see Using Quick draft printing for convenience

However, this version of WhizNotes is just a beginning. If you support the author by registering, you will see more and more of your valuable suggestions incorporated in WhizNotes. The author believes that the users will come out with innovative uses of WhizNotes and with their feedback, WhizNotes will improve dramatically.

Please register to support the author


Contents

Introduction

Manipulating WhizNotes files

What is a WhizNotes file?

Creating a new WhizNotes file

Opening an existing WhizNotes file

Saving a WhizNotes file

Save WhizNote as.. menu option

Manipulating topics within a WhizNotes file

Creating a new topic

Opening a topic for editing

Renaming a topic

Deleting a topic

Searching for a topic

Inserting a jump to another topic

Operations on multiple topics

Making use of Windowing features of WhizNotes

Opening multiple WhizNotes and topic windows

Viewing an external text file

Saving topic to an external text file

Copying topics from one WhizNotes to another

Printing WhizNotes and topics

Basics of WhizNotes printing facilities

Printing from a topic window

Printing one or more selected topics

Using Quick draft printing for convenience

Generating Windows Help

Basics of Help generation

What you should know about temporary files created by WhizNotes

Temporary files created by WhizNotes

Export/import features of WhizNotes

Merging Topics to a Text File

Importing Topics from a text file


Copying topics from one WhizNotes to another

If you have one or more WhizNotes windows open and you want to copy a topic from one WhizNote to another, do the following:

•	Bring both windows into view. For better visibility, you can iconfiy the unneeded windows and use menu Window-Tile.

•	Select a topic in one window, then while keeping the mouse left button pressed, drag the mouse cursor onto the other WhizNote window and release it.

You will see that the topic gets copied to the other WhizNote file.

THis dragging feature is indeed very powerful

For instance, you can make one of your WhizNote files as a sort of wastebasket or archive. You can drag and drop old topics on to this basket and then delete them from the original WhizNote. You are limited only by your imagination on how to best use dragging features to your advantage.

Registered version of WhizNotes also allows to copy multiple topics by dragging them onto another WhizNotes window.

Registered version has many more features, which could not be included in the Shareware version to reduce the space requirements. For details see Please register to support the author


Creating a new topic

Creating a new topic is easy. Just bring one of your WhizNote windows in focus and either press Insert or select menu File-New Topic....

A dialog box appears which allows you to choose a name for your topic. After that a new editor window opens up for entering text in your topic.


Creating a new WhizNotes file

To create a new WhizNotes file, select File-New WhizNote. You will see that an untitiled gray window appears, which contains an empty list of topics.

Now you are ready to add one or more topics to this WhizNote file.

Please note that WhizNotes allows you to keep multiple WhizNotes file windows open at the same time. You can even copy topics by dragging them from one WhizNotes file to another.

Also see

Creating a new topic

Saving a WhizNotes file

Save WhizNote as.. menu option


Delete Temp Files Help Generation Option

There are two cases, in which you may not want to delete temporary files.

•	When you want to edit the file with extension RTF by an RTF editor like Microsoft Word to enhance its appearance, or choose different fonts.

•	You know how to use the Help compiler directly and you want to change some options in the help project file with extenstion HPJ.

In both these cases, please remember that after changing these files, please do not run WhizNotes help generation as it will overwrite your changes. Rather you should run the file with extension BAT directly in DOS.

For your information, the temporary files with following actions are generated by WhizNotes:

•	HPJ	Help Project File

•	BAT	Batch file to run compilation

•	RTF	Rich Text Format representation of your WhizNotes

•	HPO	Output file for the help compilation


Deleting a topic

To delete a topic, just select the topic in the WhizNotes window, and select menu File-Delete Topic or just press DEL.

You can select multiple topics in the list of topics and delete them. For details on how to select multiple topics, please see Operations on multiple topics.


Examples of WhizNotes files

A WhizNote file is nothing but a collection of many topics. You create such files with the help of WhizNotes. Such files have the extension ".WZN".

It is upto you to group any topics you want into one WZN or WhizNote file. This way you do not have to remember each of your topic names. All you need to remember is the WhizNote file name, which serves as a sort of folder name.

A topic within a WhizNote file can contain upto 32000 characters. A topic can be any independent text note that you want to recognize by name.

Example

A WhizNote file "WEEKREPS.WZN" may contain various weekly reports as individual topics having the following names:

•	01/02/93 - Weekly report ( sent on 01/05 )

•	01/09/93 - Weekly report

•	...

As you can see, the ability to choose any topic name makes WhizNotes extremely powerful. Let it manage the topics. You need not care about how they are kept or which directory they belong to. All you need to remember is the name of that particular WhizNote file which contains them.

More examples:

•	A WhizNote file "FRIENDLT.WZN" keeps letters sent to your friends as

individual topics, with names like Martin - letter sent on Dec 14".

•	A WhizNote file "UTILSLIB.WZN" is used by a programmer to keep notes on various C utility functions or C++ classes that he is developing or plans to develop. Again the flexible naming allows topic names like:

int getDelimitedText(char *textBuffer)

•	A writer uses a WhizNote file "PHRASES.WZN" to quickly note any phrases or ideas, he might find useful in a writing project, with topic names like Possible beginning para.

•	Two constultants developing a product, share ideas by passing a WhizNote file called "prodideas.wzn" and thus exchange information on related topics, each idea expressed as a separate topic.

•	...

Isn't it wonderful? In fact, if you think that you have a novel use of WhizNotes, author would like to know about it.

It may be interesting for you to know that this help, which you are reading, was developed by using WhizNotes. WhizNotes allows you to convert any WhizNote into Windows hypertext help, provided you have the Windows help compiler.

To find out more, please see Please register to support the author.


Getting started with WhizNotes

The following topics contain information on various aspects of WhizNotes usage. Please click on the topic of your choice to get more information.

Manipulating WhizNotes files

What is a WhizNotes file?

Creating a new WhizNotes file

Opening an existing WhizNotes file

Saving a WhizNotes file

Save WhizNote as.. menu option

Manipulating topics within a WhizNotes file

Creating a new topic

Opening a topic for editing

Renaming a topic

Deleting a topic

Searching for a topic

Inserting a jump to another topic

Operations on multiple topics

Making use of Windowing features of WhizNotes

Opening multiple WhizNotes and topic windows

Viewing an external text file

Saving topic to an external text file

Copying topics from one WhizNotes to another

Printing WhizNotes and topics

Basics of WhizNotes printing facilities

Printing from a topic window

Printing one or more selected topics

Using Quick draft printing for convenience

Generating Windows Help

Basics of Help generation

What you should know about temporary files created by WhizNotes

Temporary files created by WhizNotes

Export/import features of WhizNotes

Merging Topics to a Text File

Importing Topics from a text file


How does WhizNotes help?

WhizNotes helps you to take maximum advantages of the random creative thought processes which occur when you are preparing a document, or studying a new subject.

Let us look at the features of WhizNotes at a glance.

Easily create topics of your choice

With WhizNotes it is a snap to create a topic with its own editor window. Although it is not usually needed, each topic can be as large as 32,000 characters.

You can combine related topics into a single file. Such files are called WhizNote files. One WhizNote file can contain many topics and you can have different WhizNote files for different subjects.

Easily locate a topic

The WhizNotes file window lists topics in a sorted order. This makes it easier to locate a topic.

Also search functions are available to quickly locate topics.

choose any name for your topic

Flexibility in chooing topic names is one of the most powerful features of WhizNotes. After using this facility of descriptive and clear names, you will never go back to keeping your text in cryptic named files on the disk.

With WhizNotes, you can make topics having very long names, upto 255 characters long. Also there is no restriction on the set of characters that you can use in topic names.

This flexibility in choosing names can be put to hundreds of different uses, limited only by your imagination. For example, if you are a programmer, you may as well make function prototypes as your topic names for direct access to help for your function library.

Drag and drop topics from one WhizNotes to another

You can have multiple WhizNotes files open at the same time and you can copy topics topics from one WhizNotes file to another WhizNotes file just be dragging and dropping them.

You can drag single or multiple topics.

Use flexible Multiple Document Interface

WhizNotes provides the standard Multiple Document Interface similar to many applications. Thus you can learn it quickly and start using it immediately.


How to Register

The Registration cost of WhizNotes is $69 ( per copy ) + $4.50 for Shipping and Handling ( within USA ). ( Shipping and Handling is $9.00 for adresses outside USA ).

If you are not satisfied with WhizNotes Registered Version for any reason, then you can return it within 30 days for a full refund.

You can order or register WhizNotes by MasterCard or Visa!

TO REGISTER BY PHONE

Please keep your credit card ready and call Advanced Support Group, Inc.

at:

1-800-788-0787

TO REGISTER BY MAIL

Please use the order form in the file 'order.doc'. You can also print the order form by pressing the button 'Print order form...' on the main Shareware reminder screen.

Author also welcomes your comments or suggestions any time at the following address:

Sanjay Kanade

P.O.Box 3205

Santa Clara, CA - 95055


Importing Topics from a text file

In order to import topics from a text file, it is necessary to understand that the text file must have a unique identifier line preceding the topic name of a new topic. Otherwise it is not possible for WhizNotes to understand the end of one topic and the start of the next one.

For example,

Your text file may look like this:

/* A TOPIC */

First Topic Name

...

...text for the topic...

/* A TOPIC */

Second Topic Name

...

...text for the topic...

Thus the line /* A TOPIC */ identifies that a new topic is starting, and the next line contains a topic name. Such a line is called a delimiter line. A delimiter must be present in the text file to use the import facility.

If you have such a text file, then you may select menu Tools-Import Topics from a file to import it. A dialog box appears which prompts you to specify a delimiter line. Once you enter proper delimiter line from your text file, then the import feature will import topics into the WhizNote window.

Usually if you are importing a text file earlier exported with a delimiter specified then the delimiter is already present in the text file and there is no problem. But if you are taking an external text file and want to break it into topics, then you have to insert your delimiter and topic names at proper points in the file where necessary.

Also see

Merging Topics to a Text File


Insert Jump Dialog Box

When you drag a topic from a WhizNote window into one of the open topic windows for that WhizNote, then this dialog box appears. If you choose a Jump then a jump to the dragged topic is inserted in the open topic at the cursor. On the other hand if you choose a reference, then a reference jump is inserted.

What is a Jump?

A jump is a hypertext jump statement which allows you to double click on the jump and go to the topic name indicated. This is a very powerful feature of WhizNotes.

Also when you generate a Windows help file from WhizNotes then this is translated into a Windows Help jump. Try and see how it works. Then you will understand it better.

What is a Ref?

This is mainly for Windows Help generation. A reference is a statement which allows you to control whether the generated Windows Help file will contain a jump or reference at this place.

As far as WhizNotes is concerned, it provides a jump even if you double click on a reference. This is very convenient when developing the WhizNote topics.


Inserting a jump to another topic

When you drag a topic from a WhizNote window into one of the open topic windows for that WhizNote, then a dialog box appears which allows you to insert a jump.

For details, see Insert Jump Dialog Box.


Introduction

Welcome to the world of WhizNotes. Once you start using this versatile text organization tool, you might wonder how you ever managed without it.

First of all, you might ask: Who would use WhizNotes?

Well, anyone who wants to manage any random or non-random information has a use for WhizNotes, that means just about anyone: writers, students, managers, programmers,...

You will be surprised to know that the author of WhizNotes  can not conceive of all the uses that WhizNotes can be put to. Seems hard to believe?  Why not take a look at Examples of WhizNotes files.

Before going into any details, let me ask you a simple question regarding the documents, notes, or text files that you usually work with: When you read a document, what strikes you as more important? Its appearance, or text content?

You will agree that the  text content is more important in the initial stages of the document preparation. After all, the text content is the soul of a document. If the text content of your document is not thought out properly, then no matter what you do with its appearance, it would not be effective.

When you begin to create a document, your foremost aim is to put your creative thoughts into words. You are not worried about the appearance of the document at this point. Rather you want an uninterrupted flow of thoughts to your document.

This is also true when you are learning a new subject and making notes; or  planning something; or just involved in creative thinking.

Creativity and randomness

Preparing a document from scratch is a creative process. You must have noticed that these creative thoughts occur to you randomly.

For instance, when you are working on one part of the document, you suddenly get an idea about the same or an altogether different subject; or when you are studying a particular topic, in a flash you may solve an old problem that had been nagging at the back of your mind. Well, the ways of a human mind are mysterious. It seems to work in background, that too on multiple problems at the same time.

It is important that you are able to record these random thoughts as and when they occur. Just recording is not enough. You should also be able to identify and retrieve them easily. Most of us resort to bits and pieces of paper when recording such thoughts. Wouldn't it be nice if the computer can do it for us?

One topic at a time

In addition to the random nature of creative thoughts, it also works out better if you can only see or concentrate on one little topic at a time. The whole concept of prose is based on this division. Paragraphs group thoughts which logically belong together. Topics or subheads further help to group paragraphs, and so on. It is not only easier for the reader but also easier for the writer.

Working on one topic at a time also helps when studying new subjects. Many people study better when they make notes of the subject matter, most often dividing them into topics of their choice rather than by the book.

Do word processors really help you in thinking or outlining?

Inspite of the importance of the text matter in documents, and the advancements in computer technology, you will notice that all the modern writing tools and sophisticated word processors tend to concentrate on only one aspect of documentation: its appearance.

A number of excellent word processors and writing tools are available on PC today, especially in Windows environment, and they are getting better and more sophisticated. But unfortunately there is not much help when it comes to preparing the document's soul--its subject matter.

Although these word processors may support outlining of some form or another for text organization, it is not very convenient. You may often take help of the simple text editors like Notepad to record random pieces of information. But you encounter a bigger problem when you do that! You can not simply classify or separate your information into smaller pieces because the underlying operating system supports limited number of characters in the filename. Moreover, certain special characters are prohibited in the filename. So instead of constantly coming up with cryptic names to identify the information, you usually give up and try to work in a single large document file. This forces you to think in a way which is just not suitable for the way we think.

Why doesn't your computer help you when it can do more? Certainly it can do better than those pieces of paper ! Well, you need not be frustrated any more. WhizNotes comes to your help with powerful topic management capabilities.

Also see

How does WhizNotes help?

Getting started with WhizNotes

Help Generation

If you have a Windows help compiler then you can convert your WhizNote files into Windows hypertext help. Creating jumps from one topic to another is as easy as a simple drag and drop. Imagine--this help file which you are reading, has been created by exclusively using WhizNotes along with the Windows help compiler. No other word processor was required! If you have ever tried to create Help files then you already know how time consuming it is. WhizNotes makes Help creation incredibly simple.

Although there are other help authoring tools available, there is a big difference. They have been created primarily for Windows help generation and most of them require the use of a separate RTF editor like Microsoft Word. But with WhizNotes it is different. WhizNotes primarily addresses text organization and topic management. Help generation is a by product for WhizNotes, and it does not require the use of any other RTF editor. Of course, you can use one in addition to WhizNotes to improve upon your work, by using WhizNotes export capabilities.

Please register to support the author

WhizNotes is a Shareware program. That means you are expected to pay a registration fee to the author in order to continue using this software beyond the initial 30 day trial period. Remember, the author is not compensated for his efforts if you do not register. With your support it is possible for the author to continue to provide quality software at nominal cost.

Registered version of WhizNotes also gives you additional features to make it even better. Also, WhizNotes has been specially priced so that even if you have to buy the Help compiler, the total cost is much less than any Help authoring tool.

Find out more about what you get in the registered version of WhizNotes, by clicking on the following topics:

What you get when you Register

How to Register


Merging Topics to a Text File

At a certain point after preparing your document in WhizNotes, you may want to export the text to a single text file, so that you may now put in word processing features for enhanced appearance.

To do that select menu Tools-Merge Topics To a File.... A dialog box appears which allows you to specify a delimiting line which you want to precede the start of each topic in the output text file. For example, if you enter "/* TOPIC */" as the delimiter line then WhizNotes will put such a line in the output text file whenever it starts writing a new topic. Of course, if you want you may not choose to put any delimiter by leaving the line empty in the dialog box.

Delimiter is especially useful, if later you want to import back same file into a WhizNote.

Also see

Importing Topics from a text file


Multiple Document Interface

Standard Multiple Document Interface ( MDI ) provided by WhizNotes helps you learn it easily. It also provides powerful management of multiple open windows.

If you have used Program Manager or File Manager then you are already conversant with MDI, whether you are aware of it or not.

MDI interface allows the following features :

•	Keep multiple topics as well as WhizNotes windows open at the same time.

•	Use a menu located consistently at the top for all the windows.

•	Easily locate a window by Window menu.

•	Minimize or maximize windows for convenience in organizing your desktop space.

•	Tile and cascade windows

•	Arrange icons for minimized windows.

•	In addition to standard MDI features, WhizNotes implements some enhancements. For example, you can close all topic windows without closing the WhizNotes files.

For more information on MDI, please look at your Windows documentation.


Opening a topic for editing

To open a topic first select the topic in the WhizNotes window. Then you have got three ways in which you can open the topic:

•	Double click on the topic name.

•	Press RETURN key.

•	Select menu File-Open Topic....

If you look at the WhizNotes window, then you can recognize the open topics by a red pen that appears on the topic.

You can always close all the topics by menu Window-Close All Topics


Opening an existing WhizNotes file

To open an existing WhizNotes file, which you created earlier, select File-Open WhizNote.... A standard file open dialog will be presented where you can select the desired WhizNotes file to open.

Once you select a file and press OK, you will see that a gray WhizNotes window appears, which contains the list of topics contained in this file.

Now you are ready to open, delete, add topics to this WhizNotes file.

Please note that WhizNotes allows you to keep multiple WhizNotes file windows open at the same time. You can even drag copy topics from one WhizNotes file to another.

Also see

What is a WhizNotes file?

What is a topic?

Creating a new topic

Opening a topic for editing

Renaming a topic

Deleting a topic

Creating a new WhizNotes file

Saving a WhizNotes file

Save WhizNote as.. menu option


Opening multiple WhizNotes and topic windows

One great advantage of WhizNotes that it uses Windows Multiple Document Interface which gives you lots of advantages when managing your open windows, whether they are WhizNotes windows or topic windows.

You can go on clicking on topics to open them and you can go on opening other WhizNotes files. The standard Window menu gives you many features by which you can move between the windows, can iconify, tile or cascade them or even close all windows or only topic windows. For details, see Multiple Document Interface.

You can also drag a topic from one WhizNote window to another by using the mouse. See Copying topics from one WhizNotes to another


Operations on multiple topics

WhizNotes allows some operations on multiple topics. For example, you can delete a number of topics at once by selecting them all and choosing delete topic.

How to select multiple topics

To select multiple topics use standard Windows guidelines. For instance, you can select multiple topics by pressing control along with mouse click. You can also select a range of topics by selecting the first topic in the range and then moving to the other end of the range and pressing SHIFT with mouse click. For more details on how to select multiple topics in the list box please refer to your Windows documentation.

WhizNotes currently allows the following operations on multiple selected topics:

•	Delete topics.

•	Print topics.

Registered version of WhizNotes also allows to copy multiple topics by dragging them onto another WhizNotes window.

Registered version has many more features, which could not be included in the Shareware version to reduce the space requirements. For details see Please register to support the author


Please register to support the author

WhizNotes is a Shareware program. That means you are expected to pay a registration fee to the author in order to continue using this software beyond the initial 30 day trial period. Remember, the author is not compensated for his efforts if you do not register. With your support it is possible for the author to continue to provide quality software at nominal cost.

Registered version of WhizNotes also gives you additional features to make it even better. For details of additional features see What you get when you Register. Also, WhizNotes has been specially priced so that even if you have to buy the Help compiler, the total cost is much less than any Help authoring tool.

Find out more about what you get on registration by clicking on the following topics:

What you get when you Register

How to Register


Printing all the topics of a WhizNotes file


Printing from a topic window

You would like to print from a topic window, when you want to print just the topic contents and do not want WhizNotes to insert any special headers and footers except the page numbers.

To print from a topic window, open the topic window by double clicking on it. Then select menu File Print....

A standard print dialog will appear which will allow you to choose printing options or to setup a printer.


Printing one or more selected topics

If you select menu File-Print Topic... then the following actions will take place, depending on whether you have selected a single or multiple topics in the WhizNote window.

Printing a single selected topic

The topic will be printed and proper headers and footers will be inserted by WhizNotes when printing.

Printing multiple selected topics

You will be asked for a title for your printout. Then the topics will be printed and proper headers and footers will be inserted by WhizNotes to recongnize the topics. In addition, a table of contents will be printed at the end, with the title selected earlier at the top. After printing you can move this table to the front.

You can also print all the topics by choosing menu File-Print All Topics. The action will be same as printing multiple topics, but instead all the topics in the WhizNote will be printed.


Registration Benefits

WhizNotes is a Shareware program. That means you are expected to pay a registration fee to the author in order to continue using this software beyond the initial 30 day trial period. Remember, the author is not compensated for his efforts if you do not register. With your support it is possible for the author to continue to provide quality software at nominal cost.

Registered version of WhizNotes also gives you additional features to make it even better. For details of additional features see What you get when you Register. Also, WhizNotes has been specially priced so that even if you have to buy the Help compiler, the total cost is much less than any Help authoring tool.

How to Register

The Registration cost of WhizNotes is $69 ( per copy ) + $4.50 for Shipping and Handling ( within USA ). ( Shipping and Handling is $9.00 for adresses outside USA ).

If you are not satisfied with WhizNotes Registered Version for any reason, then you can return it within 30 days for a full refund.

You can order or register WhizNotes by MasterCard or Visa!

TO REGISTER BY PHONE

Please keep your credit card ready and call Advanced Support Group, Inc.

at:

1-800-788-0787

TO REGISTER BY MAIL

Please use the order form in the file 'order.doc'. You can also print the order form by pressing the button 'Print order form...' on the main Shareware reminder screen.

Author also welcomes your comments or suggestions any time at the following address:

Sanjay Kanade

P.O.Box 3205

Santa Clara, CA - 95055


Renaming a topic

To rename a topic, just select the topic in the WhizNotes window, and select menu File-Rename Topic... or press CTRL-R.

A dialog box appears which allows you to change the name of the topic.


Save WhizNote as.. menu option

You select this option usually when you want to save an "Untitled" WhizNotes file by some name. However, you can also choose this option to save a WhizNote file by another name.

Also see

Creating a new WhizNotes file

Saving a WhizNotes file


Saving a WhizNotes file

To save a WhizNotes file, first bring that window in the focus by clicking on it. Then select File-Save WhizNote. Please note that saving does not close the window.

If the window is "Untitled" then a standard File save dialog will appear, allowing you to choose a name and location for the WhizNotes. file.

Please note that all the attributes of the topics, that is their wordwrap and auto-indent attributes are saved in a WhizNote file along with the topics. This is very convenient, so that once you create a topic with a certain attribute, it stays that way.

Also see

Save WhizNote as.. menu option


Saving topic to an external text file

To save a topic as an external text file, open the topic window by double clicking on the topic. Then select menu Save As Text File....

Special WYSIWYG saving for word-wrapped topics

Please note that the file will be saved in exactly the same format as you see it on your open window. For example, if you have word wrap feature on for a topic then the lines will be split exactly as you see them on the window. So it is usually better to first maximize the topic window before saving it as external text file.


Searching for a topic

You can search for a topic by two methods:

•	If you remember one or more beginning letters or words of a topic name then you can select menu Search-Select Topic Beginning With.... A dialog box appears which allows you to select a topic by typing the beginning characters. For more details see Select Topic Dialog Box.

•	If you remember an embedded word or phrase within a topic name then you can search for it by selecting menu Search-Find....


Select Topic Dialog Box

In this dialog box, as you type the beginning characters of the topic name, it selects the corresponding topic in the WhizNote window that matches the beginning characters. When you press OK on this dialog, the topic that is selected is opened for editing.


Temporary files created by WhizNotes

It is good to know that WhizNotes creates temporary files in your working directory. Hence it is best to ensure that the working directory that you specify for WhizNotes in your Program Manager or other shell has enough space. By default WhizNotes Setup sets up the working directory to the same directory where WhizNotes executable is installed. You can always change it if you want.

However you should know that the temporary files are created in the working directory under subdirectories with names like [NTWORKAA.AAA, NTWORKAA.AAB, etc]. You should never delete such directories when WhizNotes is working, as it you will lose your work. But if WhizNotes is not running and you find such directories then it means that WhizNotes could not clean temporary files in its last run, due to some problem, usually a hang. In that case, you can delete these subdirectories yourself.

Author is planning to put in an enhancement by which you can recover such lost sessions of WhizNotes later.


text content

The subject matter or thoughts expressed in the document. Here it also means the classification or division of your text into separate sections, topics, etc.


Using Quick draft printing for convenience

Have you ever used Generic Text Driver for printing? If not, you are losing a lot of time, especially if you are using slower printers. Usually when printing a draft copy of your text, you want the quickest possible printing. The Generic Text Driver is the answer. If you setup your printer to use Generic Text Driver as an additional option, you can choose it for quick draft printing. But wait... Generic Text Driver seems to have a problem, due to which the page breaks do not occur properly when you use Notepad or other text editors. Try it for yourself. The printout spills over from one page to the next.

WhizNotes works arount this problem

For your convenience, WhizNotes author has taken extra care just to implement a work around for this problem. With WhizNotes you will never see wrong page breaks when using the Generic Text Driver. Start using it and save valuable review time.


Viewing an external text file

Although when working with WhizNotes, you never need to worry about managing actual text files on your dos disk, a feature is provided by which you can view external text files.

To view an external text file, select menu File-View A Text File. A standard file open dialog box will be presented by which you can open any text file for viewing. You can also select and copy text from this file to be used in one of your topics.

Similarly you can also save one of your topics as an external text file. See Saving topic to an external text file.


What is a topic?

A WhizNotes topic is any body of text that you want to keep and remember so that you can easily retrieve it later.

WhizNotes allows you to keep related topics in a single WhizNotes file, where they can be easily identified and accessed.

WhizNotes does not restrict you in any way to choose names for your topics. They canbe very long names with embedded spaces and special characters. Once you get this flexibility to choose the names that you want, you will never want to be without it.

Also see

What is a WhizNotes file?

Creating a new topic

Opening a topic for editing

Renaming a topic

Deleting a topic

Operations on multiple topics


What is a WhizNotes file?

A WhizNote file is nothing but a collection of many topics. You create such files with the help of WhizNotes. Such files have the extension ".WZN".

It is upto you to group any topics you want into one WZN or WhizNote file. This way you do not have to remember each of your topic names. All you need to remember is the WhizNote file name, which serves as a sort of folder name.

A topic within a WhizNote file can contain upto 32000 characters. A topic can be any independent text note that you want to recognize by name.

Examples of WhizNotes files

Creating a new WhizNotes file


What you get when you Register

WhizNotes is just a beginning

It is important for you to understand that this version of WhizNotes is just a beginning. Author is working on improvements constantly.  It is in your best interest to Register. Chances are, that by the time you get this Shareware Version, the Registered version may have many many extra features which Author is improving upon.

Some extra features available in the Registered Version could not be included in the Shareware Version to save space. Also at the time of releasing the Shareware version, they were being tested, documented and improved upon.

Extra features available in Registered Version

•	The initial Shareware reminder screen is removed.

•	You can drag and drop multiple topics from one WhizNote to another WhizNote file.

•	Similar to JUMP and REF commands, other WhizNotes commands to produce BOLD, ITALICs, BULLETED LISTS, INDENTATION, are available.

•	One more export feature is available which allows you to export all the topics in your WhizNote file in RTF format. So that you can improve your document by using any word processor which supports RTF format. For instance, you can use Microsoft Word.

•	More online help for additional features.

In addition, when you register, you will continue to get free updates for any bug fixes or minor versions. You will also get the next version WhizNotes 2.0

at a very reasonable discounted price. It is also important to know that WhizNotes will always support the older version WhizNote files.

Technical support would be provided by Advanced Support Group, Inc. You will get more details when you order the Registered version.

Future plans for WhizNotes

This is not all. Author has ambitious plans to improve WhizNotes. In general, the author has following plans for WhizNotes. On a case by case basis, author may decide to put them in minor or major next release of WhizNotes. Please note that you will get all minor versions of WhizNotes updates free !

•	Printed documentation or manual is appearing soon. You will get it free whenever it is ready.

•	Currently the special embedded commands like ~JUMP, which are mainly used for Help generation, are printed verbatim when the document is printed. This will be improved so that they will be interpreted when printing. The result of printing will be same, as you see on the generated help.

•	You can expect the topic editor to be improved very soon.

•	More support to control fonts will be added.

•	A ribbon bar having often used features as push buttons is in plan.

•	Help related:

•	Option to control the context strings if default generation is not enough.

•	More control on Browse Sequences.

•	More control on keyword generation.

•	Build tags support.

•	More OLE like support would be added.

Option to link the topics to external text files.

•	WhizNote files representing macros which will allow you to generate any kind of statement or template. Useful for programmers.

•	Timestamp for topics.

•	Different colors for topic names.

•	Other useful features for programmers.

•	More control on topic sequencing.

•	...

As you can see, considering the direction that WhizNotes is taking, this is by no means an exhaustive list of functions which can be added. Information management is an area where the only limits are the limits of our imagination.

That is why, your feedback and suggestions are valuable. Please take a few moments to look at the end of the order form in 'order.doc' file to answer a few questions for the author, which may decide the future direction of WhizNotes. You can mail your suggestions to the author at the following address :

Sanjay Kanade

P.O.Box 3205

Santa Clara, CA - 95055


WhizNotes Help Generation Dialog Box

This dialog box appears when you select menu Tools-Create Help.... It allows you to select the following options for help generation:

Title for Help Window

The title that you choose here will appear as the title in the generated Windows Help.

Copyright Notice

You can put in your Copyright Notice here which will appear in the about box of the generated Windows Help. For example, please look at the About Box of this help which you are reading. Please note that you can generate a Copyright symbol by typing 0169 when keeping ALT pressed.

Type of font

Even though in topic windows you enter your text in Fixed font, WhizNotes allows you to generate an attractive help using a proportional font. Usually it is best to use this 'Proportional font' option unless your help really depends on the fixed font. For example, when a programmer wants to create his program text into topics, it is better to choose a fixed font.

Options

Compress Help file

If you check this box then you can generate a compressed Help file requiring lesser space.

Delete temp files

The default is to delete temporary files used in Help generation. Please note that these temporary files have the same filename as the WhizNotes file, but a different extension. For more details on this option see Delete Temp Files Help Generation Option.

Generate C Header file

This option is for the programmers who want to integrate calls to the help topics in their program. A C language header file is generated which contains the #defines for context strings used by WhizNotes. For details on how to use this information for integration, please look into your Help compiler related documentation.