Documentation for HOMINV.EXE Family Home Inventory - Copyright (C) 1987,1988 By the author Harlun E. Peterson All rights reserved Version 1.0 WARRANTY AND DISCLAIMER There is NO warranty with Family Home Inventory Program, expressed or implied. The author will not be held responsible for any claim by any party, for damages of any kind as a result of the use or inability to use this program. You must use it AS IS and at your own risk. HOMINV.EXE is released to the public under the user supported SHAREWARE concept. This program can be distributed freely, but I urge you to fill out the registration form and along with $ 20.00, mail it to the address below: Harlun E. Peterson 11386 54th St. N. E. Albertville, Mn. 55301 You should support SHAREWARE because: - There is some really fantastic programs available through this concept, and if the authors of these programs are going to continue placing these prog- rams in the public domain, we must support them. - Sooner or later you will realize what a great con- cept this really is, and start supporting it. At first, I didn't, but now find myself digging through all my old documentation I have printed, and sending the registration forms and contributions to the auth- ors, for the programs and utilities I use continuously Family Home Inventory is a program I use for trying out and per- fecting dBASE III+ programming techniques I have discovered and obtained from books and associates. Some of the techniques may seem a little sophisticated for a simple program like this, but it is a useful program and I hope to use the techniques in more sophisticated programs in the future. I can imagine what a trauma it would be to have your home dam- aged in a fire or tornado. It must be very difficult to deter- mine what was damaged and what the value of the damaged or dis- troyed items was. If you use Family Home Inventory Program to record all your val- uables, you could keep printed records or even a floppy diskette with the program and all the files in it, in your safe deposit box. If a disaster damages or destroys your home at least you would have a record of all valuables, instead of having to try and construct a list for the insurance company when there is enough on your mind already. So, there really is some value to a program like this. I hope you use it, and I truly hope you never need it for the purpose it was meant for. Insurance agents and claim adjusters were spoken to, to determine what information is normally required by a insurance company when making a claim for lost, stolen, or damaged items. These are dis- cussed on the next page. The records created and maintained in this program consists of the following: * Description - up to 20 characters * Serial Number - uo to 20 chatacters (if applicable) * Quantity - up to 99 * Purchase Price - up to $ 99999.99 (Enter unit or each price, the computer will calculate the extended price) * Purchase Date - Important, but in a lot of cases you will have to guesstamate. * Location - i. e. KITCH for kitchen, up to 5 characters * Picture - Whether or not you have a photograph of the item (Would be a great help) * Video - Whether or not you have the item on video tape (Better than a photo) * Category - Category your item is in i. e. FURN for furniture. (Critical for the program, the program keys off this field much of the time.) The program offers many different options for generating reports, these can be printed and stored in a safe place in case they are ever needed. Moving around in "Family Home Inventory" is easily done most of the time by using the cursor keys on the right side of the keyboard. MAINMENU - - Displays options for the following: * Adding records to the database * Changing or Modifying a record in the database * Deleting records from the database * Displaying Original Costs * Viewing records in the database * Printing reports * Viewing Help Screen * Viewing this documentation FAMILY HOME INVENTORY PROGRAM COPYRIGHT (C) 1988 BY HARLUN E. PETERSON Move the colorbar up or down with the cursor keys to position it on the option you wish to select. When the bar is positioned press , to execute that option. You can also press the letter adjacent to the option to execute it. The key brings you to this Help screen and by pressing you can view the documentation for this program from the console (Monitor). Hint: At any screen you can press to return to the previous screen even though it is not given as an option. will also return you to DOS at the MainMenu. Each screen has a Help option you can select by pressing the key. A screen like the one you are viewing here will appear with general com- ments about that particular screen. FAMILY HOME INVENTORY is released by the author under the SHAREWARE concept, which means if you decide to continue using this program, you must register with the author by completing the registration form in- cluded in the documentation and with a contribution of $20.00 sending it to the author. ADD A RECORD - - Displays Category selection menu, select the category you want the itme to be added to. - By picking the Category from the Menu you are at the same time entering it into the category field for the record you are adding. When the data entry window appears the category field is already entered. ADD A ITEM - GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS This screen presents a list of categories of which you must choose one. Move the colorbar up or down until it is positioned on the category you wish to put your item into. When the colorbar is positioned press , a window will appear to enter the rest of the data for the item you are adding to the database. Selecting the asterisk (*) or pressing will return you to the MainMenu. When entering the qty, enter the unit (ea.) price if the qty is greater than one. The computer will calculate the total price and replace the purchase price with the total after the record is saved. When you have completed the data entry press again or to save the record, and return to the MainMenu. MODIFY A RECORD - - Displays Category selection menu, select the category the item you want to change is in, as you would if you were adding a record. - A screen appears listing all item descriptions for the category you selected. At this point move the asterisk (*) adjacent to the descrip- tion of the item you want to change and press . MODIFY A ITEM - GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS This screen presents a list of categories of which you must choose the the one the item you wish to modify is in. Move the colorbar up or down until it is positioned on the category your item is in. When the colorbar is positioned press , a list of item descriptions in the category you selected will appear on the next screen. By selecting (*) all Items are displayed in alphabetical order. There may be more than one page of descriptions, press or to move from page to page. Move the asterisk (*) up or down, left or right to mark the item you want to Modify and press to select that item. A window will appear with a record of the item selected, make your changes and press to save the changes and return to the MainMenu. NOTE: When changing a record, the purchase price is reset to (0), you must re-enter the purchase price. This is done in case the qty. is changed and so the computer can re-calcualate the extended price. DELETE A RECORD - - Displays Category selection menu, select the category the item you want to delete is in, as you would if you were adding or changing a record. - A screen appears listing all item descriptions for the category you selected. At this point move the asterisk (*) adjacent to the descrip- tion of the item you want to delete and press . DELETE A ITEM - GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS This screen presents a list of categories of which you must choose the the one the item you wish to delete is in. Move the colorbar up or down until it is positioned on the category your item is in. When the colorbar is positioned press , a list of item descriptions in the category you selected will appear on the next screen. By selecting (*) all Items will be displayed in alphabetical order. There may be more than one page of descriptions, press or to move from page to page. Move the asterisk (*) up or down, left or right to mark the item you want to Delete and press to select that item. A window will appear with a record of the item selected. You are prompted to enter a (Y) to confirm the deletion of this record (item), enter "Y" to delete the record or press or to return to the MainMenu. INVENTORY TOTALS - - Displays Original (purchase price) costs by Category and shows a total of all items. - Gives options to print a detailed report for each Category. - Gives option to view data in Bar Graph form. FAMILY HOME INVENTORY PROGRAM TOTALS This screen displays the total Original (purchase price) costs for all Items by Category. The sum of all Items in all Categories is display- ed as a total for all Categories. If you decide at this point you would like a detailed report for any one Category, you may generate one from this screen without having to return to the MainMenu and selecting the Print option. Just move the colorbar up or down until it is positioned on the Category you would like the report on and press . Make sure the printer is ready and the paper is at the top of form. When the report is done printing you will return to this screen, either choose another report, for viewing a graph, or press to return to the MainMenu. This screen also gives you the opportunity to view your data in Bar Graph form, just press to view the graph. NOTE: The total for any one category must be at least $1501.00, in order for it to register on this graph. VIEW A RECORD - - Displays Category selection menu, select the category the item you want to view is in, as you would if you were adding or changing a record. - A screen appears listing all item descriptions for the category you selected. At this point move the asterisk (*) adjacent to the descrip- tion of the item you want to view and press . VIEW A ITEM - GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS This screen presents a list of categories of which you must choose the the one the item you wish to view is in. Move the colorbar up or down until it is positioned on the category your item is in. When the colorbar is positioned press , a list of item descriptions in the category you selected will appear on the next screen. By selecting (*) all items will be displayed in alphabetical order. There may be more than one page of descriptions, press or to move from page to page. Move the asterisk (*) up or down, left or right to mark the item you want to View and press to select that item. A window will appear with a record of the item selected, when you are done viewing, press to return to the MainMenu. PRINT MENU - - Displays options for printing reports by Category, Description, and by Location. You may choose to print a report for a single Category. PRINT MENU - GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS This screen presents you with a list of options of which you may choose one. The first option prints all records by Category, the second by Descrip- tion, the third by Location. The fourth option will generate a report for just the Category you choose. This is done by selecting the Category from the screen that appears just as you do in the Change, Delete, and View options from the MainMenu. Before selecting any of these options be sure the printer is ready and the paper is at the top form. FAMILY HOME INVENTORY PROGRAM Registration form: Name _________________________________________ Address _________________________________________ City,St._________________________________________ Zip _________________________________________ Registration $ 20.00 _______________________ I understand that this software is supplied without warranty, expressed or implied, and agree not to hold its author liable for any losses direct or consequential arising out of it's use. Signature:______________________________ Send registration form and regisration fee to: Harlun E. Peterson 11386 54th St. N.E. Albertville, Mn. 55301 Thank You for using Family Home Inventory and the contribution. 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