Contents
Welcome to Practical PhoneBook Help

by Gary Chizhevsky, 1993

Help Contents

Overview

Features

How to...

Menus

Registration

History of changes


Overview

Practical PhoneBook is ... hm ... a phone book.  The program's purpose is to help you organize and manipulate your telephone directory efficiently.  To fill your phone directory, all you need to do for each entry is add a name and phone#, and specify what kind of phone# it is (work, home, car, etc.).  For any other information, like secondary phone# or address, you can use 'Notes' section.  All phone book entries are listed in alphabetical order, and consequently, are easy to locate by simple browsing.  There are, of course, more sophisticated methods available for searching for entries by name, phone#, or text from notes, should the need arise (see How to and Features sections).

Practical PhoneBook is meant to be very easy and fast to use.  Special care is taken to provide the program with an attractive and polished look.  It strictly follows Windows user interface standards, and thus, should take no time for you to learn if you know anything about Windows.  However, if you are a novice to the Windows environment, extensive on-line help, that you are reading now, will explain to you every detail of the program.  In addition, if you click the right mouse button on almost anything in the program, a context-sensitive info box will pop up and explain what that element of the program does or means.

Keep in mind that Practical PhoneBook is distributed as shareware.  Thus, you are obligated to register if you decide to keep using the program.  See Registration section for more information.


List of features
Features

Practical PhoneBook:

Allows to store about 1,800 - 2,000 phone book entries with up to 32000-letter notes per each entry.  Names are 35 characters max., phone numbers - 29.

Features array of graphical push buttons along the bottom of the main window.  The buttons are customizable and can be associated with any commonly performed functions.

Uses 3D libarary of controls to give dialog boxes slick 3D look.

Presents a list of phone book entries that occupies most of the main window.  To the left of a list entry may be an icon whose presence tells that there are notes attached to the entry.  Only name, phone number, and optionally, phone# type are shown in the list.  Notes can be viewed in a separate window.

Has search box that pops up automatically when a letter is typed and searches for a phone book entry as you type.  Also, has Alphabet box, and Quick List as alternative methods for searching by name.

Provides several other search methods, including by phone#, and by text from notes.

Allows to dial a phone number through a Hayes-compatible modem.  Redial if busy, and smart dialing (which automatically takes care of "1" in front of area codes) options are availalble.  Automatically switches to terminal emulation mode if modem response is detected.

Preserves all settings between sessions.

Provides a context-sensitive Info box at the click of right mouse button.

Allows to drag and drop entries onto buttons and Quick List window.

Allows viewing notes in a separate Notes window, while browsing through the list of phone book entries.

Includes a dial pad that allows to manually dial a phone#.

Stores files as text, so they can be edited in any text editor if desired, or imported into other applications as ASCII paragraph-delimited files.

Imports CardFile files.


How to register
Registration Info

Practical PhoneBook is a shareware product.  That means you are permitted to use it free of charge only for a trial period (about 1 month).  After that, if you like the program and would want to maintain friendly relations with the author, please, send me $15 to the following address:

Gary Chizhevsky

39821 Cedar Blvd. Apt. 109

Newark, Ca 94560

USA

Internet e-mail address: murlo@aol.com

America Online address: Murlo

phone# (510) 656-7039

Registration will entitle you to receive future free upgrades, technical support, and my gratitude.  Also, send me any comments about the program, suggestions and criticism.  I am eager to accommodate your reasonable requests and send you improved versions.


Menu choices
Menus

File
	New	Create new, empty phone book file.
	Open	Open phone book file or import card file.
	Save	Save currently open phone book file.
	Print All	Print all phone book entries.
	Printer Setup	Set default Windows printer.
	Exit	End program.
Entry
	Add	Add entry.
	Edit	Edit currently selected entry.
	Delete	Delete currently selected entry.
	Print	Print currently selected entry.
	Dial	Dial currently selected entry's phone #.
	Copy phone#	Copy phone# to the clipboard.
	Copy without notes	Place name and phone# on the clipboard.
	Copy with notes	Same as above + notes.
	Copy notes	Place notes only on the clipboard.
	Add to Quick List	Add currently selected entry to the quick list.  Quick list window must be open (with "View/Quick List" menu).
	Find by Name	Search for entry by a part of name
	Find by Phone	Search for entry by beginning part of phone #.
	Find by Notes	Search for entry by a piece of text from notes.
View
	Alphabet Box	Show or hide Alphabet box.
	Quick List	Show or hide Quick List window.
	Notes	Show notes for currently selected entry.
	Dial Pad	Allow to manualy enter and dial a phone#.
Settings
	Dial Settings	Set dial parameters and phone information.
	Display Settings	Set viewing options in Display Settings dialog box.
	Print Settings	Set printing options in Print Settings dialog box.
	Button Configuration	Associate actions with push buttons and double-click event.
	Font	Set font of the phone book list.
Help
	Contents	Open help and display contents page.
	Registration	Display registration information.
	About	General program information.


Available operations
How to ...

The following operations are described in this section:

Add entry, edit entry, delete entry, print one entry or entire list, view notes, dial phone#, find entry by name, find entry by phone#, find entry by piece of text from notes, get help, select phone book entry, perform an operation of a phone book entry, keyboard tip.

Do what?	Here is what you use:
Add entry	Add button, or Entry/Add menu, or <Insert> key. Each phone book entry must have a name; phone# and notes are not required. Warning: When entering notes, make sure you do NOT put right square bracket character ']' in the end of line, since square brackets are used internally to identify end of notes.
Edit entry	Edit Button, or Entry/Edit menu.
Delete entry	Delete Button, or Entry/Delete menu, or <Delete> key.  Once an entry is deleted, the empty trash can picture on the Delete button changes to full trash can picture.  After the file is saved or closed, the trash can looks empty again.
Print one entry or entire list	Use 'Entry/Print' menu to print the currently selected entry. To print the entire list, choose 'File/Print All' menu. Use 'Settings/Print Settings' menu to set priniting options in Print Settings dialog box.
View notes	Notes button, or View/Notes menu, or double-click on the notes icon in the phone book list.  If Notes window is already open, it will automatically display notes corresponding to the currently selected phone book entry.
Dial phone number	Dial button, or Entry/Dial menu, or double-click on the entry.  You can also dial a phone# stored in notes by opening the Notes window, selecting the text to be used as a phone#, and pushing Dial button in the dialog box.  In addition, you can manually enter and dial a phone# that is not in the phone book by using Dial pad. To set dialing prefix, tone or pulse phone type, com port number, and other dialing options, choose 'Settings/Dial Settings' menu.
Find entry by name	Use Alphabet box, or simply start typing the name.  A search box will automatically pop-up and search as you type.  When desired entry is found, press <Esc> or <Enter>, or click outside the search box to close it.  This is the fastest method to find an entry by name.  Another method for searching by name is invoked by choosing 'Entry/Find by Name' menu, or <F5> key.  That opens a dialog box which conducts search for an entry by a part of name.  For example, search string "el" will find the entry whose name includes "el", like "Michael".  The search begins with the first entry after the one currently selected, and after it reaches the end of the list, continues with the first entry.  If no entry is selected, the search starts with the first item.  The search is case insensitive.
Find entry by phone#	Choose 'Entry/Find by Phone#' menu, or <F6> key.  You may enter a beginning part of a phone# (or the entire phone#).  The first phone# that starts with the same characters, will be found.  The search is conducted in the same (circular) fashion as search by name, described above.
Find entry by piece of text from notes	Choose 'Entry/Find by Notes' menu, or <F7> key.  This search is conducted in the same fashion as search by name or phone#.
Get help	Choose 'Help/Contents' menu, or <F1> key for extensive on-line help, or use pop-up Info box for quick help about items on-screen.

Selecting phone book entry.

Whenever an operation is performed on a phone book entry, the entry must first be selected, except when adding an entry.  An entry can be selected by clicking on it with left mouse button, or moving the selection bar to it by <Up> or <Down> arrow keys, or by using any one of the search methods described above.

Performing an operation on the selected entry.

To determine what operation to perform on the selected entry, see the table above.  Also, as an alternative to clicking on Edit, Delete, Notes, and Dial buttons, an entry can be dragged onto a button with the left mouse button to achieve the same effect.

Keyboard note.

To use buttons at the bottom of the main window to perform any of the actions described above with the keyboard, press <Left> or <Right> arrow keys, or <Tab> or <Shift><Tab> keys to move bold black border, indicating input focus, from button to button, and <Enter> or <Spacebar> to push a button.  If you press <Right> arrow key when you are on the right-most button, or <Left> arrow key when you are on the left-most button, the input focus will move to the list box containing phone book entries.  The next time you press the arrow key, the bold black border will reappear on a button on the other end.


Display Settings

The following display options can be set:

	Show phone# type
Uncheck this option to remove phone# type (home, work, etc.) from the phone book listing.

	Show name & phone# in columns
Check this option to display names and phone numbers in two fixed-size columns.  The width of the first column is equal to the width of the widest name.  That means that if all but one names are 10 letters long, and 1 name is 24 letters long, there will a whole lot of empty space wasted in the list of entries.

	Show notes icon
Uncheck this option to remove notes icon that is located to the left of each entry in the phone list.  The icon provides several shortcuts: it shows if there are any notes attached to the correspondent entry, and double clicking on the notes icon opens Notes window; but removing it from display may save some space.


Print Settings

The following printing options can be set:

	Notes
Check this option to print notes along with name, phone#, and phone# type (home, work, etc.).

Font  -  Push this button to select font used for printer output.

	Print Style: at most 1 entry per page
Check this option to print 1 entry per page.  If notes option is on and notes take more than 1 page, they will continue to be printed on the next page.  The next entry will start with a new page.

	Print Style: continuous
Check this option to print one entry after the other, separated by a horizontal line, with as many lines of text as will fit on a page.


Alphabet Box

Alphabet box can be used to find an entry starting with a particular letter.  Choose 'View/Alphabet Box' menu, if Alphabet box is not shown on screen, then press or click on a letter button to find the entry starting with that letter.  If Alphabet box is shown, but not currently active (another window is active), then press <Alt><F6> to switch between the active window and Alphabet box, if you want to use keyboard. To close the Alphabet box, choose 'View/Alphabet Box' menu again, or select Close from the system menu (the usual way) of the Alphabet box, or press <Esc> when the Alphabet box is active.

Example:

Suppose, you have several names starting with 'H' stored in the phone book.  Open the Alphabet box by choosing 'View/Alphabet Box' menu, then click on or press 'H', and the first entry with the name starting with 'H' will be highlighted.


Context-sensitive information box
Info Box

Click right mouse button on almost any window, dialog box, or button in Practical PhoneBook to get info about the element of the program you clicked on.  The info box will pop up and explain the function or meaning of that element.  To close the info box, click on it using any mouse button, or press <Enter> or <Esc>.


Notes dialog box
Notes window

Notes window is used to view notes that correspond to a currently selected phone book entry.  To open it, push Notes button in the main window, or double-click on the little notes icon to the left of the entry whose notes you want to see, or choose 'View/Notes' menu item.  Besides viewing notes, you can edit the entry whose notes you are viewing by pushing the Edit button in Notes window.  Or, you can dial a phone# stored in notes by first selecting the part of notes text used as a phone# and then pushing Dial button.


Quick List

Quick List allows users to store up to 10 entries (presumably, those referred to most often).  When a name in the quick list is selected, correspondent full list entry is highlighted, and if Notes window is open, the entry's notes are also displayed.  Also, entry's phone# can be dialed directly from the quick list window.  As the Notes window, Quick List window is resizable, and its position is remembered between sessions.

To add an entry to the Quick List, drag the entry from the full phone book list (main list) to the quick list window, or select the entry in the main list, and then choose 'Entry/Add To Quick List' menu item.  To remove an entry from the quick list, select it first, then press Remove button in the Quick List window.

For those interested in accessing phone book files directly with a text editor, names of entries in the quick list are preceeded with the exclamation sign (!).


Dial Pad

Dial pad allows users to manually dial enter and dial a phone# without adding it to the phone book.  Practically, dial pad would be useful in conjuction with dialing parameters set via Dial Settings dialog box, such as Redial if busy and Smart Dialing (automatic addition of 1 to area code).  Use of these options makes dialing with the dial pad more convenient than dialing with a telephone.

If you want to use mouse to compose a phone#, expand the dialog box down by pushing Buttons>> button.  That will reveal more buttons corresponding (more or less) to those on a real telephone.  Once the phone# is entered, push Dial button to start dialing.


History of changes from verson 1.0 to 2.0
History of changes

Version 1.0 to 1.1

Version 1.1 to 1.1a

Version 1.1a to 2.0

Version 2.0 to 2.1

In a short period of time that Practical PhoneBook has been out, it has already undergone 4 upgrades.  This is the evidence that I continue working on the program, trying to make it even easier and more convenient to use.  A lot of changes and enhancements made from one version to another are the result of comments and suggestions of users like yourself.  I thank you for your support.  Also, I want you to understand that it is impossible for me to test the program's dialing features on all possible modem configurations of all possible types of modems you may have.  So, if you have problems with dialing, please notify me and supply exact information about your particular modem and circumstances in which the problem occurred.


Changes from version 1.0 to 1.1

New features

1.  Alphabet box for searching entries by name.

2.  Pop-up info box for quick help about on-screen items.

3.  Dial function was not very smart in reporting results of dial operation (BUSY,  NO DIALTONE, etc.). Once the phone# was attempted to be dialed, the user was on his/her own.  There was no redial or time out feature.  Dialing is now improved.  A message box pops up if phone# is busy, or no carrier is  detected, etc.  There is a time-out set up in the modem automatically.  So, after  about a minute, the modem quits and posts "No carrier" message.  Redialing if busy feature can be set in the Dial Settings dialog box to repeat dialing a phone# until it's not busy.

4.  If no file is specified as command line parameter, the file that was used last is automatically loaded upon start-up.

5.  Drag 'n' Drop. Instead of selecting an entry from the phone book list and then clicking on a button to perform an operation on that entry, now user can click on an entry and then drag it onto a button and drop it to perform an operation.

6.  Font and size used to display the phone book list can be changed now.

7.  Display Settings dialog box, where user can set phone book list viewing parameters.

8.  Search by Notes allows to search for an entry by matching the text user enters to entries' notes.  Both search by notes and by phone# have been enhanced to be forward circular searches.  In the original version, search by phone# always resulted in the same entry found, if the user's input remained the same.  Now, the search starts with entry following the one currently selected, and after the last entry, wraps around and continues with the first one.  In addition, if search is successful, the user's input is remembered till the next search.

9.  Print Settings dialog box, where user can set printing parameters.

For additional information on how to use the listed features, see How to section.

Bug fixes

1.  When phone book entries listbox had the input focus and a letter was pressed to invoke pop-up search box, the search always resulted in the second matching entry found, if there were more than one matching entries.  Bug fixed.

2.  Sometimes modem stayed on-line after the conversation.  Bug seems to have been fixed.

3.  F1 - F12 and Ctrl+letter combinations caused search box to pop up.  Bug fixed.

4.  If notes were longer than about 250 characters, the program crashed when the user tried to edit the entry.  Bug fixed.

5.  If no entry had notes attached to it, the file did not load.  Bug fixed.

6.  After load file operation was aborted, certain operations caused the program to crash.  Bug fixed.


Changes from version 1.1 to 1.1a

New features

1. In dialing, modem init string can now be user-defined, which will make dialing more reliable.

2. Only one instance of the program can be run now, with the first instance automatically activated when the second instance is attempted to be run.

3. The user can enter anything in place of phone# type in "Add" or "Edit entry" dialog box.  Previously, only work and home phone# types were allowed.

Bug fixes

1. Find by Phone# and Find by Notes searches crashed if no item was selected.  Bug fixed.

2. Find by Notes search showed wrong notes if search was unsuccessful.  Bug fixed.

3. Sometimes modem would not initialize.  Bug fixed.


Changes from version 1.1a to 2.0

New features

1. 3D dialog boxes.

2. Better compatibility with colors selected via Control panel.

3. Notes dialog box can now stay open and display notes for each entry while the user browses through the phone book list.  Notes dialog box is resizable, and position is remembered between sessions.

4. Notes dialog box uses the same font as the phone book list.

5. Dial button is added to the Notes dialog box to allow dialing secondary phone#s stored in notes.

6. Next button is introduced in Add Entry dialog box.  When pushed, Next button adds the currently edited entry, and then clears the dialog box for the next entry to be added.

7. The number of entries per file is now only limited by the amount of available memory (very large usually) and amount of text a listbox can hold (rather small), as opposed to previous 64K limit.  Total amount of notes per file is also unlimited now; however, there is still 32K (a lot!) limit on notes per entry.  Practically, because of the listbox size limitation and my disinclination to deal with that unless urged otherwise, the maximum number of entries per file will be about 1800-2000.

8. Quick List window is new.  It allows users to store up to 10 entries (presumably, those referred to most often).  When a name in the quick list is selected, correspondent full list entry is highlighted, and if Notes window is open, the entry's notes are also displayed.  Also, phone# can be dialed directly from the quick list window.  As the Notes window, Quick List window is resizable, its position is remembered between sessions, and it uses the same, user-selected font, as the rest of the program.

9. Search by notes is now case insensitive (it was case sensitive before, so that "Clement" did not match "clement") .  When entry's notes are found, the matching text from notes is highlighted (previously, just the Notes window would open, but the matching text was not pinpointed to the user).

10. Find by Name menu option has been changed.  Previously, it simply invoked pop-up search box that would appear anyway when a letter was typed.  Now, 'Entry/Find by Name' opens a dialog box that conducts search for an entry by a part of name.  For example, search string "el" will find the entry whose name includes "el", like "Michael".

11. Pop-up info box has been extended to work in every window and dialog box of the program (except where it would be redundant).  Previously, it only worked in the main window.

12. Show notes icon option is added to Display Settings dialog box.

13. Printing now works correctly with lines of notes longer than page width, with text automatically wrapped to the next line.  Previously, the text that did not fit page width, was clipped out.

14. Smart Dialing checkbox has been added to Dial Settings dialog box to automatically handle addition of "1" to phone#s wiith area codes.

15. Configure Buttons dialog box is new.  It allows to reassign actions performed when graphical buttons at the bottom of the main window are pushed, and also the action performed upon a double click on an item in the phone book list.

Changes of existent features

1. Menus have been rearranged to accomodate new features.  View menu has been added.

2. Now, you can run several instances of Practical PhoneBook at once (it was prevented in version 1.1a); however, every time you load another instance, a message is posted to remind you that an instance is already running, and you have a choice of either to reactivate the running instance, or start a new one.

3. Use prefix checkbox has been removed from Dial Settings dialog box.

Bug fixes

1. If non-phonebook file was attempted to be loaded, the program was likely to crash.  Bug fixed.

2. If notes with more than about 250 characters per line were loaded, the program might crash or not function correctly.  Bug fixed.


Changes from version 2.0 to 2.1

New features

1. Max number of letters in a name has been increased from 24 to 35, in "other" phone type field - to 15.  Dialing prefix has also been expanded to 5 letters instead of 1.

2. Font button was added to Print Settings dialog box to allow to set font of the printed output.  Previously, text was always printed in System font.

3. "Redial until not busy" feature will now work wherever a dialing operation can be started (from Notes window, and Dial Pad), not only from main window.

4. Special characters * (star) and , (comma) can now be included in a phone#.

5. Progress is now displayed during print operation.

6. Dial Pad is new - allows to manually enter a phone# to dial without entering it in the phone book.

7. Several Copy commands have been added to Entry menu to allow placing contents of phone book entries (with or without notes) to the clipboard.

8. Dialing now detects a modem response on the other end of the line and in such case, automatically switches to terminal mode, in which you can communicate with another modem using simple TTY (plain text) terminal emulation.  This means that now you can store electronic on-line service numbers in the phone book and dial those services directly from Practical PhoneBook.  The terminal emulation is, of course, very simple and useful only for an occasional communication session; it is not designed to replace a full-blown communications program.

9. Status bar displays explanations as you browse through menus.

10. CardFile files can now be imported in Practical PhoneBook the same way phone book files are loaded: through File/Open menu, and then Open dialog box.  In order to be considered a card file, it has to have "crd" extension.

11. When no initial text is selected (highlighted) in the Notes window and you press Dial button, Practical PhoneBook will try to make a guess for you by finding and highlighting the first sequence of letters that look like a phone#.

Changes of existent features

1. Notes icon used to be crossed out if no notes existed for a correspondent list entry.  Now, notes icons are placed only next to entries that contain notes.

2. In connection with addition of terminal support to dialing operation (new feature #8), Dial Settings dialog box now contains more controls for setting up communications parameters (baud rate, parity, etc.).

Bug fixes

1. If right mouse button was clicked in another program's window, while Practical PhoneBook was running, that program was likely to crash.  Bug fixed.

2. Practical PhoneBook produced an unnecessary screen redraw when started, which, reportedly, is some cases, caused Norton Desktop to "lose" desktop icons.  Bug fixed.

3. I further worked on dialing operation to eliminate reported problems.


Smart dialing

Smart dialing is a general term for any kind of intelligence built into the dialing operation.  Currently, Practical PhoneBook supports only the following "smart" features:

 automatic addition of "1" to phone numbers that have area codes


Terminal emulation

Practical PhoneBook monitors progress of phone calls it makes and if it detects modem-to-modem connection, it automatically launches a terminal emulation window.  This feature is useful if you want to store phone numbers of electronic services, or bulletin board services, or your friends' modems, in your phone book.  Terminal emulation is an experimental feature in Practical PhoneBook, and as such is not very powerful.  In supports text only communications (TTY emulation).  Many points to which you might want to connect will support this simple protocol, although a few BBSs will not.  Those BBSs use ANSI protocol which allows to display color block graphics (made of little block characters) along with text.  Those services often give you an option whether you want ANSI graphics or not.  Choose "No" for use with Practical PhoneBook.  The program also does not support any file upload/download protocols.  So, all you can use the terminal emulation window for is to have a quick session with your on-line service to read or create e-mail, check out some news, and that kind of thing.  If I get positive response about the (potential) usefulness of the terminal emulation feature, I will work further on it to make it more like a normal communications program.  However, until that time, see if you find this feature useful.


Importing files from other formats

Practical PhoneBook can currently import only CardFile files.  Simply open a CardFile file the same way as you open Practical PhoneBook native files.  The file will be automatically converted and treated as a new file, so that you will have to save it in the PhoneBook format when you are done.  Since, conversion can only approximately map CardFile's format into Practical PhoneBook's, you will most likely need to edit the imported file.

Conversion note

Keep in mind that CardFile's logical card structure is very different from that of Practical PhoneBook.  In CardFile, for each card, you have index and notes fields.  In Practical PhoneBook, however, you also have phone# and phone# type fields.  When importing from CardFile, Practical PhoneBook tries to make certain guesses about contents of each card's notes section.  Specifically, it attempts to extract the first sequence of letters that looks like a phone# into its phone# field, and if there is text preceding the "supposed" phone# in the card, Practical PhoneBook assumes that's a phone# type.  The rest of the card's notes is put into each entry's notes section.  Index field of each card is directly taken to be the name field in each phone book entry.