Copyright: ® James A. Murray
Citation: The BookBinder is the work of James A. Murray


main screen

The BookBinder is a utility to let you view some of the dozens of reference files that clutter up most power users' hard drives. The most important references are likely to be Help files. Others can be Windows Write files and ASCII text files with a file suffix of .txt.

You can assign any of these to a button and have them ready, a mouse-click away.

The BookBinder aims at doing this one thing only, but doing it easily and well. Below are some finer points that are not so obvious.

Launching by keycodes

Blank buttons

The INI file

Resizing the buttons

Paths


keycodes

If you type an ampersand (&) as part of your new button's caption, BookBinder will consider the character following it to be a Windows "Hot" key.

For example, suppose you "bind" a button to the "Help" file for Windows' Cardfile. If you type:

when the program asks you for a new name, BookBinder will make your button look like this:

The next time you launch the BookBinder, you'll be able to bring up Cardfile Help by hitting Alt - c.


blank buttons

If you don't enter any caption at all for a button, BookBinder thinks that button is unnassigned and it won't launch any Help file. Ever.

If you want to assign a button and leave it blank for some reason, the way to do it is to enter a space or two (just hit the spacebar) in the New Name box.


the INI file

The BookBinder keeps track of your button captions, Help files, data paths, button configurations and the like by maintaining a file, BKBNDR.INI, in your Windows directory.

You can edit this file yourself, if you wish, with a text editor like Notepad.

You can also delete BKBNDR.INI without serious ill effect. You'll just start with a fresh set of blank buttons the next time you load the BookBinder.


Resizing the buttons

You can resize the BookBinder window, and hence the buttons, sideways in this version of the program. This is so you can enter long captions for your documents and make sure your buttons will still display them.

There's a problem, though; if you shrink the buttons down to the point where the system menu wraps, so that it takes two lines instead of one, the program pushes your last button offscreen. Therefore, don't do this (I don't know why you'd want to, anyway).

If you've got a "fix" for this, by the way, I'd love to hear from you. Rattle my cage.


Paths

The BookBinder expects to find three applications, WinHelp, Windows Write, and the Notepad, in a directory designated by a PATH statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. In ninety-nine percent of Windows installations, these programs are in the C:\Windows subdirectory.

If you have some kind ot bizarre, nonstandard configuration, though, (some people nuke Windows Write, for crying out loud), BookBinder is  probably going to stall trying to find those programs.


main screen

This is your "No Fluff" Online Guide. It aims at doing one thing only, namely viewing and launching Windows "Help" files -- but doing it easily and well.

To assign a "Help" file to a button, select the File Assign command from the menu bar (or just hit Control - a). A screen appears that lets you navigate around your system, picking "Help" files and viewing them and, if you wish, assigning one to a button. Just click and drag from the Help file's name to the button you want.

Below are some finer points.

Launching by keycodes

Blank buttons

The INI file


keycodes

If you type an ampersand (&) as part of your new button's caption, the Online Guide will consider the character following it to be a Windows "Hot" key.

For example, suppose you assign a button to the "Help" file for Windows' Cardfile. If you type:

&Cardfile

when the program asks you for a new name, Online Guide will make your button look like this:

The next time you launch the Online Guide, you'll be able to bring up Cardfile Help by hitting Alt - c.


blank buttons

If you don't enter any caption at all for a button, Online Guide thinks that button is unnassigned and it won't launch any Help file. Ever.

If you want to assign a button and leave it blank for some reason, the way to do it is to enter a space or two (just hit the spacebar) in the New Name box.


the INI file

The Online Guide keeps track of your button captions, your "Help" files, and the paths to them by writing and maintaining a file, OLG.INI, in your Windows directory.

You can edit this file yourself, if you wish, with a text editor like Notepad.

You can also delete OLG.INI without serious ill effect. You'll just start with a fresh set of blank buttons the next time you load the Online Guide.