TV Agent    Help Screens                         Copyright 1993 Lee Bonnifield

This file is a combination of ALL the help screens you will see at various
places when you hit the HELP buttons. They are arranged in an order that makes
it reasonable(?) to read as documentation but some of it will make more sense
when you see it in context.

If you start at the TV Agent Main Menu
   and hit these buttons:              you will see help for these topics:
   |                                   |
A  HELP                                Main menu buttons
B  HELP  anykey  OVERVIEW              How to use TV Agent        ┌─────────┐
C  HELP  anykey  BUTTONS               How to operate the command │ buttons │
D  HELP  anykey  X                     How to use other controls  └─────────┘
   HELP  anykey  HELP    - this is what you're looking at now
E  USER  HELP (no user selected)       How and why to set up user names
F  USER  HELP (user has been selected) Other buttons on the User form
G  USER  SETUP  HELP                   Options for moving thru listings
H  USER  SETUP  AUTOSCROLL  HELP       How to use autoscroll
I  USER  SETUP  REVIEW  HELP           How to review hilites and deletes
J  SETUP  HELP                         Date, time, time zone, excluded channels
K  OTHER  HELP  START                  Starting points for looking at listings
L  OTHER  HELP  END                    Stopping points for looking at listings
M  OTHER  HELP  ALLHI                  Showing all listings or only hilites
N  OTHER  HELP  DISPLAY                Displaying on screen or printing on paper
O  CURRENT  H 1=moving 2=details 3=deleting 4=hiliting (looking at listings)
P  CURRENT  ?  H                       Fields shown on full detail screen
|
Type this letter if you want to jump to any of those help screens right now.

Z  Type "Z" if you want to print out all those help files at once (17 pages)


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A  HELP                                Main menu buttons

┌──────────┐ lets you set the clock in your computer to make sure the date and
│  Set up  │ time are correct. You can also tell TV Agent what time zone you
└──────────┘ are in so that the listings will show your local time instead of
(or ALT-S)   Eastern Standard Time.  If there are channels in the listings that
             no user cares about they can be eliminated for all users.

┌──────────┐ shows you a list of users and lets you add or delete users. You
│  Users   │ must select your user name from the list before TV Agent shows you
└──────────┘ listings or records your preferences. The next four buttons (which
(or ALT-U)   take you to the listings) are disabled before a user is selected.

┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ Ways to look at listings
│ Current  │ │ Tomorrow │ │  Print   │ │  Other   │ First 3 may be all you need
└──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ "Other" is flexible
(or ALT-R)    (or ALT-T)   (or ALT-P)   (or ALT-O)  More help is available when
                                                you are looking at the listings
┌──────────┐
│   Help   │ displays this text. More help is available, including an overview
└──────────┘ of how to use TV Agent and how to print out all the help files, on
(or ALT-H)   the menu that will appear as soon as you leave this screen.
┌──────────┐
│  Cancel  │ stop TV Agent and return to DOS.
└──────────┘
(or ALT-C or ESC)


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B  HELP  anykey  OVERVIEW              How to use TV Agent

TV Agent displays the details of up to date listings, highlighting the
programs you've told it you are interested in, and deleting listings you
don't want to see.

┌──────────┐
│   Help   │
└──────────┘
Almost all forms have explanations which you see by clicking on the Help
button or typing ALT-H. Most of the explanations are just one screen long.
There are two long explanations - this one, and several you'll see when
you ask for help while looking at the listings. If you want to get a
printed copy of all the help files, you will be able to request that on
the form following this help file.

┌──────────┐
│  Set Up  │
└──────────┘
The first time you use TV Agent, use Set Up to make the listings appear
for your local time if you don't live in the Eastern Time Zone. Set Up is
also the way to delete channels you don't receive, if you want to delete
them for all users at once. You can also set your computer's date and time
here.

┌──────────┐
│  Users   │
└──────────┘
The Users button will let you add your name to the list of users so your
personal preferences can be saved. One person may set up several user
names for different purposes. Everytime you enter TV Agent you will have
to select your user name from the list, or enter it as part of the command
line like
C:\TVAGENT> tvagent joe
if "joe" is one of the user names which you have already set up. Except
for "Set Up" functions TV Agent can not do anything without knowing which
user is current, so until you specify a user the buttons for seeing
listings are disabled (they look gray on the screen). When you have
selected a user, there is a separate Set Up button on the User form that
lets you set a couple of options that will apply to only that user. After
you return from the User form the listings buttons will be enabled.

               ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐
Listings       │ Current  │ │ Tomorrow │ │  Print   │ │  Other   │
               └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘
Every day starting at about 2 PM EST your BBS provides listings for
today and the following 7 days. The listings you get today for tomorrow's
programs include schedule changes that were made as late as yesterday.
Details like episode descriptions or talk show guests that are not settled
in time for printed guides, or which would take up too much printed space,
are often available from your BBS. You can choose to see all the
details available, for all the listings available, but the major benefit
of TV Agent comes from eliminating listings you are not interested in.
That way what remains does not take long for you to read. You can print
all the listings you see, but the best way to use TV Agent is to hilite on
the screen listings you are particularly interested in, and then print
only the hilited listings.

At first you will see ALL the listings that are available. New channels
will be added and new locations for old programming services will be
updated as soon as your BBS knows. You can delete listings by
channel, by title or by type. You can hilite program titles or types or
channels you are particularly interested in, and TV Agent will show them
hilited whenever they appear. You can also hilite or delete a particular
listing without affecting future listings. When you are actually looking
at listings more help is available describing how to hilite and delete.

You may only need the "Current" "Tomorrow" and "Print" buttons on the
Main Menu. When you put a user name on the command line starting TV Agent,
the "Current" button is pushed automatically and you are quickly looking
at the listings for programs that are about to start. You can back up to
see what is on now. Look thru the listings as far as you want, or jump
around with the function keys.

If you push the "Tomorrow" button you can move around the listings in
exactly the same way. The only difference is that you will start at the
listing for midnight tonight rather than starting at the current time.
As you look thru the listings, hilite listings that interest you by
hitting the "+" key (or INS or ENTER key). With the LEFT and RIGHT keys
you can focus on the channel, type, or title and hilite just that field.
When you hilite a field it will show up hilited whenever it appears again.
You delete listings in the same way, with the "-" key (or DEL key). If you
focus on a field and delete the entry in that field (the channel, type, or
title) no listings with that entry will show up in the future. Use the "?"
key (or "/" or "5") to see more details of a listing.

When you push the "Print" button the hilited listings for tomorrow will be
printed. If you have not hilited anything, nothing will print. If you are
in a hurry and you have already hilited the programs you are interested in
by their channel, type, or title, you can skip the step of looking at the
listings on screen and go straight to the step of pushing the "Print"
button. (But if you do that you will miss listings for new series or
specials that you could not have hilited in advance.) You can not hilite
or delete or see details while you are printing because TV Agent does not
stop the display until it reaches the end point - the listings just scroll
on by on screen without you hitting a key. You can interrupt the printing
by hitting ESC or "Q".

Sometimes you may want to use the "Other" button to do something that
won't happen with the "Current" "Tomorrow" or "Print" buttons. For
instance you may want to print the hilites for the whole rest of the week;
or you may want to print listings for some period whether they are hilited
or not; or you may want to see only hilited listings on the screen. The
"Other" button will present you with a form on which you specify the
starting point, the stopping point, whether to show all listings or only
hilited listings, and whether to print.

Strategy for hiliting and deleting fields and lines =====================

When you are looking at listings, hit H for help and you will find more
detailed help about what kinds of deletions and hilites you can make.

"Hiliting" and "deleting" are the ways you tell TV Agent your preferences.
You hilite a listing by hitting the "+" key or the ENTER key, and it then
shows up on the screen in reversed print, like it has a yellow band behind
it. (Listings that have not been hilited are in yellow print on a blue
background.) You delete a listing by hitting the "-" or DELETE key, and it
then shows up with red print on a black background. Hilited listings stand
out whenever they appear on the screen so you will be sure to notice them.
Deleted listings don't appear at all - once they scroll off the screen,
you can go back over the same time period and they will not appear.

Both hiliting and deleting can be done on either a whole listing or on one
field of the listing. When you hilite a whole listing, the yellow band
appears behind the entire line on the screen. This sort of hiliting does
not affect any other listing. If you delete a whole listing, the entire
line shows up red on black, and that listing will disappear when it
scrolls off; but deleting a whole listing does not affect any other
listing - so if you delete a whole line listing "Sesame Street" at 4 PM it
will appear again in tomorrow's listings.

When you hilite one of the three fields (channel, type, or title) the
yellow band appears only behind that field. Field hilites affect all the
listings you have received and all the listings you ever will receive from
your BBS (unless you undo the hilite later.) For instance if you
hilite once the title field on a listing where the title is "NOVA" then
whenever a listing appears with the title "NOVA" the title will show up
hilited, no matter what channel it appears on. If you delete the title
field on a listing with the title "Sesame Street" then the title field
will show up with red print on a black background while that listing is on
the screen. But when it scrolls off the screen it will not scroll back on
if you try to go back to it, and no listings with that title will appear
again.

The more deleting you do, the less time you will waste passing over
listings for channels you don't receive or for programs you are not
interested in. You only have to tell TV Agent once that you don't get
ESPN G5-9, and all those listings will never be displayed. If you know
that you don't want to see ANY episodes of "Laverne and Shirley", tell TV
Agent that the first time one appears. Or any time you see a listing for a
program type (eg DAYTIME SOAP or GAME SHOW) that you know you will never
be interested in, tell TV Agent to stop listing any programs with that
type. You can also delete channels you don't receive at the System Set Up
form, so they will automatically be deleted for all users at this site.

The more hiliting you do the closer TV Agent can come to finding your
preferences automatically. If you wanted listings for the same set of
programs every week and you hilited those titles for one week, you would
never have to look at other listings again because TV Agent could print
out only those hilited titles whenever they appear in future BBS
downloads.

Most people will look at the listings before TV Agent prints them. That
way you will see your favorite programs with their title fields hilited,
and you might add whole line hilites to particular episodes of other
titles. You might also remove the hilite from a particular episode without
affecting the hilite on the series. And you might see new titles you want
to hilite.

You can print one listing at a time as you come to it, showing just its
date and time, channel, program type, title, and duration; or showing all
the details known about it. When you are satisfied that all the listings
you want to be reminded of (during a day, or a week, or whatever period
you choose) are hilited, tell TV Agent to print only the hilited listings
from that period.

You may want to set up one user with your name and your preferences, and
also set up other user names for special purposes. For instance you could
have a user name "EDUCATIONAL" and the only hilites it has are field
hilites on the channel field when the channel is PBS or TLC or DISC. When
you print the hilited listings for that user you will be getting a
complete program schedule for those channels. You could have another user
who has hilites only on the program types "MOVIE" and "TV MOVIE", to get a
list of movies. If you want to check on whether a particular program will
be repeated during the week you could hilite only that title for a
temporary user.

With this early version of TV Agent you may not want to do whole line
hilites many days in advance. If today is Tuesday and you got the latest
listings from your BBS today, you might want to stop hiliting and
deleting particular listings at the end of Wednesday's listings. This is
because if you get more listings from your BBS tomorrow (Wednesday)
you will be getting a fresher version of the schedule for Thursday. If you
hilite or delete particular listings in Thursday's schedule today
(Tuesday) those whole line hilites and deletions will be lost when (on
Wednesday) you get the new Thursday schedule. You will NOT lose hilites
and deletions of fields - the channel, type or title hilites can be done
as far in advance as you want. Hiliting and deleting whole lines may still
be something you want to do, if for instance you routinely only look at
the listings on Sunday and you mark and print the whole week at once. If
you do hilite or delete a whole line beyond the end of the fresh listings
TV Agent will warn you, once.

Receiving listings files from your BBS ============================

If you want to get all the listings that are available, mark all the files
you see named like TVLIST01.ARC, TVLIST02.ARC, ... TVLIST31.ARC for
downloading from your BBS. The number in the filename is the day of
the month contained in the listings. Eight files (two of them new) will be
available each day about 2 PM. [ In the future the listings might be put
in the datastream as early as 6 AM (noon on weekends.) ] If today is
Monday the 15th of the month, TVLIST15.ARC will contain the listings for
the current day. TVLIST16.ARC contains newly updated listings for
tomorrow. TVLIST22.ARC will contain listings for the Monday one week
later. That file will be transmitted for the first time on the 15th, then
again on the 16th, 17th, and every day until it is replaced with an
updated TVLIST22 on the 21st. (The listings run from midnight to 11:59 PM
EASTERN time. If you are in the Pacific time zone, the first listing in
the TVLIST16.ARC file will be for 9 PM Pacific time on the night of the
15th. If you are in the Atlantic time zone, the first listing in
TVLIST16.ARC will be for 1 AM the morning of the 16th.)

If you don't have much disk space, you do not have to get all eight days
listings; each day takes about 300,000 bytes of disk space after TV Agent
unzips it. TV Agent will work with whatever days you have and
automatically deletes files for listings of days that have passed. To
minimize the disk space used for listings, you could mark only tomorrow's
file (TVLIST02.ARC if today is the first of the month) for reception, and
still see all the listings for today and tomorrow. (You do not have to
mark TVLIST01.ARC if you received it yesterday.) The advantage of
receiving all the listings available is that you can look at listings for
the day after tomorrow, and the whole week, if you have received all the
listings. Even if you only call your BBS once a week, on
whatever day you choose, you will still get listings for the whole week,
if download all of the eight files that are available.


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                                                                  ┌─────────┐
C  HELP  anykey  BUTTONS               How to operate the command │ buttons │
                                                                  └─────────┘
                                     ┌───────────┐
                        About these  │  Buttons  │
                                     └───────────┘
The commands inside rectangles are like push buttons.
If you're using a mouse, just click on a button to activate it.
If you're using the keyboard, hold down the ALT key and type the letter that is
hilited in the button.            ╔════════╗
If you see a double line around a ║ button ║ that is TV Agent's guess about
                                  ╚════════╝
what button you are most likely to use next. If the button with the double line
is the one you want, you can push it by hitting ENTER or SPACE.
╔════════╗
║   OK   ║  - push this button to signal you're thru selecting from the choices
╚════════╝    presented to you.
┌────────┐
│ Cancel │  - push this button to return to the previous screen without
└────────┘    changing anything. You can also push it by hitting the ESC key.

The double line will move from one button to another when you hit one of the
arrow keys, TAB, or SHIFT-TAB; but it isn't always obvious which button it is
going to move to next, so it is easier to use the ALT+hilited letter method.

A button shown with gray print and a gray border has been disabled because it
can't be used in the current context.


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D  HELP  anykey  X                     How to use other controls

Besides buttons there are lists, options, and check boxes. Clicking on these
comes naturally if you have a mouse. If you are using the keyboard, you select
a control by holding down the ALT key and hitting the letter that is hilited in
the control's description. The arrow keys or the TAB key will also move from
one control to another.

When you are working with a list, a bar will hilite one of the items in the
list. The up and down arrow keys will move the bar. But if the cursor is not
already in the list, the up and down arrow keys will move the double ring from
one button to another instead of moving the list's hilite bar. In that case hit
the TAB key until the cursor is in the list, and then the hilite bar will start
moving. When the cursor is in the list you can also quickly move to a
particular item in the list by typing the first letter of that item. (You don't
use the ALT key to select an item in the list.)

Options look like a column of parentheses ( ) with one of them selected () .
If the cursor is in this column the up and down arrow keys will move the dot
from one option to another; but it is simpler to select the option you want by
typing the hilited letter in the option along with the ALT key.

A check box looks like [ ] if you are not using the feature it controls. It
looks like [X] if you are using that feature. Change it by typing the hilited
letter in the description along with the ALT key.


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E  USER  HELP (no user selected)       How and why to set up user names

TV Agent keeps track of your preferences and the listings you have seen by
saving them with your user name. No user has been selected, so some of the
buttons are disabled. If you start TV Agent from DOS by putting a user name on
the command line (like C:\TVAGENT> TVAGENT JOE) it will jump thru the opening
menus and go straight to Joe's listings for the current time.

When you press the Down arrow key a black bar will appear behind the first user
name and all the buttons will be enabled. You can move the black hilite bar up
and down with the arrow keys to select a different user. A faster way to jump
to a user name is to type the first letter of the name.

Hit this Help button again after you have selected a user to see more help on
the other User functions.

The first time you use TV Agent you must Add a user. Later you may want to add
more users for different people who use this TV Agent and have different
preferences. You may also want to set up special user names that help you find
particular programs - for instance, if you want a quick view of all the movies
that are contained in the current listings you could set up a user name
"MOVIES" and have that user hilite a listing with Type = MOVIE and another
listing with TYPE = TV MOVIE . Then if you select that user name and look at
only the hilited listings, you will get a list of all the movies. You could
have another user called "SPORTS" and another called "SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN".
User names can be up to 24 characters long. It all becomes upper case.


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F  USER  HELP (user has been selected) Other buttons on the User form

┌────────┐
│   OK   │ Whichever user is hilited when you hit the OK button becomes the
└────────┘ current user, and TV Agent applies that user's preferences to the
           listings. Any changes in preferences and changes to bookmarks are
           saved with that user name.
┌────────┐
│ Delete │ If you want to delete a user select her name first and then use
└────────┘ the Delete button. Deleting a user causes TV Agent to forget all
           the preferences and bookmarks associated with that user, and the
           name will be removed from the list.
┌────────┐
│  Add   │ There can be up to 99 users in the list, and at that point you
└────────┘ must delete an existing user before adding a new one. New user
           names can be up to 24 characters long.

┌────────┐
│ Set Up │The Set Up button lets you specify a few preferences about how
└────────┘listings will be displayed for the current user. Listings can scroll
          by automatically without you having to hit a key, at a speed you
          choose. The details for every listing can be shown without you having
to request them for each listing. You control how many listings fit on the
screen at once. You can review what you've hilited and deleted. (Don't confuse
this with the System Set Up, where you set other options for ALL users at once.)


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G  USER  SETUP  HELP                   User options for displaying listings

If you don't want to hit a key at all and just let the listings scroll by, turn
the Autoscroll feature on. Instructions for how to adjust the speed with which
listings go by will appear when you select that option. Hitting the down arrow
key while Autoscroll is on will temporarily scroll faster. Up works too. The
space bar will stop the scrolling and start it again.

The default display for a new user is not to skip a line between listings. If
you want the screen not to be so crowded, you can put an "X" in the "Skip
between listings" checkbox.

The default display uses the standard print size that puts 25 lines on the
screen. If you add the "X" to the "Use tiny print" checkbox, an EGA display will
switch to 43 line mode, and a VGA display switches to 50 line mode.

A "+" in the column under the cursor indicates there are more details available
which you can see by hitting "?" or "/" or "5". If you select the option to
"Always show Details", whenever a listing with a "+" comes onto the screen at
the bottom the full details will automatically be shown. When you are thru
reading the details, hit a key, and the regular display will reappear in case
you want to hilite or delete. Autoscroll can be used at the same time as
showing all details, but you still must hit a key to signal you are thru
reading the details. Page Up works but Page Down is disabled when you are using
the Always Show Details function.


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H  USER  SETUP  AUTOSCROLL  HELP         How to use autoscroll

Do you really want to use this mode? If you don't like to hit keys and would
rather just let the listings roll on by, this is for you. It is also known as
MEGO-mode, for "My Eyes Glaze Over" but the listings keep scrolling.

Set the speed that suits you best by entering a number as explained on the
previous screen (which you will see again as soon as you hit a key from this
screen.) A delay of "20" is reasonable on a 286-16 computer; use a higher
number to slow down a faster computer. A lower number scrolls faster. The
normal setting is "0" which means autoscrolling is off.

Holding the Down key will temporarily speed up the scrolling. When
autoscrolling is on you can back up to something that scrolled off the top by
hitting Up or Page Up, but as soon as you release that key the cursor will
start moving down again. So if you want a closer look at a listing it is much
easier to stop the scrolling first, by hitting the SPACE BAR. When you are thru
looking at details or hiliting and deleting, hit the SPACE BAR again to restart
the autoscrolling.

If you are using the "Always show Details" function at the same time as
autoscrolling, the full details screen will appear whenever a listing with a
"+" scrolls onto the bottom of the screen. That detail screen will remain until
you hit a key.


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I  USER  SETUP  REVIEW  HELP         How to review hilites and deletes

This form lets you see alphabetized lists of the fields you have marked as
either hilites or deletes. You choose what should be listed by picking a field
from the first frame (Channels, Types, or Titles) and picking either Hilites or
Deletes from the second frame. Then push the "Show +/-" button.

If you see something in the list that should not be there, move the list bar to
that item and then push the "Set to Normal" button (or double click on the item
in the list). "Set to Normal" is disabled until you have picked an item.

The "Save Change" button is enabled after you have used the "Set to Normal"
button. You must push the "Save Change" button before you display another list
or the changes you make to the list are NOT SAVED.

Push "OK" to leave this form after you are thru looking at and changing lists.
If you made changes to the list that is displayed when you push "OK" and you
have not saved them, you will be asked if you want to save the changes.

You can move thru the list with Up, Down, Page Up, and Page Down, Home, and End;
you can also jump to an item by typing its first letter.

Channels that were deleted on the System Set Up form will not show up on this
form, and if you want them to be displayed in the program listings you must
remove them from the list you see after pushing "Set Up" on the Main Menu,
instead of Set Up on the User Menu (which is how you got here.)


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J SETUP  HELP                         Date, time, time zone, excluded channels

These options affect all users.

The date and time of the computer must be set so TV Agent can show you what is
on now. TV Agent decides correctly which listings should be available if the
clock is correct BEFORE starting TV Agent.

If you are not in the Eastern Time Zone, you need to let TV Agent know how many
hours difference there is between your time zone and Eastern time. If you don't
change this option from its default value "0" all listings will be displayed as
if you are on Eastern time. You'll be prompted about what number to enter.

There are probably many channels listed which you do not receive.  If you have
no desire to see those listings, you should delete those channels from the list
(with yellow print on a blue background) on the System Set Up form. Then
listings for those channels will automatically be eliminated no matter which
user is current. If you do not delete a channel from the list then each user
will have to delete it if she does not want its listings to be displayed.

One button associated with the channel selection will swap the display, either
showing the channels that will be displayed in the TV Agent listings (yellow on
blue), or showing the channels that you have eliminated from the listings (red
on black.) The other button is only active when you have hilited a channel. It
will change the status of the hilited channel. Mouse users can move a channel
from one list to the other by double clicking on the channel.


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K OTHER  HELP  START               Starting points for looking at listings

There are several likely starting points for you to choose from, to pick the
first listing that will be displayed. The up and down arrows will move the dot,
or you can hold down the ALT key and type the hilited number. When you hit the
OK button whichever option has the dot describes the first listing you will see.

( ) At the Beginning of the listings - the meaning of this is obvious, but the
ALT-0   listing is probably for a program that is already over.

( ) At the Latest listing you have seen - A bookmark is saved whenever you quit
ALT-1                                   | looking at listings so you can easily
( ) At the listing where you last Quit  | start again at the same place; and in
ALT-2   case you move backwards before quitting, another bookmark is set at the
        latest listing you saw (the bottom listing on the latest page you saw.)

( ) What is about to start - this is the default starting point. If you want to
ALT-3   know what is on now, hit Page Up when the listings appear.

( ) You Pick some other date & time - If you don't like any of the other
ALT-4   options, select this. After you hit OK you will be prompted for a
        starting date and time. If there are no listings at that time the first
        listing you see will be just after that time.

( ) Same place you started last time - use this if you want to print listings
ALT-5   in the range you just looked thru.


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L OTHER  HELP  END                 Stopping points for looking at listings

Setting a stopping point is most important when you are printing, so you don't
get a longer printout than you want. If you are looking at the listings on the
screen, you can always stop at any time using the ESC or Q keys, but it is
handy to have picked a stopping point where the display will stop automatically.

( ) 24 Hours later - if you routinely look at new listings every day it is
ALT-6          useful to be reminded when you have reached a listing 24 hours
               later than the point where you started looking.

( ) Where you last quit - this is the same listing shown as one of the starting
ALT-7          point options. It is likely to be a good choice if you are about
               to print hilited listings for the period you just looked at.

( ) End of fresh listings - If you look at listings later than this, remember
ALT-8         that tomorrow your BBS will give you updated (fresher)
              listings for the day after tomorrow. If you hilite or delete whole
              listings later than the day after tomorrow those marks will be
              lost when the listings are updated. You will NOT lose deletions or
              hilites you make on fields (channel, type, or title.)

( ) Pick a date and time - after you hit the OK button you will be prompted for
ALT-9         a stopping point.

( ) End       - the last listing available
ALT-E


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M OTHER  HELP  ALLHI               Showing all listings or only hilites

When you are a new user, there are no hilited listings. So the first time you
look at listings the default is to "See All listings". Actually if you have
eliminated some channels on the System Set Up screen you will not see ALL the
listings that are supplied; and later when you have deleted other fields or
whole listings, you will not see them either when you select "See All listings."

( ) See All listings  -  Probably in your later routine use of TV Agent you will
(ALT-A)                  look at all the listings first, adjusting the hilites,
                         and then look thru them again seeing only the hilited
                         listings and printing them on paper.

( ) Only hilited listings - If you are in a hurry, and you have hilited some
(ALT-I)                  fields, you might even choose this option first,
                         skipping the step of looking thru a new day's listings
with the "See All listings" option. If you are ONLY interested in the same
titles every week (or have set up a user name specifically for this purpose),
and have gone thru one week's listings hiliting all the titles you want to see,
then TV Agent will show you those specific titles and nothing else. But if you
don't look thru each day's listings at least once using the "See All listings"
option, you will not have the opportunity to add whole line hilites to
particular listings, or to spot new series since they will not yet have a hilite
on the title field. While you are looking at listings you can skip this menu,
and switch between "All" and "Only" with the "A" and "O" keys.


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N OTHER  HELP  DISPLAY             Displaying on screen or printing on paper

Screen    - This is the usual choice about where to display the listings. This
(ALT-S)     lets you hilite or delete, move back and forth, and see details.
            You can also print, but only one listing at a time.

Printer   - If you select this option the listings will be printed. They will
(ALT-P)     also be displayed on the screen but they will scroll right by until
            they reach the stopping point you set (or until you hit ESC or Q to
            interrupt the display.)

Usually you will look thru the listings for tomorrow on the screen, hiliting and
deleting lines and fields. Then you'll print out the hilited listings. You can
do that simply from the Main Menu by using the Tomorrow button and then the
Print button. If you had just looked thru tomorrow's listings you could get the
same printout from this screen with these selections: For Starting point, pick
"Same place you started last time". For Stopping Point pick "Where you last
quit". Choose the "Only hilited listings" option and the display on "Printer"
option. That will give you a copy of the hilited listings on paper. If you
wanted a different sort of printout, for instance the listings for the whole
week for The Learning Channel, you could pick the user with only TLC hilited,
and then choose the beginning and end of the listings for starting and stopping.

But you can also get a printout during your first pass thru the listings, if
you print one line at a time by hitting "P" whenever the cursor is on a line
you want to print. If you display the details (by hitting "?/" or"5") and hit
"P" while the details are showing, you will get a printout of all the details.

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O  CURRENT  H          ------------ Help while viewing listings -----------

Put down your mouse - all functions are done from the keyboard when you
are looking at listings! Mouse support will be available in a later
version. The numeric keypad contains the keys you need for most functions.

As you look at listings, whenever you can, tell TV Agent whether the
program is:

1) so UNinteresting you don't want listings like this to appear at all

2) sometimes interesting, sometimes not - show these listings

3) interesting enough to mark it, make the listing show up hilited
   whenever it appears

"Deleting listings" is how you put them in category 1, and the more you
delete, the fewer useless listings you have to look at.

"Hiliting listings" is how you put them in category 3. After you have
looked thru a day's listings, print the hilited listings so you have a
hard copy showing ONLY what you decided you are interested in.
More help is available on these topics:
1 - Moving thru listings          3 - Deleting listings
2 - Seeing details of listings    4 - Hiliting listings    ESC or Q - end help
           Hit 1 2 3 or 4 for more help, or Q to return to the listings


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O  CURRENT  H  1                   Help about moving thru the listings

Which listing you see first depends on which of the four listing buttons
you push on the Main Menu.

┌──────────┐ This button will start the listings at the current time. You
│ Current  │ will see listings whether they are hilited or not, and you
└──────────┘ can move to any of the available listings.
(or ALT-R)

┌──────────┐
│ Tomorrow │ This is like the "Current" button but it starts at midnight
└──────────┘ tonight.
 (or ALT-T)

┌──────────┐ Use this AFTER you have looked at tomorrow's listings and
│  Print   │ marked hilites. This zips thru the listings starting at
└──────────┘ midnight tonight, printing only the hilites, stopping at the
 (or ALT-P)  next midnight.

┌──────────┐ If you want to start somewhere other than the current time or
│  Other   │ this midnight, or if you want to print listings that aren't
└──────────┘ hilited, or print some range other than tomorrow, push
 (or ALT-O)  this button. You will then tell TV Agent where you want to
start and stop looking, whether to show all listings or only hilited
listings, and whether to display the listings on the screen or print them.


When listings are displayed, hitting the Down Arrow key will move the
cursor down the screen to a later listing, and Up Arrow moves up the
screen. Put the cursor on a particular listing when you want to see its
details, or to focus on a field in the listing, or to hilite or delete the
entire line. You could go all the way thru the listings with just the
arrow keys, but it is much easier to use the Page Down and Page Up keys.
It does not matter which line the cursor is on when you hit Page Down; a
new page of listings will appear, including at its top the line that was
on the bottom of the previous page. On the new page the cursor will appear
on the first listing that did not show up on the previous page. Page Up
works the same way, moving you to an earlier screen full of listings. If
you want to skip some listings, the function keys (described later in this
help file) are the quickest way to get to a different hour.

While TV Agent is looking for the next listing to display, it puts the
word "searching..." in the lower right corner of the screen, and an arrow
spins to show you TV Agent is active. Often that display will disappear
almost immediately, replaced by the current time, because TV Agent will
quickly show you the next listing. But if you have deleted many listings,
or if you are looking only at hilited listings and there are not many
hilited listings, it may take a while for TV Agent to find the next
listing to display. TV Agent will ignore most keys while it is searching;
but if you want to stop the search hit "Q" or ESC.

When you reach the listings that will begin at midnight in the Eastern
Time Zone, there will be a slight delay while TV Agent switches to another
file. You get a warning at that point saying:
  "You are about to leave this day's listings"
because before you actually do leave, you may want to look back at an
earlier listing in the current day's file, or you may want to look at
details of one of the listings still on the screen. Once you are thru
looking at one day's listings, go ahead and hit Down or Page Down a second
time to tell TV Agent that you are ready to move to the next day. Of
course you can go backward to a previous day, if you put up with the
slight delay. Note that this point of switching files happens at midnight
EASTERN time; so if you are in the Pacific Time Zone TV Agent will switch
files when you reach the listings displayed for 9 PM local time.

When you try to move forward but you have already reached the end of the
listings downloaded from your BBS, TV Agent will tell you:
  "You can't go forward any further. There are no later listings."
You'll see a similar message if you try to move backward but you are
already at the earliest listing. Keep in mind that if you told TV Agent to
show you only hilited listings, there may be more listings available in
the direction you tried to move, but they aren't hilited.

You can jump to the beginning of any hour in the current day by hitting a
function key. The F1 key will take you to 1 pm; F2 takes you to 2 pm; F11
takes you to 11 pm. F12 takes you to noon, 12 pm. Holding the ALT key with
a function key jumps to the morning hours; ALT-F1 takes you to 1 am,
ALT-F11 takes you to 11 am. ALT-F12 takes you to 12 am midnight THIS
morning. Note that these function keys never change days; if you are at
11:30 pm and you want to see what is on 30 minutes later at midnight, the
function key ALT-F12 will NOT take you where you want to go. Use SHIFT-F12
to jump to midnight tonight (tomorrow AM). CTL-F12 will jump to midnight
yesterday morning. SHIFT and CTL used with any function key besides F12
don't do anything. Here's a chart showing where the function keys would
take you if you were at any hour on 2/15:

CTL-F12  12 am 2/14 (midnight yesterday)
ALT-F12  12 am 2/15 (midnight today)       F12   12 pm 2/15 (noon today)
ALT-F1    1 am 2/15                        F1     1 pm 2/15
ALT-F2    2 am 2/15                        F2     2 pm 2/15
ALT-F3    3 am 2/15                        F3     3 pm 2/15
ALT-F4    4 am 2/15                        F4     4 pm 2/15
ALT-F5    5 am 2/15                        F5     5 pm 2/15
ALT-F6    6 am 2/15                        F6     6 pm 2/15
ALT-F7    7 am 2/15                        F7     7 pm 2/15
ALT-F8    8 am 2/15                        F8     8 pm 2/15
ALT-F9    9 am 2/15                        F9     9 pm 2/15
ALT-F10  10 am 2/15                        F10   10 pm 2/15
ALT-F11  11 am 2/15                        F11   11 pm 2/15
                 (midnight tomorrow) SHIFT-F12   12 am 2/16

If you requested the display of only hilited listings, and then jump to an
hour that has no hilites, the first hilite after that hour will be
displayed. If you started from the "Other" button on the Main Menu, you
had to set a stopping point, and you can not jump past it.


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O  CURRENT  H  2                   Help about seeing details of listings

As you move the cursor up and down thru the listings it is in a column
that is sometimes blank, and sometimes contains a "+". The "+" indicates
that there is more information available for this listing, probably an
episode title or description. When the cursor is on a "+" you can see the
additional information by hitting "?". You don't have to shift the "?/"
key; hitting "/" does the same thing. You can also use the "5" key since
it is easier to reach when your hand is resting on the numeric keypad. All
the information your BBS has on the listing will be shown. There is
always a little more information available, whether there is a "+" in the
listing or not - for example, the name of the programming service is
spelled out (CONSUMER NEWS & BUSINESS instead of CNBC). If your BBS
operator has included any notes about this channel those notes
will also be shown.

The Detail screen will stay on the screen until you hit any key except "H"
or "P". If you hit the "H" key you will see a Help screen that tells you
what the Detail fields mean. The "P" key will cause the details to be
printed. Any other key will take you back to the listings.

You can choose the "Always show Details" option on the User Set Up form, a
mode of viewing listings that always shows you details whenever they are
available. This option behaves as if you always hit "?" whenever a listing
with a "+" scrolls onto the screen from the bottom. The Page Down key
doesn't do anything while the "Always show Details" option is active. As
soon as you hit a key to show you are thru reading the details the regular
format will be displayed with the cursor on the listing for which you saw
the details, and you can hilite or delete on that line. Autoscrolling can
be used with "Always show Details" but the scrolling is interrupted every
time a detail screen is displayed, until you hit a key.

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O  CURRENT  H    3                      Help about deleting listings

You can view ALL the listings that your BBS provides, if you want.
But probably you don't get ALL the channels, and there are some series you
know you are not interested in. You can delete listings for channels
and series you don't care about.

There are five ways to delete listings:
1.   Deleting channels you don't receive or no user is interested in
2.   Deleting channels you aren't interested in  (eg, CNBC G5-13)
3.   Deleting types you aren't interested in (eg, DAYTIME SOAPS)
4.   Deleting titles (eg, Sesame Street)
5.   Deleting particular listings

Method 1 affects ALL users. Methods 2 thru 5 affect only the current user.

A deleted field (that is, channel, type, or title) or deleted line (method
5) takes precedence over a hilited field or line. For example TV Agent
will not show you a listing if it has a channel you deleted, even if the
title appeared in another listing and you hilited it.


1.  Deleting channels you don't receive or no user is interested in ------

Suppose there are several people who use this TV Agent, and none of you
want to see listings for one channel because you don't subscribe to it. It
is most convenient to delete that channel once on the System Set Up
form. Otherwise, each user can delete the channel for herself, but if
there are 50 channels you don't receive a new user will start out seeing
many useless listings. If channels you don't receive are deleted at the
System Set Up, new users will never have to deal with them.

In the lower left corner of the System Set Up is a list of channels. If
the list is displayed with yellow print on a blue background (the same
colors you see while looking at listings) the list is telling you which
channels will be displayed in your listings. If the list is displayed with
red print on a black background (the colors of deleted listings) it is a
list of channels that are being supplied by TV Agent but which you have
chosen NOT to display in your listings. A button on the System Set Up
will switch the display from one list to the other. Another button lets
you move channels from one list to the other. When new channels are
available from your BBS, they will always show up on the list of
channels that will be displayed, and they'll stay there unless you delete
them.

If any user wants to see listings for a channel then don't let it be in
the list of eliminated channels on the System Set Up form; move it to the
list of channels to be displayed also on that form. That way it will be
available to every user, and anyone who does not want it can delete it
from their listings with a channel field delete.

2. Deleting channels you aren't interested in ----------------------------

If you see a listing that is a waste of your time because you have no
interest in that channel, move the cursor up/down and put it on that
listing. Then hit the left arrow key. A box will appear around the
channel, and the bottom of the screen will prompt you on what key to hit
next. If you want to delete all listings for that channel, hit the "-" key
or the DEL key. The channel will change to red print on black, indicating
that channel will not appear on your screen again. If there are other
listings on the screen with the same channel, the print will change to red
on black in those listings as well.

To UNDELETE a channel - that is, to correct a mistake you made when you
deleted a channel you shouldn't have - the channel must be showing on your
screen, and it will be in red print on black. Move the cursor to that row,
hit left arrow to put the box around the channel, and then (as the
instructions at the bottom of the screen will show) hit the "+" key or the
ENTER or INS key. That will restore the channel to normal yellow print on
blue.

There is another way to undelete a channel if it has scrolled off the
screen. Quit the listings and return to the Main Menu; then hit these
buttons: User  Set Up  Review . The Review form that will be displayed has
help that tells you how to recover a deleted field.

3.  Deleting program types you aren't interested in ----------------------

Here are all the program types that appear in the listings:

1ST RUN SYNDIC          KID'S SPECIAL            RELIGIOUS
ARTS                    MINI-SERIES              SEASONAL SPEC.
CARTOONS                MISCELLANEOUS            SIGN-OFF
CINEMA FRENCH           MOVIE                    SPECIAL
DAYTIME SOAPS           MUSIC                    SPORT EVENT
FILLER                  MUSIC SPECIAL            SPORTS ANTHOL.
FINANCE                 NETWORK SERIES           SPORTS RELATED
GAME SHOWS              NEWS                     SYNDICATED
HEALTH                  PELICULA SPAN            TALK SHOW
HOBBIES/CRAFTS          PLAYOFF SPORT            TEAM VS. TEAM
INSTRUCTIONAL           PSEUDO-SPORT             TO BE ANNOUNCD
KID'S SHOW              PUBLIC AFFAIRS           TV MOVIE

If you are sure that one of those types is used ONLY for listings you have
no interest in, you can delete all listings with that type by focussing
on the type and hitting the "-" key or the DEL key. To focus on the type
when you see it on the screen, you move the cursor vertically to that
line, and then hit right arrow. That will put a box around the type, and
instructions at the bottom of the screen tell you how to delete all future
display of listings with that type. You may not want to delete types
because you aren't sure what the type applies to - for instance, the
series "Newton's Apple" has the type "KID'S SHOW". If you deleted a type
and you want to undo that elimination, put the box around the deleted type
and hit "+" or ENTER. This only works before all the listings with the
deleted type scroll off the screen; after they scroll away they will not
scroll back. After they scroll away the only way to recover them is thru
the "Review" button on the User Set Up form.


4. Deleting program titles -----------------------------------------------

The most efficient way to reduce the number of listings you look at is to
delete channels, since that way with one deletion you get rid of
hundreds of listings. Deleting a program type may get rid of TOO many
listings. So when listings appear and you know you have no interest in any
episode with that title (perhaps you never watch "Sesame Street") you can
delete listings by title. Move the cursor to the line, and then hit
Right Arrow twice - the box will move past the type, to the title. With
the box around the title you want to delete, hit the "-" key or the DEL
key. To undo the elimination of a title while it still appears on the
screen, put the cursor on the line, hit Right Arrow twice, and then hit
"+" or ENTER or INS. Occasionally use the Review function available on the
User Set Up form to make sure you have not accidentally deleted a title or
other field that you would like to have displayed in the listings.

Sometimes unrelated programs use the same title - for instance, if you
delete the CBS series "48 Hours" you'll also delete the movie "48 Hours".
And both CBC and VISN have series called "Man Alive"; whatever you do to
one title will happen to the other too.

The full length of the title counts when you focus on a title, altho the
instructions at the bottom of the screen may not show the full title. Even
if the title is so long that it does not all appear in the listing, the
full title will be compared to titles in future listings. You'll be able
to see the full title, no matter how long it is, if you look on the Detail
screen.


5. Deleting particular listings ------------------------------------------

If you hit the "-" key or the DEL key without moving the cursor to either
the left or the right, the entire line will be printed red on black, and
once it scrolls off the screen it will not scroll on again.  Deleting a
line like this does not affect any other listing. If the same program
appears later (or earlier) in the listings, it will show up again when
that other listing scrolls onto the screen.

If you want to preview the listings for a child, deleting certain
programs, this is a way to do it very specifically. Otherwise you will
probably not bother to delete many listings this way, because there is a
better way (hiliting) to distinguish what you want to watch from what you
don't. There is another help file that discusses hiliting fields and
lines, which is like marking in a printed guide what you're particularly
interested in. The help file on hiliting also explains why you may not
want to do whole line hilites and deletes beyond the end of the fresh
listings (that is, later than midnight EST tomorrow night.)

But there is a situation where deleting a line is appropriate. Suppose
there is a series that you usually want to see, so the title is hilited
when a listing appears on the screen. But you recognize from the details
that this particular episode is one you do NOT want to watch. The listing
was hilited because the title is hilited - but you do not want the listing
to print. To keep it from printing, delete the whole line by hitting "-"
or DEL without moving the cursor left or right; the whole line will print
red on black and the listing will NOT show up when you print only hilited
listings. (It won't show up on screen, either, once it has scrolled off.)
This will not affect future listings for the same episode - they will
scroll on to the screen with their title hilited.

If you delete a line and then change your mind before it scrolls off the
screen you can undelete it by putting the cursor on it and hitting ENTER
or + or INS. That will set it back to normal, yellow print on blue. The
User Set Up Review function will NOT let you recover deleted lines, only
deleted fields. So to undelete a line you MUST fix it before it scrolls
off screen.


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O  CURRENT  H   4                          Help about hiliting listings


Hiliting works very much like deleting, so you should also read the longer
explanation about Deleting.

If you want ONLY the hilited listings to be displayed, type "O" while you
are looking at the listings. If only hilited listings are being displayed
and you want ALL listings to be displayed, type "A".

As you look at all the listings (that haven't been deleted) you hilite
listings in one of two ways:

Whole line hilites -------------------------------------------------------

If you hit the ENTER or + key or INS key the entire line is hilited.
This sort of hiliting does not affect any other listings; if the same
program comes on again, the later listing will not be hilited. This is the
best way to hilite particular episodes of a series when you don't want the
other episodes to be hilited. If the listing is for a special or
miniseries that is not likely to appear again for years (if ever) you can
conserve TV Agent's time and memory by hiliting it this way rather than
hiliting the title.

If you hilite a whole line and then decide you do not want that line
hilited, putting the cursor on the line and hitting DEL or "-" will set
the line back to normal.

You may not want to hilite (or delete) a whole line when it is in one of
the listings files that is going to be updated. If today is Tuesday the
15th, for example, and you have called your BBS after 6 AM EST,
you have fresh listings for today and tomorrow (TVLIST15.ARC and
TVLIST16.ARC). [ Well, maybe that is optimistic. We will try for 6 AM EST,
but actually the freshest listings aren't often supplied to your BBS
before 2 PM EST. ] But you also have listings for later
days - TVLIST17 thru TVLIST22.ARC, which are not so fresh, and which will
be updated with fresh listings when you call your BBS on later
days. You will be warned (once) if you hilite or delete a whole line
beyond the end of the fresh listings. For instance when you call on
Thursday the 17th, you will get fresh listings for Friday the 18th in
TVLIST18.ARC . If today is Tuesday the 15th and you hilite a whole line in
the listings for Friday the 18th that hilite will disappear when you get a
fresh set of listings for Friday. If you call your BBS only
once a week this won't affect you. The whole line hilites and deletes for
the 18th will not be forgotten UNTIL you get a new TVLIST18.ARC on the
17th or 18th. (Future versions of TV Agent will be smart enough to
remember those whole line hilites and deletes and apply them to the fresh
listings.) Field hilites and deletes are NOT forgotten, no matter how far
in advance you mark them.


Field hilites ------------------------------------------------------------

You can hilite one field in the listing instead of the entire line. If you
hilite this way, TV Agent will remember that field's value (the channel,
type, or title) and hilite that value whenever it appears in future
listings.

To hilite the channel you hit the left arrow, and then ENTER or + or INS.
You might want to do this to make sure you notice whenever a little used
channel (like some obscure sports channel) has a scheduled transmission.
If you wanted a quick summary of what is going to be on The Learning
Channel you could set up a user that has only one hilite set, a channel
hilite on TLC. If you selected that user's name and looked at only hilited
listings you would be getting a program schedule for TLC.

To hilite the type, you hit the right arrow once. This would be a way to
get a sequential list of all the movies that are scheduled.

To hilite the title you hit the right arrow twice. This is the best way to
mark your favorite programs. It is much more specific than hiliting the
channel or type. It is better than hiliting the entire line because you
will see the title hilited by TV Agent every time it appears after you
have hilited it once. But it does not make sense to hilite a title that is
likely never to occur again (and that consumes TV Agent's memory and
time.)

You can review an alphabetized list of all your hilited fields (and
optionally remove the hilites) if from the Main Menu you hit the buttons
"User", then "Set Up", then "Review".


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P  CURRENT  ?  H                       Fields shown on full detail screen

This screen shows all the information available on a listing.



Subtitle                                            For movies,
                                                    actors are
                                                    listed here.



Description




Quality rating - for example **+ means two and a half stars (best = ****)
|    Category, Director of movie or host of talk show
|    |    Year of production, country of origin
Other qualifiers: R = rerun; CC = closed captioned; lesson number, Stereo, etc
Full name of channel
                       Full title


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