******************************* ** W I N T A P E R ** ******************************* Welcome to WinTaper, the best way to organize and track your live music collection. WinTaper is specially geared towards live recordings, with many features not found in other tape-collection databases. WinTaper provides and easy and intuitive way to maintain a tape database, print tape labels for all popular tape formats, create printed and electronic tape lists to trade with other collectors, locate information within you files quickly, and display any information in clear and easy to understand child windows and dialog boxes. WinTaper also provides full on-line help to clearly explain all aspects, procedures and conventions used in the program. Although many people never need help, its there. ******************************* ** I N S T A L L A T I O N ** ******************************* INSTALLATION FROM FLOPPY DISK ============================= To install WinTaper, insert the disk in your floppy drive and select "File | Run" from the program manager menu. then type "a:install" or "b:install" depending on your system. INSTALLATION FROM FILE ARCHIVE ============================== Copy the file WTAPER05.exe or WTAPER05.arc into an empty directory. (You've probably already done this, since you're reading this!) Un-archive the file and run the Install program. If you have the .exe version of the archive, you can create distributable floppies by running the command WTAPER05.EXE B: (or A:). You can also install by creating a distributable floppy and then following the instructions for floppy install above. ******************************** **Important installation notes** ******************************** This version will overwrite your existing settings in WinTaper.ini, WinTaper.fnt (font groups) and WinTaper.flt (filter/search sets). The older versions of these files are incompatible with this release of WinTaper. Using older support files may cause VERY undesireable results, including system crashes and data loss.In addition, the Install will create the program group "WinTaper 1.0" and place into this group wintaper.exe, sample.wtf, wintaper.hlp, and readme.txt. Re-running install will create multiple icons each time install is re-run. Simply delete any unwanted icons after the install procedure finishes. ******************************** ** VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE ** ******************************** IF YOU ARE RUNNING NORTON DESKTOP 3.0 AS YOUR PROGRAM MANAGER SHELL PLEASE CONSULT ON-LINE HELP FOR VERY IMPORTANT COMPATIBILITY INFO. Run WinTaper.hlp and either "search" on "Norton Desktop", or click Troubleshooting and then "Norton Desktop 3.0" VERY IMPORTANT !!! ******************************** ** What's new in WinTaper ** ******************************** Many new features have been incorporated into WinTaper. These include: 1) Faster performance overall. Less resource intensive. 2) Font Groups allow the user to store frequently used font selections. 3) Filter/Search sets to repeat frequently used searches. 4) New Jam Code options make tape great layouts even easier to create. 5) Song List Window updates automatically as tapes/songs are added. 6) New "Time" field for storing the length (in minutes) of each tape. *This field is currently limited to a max of 255 minutes per tape. 7) User-selectable song layouts: 1 Column, 2 Column and Paragraph. 8) Fully customizable & functional tape list printing capabilities. 9) Autosizing fonts for perfect tape list printouts with any fields. 10) New font preview window in the Font Selection Dialog Box. 11) User-customizable list boxes - use any font and any field order. 12) Cut'n'Paste copying of tapes between multiple running instances. 13) Export tape list to an ASCII file or delimited ASCII file. 14) Export tape listing via clipboard into any Windows Application. 15) Song Finder toolbox reduces typing required when entering new tapes. 16) "1 Dat / 2 Cassette" tape format automatically configures label printouts for this now common situation (those 3-hour DAT tapes!) 18) "Paragraph" style songlists to fit more songs on a tape label. 19) "One Long Tape" format allows up to 34 songs on a single label. 20) DLL-based common libraries reduces system strain when running multiple instances or on machines with 4MB or less of RAM. 21) Advanced File Sort options. 22) Two words: HELP FILE. ******************************** ** Advice For New Users ** ******************************** If you are new to WinTaper, the best way to learn is to play around with the sample file included with WinTaper. Just select File | Open from the main menu, then open the file SAMPLE.WTF. After the file opens, go ahead and play - press buttons, open windows, click and double-click around to see how the file is setup and how the program works. Most of WinTaper is so intuitive, a few minutes with the sample file and you'll be ready to create your own files and labels. The program is set up so that in most cases, simply accepting the default options will produce good results. ******************************** ** Distributing Copies Of ** ** WinTaper ** ******************************** Because WinTaper is shareware, there are certain rules to follow when you want to give out copies. Basically, you MUST distribute the original files and ONLY the original files without any modifications. WinTaper MUST be installed by running the supplied install program, which creates files in directories other than wintaper. Do not attempt to distribute Wintaper by copying already installed files. It won't work. For more information on distributing WinTaper, consult the ON-LINE HELP under GENERAL INFORMATION. ******************************** ** A Special Thanks To You! ** ******************************** Also, special thanks are in order to all of you who have tested the previous releases and made suggestions for improvements. I have tried to give everyone everything they asked for, when possible. If you don't see something you asked for, you probably will in a future release. Many things are planned for the future of WinTaper, including support for .WAV files, .BMP graphics, 32-Bit OS support, and more! Dan Tepper 107 10th Ave # 8 Belmar, NJ 07719 via internet: 75103.2616@compuserve.com via compuserve: Dan Tepper 75103,2616 Terrapin Station: Morning Dew RIME Deadnet: Dan Tepper