Copyright: Copyright ® 1992-1993 Windows OnLine.
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About Windows OnLine™

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Index Page

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(Click all Buttons)

   Shareware News,  by Bob Gollihur

  Programming,  by Steve Peschka

Cursing VB with CCF Cursors

  Windows Tips,  by Hugh Harding

Would You Believe the Shift Key Strikes Again?

Goodbye Resources

Increase Your Technical Competence

WRK Made Easy

  Visual Basics,  by Barry Seymour

  PowerEdit 2.0,  by Ed Hoffman

  ATI Ultra Graphics Pro,  by Steve Peschka

  FontMinder,  by Derek Westfall

  BitFax OCR,  by Brian Parks

  Hi Finance,  by Bob Gollihur

  WinGrin,  by Bob Gollihur

I hate when that happens!

  BoardWatch Contest Form

  Modems for Members

Save big time on file transfer costs!


US Robotics ad


Shareware

a compendium of the latest good, bad

and ugly in the world of Windows Shareware

VUEPOINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Graphics File Browser

This is a handy utility you'll definitely want to have if you work with graphics files. As you use VuePoint's file window to highlight any BMP, RLE, DIB, WMF, PCX and ICO files, they quickly appear in an auto-sizing window display. VP15.ZIP is from Marquette Associates and only $15.00.

FLASH MATH . . . . . . . . . . . .Flashcards for Windows

Help your kids with their math with this Windows program. Select any of the four basic arithmetic operations and Flash Math will drill them with problems up to user defined difficulty. You even get your choice of backgrounds, from Bart Simpson to Superman. FLASHMTH.ZIP is freeware from lonely guy George Cole, who'd love for you to drop him a line about his creation.

HOME INVENTORY . . . . . . . . . . .Track Your Stuff

JRE Enterprises has quite a nice piece of shareware here with too many features to mention. The slick interface accommodates separate categories, with multiple locations, rooms, etc., with the ability to do queries and print reports. JREHM30B.ZIP is definitely worth a look if you'd like a way to enumerate your belongings, and is only $9.00 for registration, including an update disk.

FEXTEND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . File Manager Add-On

This great little program will open along with File Manager and provide up to four handy icons for dragging and dropping. Delete files with the Trash Can, change the time/date stamp or properties, and view the attributes of files. Icon positions can be remembered and therefore repeated each time you open File Manager, and you can elect to omit any you don't regularly use. I recommend you download FEXTND15.ZIP and add it to your utility belt! Thanks to Mark Gambler of Babarsoft, Inc. for this handy freeware package.

WHEEL OF LUCK . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Where's Vanna?

Author Dan Puraty has done a pretty nice job imitating TV's Wheel of Fortune. It's colorful and good clean fun, complete with WAV files and sound effects which can be toggled on or off. Send Dan a donation if you enjoy the game, but check out WOL11.ZIP, but you'll have to do without Vanna. I stopped playing it --- got chills up my spine every time I went bankrupt.

BILL DRAWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pay Or Die!

'Tis the Season to pay those holiday excesses, and Bill Drawer is available to help you organize and pay them on time to avoid the Collection Grinches. I didn't find Bill Drawer particularly friendly, graphical or easily understandable, and neither was the brief help listing very helpful. Perhaps the manual and disk you receive for the shareware fee of $15.00 for BILDR112.ZIP could help.

GROCERY MANAGER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizer

For the computer obsessed, Grocery Manager will give you hours of research and keyboard time to input which items are in which aisle of your grocery store, list ingredients of your various dishes, how much of each you have on hand and in what units, and later plan your menus. For this you get a wonderfully organized shopping list (wow). Now it's time to update the inventory and plan next week. This $30.00 shareware program is well written and incredibly organized; GMW104A.ZIP is the filename. If you try and use this for any period of time, I can only say, with all due respect, get a life!

FINDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quick Task Switcher

Finder is a somewhat misleading name for a very handy task switcher. It places its own little icon in the active window adjacent to the Windows whatsit. Press and hold, then glide to your choice on the task list which drops down. System resources and/or the current time appear optionally. The author requests £10 or $20 for this little gem, known as FINDR320.ZIP.

TRIPLE YAHOO . . . . . . .Yahtzee by any other name

Triple Yahoo (essentially Triple Yahtzee for Windows) for up to three players. This $10.00 shareware game is nicely done with WAV sound effects and all! Get TYAHOO10.ZIP and roll those dice!

ELEPHANT CLOCK . . . . . . . . . . . .Intelligent Clock

Murphy's Law needs an additional entry: The part of the screen you need to get to will always be covered by an "on top" icon or program. Soapbox Software's Elephant Clock is not just another Windows clock. It gets out of the way when it sees your mouse cursor coming! Look for ELPHNT.ZIP, a $7.00 shareware clock that knows its place.

INFOTAG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Expanded File Descriptor

Expand beyond eight character DOS mystery filenames by attaching a descriptor to your files. Drag and drop a file to the icon or use the built-in file scan utility to add or read your up to 255 character non-cryptic description. This freeware program is located as INFOTAG.ZIP.

SCHEDULED EVENT . . . . . . . . . . Timed Launcher

Author S.A. Spencer provides this freeware event scheduler for non-critical use. This is a very straightforward program with enough options and abilities to deserve your consideration. SCHDEV10.ZIP includes some tips for using Windows Recorder macros as well.

SAB DISKETTE UTILITY. . . .Disk Duping Deluxe

Many options await the user of this $20.00 (personal use price) shareware program that takes disk duplication to another plane, if not dimension. You need to check this one out! Be sure to click on the 'about' option for a bit of a surprise from author Stewart Berman. SABDU210.ZIP is very impressive. Take the time to examine all it can do and the way it does it.

PICMAN . . . . . . Graphics Manipulator Extraordinaire

If you like to play with graphic files, this is one to download and examine carefully. It was designed for image enhancement, retouching, painting, special effects, and can affect only a selected area of a picture. PICMAN15.ZIP handles B&W, greyscale, 16, 256 color and RGB true color data types, supports TWAIN and a number of graphic image file formats. It's not cheap at $49 but it's quite an impressive graphics tool.

WEALTH BUILDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just Add Book

This shareware program offers a modicum of advice with a menu of financial calculation and charting facilities. Send $30.00 to register and receive the book "More Wealth Without Risk" for which it was written. Take a look at part of this novel combination, WEALTH11.ZIP and plan for the future. Can you imagine what a 986 chip will cost?!?

WINDOWS UNARCHIVER . . . . . . . .UN-ZIP/ARJ

If you've never taken a look at previous versions of WUNA, now is the time. This is one of the more attractive, intelligently designed, utilitarian and long-lived unarchive utilities for Windows (early versions were titled Windows Unzip). The major difference is that it does not rely on a jump to DOS to unarchive programs, but the price you pay is that it will do no archiving, only unarchiving. The latest version of this $10.00 shareware program handles the much-discussed latest PKZIP version 2.04 and can be found as WUNA221.ZIP.

All programs listed above are available to members of Windows OnLine in the directories shown below. To learn more about this premier BBS, call 1-510-736-8343 (modem) and download WOLMEMBR.ZIP for a list of available file directories and membership information.

Program	Filename	Directory

VUEPOINT	VP15.ZIP	9

FLASHMATH	FLASHMTH.ZIP	8

HOME INVENTORY	JREHM30B.ZIP	17

FEXTEND	FEXTND15.ZIP	2

WHEEL OF LUCK	WOL11.ZIP	8

BILL DRAWER	BILDR112.ZIP	20

GROCERY MANAGER	GMW104A.ZIP	4

FINDER	FINDR320.ZIP	4

TRIPLE YAHOO	TYAHOO10.ZIP	8

ELEPHANT CLOCK	ELPHNT.ZIP	4

INFOTAG 	INFOTAG.ZIP	4

SCHEDULED EVENT	SCHDEV10.ZIP	5

SAB DISKETTE UTILITY	SABDU210.ZIP	5

PICMAN	PICMAN15.ZIP	9

WEALTH BUILDER	WEALTH11.ZIP	21

WINDOWS UNARCHIVER	WUNA221.ZIP	5

And thanks, authors, for all your fine and dedicated work!

CIS 71334,2065


SWPOPUPHOMEINVN


swpopupfinder


swpopupinfotag


swpopupvuepoint


shpopupsched


shpopupwuna


shpopup


Programming_Commentary

Cursing VB with CCF Cursors

CCF Cursors Add the Fine Trim to Your VB Applications

Back in the days of yore when Steve's GraphMaster was still just an ulcer waiting to be written, I spent many an hour trying to fumble through the Windows API, trying to get that special cursor I wanted to display in my program. If only I had known the power of CCF Cursors back then.

CCF Cursors is actually a multi-purpose program, with cursor manipulation being its forte. The main features of CCF Cursors are:

  Using custom cursors in your VB program.

  Using animated cursors in your VB program.

  Intercepting Windows mouse messages.

  Restricting mouse movement.

Custom Cursors

This is one of the main features of CCF-Cursors, although that should not diminish the importance of its other uses. Back when I was working on Steve's GraphMaster, I wanted to implement context-sensitive help that could be activated by clicking the right mouse button. One issue, however, was how to let the user know that they were in the help mode. The most obvious answer seemed to be to change the cursor.

My first choice was to try and create the normal cursor with a question mark superimposed over the top [image]. This is what several other Windows programs do when you press SHIFT + F1. Unfortunately, I never could figure out how to do it; CCF makes it easy, though.

Most cursor manipulation with CCF is done by calling one or more custom functions provided by CCF. The majority of them fairly closely resemble Windows API calls. CCF provides a .BAS file that contains all the declarations you'll need to control your cursors, so you don't have to worry about that.

For example, I created a cursor called point01.cur, which looks like a magician waving a wand. To change my cursor, I called two lines of code:

Cursor% = dwLoadCursorFile("c:\vb\cursors\point01.cur")

oldcursor% = dwSetCursor(Form1, Cursor%, -1)

When I wanted to get rid of the wand and go back to the default Windows cursor, I called one line of code:

X% = dwDestroyCursor(Cursor%)

 This is a great cursor! It would be a terrific Help or wizard-type cursor.

After you set up the two lines of code to load the cursor, you can easily put it in a subroutine, and then easily call it with the name of cursor file so you can quickly and easily change your cursor. For example:

Sub ChangeMyCursor(CursorName as String)

Cursor% = dwLoadCursorFile(CursorName)

oldcursor% = dwSetCursor(Form1, Cursor%, -1)

End Sub

Also, note in both examples that I referenced the form name in the dwSetCursor function. By doing so, I set the cursor to be the same for the whole form. However, you can just as easily set the cursor to change for one control only; you would just substitute the name of the control where the form name is listed.

CCF comes with 67 cursors, but you can easily create your own. The magician's wand cursor I demonstrated above was an icon that VB provides; I just converted it to a cursor (*.CUR) file. Fortunately, CCF also makes this a very easy task.

CCF provides a program, written in VB, that converts an *.ICO file into a *.CUR file. To create a pointing finger (a favorite pastime around my office) cursor [image], I simply clicked on the icon name to convert; a picture of the icon was displayed. I clicked on the Convert button, typed in the name for the cursor file and pressed ENTER. That's all there was to it.

CCF also works quite nicely with resource programs provided with some other high-end programming tools. For example, the arrow with the question mark superimposed (shown above) was created in the Resource Workshop that comes with Borland's Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.5. CCF pulled this cursor resource into VB without a hitch.

Animated Cursors

Animated cursors can be an excellent tedium breaker. CCF ships with an animated cursor collection that is a splendid replacement for the standard Windows hourglass. The CCF animated hourglass is a series of hourglass icons that, when run together, give the appearance of an hourglass filling with sand, flipping over, and then starting again. The process continues ad infinitum until you change the cursor back to something else.

Loading an animated cursor is a bit trickier, but can still be accomplished with minimal effort. The first step was to get the handle to the module that contained the cursors. Again, CCF made this very easy with its own custom function:

libhandle% = dwGetCursorModule%()

The next step was to load all the cursors that would be used in the animation into an array. The array dimensions must match the cursor resource ID's. Don't worry if this sounds complicated - all the resource ID's included with CCF are illustrated in the back of their manual.

For the animated hourglass, the resource ID's were #10 to 19, so I dimensioned an array as follows

Dim Hours(10 To 19) As Integer

and then loaded the icons into my array

For X% = 10 To 19

Hours(X%) = LoadCursorBynum%(libhandle%, CLng(X%))

Next X%

You'll notice that the function for loading the icons into the Hours array isn't preceded by a dw; that's because it's a standard Windows API function, not a custom function provided by CCF. Fortunately, you don't really need to know that much about the Windows API to use the CCF package, although some experience certainly helps.

The last step was to assign the cursor array to an animated cursor resource. This is done with one line of code:

anicursor% = dwCreateAniCursor(Hours(), 100)

As you can see, it's not too difficult. To use the animated cursor, you would then use the dsSetCursor function (explained above). You shouldn't be too daunted if some of these function calls look a bit confusing at first. That was the way I felt when I first got the package, but there were plenty of sample VB applications from which I could copy code as necessary, and within an hour or so, it all began getting clearer.

Intercepting Windows Mouse Messages

This feature is also not as complicated as it might sound. Simply put, when you move your mouse, Windows grabs that "input" and passes the message back to the application. CCF lets you capture those messages, and apply them to controls or menus. The best way to describe this, and perhaps best application for it, would be the following example.

Button Bars, or Tool Bars, or Smart Icons, or whatever you want to call them, have proven to be a great boon to Windows applications. One of my big gripes with them, however, is that most times you can't easily tell what a button does unless you push it. CCF has a great solution for this. CCF comes with a custom control called ccMouse. With it, you can trap all the mouse messages Windows sends to your application for a control (it isn't necessary for a form, because VB provides its own services for capturing those messages). Again, you call one of the custom CCF functions to tell its custom control which control it should monitor. It then allows you to capture the MouseDown, MouseUp and MouseMove events.

These mouse events aren't available either with the standard VB buttons or with the 3D buttons (THREED.VBX) that comes with the Professional Edition. But with CCF, you can capture the mouse events for each button on your Tool Bar. That way, when the mouse moves over the each button, it can trigger a separate action in the MouseMove event for each button that updates a status bar at the bottom of your program window. This same technique can be used for capturing which menu item is currently highlighted and again, updating a status bar. It can really help clarify the purpose of each button on a Tool Bar and each item on a menu.

For example, you might have a form with a label called STATUS that is placed at the bottom of the window. You could have a button with a picture of a clipboard, and tie the following code to the MouseMove event for that button:

STATUS.Caption="Copy Information from the Windows Clipboard"

Whenever the mouse is run over that button, the STATUS caption would be changed to let the user know the purpose of the button. This is a great enhancement!

By capturing the MouseDown and MouseUp messages, CCF also adds another interesting feature to your programs - the ability to move controls.

For instance, by capturing the location of a MouseDown, MouseMove and MouseUp event, you can allow your users to drag and drop a control anywhere on your form. This kind of flexibility can really distinguish your VB application from the others.

Restricting Mouse Movement

CCF Cursors also provides a neat little function called dwClipCursor. What it does, is enable you to limit the range of mouse movement to an area within a control or form. For instance, in my test application that I created for CCF, I added a Frame and Button control. If the button caption was CLIP, then I called the clip cursor function. This restricted my mouse movement so that I could not move the cursor anywhere outside the boundaries of the frame. I had to click on the button again to be able to move normally. The code snippet for it is as follows:

If Command3.Caption = "Clip" Then

CHwnd% = dwGetControlHwnd(Frame2)

X% = dwClipCursor(CHwnd%, 0, 0, 30000, 30000)

Command3.Caption = "Stop"

Else

X% = dwClipCursor(CHwnd%, 0, 0, 0, 0)

Command3.Caption = "Clip"

End If

Again, the code isn't that complicated, and it gets easier after you work with it a bit. An excellent application for this would be a security logon screen. You could restrict movement of the mouse to a frame that contained the logon password text box. After the password was entered correctly, you could release the restriction so that the user could move the mouse freely. If the user (or intruder) didn't know the correct password, he or she would be locked in the frame, and the rest of Windows desktop would be safe.

SUMMARY

CCF Cursors provides many valuable features that can really enhance your VB applications. The manual could be better by providing more examples of implementing CCF's features, but this problem can be overcome with all of the sample applications that are provided. Also, CCF Cursors is one of the few VB add-ons that I DON'T consider over-priced. I've always felt that when you're paying $99 for a robust, full-featured program such as VB 2.0 Professional Edition, it's awfully ridiculous to have to pay more than that just for an add-on that gives you one or two additional controls, no matter how good they are. Happily, however, CCF Cursors can be yours for a mere $40. At that price, I'd say CCF Cursors is an absolute must for any VB programmer!

Written By,

Steve Peschka


Windows Tips

Would You Believe the Shift Key Strikes Again?

Good-bye Resources

Increase Your Technical Competence

WRK Made Easy

Would You Believe the Shift Key Strikes Again?

It seems that I have written about the humble Shift Key many, many times. It performs minor wonders when used in conjunction with mouse clicks. I am not going to reprise all of the wonders of Shifting but I have discovered yet another use for it which really is useful, as are most of the uses of the Shift Key.

When you set up a program item in Program Manager, you have the choice of having it start up in a window or having appear as an icon on the desktop.

The above is the program item dialog box where you can indicate whether you want the program to start in a window or minimized. The Run Minimized check box is blank, indicating that I want this particular application to start in a window. Clicking on the check box would place an X in it and cause it to start up as an icon on the desktop.

Well, if you have an application which is set to start up in a window and you double click on it while holding down the Shift Key, it will start up minimized. Unfortunately, not all programs start without some kind of user intervention. Many shareware programs require that you click on an opening dialog box to start the program. You will still have to click on that type of dialog box before the application will show up as an icon. Ah well!

I thought that the opposite might also hold true where double clicking on a program which is set up to start minimized while holding the Shift Key would start it in a window. The answer is NO!

It was worth a try.

Good-bye Resources

I imagine that most readers know about the mysterious component of Windows called System Resources. In brief, System Resources are made up of two blocks of 64k of memory which is set aside for the use of both applications and Windows itself. Unfortunately, you can run out of System Resources long before you run out of RAM.

Windows 3.1 really improved the use of System Resources and managed them more economically. There are still problems with poorly written programs which do not return the System Resources they were using.

One very annoying way to lose System Resources is when a program causes a General Protection Fault, GPF. I had a problem with a program which resulted in a GPF. While Windows 3.1 allows you to continue with the other applications you have running, I found that none of the system resources it was using were returned for use by other programs.

The bottom line is, if you have a GPF, check how you are doing for System Resources. If they are really low, exiting and restarting Windows might be the best alternative.

Increase Your Technical Competence

We are all trying to keep up with all the new technical developments which occur every day. One of the latest Windows innovation from Microsoft was Windows for Workgroups, WFW. It is based on the same technology as Win 3.1 but does add capabilities which require study.

Microsoft University, MSU, has released a videotape which covers all the technical aspects of WFW in 12 hours of viewing. It covers installation, customization, and optimizing of WFW. It also covers the built-in applications which come with WFW.

The course is aimed at individuals who will be supporting WFW. It comes with a workbook and a diskette which contains the files required for the exercises.

The cost of the course is $199. You can purchase additional copies of the student materials for $49. The course is available from your local retailer or direct from MSU. Call them at (206) 828-1507.

WRK Made Easy

The WRK, Windows Resource Kit, is a tome detailing the ins and outs of tricky techy aspects of Windows. The trouble is that it is printed on paper. This immediately restricts its usefulness. Print media is difficult to cross reference unless the authors built that into the text. In the case of WRK, the authors did not build in the cross references which is a pity because the book cries out for this feature.

Help is at hand in the form of a series of Help files published by WUGNET, the Windows User Group Network. WUGNET publishes The Windows Journal, a print publication six times a year. Members received a free copy of the WRK Online Edition of the WRK.

It is really easy to use the HLP version of WRK. An index is provided which allows you to navigate to the topic of choice. There are hypertext links throughout which makes the process of understanding what the text is trying to tell you.

Membership to WUGNET costs $150 for the first year and substantially lower for subsequent years. If you are interested, call WUGNET at (215) 565-1861 for more information. They also offer a number of group membership programs.

Investigation conducted by

Hugh E. Hardie

P.S. I can be reached on Window Online, of course, in either the I-Link Windows or Relaynet Windows conferences and at Compuserve 70421,635 for questions or for tips.


hughpop2

Hardie & Associates Inc.

Walnut Creek, CA

(510) 935-3994

© 1992 Hugh E. Hardie


Visual_Basics

Grid Routines

The Grid is a mixed bag of benefits in Visual Basic. It's handy, but it's slow. It's powerful, but you have to know a few tricks and jump through a few hoops to tap into that power. In this column I'm going to cover a few items that are already in the manual but could use further explanation. I'm also going to show you a trick or two which will make your grids easier for the user to use.

We start with the basic Grid control. It has rows and columns which you can read or specify with the Rows and Cols properties; it has fixed rows and columns which you can read or specify with the Rows and Cols properties, and you can define a selected range of cells with the SelRowStart, SelRowEnd, SelColStart and SelColEnd property. If you want selected ranges of cells to be highlighted, set the HighLight property to true.

The intersection of a row and a column is a cell. A grid's Text property refers to the contents of that cell. Unfortunately here's were the awkwardness creeps in. In order to get the contents of a cell you must set the grid's Row and Column property accordingly. (Note to Microsoft: Maybe you could use array nomenclature in a future release? I'd much rather say MyText = Grid1.Cell(X%, Y%) without having to change the grid's Row and Column!) This is almost always awkward.

If you select a range of cells, either with code statements or by mouse actions, the grid's Clip property contains the text in the selected region in tab-delimited text format. Again, this is another pain in the anatomy. If you want to get the text in a range of cells which isn't already selected by the user, you have to jump through an amazing number of hoops. First you have to save the current selected region (the SelRowStart, SelRowEnd, SelColStart and SelColEnd properties) in temporary variables; then you must set the new selected region (the SelRowStart, SelRowEnd, SelColStart and SelColEnd properties), get Grid1.Clip and then restore the original selected rows and columns (the SelRowStart, SelRowEnd, SelColStart and SelColEnd properties - am I making my point yet?).

Phew.

Here's more; If the grid's HighLight property was True, you're best bet is to set it to False during all this, then back to True when you're done. Otherwise it would be just too embarrassing to the let the user see all of this row and column selecting.

Since this involves so much repetitious code, you're best off writing a sub you include in a library which can be re-used. Since I've already done the process to death a few times (both here and in my work!), I'll just include the sub and leave you alone.

Function GetGridClip (Grid2Get As Grid, StartRow%, EndRow%,

  StartCol%, EndCol%) As String

    SavedHi% = Grid2Get.HighLight

    SavedStartRow = Grid2Get.SelStartRow

    SavedStartCol = Grid2Get.SelStartCol

    SavedEndRow = Grid2Get.SelEndRow

    SavedEndCol = Grid2Get.SelEndCol

    Grid2Get.SelStartRow = StartRow%

    Grid2Get.SelStartCol = StartCol%

    Grid2Get.SelEndRow = EndRow%

    Grid2Get.SelEndCol = EndCol%

    GetGridClip = Grid2Get.Clip

    Grid2Get.HighLight = SavedHi%

    Grid2Get.SelStartRow = SavedStartRow

    Grid2Get.SelStartCol = SavedStartCol

    Grid2Get.SelEndRow = SavedEndRow

    Grid2Get.SelEndCol = SavedEndCol

End Function

Okay, so I won't totally leave you alone. Note in the above procedure you pass the name of the grid and the four boundaries of the column. You get back a tab-delimited text string containing the contents of the cells in that range. Each column is separated by a tab; each row separated by a carriage-return/line feed (Chr$(13) + Chr$(10) in Visual Basic terminology). Put this function in your library and you'll save yourself a lot of typing!

Grid Input

Another "challenging" aspect of the Grid is the fact that you can't edit cells directly. The way around this is to place a textbox control above the grid and use it for editing cells. There are a number of event traps you'll need to lay to get this working in a way that the user can be comfortable with, but once they're in place using this grid can be almost as comfortable as working in Excel. You have to start by thinking about how you'd like the grid to work.

Here's how I like a grid to behave:

Arrow keys move around through the grid.

Keying Enter or double-clicking in the grid shifts focus to the textbox for editing.

If I start typing on the grid, focus immediately shifts to the textbox control where I perform my editing. (Important! This only occurs if my keystroke is a letter or a number.)

Keying Enter in the textbox transmits my changes to the current grid cell.

Keying Escape in the textbox cancels my changes and sets focus back to the grid.

Keying Escape in the Grid does nothing.

The following code assumes a grid named Grid1 and a textbox named txtCellEditor. You'll also see the use of a variable (global or form-level) called GridChanged which keeps track of whether the contents of the grid have changed since it was loaded.

Here's the click event. It's quite straightforward...

Sub Grid1_Click ()

txtCellEditor.Text = Grid1.Text

End Sub

The goal here is to update the textbox whenever the user clicks on a grid cell. The same happens in the Grid's KeyUp event...

Sub Grid1_KeyUp (KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)

    'ensure txtCellEditor is updated as active cell changes

    txtCellEditor.Text = Grid1.Text

End Sub

We put this in the KeyUp event to avoid excessive updates. If the user holds down an arrow key to skim past a number of cells the textbox won't be updated until the key is released.

The last simple thing we can do is set the focus to the textbox when the user double clicks on a cell. To make things easier for the user we also highlight the contents of the textbox for easier replacement...

Sub Grid1_DblClick ()

    txtCellEditor.SelStart = Len(txtCellEditor.Text)

    txtCellEditor.SelLength = 0

    txtCellEditor.SetFocus

End Sub

Now we get to the heart of the matter. Our goal here is to make the grid instantly respond to a user keypress. If it's any letter or number we want to instantly shift focus to the textbox and pass on the entered letter. This allows the user to edit a cell instantly by simply typing on the cell desired. We handle this in the grid's KeyPress event.

Sub Grid1_KeyPress (KeyAscii As Integer)

'captures the escape key and the Enter key.  All other

'character and number keystrokes are transmitted to

'txtCellEditor

    Select Case KeyAscii

        Case 27' escape key - lose changes

            txtCellEditor.Text = Grid1.Text

            Grid1.SetFocus

Exit Sub

        Case 13 'enter - go to txtCellEditor

            KeyAscii = 0

            Grid1_DblClick

        Case Else ' capture all character and numeric keystrokes

            If Chr$(KeyAscii) Like "[A-Z]" Or Chr$(KeyAscii) Like "[a-z]"

               Or Chr$(KeyAscii) Like "#" Then

                    txtCellEditor.Text = Chr$(KeyAscii)

                    txtCellEditor.SetFocus

                    txtCellEditor.SelStart = 1

                End If

            End If

    End Select

End Sub

Here are the corresponding routines for txtCellEditor...

Sub txtCellEditor_KeyDown (KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)

    'Keying escape ends editing and sets focus back to Grid1

    If KeyCode = KEY_ESCAPE Then

        If Grid1.Visible Then Grid1.SetFocus

        btnChangeCell.Enabled = False

    End If

End Sub

Now that we have the user typing happily away in the textbox we want to respond quickly to the enter and escape keys. If escape is pressed, the textbox contents are restored to the text in the current grid cell. If enter is pressed the grid is updated.

Sub txtCellEditor_KeyPress (KeyAscii As Integer)

'This sub evaluates all keypresses in txtCellEditor.  If Return is pressed

'the contents of txtCellEditor placed into the current cell of Grid1.

'If Escape is pressed the original value of the grid cell is placed back into

'txtCellEditor.  Either way, focus returns to the grid.

'--------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Saved$ = Grid1.Text

    Select Case KeyAscii

        Case 13 ' enter

            KeyAscii = 0

            Grid1.Text = txtCellEditor.Text

            If Grid1.Visible Then Grid1.SetFocus

            If Saved$ <> Grid1.Text Then GridChanged = True ' global var

        Case 27 ' escape

            KeyAscii = 0

            txtCellEditor.Text = Grid1.Text

            If Grid1.Visible Then Grid1.SetFocus

    End Select

End Sub

Use these goodies and your grids will be a joy to the user.

One More Goodie!

This next tip isn't a grid tip, but it's fun just the same. Whenever you're processing a lengthy bit of work inside a loop, you usually set the Screen.MousePointer to an hourglass, right? Well now you can make the cursor a little spinning star with no custom add-ins whatsoever!

The trick is to use the form-resizing mouse cursors provided in windows. These are the four little double arrows you can see when you move your mousepointer over the border of a resizable form. Specifically the values 6,7, 8 and 9 yield the following results....

Let's assume you're in some loop where X% is the controlling factor. You'll want to set Screen.MousePointer to one of these four values, depending on what X% is. It looks like this...

For X% = 1 to 100

     'routine to 'spin' the mousepointer! :-D

     If X% Mod 4 = 0 Then

         checker% = screen.MousePointer

         If checker% < 6 Or checker% >= 9 Then

             screen.MousePointer = 6

         Else

             screen.MousePointer = screen.MousePointer + 1

         End If

         'your code here; I'm inserting a DoEvents()

         R%=DoEvents()

         ...

         ...

     End If

Next X%

This changes your mousepointer rapidly amongs the four types of arrows, giving it a spinning effect. If you run the code as shown above, be sure to put in some other events to slow the loop down a bit. When you're done with the loop, don't forget to restore your mousepointer!

Have Fun!


About MCC
Marquette Computer Consultants provides...

Windows Programming in Microsoft Visual Basic

Database programming for Windows/DOS applications

in standalone, networked and/or SQL Server environments

Windows installation, optimization, training and support

Hardware support, assistance and troubleshooting


PowerEdit

PowerEdit 2.0

Reviewed by Ed Hoffman

As I thumbed through my mail the other day I came upon a letter from a wellknown company responding to a letter I had written a week or so before. As I began reading I was aghast at what I saw. The letter was riddled with clichés', misspelled words, missing punctuation, and a multitude of errors a junior high school student wouldn't normally make. My first impression was that the letter's initial draft must have been written with a crayon.

Regrettably, grammar, composition, and style are subjects often given little attention today. If you question the veracity or propriety of this conclusion, just look at the correspondence you receive everyday. For a society like ours, that places a high value on written communication, perhaps it might be a good idea to make sure we consider how we write as well as what we write. Now, as never before, accuracy and precision are vital issues.

Today, computers and word processors can help make our writing more understandable. All we need is the right software. Many newer word processors now contain grammar checkers along with the usual spelling checker and thesaurus. Likewise, several good standalone grammar checking programs are also available on the market. But, unfortunately, most have limited capabilities. Beyond simple or obvious mistakes, many lowend programs lack the sophistication to handle most business documents.

PowerEdit is one program, however, which does have the necessary horsepower to handle these documents. Not only will this program check your writing against the established rules of grammar, but will also evaluate your tone, clarity, style and effectiveness as well. PowerEdit finds errors that are actually wrong. So, unlike many other programs, which flag many correct phrases and sentences, most observations made by PowerEdit are valid errors or criticisms.

Nothing seems to escape the watchful eye of this program. Everything from split infinitives to subject/verb agreement is scrutinized by the program. One remarkable characteristic of the PowerEdit program is the number of problems it routinely uncovers. When compared to other grammar checking programs, on the same document, PowerEdit flags considerably more writing problems.

The program evaluates writing in four basic categories: Business, Literary, Journalistic and Technical. Documents in either the Business or Technical areas may be analyzed in either of two ways: a simple quick check or a complete detailed analysis. Besides these preset categories, the program may be completely customized to suit personal, company, or industry writing styles or requirements.

Each writing style has a series of preset rules which evaluate the document. To modify these rules simply click the "Messages" button in the Style Selection window. Once opened, you can make any changes you need. Here the specific rules that apply are noted with an X beside each number.

Besides these modifications the Maximum Level Settings may also be changed by clicking on the "Maximums" button. Here the maximum numbers of occurrences may be set. So, for example, if you decide that the default value of 4 for adjectives in a row is too high, you can change it to 3. Then when the program finds more than 3 adjectives in a row, the sentence will be flagged.

When possible errors are flagged, the program offers suggestions to make the sentence clearer. When PowerEdit finds multiple problems with a sentence, the total number of possible errors are shown above the box containing the sentence in question. The scroll bar at the side of the box may be used to move between the messages. The numbers shown with each message refer to the specific category of problem the program has noted. The specific meaning of each number is shown in the manual. One of the more unique features of the PowerEdit program is the way the document is edited. Rather than making changes within the suggestions box, as with many other grammar checkers, in PowerEdit the changes are made right in your document.

If additional information is needed, an online tutorial is only a click away. Here the program offers a description of the type of error and how to avoid the problem. Depending on the problem, the program may also point out the appropriate rules of good writing and may show examples to illustrate these rules.

Once the analysis is complete the program offers a Document Profile to show you the overall effectiveness of your writing. This analysis is shown in four categories: Clarity, Tone, Style, and Interest. The relative value of each area is shown with a bar type graph and rates the overall document from low to high. An Overall Readability is also provided to show you a graphic rating of the readability of the document.

On the down side, at 10 Mb of hard disk space and 4 Mb of available memory, the system requirements are hefty. But the performance more than justifies the overhead. The program is well documented and furnished with a good tutorial to get the user started. PowerEdit presently works with WordPerfect 5.X for Windows and Word for Windows 2.0. The AmiPro 3.0 installation will be available in March. Installing the program is a snap. PowerEdit installs automatically into the Tools menu of WordPerfect and is furnished with an installation macro to put the program in the Tools menu in Word for Windows.

PowerEdit has a one million word lexicon and compares your work to over 200,000 rules of good writing. Rather than merely proofreading for simple errors and is/are mistakes, PowerEdit accesses and evaluates the meaning of your documents and offers some surprisingly insightful comments and suggested changes. I typically use PowerEdit together with my other grammar checkers. I've found, through experience, no one program is the answer to every situation. So, once I've run my other grammar checkers, I use PowerEdit as both a final check of the other grammar checkers and to polish my writing. If it is actually possible for any computer software to think through a writing problem, PowerEdit 2.0 has to be that program.

PowerEdit 2.0 ($139.00 Retail price)

Oracle Corporation

5221 North O'Connor Boulevard

Suite 1400

Irving, TX  75039

1-214-401-5800

Brought to you by:

Ed Hoffman

Staff Writer


ED_POP


ATI_ULTRA

One of the hottest hardware enhancements for Windows users these days are accelerated video cards. The notion behind these cards is three fold:

 They operate at the speed of the PC's CPU, which is normally 25 to 33 MHz, instead of the ISA slot speed of 8 MHz.

 They transfer data at the width of the data bus, typically 32 bits, instead of the expansion bus, which is 8 bits.

 The card performs several basic Windows-specific screen redraw functions, which off loads that overhead from the CPU. The screen redraws then perform faster because the data doesn't have to travel back and forth between the video card and the CPU.

I recently purchased an ATI Ultra Graphics Pro video card from ATI Technologies. While the increased video performance is impressive, some bugs remain, and getting adequate technical support is like a political debate - if the question's too tough, change the subject.

  Installation

Installation clearly has the potential for being the worst part of the ATI experience. If you are installing the card in a machine on which Windows is already loaded, things go pretty smoothly. You can just plug the card in and run ATI's software installation program to update your Windows' drivers. You then have to go into Windows Setup from the DOS prompt, and select the mach32 drivers (ATI's chip set drivers). Overall, it's pretty simplistic.

If you are installing Windows on a machine for the first time, however, there can be some real problems. I tried this with the ATI card several times, using three scenarios:

  Setup using the Windows Super VGA video driver

  Setup using the Windows 8514/a video driver

  Setup using ATI's mach32 video driver

Unfortunately, each one was a complete bust. When running Setup using either the Super VGA or 8514/a driver that comes with Windows, the graphical portion of Setup was useless. When Windows went into the graphical mode, all I could see on my screen was a blank gray slate - no characters, messages or dialog boxes were visible. This, obviously, made any attempts to proceed with installation untenable.

When running Setup using the mach32 video driver, the graphical portion of Setup would not run at all. Instead, it informed me that I needed to run Windows in 386 Enhanced mode to the use the FlexDesk Control Panel. Huh?? What might not be readily apparent from this error message is that when Windows starts up during the graphical portion of Setup, it does so in Standard mode. Standard mode is the ONLY mode in which Windows Setup can be run.

This installation flaw also pointed out the biggest bust in the ATI program - technical support. Since I never was able to get through on their phone lines, which were busy non-stop, I had to resort to posting a message in the ATI forum on CompuServe. This proved to be an omen of things to come. If this problem were happening on a mission critical computer, it would be imperative that I have a way to reach technical support immediately, instead of being stuck waiting 24 hours or more for a response. Needless to say, it wasn't a great start to our relationship.

That notwithstanding, I ended up leaving a total of five messages for tech support. The technical staff from ATI kept suggesting that I try Windows Setup using the 8514/a video driver or that I run Windows in 386 Enhanced mode. Duh, guys.

Finally, as I kept forcing the support staff to focus again on the original problem, they simply quit responding. The moral here, I guess, is that if you have a question they can't answer, they just won't respond. Not exactly what you would expect after spending $600 on a video card, eh? The only way I was able to resolve the problem was to install a standard VGA card in the computer and then install Windows. After Windows was installed, I re-installed the ATI card and installed their video drivers.

  Performance

One thing that cannot be knocked is ATI's performance. There was a VERY noticeable difference after switching over to the ATI card from a standard VGA card. The pages literally flew by when paging down in a Word for Windows document or Excel spreadsheet. In addition, the amount of time necessary to load programs was also scaled way back. The company logos that usually take so long to draw jumped up on the screen, and just as fast blew back off when the program loaded. The performance was also noticeably better than an Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 I had been using in the computer previously.

There were, however, a couple of bugs apparent in the mach32 drivers. With the initial drivers I got with the card, the MS Sans Serif font did not display correctly. This was a major problem when using Microsoft Access, because Access uses Sans Serif as its default system font. In addition, WordPerfect for Windows 5.2 uses the MS Sans Serif font in its new QuickFinder file feature, so correctly entering a search term was a major difficulty.

Paintbrush also had a problem with the display driver. It would not paste anything into a Paintbrush picture; only a blank outline of the pasted item appeared. Also, when ZOOMing in on an existing bitmap, the colors were often reversed. For example, when ZOOMing in on a red background, the color appeared blue; when you ZOOM back out, the color appeared normal.

These problems were cured to a large extent with an updated video driver from ATI. The driver is in a file called PRO53.ZIP in the ATI forum on CompuServe (GO ATITECH). If you choose to get the ATI card, make sure you download these drivers if they aren't provided at the time of purchase.

  Summary

If you're looking strictly at performance, the ATI Ultra Graphics Pro is definitely worth considering. However, if you are the least bit uneasy about doing this type of upgrade yourself, or if you expect to have prompt and astute technical support, then you might be better off investigating one of the many other offerings currently available in the accelerated video card market.

Written By,

Steve Peschka


FontMinder

Font Management Headaches Gone!

One of the many improvements and additions Microsoft gave us with Windows was the gift of TrueType. This built-in font scaling technology has provided the end user with access to good-looking and versatile typefaces. This new standard is designed to give some competition to Adobe, who has long controlled the font-scaling market with Adobe Type Manager (ATM) and the PostScript font and page-definition format.

While industry competition usually benefits the end user, these multiple font standards have mostly served to confuse Windows addicts. The question of font management software has raised hackles in ways only seen in discussions of politics or religion. In my own home, the tried-and-true merits of ATM have been argued against the accessibility and performance of TrueType until the wee hours of the morning. To escalate the problem, the BBS community has seen fit to provide thousands of public domain TrueType and ATM fonts to any and every modem owner. The result: most Windows and BBS addicts have hundreds of fonts installed on their systems, often in both TrueType and ATM format.

If you paid a pretty penny for a fast Windows system that doesn't seem to be performing as it should, I encourage you to count how many fonts are installed in your system (be sure and count both TrueType and ATM). If you have more than about 90 ATM fonts installed and are using an early version of ATM, your system may experience a slowdown. If you have a large number of TrueType fonts installed, your WIN.INI may grow too large and start causing all sorts of headaches.

Macintosh users have long had the ability to create font groups ("suitcases"). This allows the user to install just the fonts needed for particular jobs, keeping the entire font library available but not eating system resources. Until now, this ability was not available under Windows.

Enter Ares Software Corporation. Their newest product, FontMinder, brings Font Pack capabilities to Windows. Not to be confused with FontMonger, FontMinder allows the user to create packs of fonts for certain tasks and drag-'n-drop them into instant action. This eliminates the problems caused by massive font collections. FontMinder even works with both ATM and TrueType fonts.

Installing Fonts

After an easy Windows install, FontMinder creates a master list of all your fonts. You can tell FontMinder where you want it to look for your fonts. (ATM users would want to include \PSFONTS, and FontMinder defaults to \WINDOWS\SYSTEM for TrueType fonts.) FontMinder can scan multiple paths for fonts, allowing network flexibility.

Installing fonts is conceptually a little harder than it should be. The user must read the manual carefully to understand the difference between Driver Fonts, Download able Fonts and Resident Fonts. This is especially critical when installing fonts for a PostScript printer. If an ATM font is installed as a Driver Font, the font will appear in Windows application font listings, but it will not be added to ATM. This means that it will not display accurately in Windows nor will it download. Fonts installed as Resident Fonts will be installed in ATM and will display correctly, but the font will not be downloaded. This saves time since the printer will print using it's built-in fonts. When fonts are installed as neither resident nor driver (as is the easiest to do) the fonts will be added to ATM, will display correctly and will download. So while it is easy to get confused about resident or driver fonts, if the fonts are mis-attributed it will most likely be a non-critical error.

Selecting the active fonts is easy in FontMinder. First select the type of printer you wish to install for. The options are TrueType (any printer), ATM (no PostScript printer), and all the installed printers are also listed.

If the fonts are installed for TrueType, they will be available to all printers installed in Windows. The same goes for ATM. If the fonts are installed for an individual printer, they will only be available when that printer is selected as the output device. To get the most benefit from this font management software, install the fonts only for the printer they will be printed on. This will eliminate the multiple font listings that can quickly fill up the WIN.INI file.

Once the "Install For" device has been selected, simply highlight the fonts to be installed from the Master Font Library list and drag them over to the Installed Fonts icon or the Installed Fonts window. Upon exiting the program or saving the configuration, the installed fonts will become active in Windows. Important: If you are using a version of ATM before version 2.5 and you have made an ATM font change, you will have to restart Windows before your configuration will take effect. I strongly recommend that you upgrade to ATM 2.5 if you are using FontMinder with a ATM or a PostScript printer. You shouldn't have to restart Windows every time you make a font change. To do so would hamper this program to an unacceptable degree. Also Important: To use FontMinder with ATM 2.5, you need a patch. The patch updates FontMinder to 1.1. It is available on Windows OnLine BBS at (510) 736-8343 as FD11A.ZIP or on CompuServe in the DTP FORUM, PC DTP Utilities library.

Font Packs

While this on-the fly font change system is convenient, it's not ground-breaking technology. Both TrueType and ATM 2.5 allow these instant changes. The real beauty of FontMinder lies in its Font Packs. To create a Font Pack, simply drag fonts from the Installed Fonts window onto the New Font Pack icon. FontMinder prompts you for a name for this new Font Pack, and your new font pack appears in the Font Pack window.

Now you can drag a Font Pack into the Installed Fonts window to activate a batch of fonts at a time. One limitation of FontMinder is that you cannot mix TrueType and ATM fonts in a font pack.

The advantage of FontMinder is that you can create Font Packs for specific jobs. For instance you might create a Font Pack of the fonts that are resident in your printer and a Font Pack containing the fonts you use for a particular newsletter. For day-to-day use, just install the Font Pack for the resident fonts. When you want to work on the newsletter, drag the Newsletter Font Pack to the Installed Fonts window and get to work. When the newsletter is done, deactivate the Font Pack by dragging it to the Disposal icon.

A couple words on the Disposal icon: If you drag fonts from the Installed Fonts window to the Disposal icon, they are deactivated. If you drag fonts from the Master Font Library or the Font Packs window, they are deleted. This is something that ATM 2.5 does not do.

FontMinder is a must-have utility for anyone with more than 50 fonts installed in Windows. As a Windows consultant, I've seen many systems brought to a crawl because some well-meaning user downloaded and installed all the shareware fonts from the local BBS. FontMinder is currently the only software available that handles this problem on the Windows platform. While the 50-page manual could explain the consequences of designating fonts as Driver or Resident, the operation of the program is quick and intuitive. The Font Pack feature will simplify the lives of many Desktop Publishers. Strongly recommended for use with ATM version 2.5.

FontMinder v1.0

$79.95 retail

Ares Software Corporation

PO Box 4667

Foster City, CA 94404-4667

Voice: (415) 578-9090

FAX: (415) 378-8999

CompuServe: 70253,3164

Reviewed by:


derek_sig
              Derek Geoffrey Westfall

            Philosopher, Artist, Windows Consultant

                   25200 Carlos Bee Blvd. #189

                          Hayward, CA 94542

                             (510) 881-4738

                            CIS: 73617,2131

I welcome your comments, questions and snide remarks.


BitFax

BitFax/OCR for Windows Version 2.5

O, IC, IT'S OCR

Hi folks, remember me?

I'm the guy that made such a fuss over one of the first optical character recognition systems that hit the market way back in er ah...19 and er ah...     well a few months ago actually. I talked about what a great program it was and how it worked in the background and all that other good stuff...  Well, forgetaboutit. This is the big leagues and the hard hitters are stepping up to bat.

I purposely held off on doing this review until I could get several programs of the same caliber to do what I considered was a REAL evaluation. I was surprised that no-one really wanted to be pitted against BitFax/OCR. And after using it for awhile I can certainly understand why. Most software companies wanted to expound on certain features that only their fax/OCR software had, while downplaying the issues and functions that an end user wants to really know about.

Allow me to interject a little note to those other companies:

To whom it may concern,

Who REALLY cares about all of those extra BELLS AND WHISTLES! I want a program that does one thing, does it well, doesn't cost me an arm and a leg and doesn't require that I have a Master's Degree to understand the bloody user's guide.

Sincerely,

A P. OED. NT (Non Techie) End User

Having said that ..

Finding another Fax/OCR software package that is as easy to use and well planned as BitFax/OCR is going to be pretty tough. The installation was painless. The execution was automatic and flawless and the end results were nothing short of outstanding. BitFax/OCR starts with an "easy as pie" installation program that you run from the Windows desktop. I had this sucker up and running in 10 minutes without a hitch.

Before you begin though you should make sure that you have 8 megs of RAM or at the least 4 megs of RAM and a permanent swap file with 4 megabytes. You should also be running Windows in the Enhanced mode and finally, make sure that your fax modem is installed and configured correctly.

After installing BitFax/OCR you'll find the interface simple, refreshing and uncluttered. Accessing any of the functions of this program is simply a matter of clicking the appropriate icon on your desktop. The controls and commands are pretty straight forward so that if you're a first time fax user, sending that first fax could happen almost immediately. Don't worry about getting lost, help is very thorough and always available.

(Manual! We don't need no stinking manual!) Actually I misplaced my manual and was too embarrassed to call and order another one. But that's the beauty of this program, to use it you don't have to be a rocket scientist and I should know. Every day my wife reminds me that I'm not.

Just like most of the other fax software for Windows, BitFax/OCR installs itself as a printer driver so that sending a fax is as easy as printing a document. What that means to you is basically anything that you can create in Windows (i.e. graphics, spreadsheets, and anything else,) can be faxed out by simply selecting BitFax/OCR as your active printer , use that applications Print command and select to whom you wish to fax. A log of outgoing and incoming fax's is automatically maintained for you. Also you are able to edit the comment field in the log for better fax maintenance.

BitFax/OCR utilizes Caere Corporation's Optical Character Recognition and the brand new AnyFax™ OCR technology to ensure reliability. In version 2.5, the AnyFont OCR Engine has been replaced by this newer engine that features a built-in spell checker and improved low resolution (100 x 200 dpi) recognition capabilities. These are welcomed changes, because if you have ever used any other OCR product then you know that every little bit helps.

Setup Options Galore

During its' installation BitFax/OCR gives you the opportunity to setup your Station Information . This is where you would:

Determine if there is to be a cover sheet and enter all of the information that you wish to appear to the connecting fax machine.

Enter any special numbers needed to gain access to an outside line and/or enter the code necessary to disable call waiting or any other phone features if applicable.

Enter a credit card number if your calls are to be billed that way.

Enter the message that you wish to appear at the top of your fax's that you send, if there is to be a message at all.

Using the Setup Quick Phones dialog box you may enter the information for up to 8 people or companies that you send fax's on a regular basis. These names will then be available at the click of a button. Don't worry about having to dial any special numbers (i.e. 9 for an outside line) if you entered them correctly while setting up the station information, BitFax/OCR will remember them.

In the Setup Receive Options dialog box you are able to:

Set the speaker volume controls.

Configure your hardware (modem speed, etc.).

Configure BitFax/OCR to "Automatically load Receive Fax When Windows Starts" option and/or "Automatically recognize the received fax".

While you are in the receive options dialog box you can tell BitFax/OCR which word processing file format it should use to recognize your incoming fax by clicking the OCR Options button. BitFax/OCR supports more than 30 formats and continues to be updated. Everything from AmiPro to XyWrite III Plus is here already, along with the ability to recognize any special characters from the 11 Languages that you have to choose. After these options have been configured and you tell BitFax/OCR where your word processor is located , all incoming recognized fax's are saved with the selected processors' extension and placed in a directory that you specify.

The Recognize Options section of the OCR Options dialog box is where you specify the orientation of the fax page. Is it a letter or a spreadsheet? Does the sender like to annoy you by sending you fax's that are upside down? Do you receive low resolution fax's? All of these things can be rectified here.

The Setup Transmit Option dialog box allows you to configure your hardware port and speed, set speaker mode, volume and dial control for transmitting fax's. This is also where you elect to automatically load the Fax Transmittal portion of BitFax/OCR when Windows starts.

"But does it work?"

Now, I'm sure that the burning question on everyone's lips is "But does it really work?"

The answer is "Read my lips!!! NO NEW....

OOPS, sorry... flashback...

The answer is YES!!!

BitFax/OCR worked extremely well for me. Although, the documentation states that any character that was not recognized was to be replaced by a tilde character(~) this did not happen for me. But it didn't really matter since most of the unrecognized words were corrected when I ran Word for Windows spell checker. The documentation also states that the new AnyFax OCR engine automatically checks for spelling errors. If it did, I didn't notice. But again, using Word's spelling checker was good enough for the fax's that I received.

As with most Fax/OCR products, recognizing fax's sent from computer to computer tended to be a little easier for the software to handle, but the overall performance of BitFax/OCR was still pretty outstanding.

A Few Words About Accuracy.

Of course the accuracy of optical character recognition depends on the quality of the original fax. BitFax/OCR works best with fax's that are clean and clearly printed and sent in Fine mode. (200x200 dpi) But as I stated before, Caere's new AnyFax OCR engine has also enhanced its recognition accuracy of standard resolution (100x200 dpi) fax's. Although before anyone sends you a fax , you should have them set their resolution form normal or standard to fine. (as a quality assurance measure.)

Now don't get the impression that I've said all there is to say about this program. BitFax/OCR is loaded with features (minus all of the bells and whistles) that make it one great program to consider when you are ready to purchase a Fax/OCR product.

BitFax/OCR is available now from your local software store. Our local Egghead is currently selling it for around $179.00. But call around to find the best price.

Below is a more comprehensive list of BitFax/OCR 's features or for more detailed information see your local software distributor or contact Bit Software, Inc.

OCR Features

FAX Features

System Requirements

Reviewed By Brian Parks

If you know of a Windows product that you would like to have reviewed, drop me a line in care of Windows Online IDS.


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HIFINANCE

The world of Hi, Finance! touches many financial situations that apply to many of us. The program menu offers six icons representing functions from which to choose. Most go to a single function while others lead to sub-menus.

The look and feel of Hi, Finance! is somewhat different from other financial programs we've examined. While author Roger C. Hoover holds his CPA and an MBA degree, his stated goal is to make the program "user friendly". While an often abused phrase, in this case it does apply.

Financial Calculator

Though the icon is somewhat reminiscent of an HP calculator, you'll find an easier, cleaner interface from which you can access several functions. It supports calculations of present and future values, rate required (lump sum and annuities for both), number of payments required, and a unique "effect of inflation on buying power". Results, when applicable, are automatically charted in the window provided. This chart can be enlarged to full screen, with automatic legends, and data can be exported in the form of MS Excel, Lotus 123, ASCII or binary files.

Loans

The loan module offers a similarly designed, clean and easily understood interface. You can solve for any missing piece of your equation, and subsequently view and print an amortization schedule with a yearly summary.

As with the other modules, charts are automatically generated for many of the functions. The Loan Amortization chart is particularly interesting with its graphical representation of the distribution of payments and balance change over the term of the loan. Do a fifteen and thirty year mortgage loan chart or a three and five year car loan and then compare. You'll quickly see why the shorter term is such a better deal (lower rate and higher equity more quickly) if you can swing the higher payment.

Investment Analysis

This module continues the user friendly mode, but begins to move into an area of some unfamiliarity to most of the population. It provides net present value, internal rate of return, profitability index, and payback ratio.

Random Number Generator

This application will generate pseudo random numbers in a specified population range. It's the only "who cares" application in the group. Perhaps you can win the lottery with it.

Financial Planning

This selection enters a screen with five additional options for financial and specifically, retirement planning. There is interaction among these modules, and results are graphically displayed. However, they are not always so easily understood. Error catching in these modules seemed poor, if non-existent. Illogical entries were not disallowed, but resulted in bizarre behavior by the program, sometimes entries to an error log, and often foreign characters in the figures matrix. Documentation explains data entry, for the large part, but will not teach you financial planning.

Business Assistant

This is perhaps a good title for this module. Most of the functions are aimed at an assistant. If the owner couldn't do these calculations on a four-function calculator, he won't be in business for long. Markup, Gross Price Margin, Sales Tax are of little interest. Cost/Volume/Profit (break-even) and Economic Order Quantity analyses are more useful, and the break-even chart has two variations.

An icon bar is available for quick access to some of the program functions. Context-sensitive on-line help is provided, and a 44 page User's Guide in .WRI format is included. Data entered into modules can be saved to a file, and charts and amortization schedules can be printed if hard copy needed. Options to change colors in data entry and display screens as well as charts are available.

                   Conclusions

While fitting the user-friendly criteria for operations, do not expect to be taught financial planning or the science of retail markup. Hi, Finance! offers a well-designed interface and some useful tools, but needs some of its bugs worked out, especially in view of its cost. While it seems to aspire to commercial quality by its pricing, it does not reach that level.

There are some especially nice features within the program, with screen and printed output is especially visually pleasing. Automatic charting of results displays data in a very meaningful way, providing a visual impact that mere numbers cannot.

The system requires Windows 3.X and allows that 3.1 and a minimum 4 meg 386-25 will provide better performance. At least one megabyte of hard disk storage is required.

Hi, Finance can be registered for $59.00 plus $5.00 shipping through the mail or CompuServe which includes a printed manual and disk with the latest version. Registered users are entitled to minor upgrades free of charge and substantial (undefined) discounts on new versions. Members of Windows Online will find the program within two files, HIFI214A.ZIP and HIFI214B.ZIP.

For further information, please contact:

Brightridge Solutions, Inc.

1534 Brightridge Drive

Kingsport, TN  37664

ORDER LINE (800) 241-7203

Inquiries  (615) 246-3337

FAX	   (615) 246-6385

CompuServe 74676,235

CIS 71334,2065


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