A d d r e s s A c c e s s
=========================
- the better card file -
Version 2.11e - 24.11.98, by Thorsten Lange, Hamburg, Germany
copyright 1995-1998 Thorsten Lange and his licensors.
All rights reserved.
Preface
-------
Just a note before we get started: This program is shareware and must be registered for
only US$25 if used after a trial period of about 4 weeks. Although the functionality of
this version isn't limited (only using it as backdrop is diasabled), registered users
have a couple of advantages (for details see chapters "Shareware" and "Registration").
Any suggestions or error reports are welcome (even from unregistered users). My postal
and email address can be found in chapter "Registration". Since English is not my
native language I apologize for possible "unidiomatic expressions" and errors. So any
corrections in this respekt are welcome, too.
AddressAccess supplies an easy and efficient interface to the cards stored in your
Newton - no more using the slow overview function to find a person's address.
AddressAccess features:
- Sort your cards by first name, last name or company.
- comfortable editor for easily changing or adding cards with
optional non-floating keyboard
- compatible: uses the same data as the built-in app
- quick searching: only enter the first few characters of name you are looking for
- Address is formatted according to the country.
- Export to notes
- Converting cards from company to person and vice versa
- Direct dialling of phone numbers without any further dialogs
(after a configurable delay).
- Direct beaming of cards.
- Direct beaming of your card (owner info is used).
- together with "i++" V2.00 or higher:
- create a new card directly from the "i" button
- open the built-in names (usefull if AddressAccess redefines the names button)
- And a lot of user-configurable options (redefine names button,
select one of five different keyboards,...)
Note: AddressAccess 2 is for Newton OS2.x only. If you are using OS1.x you can download
AddressAccess V1.61 from my homepage
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Thorsten_Lange
where you can find the latest versions of all my Newton applications.
I hope you will enjoy this program-so much that you will gladly register your copy :-)
Installing AddressAccess
------------------------
Simply install AddrAcc.pkg on your Newton (remember to remove "AddrAcc Ext" from the
Extensions folder if you had used AddressAccess 1.6x. This package is no longer
needed).
Additionaly you can install "Country.pkg", a package that allows you to customize the
common-countries popup of AddressAccess. After changing the popup to the countries you
need at most you can remove the package to save storage space if you like.
After getting used to AddressAccess I'll recommend that you take a look at the
preferences ("i"/"prefs"). There are really a lot of user-configurable options so that
you can make AddressAccess fit your needs. You'll find more about these options in
chapter "configuration".
AddressAccess uses the same data as the built-in application. No data will be copied or
moved and you can still use the same tools for importing/exporting data as with the
built-in names file. Consequently if you want to deinstall AddressAccess (which I hope
will never happen ;-) all you have to do is remove the icon from Extras. If you had
used additional indexes you can remove them using the index maintainace dialog (see
chapter "index maintainace").
Functional description
----------------------
The key to efficient access to your cards is the user interface. On the screen you see
at a glance:
- information about a selected person
- a list of cards matching a search-criterion
(beginning of first name, last name or company)
- a keyboard for entering the criterion
Each character entered on the keyboard will be added to the search string. The list of
matching cards will be updated automatically and the information about the first
matching card will be displayed. Normaly only a few characters will be sufficient for
finding the right card.
AddressAccess features a card view of its own. Apart from "All Info" (the tap with the
"!") you can view only a selection of a persons data: I.e. if you are looking for a
phone number just tap the phone icon above the card view. If you have collected a lot
of information about a contact this will speed-up working with Names, too, since you
don't have to browse through the long "All Info" view.
There are five view modes: phone&pager&email, postal address, custom fields, notes and
"All Info". I believe that in most cases phone&email will be sufficient.
Every input on the integrated keyboard will be added to the input field above. Instead
of "Enter" a key for clearing the search string is provided. Or just enter a capital
letter to replace the text entered so far (if this option is checked in "prefs.". There
is also an option for automatically pressing the shift-key after a configurable delay).
If you prefer using handwriting you can select a very small keyboard so that there is
more space left for the list and/or the card view.
On the right side of the input field you can select what field shall be used for
sorting and searching: first name, last name or company. If you select "standard"
("std.") the cards will be sorted the same way as in the built-in card file. The first
time you select a non-standard sorting order a new index has to be generated. Since
this might take a little if you have lots of contacts AddressAccess will ask you before
proceding. Note that with "i"/"Index Prefs." you can create the indexes need or remove
the unneeded ones.
In the middle of the screen there is a list of all cards matching the search criterion.
Every time you change the criterion this list will be updated and the first card will
be selected. You can select any other card of the list by tapping on its name (or
switching to the next/previous with the standard arrow-keys).
If there are more matching cards than there are lines, then arrows for scrolling are
displayed on the right side. For a full-screen overview of all matching cards just tap
the overview button. Here you can also select multiple cards for printing, beaming,
filing, ...
To dial a number, tap on the phone icon at the left of it. Optionally there is another
button representing the "Calls" application. Tapping this one will open "Calls", create
a new log-entry and dial the number. Note that there are a couple of options for
dialing,too ("i"/"Dialing Prefs.").
At the upper right corner (below the "tabs" for changing the view mode) there is a
"zoom box" for changing the size of the card view. Tapping that button toggles between
a full screen display and the small window. For Notes and "All Info" the default size
is full screen (but that can changed -> chapter "configuration").
Within the card view there will be scroll arrows at the right hand side if more
information is available. In notes mode these scrollers are always present to allow
entering large notes. In the upper left corner there is a button for opening/closing
the "Styles" dialog.
Each address is formatted according to the country (if the country is missing the
owner-country is used for the default format). So an American address will be
city, state zip
country
while a german one will be
zip city
country
The country name must be written according to the "nationality" of your Newton: On
"English speaking" systems it is "Germany" while on German ones it is "Deutschland". Up
to now, there have still been countries missing. So if you encounter an ill-formatted
address please contact me!
"i" opens a popup menu with items for opening the about box ("info box" - where you can
enter your registration code) or changing preferences (see chapter "Dialing
preferences" and "Configuration"). If "i++" (>=V2.00) is installed the selected
additional items will be displayed, too.
The "A-Z" Button toggles an additional floating button bar (on top of the bottom row of
the keyboard, so it is mostly useful only if a keyboard with a space bar is used)
showing the alphabet. Tapping a letter clears the input field and inserts the letter in
one step.
"Extra" opens a small menu which allows you to open the built-in card file (in any
modes) or directly access one of the recently used contacts.
After pressing the "New" button a menu pops up. You can select wether you want to
create a new person or company card. Afterwards the editor integrated in AddressAccess
will show up with a blank card (the country is filled by default with the owners
country).
The "action button" (envelope) allows you to print, fax, mail, export to the notepad,
beam, duplicate or delete the selected card. With Beam Me Up you can easily beam your
owner info to another Newton (where it will be inserted in the Names file).
Additionally there is a "Convert to company" entry when the current contact is a person
and "Convert to person" action when viewing a company card. If you have installed
Backyard there will also be two items to create a linked Pin and to create a link from
an existing pin to the current contact.
Editor
------
This editor of AddressAccess provides a more comfortable way for changing multiple
fields since you don't have to pick the fields seperately.
There are different ways to open this editor:
- create a new card using the "New" button
- tap on any field in the card display and the editor opens in the corresponding mode
- if you have installed "i++" V2.00 or better you can create
a new card from the i-menu in most applications (note that selected text
will be used to fill in the fields of the new card)
- if you use Backyard you can add a "New Company" or "New Person" button
to the button bars
- if you use WittyKeys you can define a key command for "New Company" or "New Person".
The editor uses different modes simmilar to the card display. The button bar on top
allows switching between modes with a single tap.
There can be multiple addresses, companies and/or affiliates for a single contact. In
these cases you can create a new instance with the "New" button at the bottom of the
screen (this buttons does *NOT* create a new Names card). Note that a new instance will
be added after the currently displayed item. Of course there is also a "Delete" button
to remove i.e. an additional company. For siwtching between the different instances
there is a picker above the address/company/affiliate.
Some more notes about the editor:
- In phone,pager or email mode all empty entries will be removed when you leave this
mode -> To erease an entry just clear out the corresponding field(s).
- The keyboard-button at the lower left corner toggles the on-screen keyboard of
AddressAccess (not the floating standard keyboard).
- All changes will be saved when the editor is closed or an other card is displayed.
- A new card without any information will not be added (if choosing new accidentally).
- The country of a new card will be set by default to the owner's country.
- The countries-popup can be configured using the extra package "Country.pkg"
- Some input fields provide the 8 most frequently used values in a popup menu.
- Hitting "Tab" on the on-screen keyboard moves the cursor to the next input field. If
necessary the window will scroll to this field.
- In dates-mode you can enter birthdays and anniversaries. Here you can also specify
the text that is used in dates for the note. Only if you press the corresponding "Add"
button the displayed information will be written in the calendar (and an old belonging
appointment will be removed).
Configuration
-------------
To customize AddressAccess please open the Preferences dialog (i/Prefs.). The settings
are grouped using divider bars. Note: Use scrollers at the right to display different
parts of the settings.
> General <
"Always store new names internally" overrides the global setting where to store new
objects. If checked new contacts created with AddressAccess will be stored in the
Newton itself and not on a memory card.
Checking "Quick Start" makes AddressAccess start up a little faster but at the price of
showing an empty list and no card. Otherwise a list of all addresses is shown and
AddressAccess opens to the card displayed last time AddressAccess was open.
With "Startup display" you can select the card view mode that is displayed when
AddressAccess opens. Specifying "last" will result in the same mode as the last time
AddressAccess had been used.
You can also limit the "Number of past entries in Extras" (the history of recently
accessed contacts).
> Searching & Keyboard <
At next you can select a keyboard for AddressAccess. You have five opportunities: using
a standard keyboard but omitting the row with numbers and/or the row with space&option.
Or you can select a tiny single-line keyboard which is especially usefull if you prefer
using handwritting.
For the MP2x00 there is also an option to use "larger keys" (especially usefull in
conjunction with the "A-Z" keyboard).
By default "Capitals clear input line" is checked. So you do not have to clear the
input field before entering a new search string - just start with a capital letter.
Therefore "Auto-Shift" is quite usefull: After a (customizable) delay after the last
character entered the "shift" key will be pressed automatically since you normally want
to look for a new card afterwards.
Another options is "delayed searching": If you disable this option (by moving the
slider to the left edge) AddressAccess updates the list of matching cards after each
character entered. Although searching is quite fast there is a delay between taps. For
people who use to enter multiple characters very fast, better performance will be
obtained if AddressAccess waits a little while after each keystroke for further
modifications and searches only once. The delay between a keystroke and the beginning
of the search can be controled by a slider. I would recommend setting the slider about
one third from the left. When using the MP2x00 this option is only needed when there
are really a lot of entries in your Names file otherwise I would set the slider to the
left side for immediate response.
> Card display <
You can set the height of the card view by specifying the "number of lines" (i.e. in
phones mode). Note that you can specify different values for portrait and landscape
mode (rotated screen).
"All Info" and "Notes" usually open in full-screen mode. With two checkboxes you can
control this feature
Fontsize(lines) allows you to set the size of the font used in the card display lines
(not used for the headline,...)
Additionally there are checkboxes to control wether to show honorifics (before the
persons name) or titles (on the divider bar) or to show phone numbers as they are
dialed (that means ommiting the area code if possible or adding the country code if
needed).
> Editor <
As with the search keyboard above you can enlarge the keys if you think the standard
keys are to tiny on a MP2000.
And with a picker you can specify wether the address mode of the editor should order
the input fields US like (city, state, postal code) or European style (postal code,
city, state).
> System modifications <
Checking "Global search with AddressAccess" replaces the built-in card file when making
a global search ("Search"+"All").
With OS2.0 only you can modify the "Names" button: tapping it will open AddressAccess.
(Hint: together with "i++" V2.00 or better AddressAccess alows opening the built-in
names via the "i-menu" of most applications like the notepad). For OS2.1 (MP2x00) this
option isn't available and it isn't needed since you can simply by drag'n'drop
customize the OS2.1 soft button bar.
Index maintainance
------------------
For using non-standard sorting (first name, last name or company) AddressAccess has to
built an index once. This will happen when you first change the sort field.
The index maintainace dialog (selecting "Index Prefs" from the i-button) is only needed
if you like to generate multiple indexes at once or to remove an index i.e. when
deinstalling AddressAccess (which I hope will never happen ;-).
In the dialog simply check the indexes you plan to use and uncheck the ones that aren't
needed. Next tap on "Update Indexes" and AddressAccess will built/remove the indexes as
specified.
Dialing preferences
-------------------
When selecting "Dialing Prefs" from the i-button a dialog will be displayed.
With the first picker you can select the current owner and the workplace setting from
the owner info for the right areacode, dialing prefix ... (This selection is - as usual
- valid for all applications in your Newton. So this also controlls which owner card
will be beamed by "Beam Me Up", if there are multiple owners defined).
The next controls what service should be used to dial the number ("Modem", "Speaker" or
"Telephone"=do not dial at all, usefull for logging calls without any dialing).
"Dialing method" defines what should happen after tapping the phone-icon.
- "AddressAccess": Use the dialing floater of AddrAcc that waits a configurable time
before dialing (use slider at the bottom of this dialog to control the delay). This
dialing method also allows to configure the delay between a phone number and the
extension.
- "Standard, direct": The built-in dialing routine is used (always waits three seconds
before dialing and shows up a control pannel afterwards)
- "Standard, dialog": This is the Newton-way of dialing. The standard slip will be
displayed to control various settings before dialing will be initiated.
If you check "Show call log button" there will be two buttons next to each phone
number. The second one will open the calls application, create a new log entry and dial
the number (this will always use the standard dialing method).
Comments and known limitations
------------------------------
- You can enter any character in the search string. But searching is case and
diacritical-mark insensitive.
- Do not remove a memory card while AddressAccess is showing an address stored on that
card. You might confuse your Newton (but reset should fix this).
- Duplicating a card in the built-in card file (and modifying its contents) will not be
detected by AddressAccess properly. It will show the same card twice. Restarting
AddressAccess fixes this. Better solution: use "duplicate" in AddressAccess!
- When a card is received (beamed) AddressAccess will not always switch to it
automatically.
Shareware
---------
This program is shareware. So you may try it for free for about four weeks. After this
trial period you have to pay a fee (US$25) if you're using it on a regular basis.
Since you should be able to really try this program there are no functional limitations
when using an unregistered copy (except for the fact that only registered versions can
be used as backdrop)!
But some people need a "motivation" to register their copy which is very easy (just put
money in an envelope and send it to my address listed below) and cheap - see chapter
"Registration" for details. So registered users have the following advantages:
1.) Email support for questions/problems
2.) For the present I will maintain an email list of registered users to notify them
when a new version is available at my homepage
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Thorsten_Lange.
3.) When using this program, a notification will be displayed that you have to register
your copy. The more you use this program the more often the notifications are
displayed. After entering the registration code no more messages are displayed. This
code also enables using AddressAccess as the backdrop application.
You can register AddressAccess by
- sending cash,
- online (using a credit card) via Kagi at http://order.kagi.com/?LT or
- you use "Newton register" to pay by credit card, US check, ... using Kagi and Newton
email.
For more informations about registering AddressAccess please read the enclosed file
"Register", check out my homepage
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Thorsten_Lange
or just contact me by email: Thorsten_Lange@kagi.com
Copyright notice
----------------
AddressAccess is copyright 1995-1998 Thorsten Lange and his licensors.
All rights reserved.
This program is Shareware - IT IS NOT FOR FREE.
You are allowed to try out AddressAccess for four weeks for free. If you continue using
it you have to register your copy. For more information see chapter "registration"
above.
Restrictions
------------
You may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise reduce the software
to a human-perceivable form. You may not modify the software or the documentation.
Disclaimer
----------
You expressly acknowledge and agree that use of AddressAccess is at your sole risk. The
software and related documentation are provided "AS IS" and without warranty of any
kind.
I make no warranty of the performance of this program, expressed or implied. In no
event will I be held responsible for any damages or loss as a result of using
AddressAccess. When this disclaimer does not apply, my liability will be limited to
the amount paid for the product.
Famous last words ...
---------------------
Apple and Newton are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United
States and other countries.