A2 Central 1989 07 July 1989 Vol 5 No 6

2-Central’ 2 A journal and exchange of Apple I discoveries Open-Apple i; July 1989 Vol. 5, No. 6 ISSN 0885-4017 newstand price: $2.50 photocopy charge per page: $0.15 AppleWorks 3.0 a blockbuster Imagine what would happen if Claris asked Beagle Bros to make all the enhancements to AppleWorks that users had ever dreamed of. Now stop imagining. It's reality. Claris announced AppleWorks 3.0 at the National Educational Com- puting Conference in Boston on June 20. Alan Bird, originator of Bea- gle Bros’ TimeOut utilities and author of TimeOut QuickSpell, Randy Brandt, author of TimeOut UltraMacros, and Rob Renstrom, author of TimeOut Graph, have been at work on the AppleWorks 3.0 project since last summer. Imagine a 16,000-line word processor with a new, more-advanced version of QuickSpell built-in; with real tabs and multiple tab rulers; with multi-line headers and footers; with more control-key commands (such as control-C for center); with the ability to print a specified range of pages; with the ability to print date and time codes (in a selection of formats); with right-justification; and with six new printer codes you can use to take advantage of whatever special features your printer supports. Imagine a 16,000-record data base with horizontal scrolling in mul- tiple-record layout; with multiple category sorts; with single category finds; with one-key entry of the current date and time; with 20 report formats per file that include new abilities such as multiple labels across a page and the ability to create multiple-record screen formats from report formats and vice-versa. Imagine a 9,999 row by 127 column spreadsheet that is smart enough to determine whether a cell being referenced is a label or a value and act accordingly. Put (A2) in a cell and it will display ‘1" if that's what's in cell A2 or it will display "Wow!" if that's what's in cell A2. Imagine being able to turn numeric scores into letter grades and numeric cross-checks into verbal error messages. Imagine five new arithmetic functions like @LOG and @MOD, nine new trigonometric functions like @SIN and @ACOS, six new financial functions like @PV and @IRR, and six new logical functions like @TRUE and @ISERROR. Imagine @IF(@ISBLANK(A2),"You must fill in cell A2‘,”), to say nothing of the ability to copy and move blocks of cells to and from the clip- board. Imagine a clipboard with no size limit other than the amount of memory you have. Imagine a clipboard with the ability to automatical- ly format the data it contains for any AppleWorks module. Yes, you can move data from any module to any other module-from the spreadsheet to the word processor, for example-without first printing it to the clipboard or a file on disk. Imagine being able to select subdirectories, as well as files, using point-and-shoot rather than try-and-remember-even when accessing ASCII text files. Imagine being able to switch drives and to dive into and back out of subdirectories by pressing keys while the current file listing is on the screen. Imagine up to three custom printers, not just one, and built-in sup- port for Brother, Epson, Juki, Okidata, and Panasonic printers, to say nothing of the ImageWriter II and the ImageWriter LQ. Imagine automatic support of aux-slot type memory cards (in addi- tion to current support for standard-slot and Ilgs-memory-slot cards). Imagine no retail price increase. Imagine an upgrade price of $79 and a special Claris program whereby A2-Central subscribers who don't have an older copy of AppleWorks to upgrade from can get Apple- Works 3.0 directly from Claris for $99 (see this month's catalog). AppleWorks 3.0 still works on 128K machines, however, as before, it works better on machines with additional memory. Desktop size on 128K machines is now about 40K instead of 56K. AppleWorks 3.0 comes on two double-sided 5.25 disks or one 3.5 disk. Side 1 of the 5.25 startup disk includes PRODOS, APL- WORKS.SYSTEM, four files for various kinds of memory expansion cards, a configuration file, a printer information file, and the SANE mathematics file. Side 2 of the 5.25 disk set includes the word pro- cessor and data base segments. Side 3 has the spreadsheet. Side 4 has the main and custom dictionaries for the spelling checker. Sides 1, 2, and 3 also all have a file called SEG.AW, which holds the desktop and main menu segments. Here's a complete list of the AppleWorks 3.0 program files: filename size description (blocks) PRODOS 32 disk operating systen APLWORKS.SYSTEM 26 main program file $26.00 9 memory sequent for 128K machines SEG.AM 9 "for aux-slot menory SEG.XM 9 "for std-slot menory SEG.RM 9 "for IIgs menory SEG.EL 12 SANE elementary math functions SEG.ER 6 Configuration file SEG.PR 9 Printer information SEG.AW 97 Desktop Interface and Main Menu SEG.WE 87 word processor SEG.DB 86 data base SEG.SS 16 spreadsheet MAIN. DICTIONARY 402 CUST.DICTIONARY 1+ (5.25 version is 254 blocks) (expands as you add words) nv : = — “CAREFUL SUNDANCE, THIS ONES BEEN FORCED TO USE 4 MACHINE WimHOUT A RAM DISK ALL WEEK AND HE'S ITCHING FOR A FIGHT.” 5.42 A2-Central It's possible to create minimum-configuration disks that don't include all of these files. You need only the one memory segment file (SEG.00, SEG.AM, SEG.XM, or SEG.RM) that will be used by your machine. If you don't use the spreadsheet, you don't need SEG.SS; the data base, SEG.DB; the word processor, SEG.WP nor the dictionar- ies, And after you've configured your printers you no longer need SEG.PR. (Under AppleWorks 3.0, SEG.PR contains the list of supported printers, as displayed when you add a printer, and all the printer con- trol codes and sequences for those printers. Unlike earlier versions, it doesn't contain any variable configuration information about printers- that's been moved to the new SEG.ER, along with other configuration information. Third parties can now construct special SEG.PR files holding information for additional printers.) Desktop enhancements AppleWorks 3.0 now has a single standard interface for dealing with files on disks, which has the following features. Whenever a list of disk files is displayed on the screen (except when selecting custom dictionaries, which must be at the same directory path as the Apple- Works program files), the following keys can be used to navigate through directories (‘OA means hold down the open-apple key): 7B AppleWorks reads and displays the root directory of the next drive. oa-, (note: unshifted OA->) adds highlighted subdirectory to pathnane and displays the subdirectory's contents (same as Return). OA-, (note: unshifted OA-<) deletes last subdirectory from pathname and displays prior subdirectory. Beeps in root directory. OA-RETURN Selects current pathname and returns to previous menu. ESCAPE ‘Returns to previous menu without changing pathname. RETORN With files selected: loads selected files. With no files selected: File highlighted: loads the file Subdirectory highlighted: same as OA-. Right/Left Select and deselect files as before; beep if on subdirectory. Up/Down Move cursor up and down through directory listing, as before. OA-Up/Down Page up, page down. OA-1/0A-9 Top of list, bottom of list (OA-2 through OA-8 do nothing) . There are seven ways to display lists of files lon disk from within AppleWorks 3.0. No mat- AppleWorks iter what order the files are actually in on the 3.0 allows disk, in the AppleWorks file listing they are i. grouped in the following order: word proces- you to navi sor files, data base files, spreadsheet files, gate through |fext files (well, text files are listed first when subdirec- you "Make a new file* from a text file or a DIF file), other files, and subdirectories. Within tores by teers files ate Ise aipabedcaly. ‘ Six types of Tiles are displayed when you pressing "List all files on the current disk drive’ or keys. "Delete files from disk’ (Other Activities menu), when you ‘Make a new file from a DIF file’ (data base and spreadsheet), and when you ‘Make a new file from a text (ASCII) file’ (word processor and data base-as with earlier versions of AppleWorks, you can actually use this command to load any type of file into AppleWorks, not just text files, but you can only load one file at a time). When you ‘Get files from the current disk’, only AppleWorks files and subdirectories are displayed. When you select a custom dictio- nary, only text files are displayed (the dictionaries have to be at the same pathname as the rest of the AppleWorks program). When you "Change Current Disk" using ‘ProDOS directory’, only subdirectories are displayed (if you insist, you can also type in pathnames the old way by selecting ‘ProDOS directory’ with OA-Return). AppleWorks 3.0 no longer supports ‘Make a new file from a Quick File file’ (data base) or "Make a new file from a VisiCalc file’ (spreadsheet). With the new commands, there's almost no reason to ever use choice 2 from the ‘Add files' menu ('Get files from a different disk’). Always select ‘The current disk" and if it's not the one you really want, use Tab to quickly display the one you do. Enhanced text file importing/exporting. Now that the word proces- Vol. 5, No. 6 sor supports true tabs, more options are available for importing and exporting files. When you import a text file to the word processor, any embedded tabs (Control-Is) will be converted to AppleWorks tabs. When you import a text file to the data base, AppleWorks 3.0 asks: Does the text (ASCII) file have: 1, Tabs between categories, Returns between records 2. Return after each category If you select 2, AppleWorks will ask how many categories there are per record, just as it does now. If you select 1, however, AppleWorks will be able to determine that itself and will skip the question. When printing to a text file from the word processor, the following menu appears: Should the text (ASCII) file have: 1, Standard text format with Tabs 2. Spaces substituted for tab stops 3. Returns after each line Option 3 is the equivalent of the way current versions of Apple- Works print text files. Option 3 gives you a Return at the end of each line and embedded spaces rather than tabs. It's ideal for creating text files you intend to upload to an online service. Options | and 2, on the other hand, don't add Returns to the file. Returns appear only where they are in the original file, which is usual- ly only at the end of paragraphs (this is how early versions of Apple- Works printed text files). Option 1 puts controls in the file; option 2 puts the correct number of spaces. Which is better depends on whether the software you're sending the text file to recognizes control- Is or not. When printing to a text file from the data base, the following menu appears: Should the text (ASCII) file have: 1, Tabs between categories, Returns between records 2, Return after each category And when printing to a text file from the spreadsheet, you'll see: Should the text (ASCII) file have: 1, Tabs between columns, Returns between rows 2. Return after each cell (The AppleWorks 3.0 specifications also say that new subdirecto- ries and exported text and DIF files will be created in the current data disk location unless the user enters a complete pathname. In previ- ous versions, the user was forced to enter a complete pathname-~a partial pathname wouldn't do. Based on the pre-release version of 3.0 Claris gave me to look at, this new feature wasn't implemented.) Smart save command. When an AppleWorks file (but not a text or DIF file) is loaded from disk, AppleWorks will remember the pathname the file was in. OA-S still saves a file to the current disk location, as before, however, OA-Control-S now sets the current disk location to the file's original pathname and then saves the file. When you use the main menu's Save Files option, AppleWorks 3.0 gives you a third option in addition to ‘Save the file on the current disk’ and "First change to a different disk or directory’. That option is “Save the file to its original directory." If the original directory can't be found because the user has switched disks, the "Getting errors trying to write at..." filecard will appear. It allows the user to insert the cor- rect disk and then ‘Try again’ or to ‘Try a different location." Clipboard enhancements. Three enhancements were made to the AppleWorks 3.0 clipboard. First, the only limit on the size of the clip- board is the amount of available memory. Second, you can now copy and move spreadsheet columns and blocks to and from the clipboard (formerly you could only deal with entire rows). When copying or mov- ing spreadsheet data back into a spreadsheet, the data on the clip- board overwrites pre-existing data. The third clipboard enhancement allows you to use the clipboard to transfer data directly between the word processor, data base, and spreadsheet. When transferring data between the spreadsheet and the data base, spreadsheet rows are equivalent to data base records and columns are equivalent to categories. When copying or moving data base or word processor data from the clipboard to the spreadsheet, new rows are inserted for each July 1989 record or line. The data will start in column A. If there are no Tabs in word processor text, each whole line will be placed in a single cell in column A. If there are Tabs, additional cells will be used for each Tab. Numbers in data base categories or between word processor Tabs will be converted to numeric values. When copying or moving spreadsheet or word processor data from the clipboard to the data base, new records are inserted for each row or line. The data starts in the first category. If there are more columns/Tabs than categories, the excess will be ignored; if less, the remaining categories will be blank. When copying or moving spreadsheet or data base data from the clipboard to the word processor, Tabs are automatically inserted into the text to separate columns/categories. Returns at the end of each line separate rows/records. Other desktop changes. Some other changes in AppleWorks 3.0 include the following: the program no longer asks the user to press the space bar after display of the title/copyright screen during startup. If the system has a clock, AppleWorks 3.0 will read the system date during startup and not ask the user to enter the date. OA-Delete now deletes the character the cursor is on (or gobbles characters to the right of the cursor) in all parts of the program. Delete alone works as before. OA-right-arrow and OA-left-arrow move the cursor to the first character of the next word, right or left, in all parts of the program. When Control-Reset is pressed, AppleWorks 3.0 tries to return to the main menu rather than dropping into the Moni- tor. ‘Thermometers’ similar to the one displayed while GS/OS is boot- ing are used in AppleWorks 3.0 to indicate how quickly time-intensive tasks such as preloading files, sorting, printing, and searching dictio- naries are moving along. A warning message appears whenever a duplicate filename is added to the desktop (the message appears in current versions only when adding a new file from disk; under 3.0 it will also appear when making a new file from scratch or when renam- ing a file.) Users can now print up to 255 copies of a file. And the OA- H(ardcopy) command now issues a form feed to advance the paper after printing what's on the screen. Word Processor Enhancements Spelling checker. The new built-in spelling checker is accessed by pressing OA-V(erify spelling). This brings up the following one-line menu at the bottom of the screen: Verify spelling? All Word Block Dictionary Options “All’ checks the spelling of the entire document. “Word” checks the Spelling of the word the cursor is on, or the word to the left of the cur- sor if it's between words. "Block" allows the user to select a Dlock of text and then checks the spelling of all the words in that block. "Dictionary* brings up a second menu that looks like this: Custom Dictionary? Get existing Create new Each time you start up AppleWorks 3.0, the configuration file is used to determine the name of the default custom dictionary. The first option allows you to switch from the ilt-j default custom dictionary to another one. The The built in second option allows you to create a new, spelling lempty, custom dictionary and start using it. j Dictionaries selected using the ‘Dictionary* checker is option remain in use through the current ses- even better __ |sion. The next time the user runs AppleWorks, i however, the custom dictionary listed in the than Quick- configuration file, which we'll look at later, is Spell. reselected. In addition, each time you start up Apple- Works 3.0, the configuration file is used to determine whether you want to check spelling ‘in context’ or ‘from a list’, to determine whether you want a summary of the spelling changes you've made, and to determine whether you want your sum- mary displayed on the screen or placed on the clipboard. (You can also choose to get the summary only without stopping to correct any- thing; this option was added so that teachers could quickly check homework-on-disk.) The Options’ selection in the "Verify spelling?’ menu allows you to select the alternate checking method or alternate summary options A2-Central 5.43 for the current spell-check. (Your method/summary selections are good one-time only and only if you select ‘All’ or ‘Block’ immediately after making the selection. Escape back to your document and you'll lose the selection. ‘Word' verifications are always in context and never include a summary.) When you verify spelling in context, AppleWorks proceeds through the document stopping at each unknown word in the order in which they occur. The document will be displayed on the screen with the unknown word highlighted in approximately the center of the screen. At the bottom of the screen you'll see the following menu: Unknown word? Replace Add to dictionary Ignore Skip Get suggestions “Replace’ allows you to type in a correction. First you'll have to specify whether the correction applies only to that instance or to all occurrences of the unknown word. "Add to dictionary’ adds the unknown word to the current custom dictionary. "Ignore" skips all occurrences of the unknown word. ‘Skip" skips just that one instance of the unknown word. ‘Get suggestions’ brings up a list of possible correct spellings for the unknown word. You can scroll through this list and replace the unknown word with the highlighted word by press- ing Return. When you verify spelling from a list instead of in context, you are presented an alphabetical list of all the unknown words in the docu- ment. You can use the four arrow keys to scroll through and select some or all of the words in this list. Selected words can be added to the dictionary (OA-A), ignored (OA-1), or replaced by typing in a correc- tion (OA-R). You can also choose to correct selected words in context (OA-C), which is how you get the program to give you suggested spellings for the unknown words in the list. No matter which method you use, after you've dealt with all the unknown words, you'll be presented with an in-context display of all double double word pairs and you'll be given an opportunity to remove one of the duplicates. When verifying from a list, you can delete double words anytime by pressing OA-D. Looking only at spell-checking methods, AppleWorks 3.0's built-in spelling checker is almost a twin of TimeOut Quickspell. The spelling summary, on the other hand, is a new feature that TimeOut Quick- Spell doesn't have. The spelling summary is displayed on the screen or placed on the clipboard after you've finished checking a document. Here's a summa- ty for the file "Tax Estimtr.Doc," which is a sample file from the Nation- al AppleWorks User Group that's included on the AppleWorks 3.0 disk: Total words: 648 Unknown words: = 5 Corrections made: 1 Unknown word Correction Count a 2 2b 2 documention documentation 1 estimator'89 1 vincenti <ADDED 10 DICDD 1 ‘Total words* is a count of all the words in the document. Words that appear more than once are counted each time they appear. "Unknown words" shows how many unique, unknown words are in the document (this time words that appear more than once are counted just once); a list of these words and what action was taken with each follows. "Corrections made" shows how many of the unknown words were corrected. The list that follows shows each unknown word; whether it was corrected, added to the dictionary, or ignored/skipped; and a count of how many times it occurred in the document. As mentioned earlier, you can configure AppleWorks to skip the summary completely, to have it appear on the screen, or to have it placed on the clipboard. And you can also configure it to immediately display the summary on the screen without stopping to allow you to make corrections. As shipped, AppleWorks 3.0 is configured for no summary, in context checking, and a supplied custom dictionary called CUST.DICTIONARY. OA-Options menu; control-key commands. While the addition of a spelling checker is significant in itself,a number of other enhance- ments were also made to the word processor. An extra line was added 5.44 A2-Central to the already crowded OA-O(ptions) menu, which allowed the addi- tion of four new options. The added options are RJ (right justifica- tion), PD (print date), PT (print time), and SC (special code). The addition of right justification finally iti gives AppleWorks a complete set of justifica- The addition tion options. The others are UJ (unjustified or of right-justi- Jiett justification), JU (full justification), and CN fication (centered). In addition, all four of these " options can be inserted in a document with gives Apple- |contro-key commands: control-N (normal or Works a full left justification), control-F (full justification), aes fcontrol-R (right justification), and control-C Set of justifi- (center. cation Two additional control-key commands have been added to AppleWorks 3.0 (beyond con- options. trol-B for boldface on/off and control-L for underline on/off, which are in current ver- sions). They are control-P (page break), which has the same effect as the NP (new page) printer option and control-A (add-on), which inserts a formatting token that can be used by add-on software such as the TimeOut series. The following chart shows the complete list of AppleWorks 3.0 word processor control-key com- mands: control-B control-L boldface on/off underline on/off normal (left) justification full justification right justification center control-P page break control-A add-on token The print date and print time options insert the current date or time into a document as it is being printed. They work in much the same way as the PP (print page number) printer option. Like PP, they are dis- Played as carets on the screen. The format of dates and times is configurable within AppleWorks 3.0, as we'll see in detail later; these options print the user-selected format. The SC (special code) option allows you to insert one of six user- defined printer codes into a document. These are also displayed as carets on the screen. As in current versions of AppleWorks, a descrip- tion of what a caret represents appears in the center of the bottom line of the screen when the cursor is on a caret. Even this description is user-definable for the six special codes. The codes can be used to turn on features some printers may have that AppleWorks doesn't oth- erwise support, such as alternate character sets (italics or foreign lan- guages). Or they can be used for accents (for example, define a spe- cial code as ‘control-H ‘*-control-H is the backspace command for most printers-and use it to put a caret over the preceding letter.) Real Tabs. The addition of real tabs to the word processor has allowed a number of enhancements to AppleWorks 3.0, as seen earli- er in the discussion of text file import and export options. Moreover, ‘real tabs’ mean that pressing the Tab key no longer inserts spaces into a document; it now inserts a ‘tab token". When you adjust tab set- tings, the position of tabbed text in your document changes to match the new tab settings. This allows you to move whole columns of text right or left simply and easily. It also means the Tab key can now reposition text rather than just reposition the cursor. (OA-Tab in the word processor works like Tab alone did in prevous versions. There is now no way to back-tab in the word processor.) Different parts of a document are allowed to have different tab set- tings through the use of tab ‘rulers’. When you press OA-T(abs), you get a new prompt that looks like this: Tab ruler? Modify current Create new The "Modify current’ choice allows you to change tab stops on the current ruler as in current versions of AppleWorks. The "Create New* choice gives you a new ruler, which initially has the same stops as the current ruler, and then allows you to modify the stops as you like. A tuler is in effect from the paragraph following the ruler until either a new ruler is defined or the end of the document. The tab display at the top of the screen always shows the settings of the current ruler-as you move the cursor through a document the display will change control-N control-F control-R control-C Vol. 5, No. 6 when you pass rulers, which, if you use OA-Z(0om), look like this: arconnesl Tab Ruler Like any other printer option token, tab ruler tokens can be copied, moved, or deleted. However, the first tab ruler in a document doesn't have a token. To copy the first ruler you have to make a duplicate of it by pressing OA-1 to go to the top of the document, OA-T(abs), *Cre- ate New’, and Escape. This creates a copyable token of the first tab ruler. Four kinds of tab stops are available: left, center, right, and deci- mal. A normal, left-justified tab appears in the tab display at the top of the screen as a *<’. Think of the point of the less-than sign as repre- senting the tab stop and the arms as representing where the charac- ters will go. A centered tab appears as **", A right-justified tab appears as ">". A decimal tab appears as ‘."; decimal tabs line up a column of numbers on the decimal point, as shown in the following table: symbol kind effect < left <-stop is here * center text centers > right stop is here--> decimal $99.95 When a new word processor file is created from scratch or a file from an older version of AppleWorks is added to the desktop, initial tab stops appear every five spaces. All are left justified. Multi-Line Headers and Footers. The OA-O(ption) HE (page head- er) and FO (page footer) commands now insert two printer codes each into your document, a begin code and an end code. Any printer options or text entered between the codes will be used as the header or footer. Headers and footers can have any reasonable number of lines (more than half a page isn't reasonable). When copying, moving, or deleting headers they must be treated as a block, however, users can copy/move/delete parts of text and formatting that is between begin and end markers. Other enhancements. The print menu now looks like this: Print from? Beginning This page Cursor Page to page If you select the new "Page to page" option, you'll next be asked to select a printer. After that you'll be asked for beginning and ending page numbers. You'll know what page numbers you want to print, of Course, because you'll be smart enough to OA-K(alculate page num- bers) and see before you try to print. OA-Z(oom) has been changed slightly so that all printer options, including headers, footers, and most carets, are hidden in zoom-out mode. Zoom-in shows everything, as before. Placing a Boldface Begin or Underline Begin at the beginning of a document and not matching it with a Boldface End or Underline End will boldface or underline the entire document. When using the Copy and Move commands, line numbers are no longer removed from the bottom of the screen. On machines with more than 256K of memory, the maximum num- ber of lines in a word processor document is more than 16,000. As mentioned earlier, OA-Delete removes the character the cursor is on. OA-right/left arrow moves the cursor to the first character of the next word to the right or left. In addition, the unshifted forms of OA-< and OA-> (actually OA-, and OA-.) move the cursor to the beginning and end of the current line. Data Base Enhancements The multiple-record layout in the AppleWorks data base has been greatly enhanced by adding horizontal scrolling, left-side titles, and selectable user-defined layouts. The multiple-record layout now scrolls horizontally much like the spreadsheet. The unshifted forms of OA-< and OA-> move the cursor to the left and right edge of the document. OA-right/left-arrow move the cursor to the left and right edge of the screen. (The functioning of these key combinations in the spreadsheet and word processor is identical, with the exception that in the word processor OA-right/left- arrow moves the cursor one word at a time rather than one screen at atime.) As in the spreadsheet, you can force the leftmost cate- gories to stay on the screen during horizontal scrolling by setting July 1989 titles. The command for this is OA-T(itles). When you press OA-T, the cursor must be to the right of (rather than on top of) the categories you want stuck on the screen. When you press OA-L(ayout) from a multiple-record layout, you get a new menu that looks like this: 1. Change the existing record layout 2. Get a layout froma report format (If no report formats have been defined, this menu doesn't appear.) If you choose to get a layout from a report format, you're next pre- sented a list of available formats. Select one, tell AppleWorks whether you want the cursor to go down or across when you press Return, and your multiple-record display changes to match that of the report for- mat. This gives you an easy way to flip between different multiple- record "views* of your data. Likewise, when you tell AppleWorks you want to create a new ‘tables’ report format for printing, you'll see a new menu that asks: Create a new "tables" format: 1. From scratch 2, From the current record layout If you select 2, all the layout work you've done in multiple-record format will be transferred to your new report format. Further modifica- tions are possible if you desire. You can now have up to 20 report formats per file, instead of just 8 as before. If you are working with a labels-style format, the OA- O(ptions) command in the data base now includes an item called ‘columns’ at the bottom of the ‘left and right margins’ section. This allows you to print several labels across a page. You can specify any number between | and 24, although anything over 5 makes for a very narrow label. The OA-F(ind) command now displays the following menu: Find text? Anywhere In a specific category “Anywhere” produces a search just like the one current versions of AppleWorks do. If you select "In a specific category’, you'll be present- ed a list of categories in the file and allowed to select just one. This allows you to find your clients named ‘Smith’ without finding your clients who live on ‘Blacksmith Road’, or who live in "Smithsville’, or who work for the ‘Smithsonian’. The OA-A(rrange) command now displays the following menu: Arrange (sort) on? Category (annnnnnn) Several categories In the position where | put ‘nnnnnnnn’ in this example you'll actual- ly see the name of the category the cursor was on when you pressed OACA. Selecting that produces a sort you'll recognize from current ver- sions of AppleWorks. If you select “Several categories’ instead, you can select up to three and an arrangement order for each. The screen resembles the OA-R(ecord select) screen while you do this. As you would expect, the sorts are done in reverse order from the way you select them, so that the last sort is done on the first category you select. For example, if you select the ‘city’ category and then the ‘last name’ category from a mailing list data base, the final arrangement will be by city, with records sorted by name within the city groups. Other enhancements. After pressing OA-L(ayout) in single-record format, you can now press OA-T(itles) to make category names appear in inverse. If you enter a '@" in a date field or a time field and press Return, AppleWorks will replace it with the current date or time. On machines with more than 256K of memory, the maximum num- ber of records in a data base document is now more than 16,000. Spreadsheet enhancements The two primary enhancements to the spreadsheet in AppleWorks 3.0 are the addition of a large number of new functions and the abili- ty to reference text in formulas. There are 26 new spreadsheet functions. Here's a complete list: Arithmetic functions €MO (ome, DrvzsoR) Returns the remainder of: numper divided by prvzsor. @I Returns 3.1415927 A2-Central 5.45 GEXP (womeR) Returns e raised to the power of NUMBER GIN (wompeR) Returns the natural logarithm of nomser L0G (wompeR) Returns the base 10 logarithm of nomper, called @L0610 Ly some other spreadsheets. Teigononetric functions @DEG (wompeR) Converts women, which is an angle in radians, to deguece GRAD (woaeR) Converts womper, which is an angle in degrees, to radians. COs (woMBER) Returns the cosine of nomper, which is an angle in radians. @ACOS (womBeR) Returns the angle in radians whose cosine is num@ER. ASIN (womBeR) Returns the sine of numper, which is an angle in radians. ASIN (woMBER) Returns the angle in radians whose sine is NuMBER, @TAN (oMBER) Returns the tangent of wumper, which is an angle in radians. @ATAN (xoMBER) Returns the angle in radians whose tangent is nm@ER. @ATAN?2 (x-NoMBER, Y-WOMBER) Returns the angle in radians whose x and y coordinates are X-NUMBER and Y-NUMBER. logical functions @TRUE Returns the value Troz (1) GFALSE Returns the value Fase (0) @NOT (NomBER) Returns FALSE if Nomper is True and vice-versa @ISBLANK (REF) Returns TRUE if cell (ner) is empty, else FaLse @ISERROR (ner) Returns mie if cell (REF) is "ERROR", else FALSE @ISNA (nee) Returns True if cell (rer) is "NA", else FALSE Financial functions @IRR (Rance, cuzss) Returns the internal rate of return of the cash flow in RANGE. @IRR uses iteration. It repeats the calculation until the values converge. If they don't converge after 20 iterations the function returns an error. In this case, try a different value for the Guess paraneter. QV (Rave, TERM, PMT[, PV, TYPE]) Returns the Future Value of a series of equal payments when the interest rate per period, number of periods, and payment are known. The optional ev parameter in brackets allows you to give a beginning value to the cash flow (defaults to zero if not specified). The optional vee paraneter specifies whether paynents occur at the beginning (1) or end (0) of the period (defaults to zero). @PV (rare, reRM, Pur [, FV, TYPE]) QTERM(raTE, PMT, Pv[, FV, TYPE]) QPMT (RATE, TERM, PV[, FV, TYPE]) These functions return Present Value, Term, and Payment of a series of equal payments, You must know the interest rate per period and two of the values to calculate the third. The optional rv parameter allows you to give an ending value to the cash flow. See @FV for an explanation of the vee paraneter. QRATE (TERM, PV, FV) Calculates the interest rate of a lump sum transaction when the Term, Present Value, and Future Value are known. The Term, Present Value, and Future Value of lump sun transactions can be calculated using the other financial functions with Payment set to zero. The interest rate of a transaction involving a series of payments can't be determined by formla--don't try to use this function to do it. 5.46 A2-Central If you're interested in more information on how the financial func- tions work, a little book called Your Best Interest, by yours truly, is a great place to learn. ($9.95: 1B-001). | : Other enhancements. As mentioned in the section on the clipboard, blocks of AppleWork $ 3.0 spreadsheet data can be. copied and has 32 built-in [moved to and from_2ne clipboard. with H AppleWorks 3-9: Prinl now prints as printers, three ren cetamns as it can on the first page, custom pri -_--ferrén prints the next group of columns, ix then the next group of columns, until all columns are printed. In earlier versions, new user- printing stopped after the first group of 7 A columns. When copying ‘Within work- defined Special sheet", the user ‘ean press OAReturn to Codes. select either "No change" or ‘Relative’ and AppleWorks will copy all subsequent cell references in that manner without asking again. OA-N or OAR also work for this. The maximum number of rows in the spreadsheet is 9,999 on machines with 256K of memory or more, New configuration menu In earlier versions of AppleWorks, items 6 and 7 on the Other Activ- ities menu were "Select standard location of data disk’ and "Specify information about your printer(s)’. In AppleWorks 3.0 these have been replaced by an item that reads, "Select standard settings for Apple- Works’, The "Standard Settings’ file card includes the following items: Change preloading Select standard Spelling Checker settings Change date format Change time format Select standard location of data disk . Specify information about your printer (s) Item | allows the user to select which modules (word processor, data base, spreadsheet, none, any two, or all) will be loaded into memory when AppleWorks starts up. The more modules you preload, the longer it takes and the more desktop memory you use up. On the other hand, you can switch from one preloaded module to another very quickly. The default preload for 5.25 disks is "none* and for 3.5 disks it's “all.” Item 2 allows you to configure the spelling checker. There are three configuration options-name of the custom dictionary, standard spelling method (‘In context" or "From a list’), and standard summary setting (‘No summary’, ‘Put summary on clipboard’, ‘Put summary on screen’, and "Screen summary only; don't correct spelling’). Defaults are CUST.DICTIONARY, ‘in context’, and "No summary’. Item 3 allows you to select a date format that will be used through- out AppleWorks. Here's the date selection menu: 1, Mon DD, YVYY (April 11, 1988) 2. Mu/DD/YY (4/11/88) 3, DD Mon YYYY (11 April, 1988) 4. DD/MM/YY (11/4/88) With the options that spell out the month name (1 and 3) the year won't be displayed if it hasn't been specified. Slashed dates must have a year-the current year will be used if none is specified. In data base date fields, month names are abbreviated to three characters no matter which format you choose here. However, items | and 2 put the month first in data base date fields, items 3 and 4 put the day first. The default setting is number 1. Item 4 allows you to select a time format. The default is AM/PM for- mat. Here's the time selection menu: 1. AM/PM twelve hour format 2. Twenty-four hour format Item 5, ‘Select standard location of data disk’, is unchanged from current versions of AppleWorks. Item 6, ‘Specify information about your printer(s)', works much like before but includes several new options. As mentioned earlier, the ‘SEG.PR file that comes with AppleWorks 3.0 contains information for Vol. 5, No. 6 more printers. Here's a complete list: Apple Daisy Wheel, Dot Matrix, Imageliriter, ImageWriter II, InageWriter 10, Scribe, Silentype Brother BRIO, HR20, HR25, HR35 Epson MK, Mx/Graftraxt, FX, RX Juki 5500 series, 6100, 6200, 6300, 6500 Okidata 192, 193, 82h, 83K, 84, 92, 93 Panasonic 1080, 1091, 1092 Sprint 5, Sprint 11 If this list isn't long enough, AppleWorks 3.0 allows you to have three custom printers, not one as in earlier versions. But even better than that, 3.0 allows you to customize the codes of built-in printers, as well. This means you could add an ImageWriter II to your list of printers and then change just the codes for boldface begin and end. You wouldn't need to enter a long list of new codes for your custom printer's other options as you do with current versions. But beyond even that, you now get six Special Printer Codes. These codes are selected in the word processor using the new OA-O(ptions) SC (special code) feature mentioned earlier. Six distinct special codes can be saved for each printer, however, only one set of names for the codes can be saved. The names appear at the bottom of the word processor screen when you put the cursor on a Special Codes caret. Using the Special Codes, you no longer have to give up boldface to get italics, and so on. AppleWorks 3.0's underlining powers have been strengthened. It can send the correct underlining codes to any printer that has under- lining abilities. When entering printer codes, the ‘end of code" key is now OA- Return instead of the caret. This means all 128 ASCII characters can now be entered and used as printer codes. New file formats AppleWorks 3.0 can read and write files created on earlier versions of AppleWorks. However, because of the new features in AppleWorks 3.0, older versions of AppleWorks will not be able to read files creat- ed by AppleWorks 3.0 if new features are used. If new features are not used, however, AppleWorks 3.0 saves files in the old standard for- mat. Files will be saved in the new format when the following features are used: Word Processor One or more tab characters Any type of tab other than left justified Multiple tab rulers Headers or Footers ‘Any of the new OA-0(ptions) Right Justify Print Date Print Time Special Codes More than 7,250 lines Data Base Using more than 8 report formats More than 6,350 records Spreadsheet ‘Any new function ‘Any formula that returns a label The use of literal strings ("for example") in functions Data below row 999 The new file formats will be made available to developers. Claris reports that more than 750,000 copies of AppleWorks have been sold and that AppleWorks and AppleWorks GS own 40 per cent of the market share for integrated microcomputer software. July 1989 Miscellanea The next question everyone has is whether they will need to upgrade their TimeOut programs to work with AppleWorks 3.0. The answer is yes. Upgrades will be available from your Beagle Buddy, if you have one, or directly from Beagle Bros at a price of $10 per pack- age. Beagle Bros has also acquired the rights to all StyleWare prod- ucts (except AppleWorks GS, of course) from Claris. They will be released in new Beagle Bros packaging, for the most part at Style- Ware's prices, on July 1. Roger Wagner left some HyperStudio tips on GEnie some of you might be interested in. 1.) Here's how to make a disk that boots into your own stack. Start with a copy of the /HYPERSTUDIO disk. To give yourself some space, delete all of the non-folder files in the main directory except PRODOS (but don't delete anything that's inside a folder). Copy the files HYPER- STUDIO and HS.TD (Tape Deck, required for stacks with sounds) from /HS.DEMO to the main directory of your new disk. Also put the stack you want to use into the main directory of this disk and call it HOME.STACK. Finally, go into the new disk's System folder and change the name of the file called START to FINDER and change START.HS to START. Now, when you boot this disk, the START program will start HYPER- STUDIO and it will load and display the HOME.STACK. 2.) Although HyperStudio doesn't offer a built-in palette editor, you can ‘fool’ it into letting you use your own palette on any given card. To do this, first go to PaintWorks Gold, or 8/16 Paint (640 version), and create any graphic, large or small, with a custom palette. Then save this graphic to disk. Now go to HyperStudio, and use the Add Clip-Art function to add just a small portion of the custom palette graphic to a card. This will change the palette for that card to your custom palette. Once added, you can even go back and delete the graphic added to the card and HyperStudio will retain the custom palette for that card. The custom colors will be shown in the Colors menu, and you can use them in the paint tools. If you change your A2-Central 5.47 mind later, you can restore the standard palette by choosing Standard Palette in the Options menu. 3.) HyperStudio for the moment requires an Apple IIgs with 1.25Mb of memory, and at least one 3.5 disk drive. HyperStudio was designed, however, to work in 768K minimum, and will with the next update. 4.) Demo stacks on the HS.DEMO disk run from about 50K to 100K in size. A ‘real’ stack might average about 200K. For 768K systems, you'll have to keep individual stacks fairly small, but stacks can be chained together in such a way as to be transparent to the user. A 1.25Mb machine is not likely to have any particular memory problems unless you're trying to embed a lot of sounds in one stack. Stack size varies depending on a number of factors: number of dif- ferent backgrounds on various cards; how visually complex the back- grounds are; number of graphic objects used over and above the backgrounds; and number of embedded sounds and/or the largest single sound used in a stack. Briefly: Backgrounds: For any particular background used on a card, look at the number of blocks used on the disk when the graphic is saved in a compressed format. This will be just slightly less than the amount of memory used by that background in HyperStudio. Solid color back- grounds compress very well and take very little memory. If a back- ground is repeated on several cards in a stack, each new card keeps only a pointer to the original background, so no additional memory is required. Graphic objects: When adding a graphic object, keep in mind that at the worst case, a 1/4 screen graphic would take 8K (1/4 of 32K). However, when compressed, this is likely to be much smaller, and Graphics less than 1/4 screen use still less memory. It's not unusual to have each graphic object only use 2-6K of memory per image. Sounds: Sounds take about 10K of memory per second. However, if the sounds or graphic objects are left as disk files (extended data), then only the items on the current card are loaded into memory. This means you could have megabytes of graphics and sound all used by a stack that was only a few hundred K itself, and only need as much memory as was required to load the longest sound on any particular card. Ask Fundamental computing What's the best book around for beginning computer users to read to understand the fun- damentals? Robert Weiser Hershey, Pa. Why do so many programs start with PRINT CHR$(4)? 1 know this prints a control-D, but why? Bradley Albing Macedonia, Ohio A very general and gentle overview of deal- jing with the elementary, fundamental, real- world issues of personal computing is present- ed in John Bear's Computer Wimp, published by Ten Speed Press. We carry it in stock ($9.95: TS-001). Computer Wimp wont tell you the secret of CHR$(4), however, because it doesn't discuss Apple Ils specifically, just personal computers in general, and CHR$(4) is an Applesoft con- vention. Applesoft was written before the Apple II had a disk operating system. When the disk operating system was added, Applesoft itself couldn't be changed, so instead the oper- ating system was designed to intercept lines PRINTed by Applesoft that began with control-D and interpret them as disk commands. Thus, the PRINT statements you are seeing are com- mands for the disk operating system. A com- plete description of how this system works is in Chapter 12 of The DOStalk Scrapbook, b y Tom Weishaar and Bert Kersey ($14.95: TB- 007). Initial colons Ive been reading a book about Applesoft and I keep running into program lines that begin with a colon. I don't understand what this is for and I can find no explanation anywhere for the use of a colon in this location. At first 1 thought it was a typo, but I've seen it enough I've begun to think it must have some significance. Bill Coleman St. Petersburg, Fla. Many Applesoft programmers use colons to indent lines that are within loops to make the loop structure more evident. If you try to use spaces for this, Applesoft will automatically delete them. Applesoft won't delete colons, however, and colons don't cause syntax errors or change the way the program executes. Here's a slightly modified version of one of Bert Kersey's masterpieces that demonstrates the technique: 100 HOME : LIST ; BUZ2=49200 110 Ag="!/-" + CHR§ (92) 120 FOR A=1 10 48 130 : BEPREK (BUZZ) 140 ; FOR C=1 10 A : NEXT 150; X$=MID$ (AS, A-INT(A/4) #441, 1) 160 : VIAB 3: BTAB 12 110: PRINT X$;X$;x8 180 NEXT 190 GOTO 120 200 REM Press Control-C to quit When you LIST this program on the screen, you'll notice some subtle differences from what we've printed here. For example, there won't be a space after the colon in lines 130 and 150, We aim for maximum readability when we print listings here, rather than a mirror image of Applesoft's nonsensical LIST formatting. Current time w/o prompt I've seen several methods of extracting the current date and time from the IIgs clock for use in an Applesoft program, but these meth- ods only yield a snapshot. Is there any way of displaying the running date and time on the screen while an Applesoft program is execut- ing? I've created several utility programs in Applesoft and | would like to include the run- ning clock on the screen along with my menus. Is it possible to eliminate the ‘)’ prompt from briefly appearing on the screen when Basic.sys- tem is run? Dan Seibold San Jose, Calif. 5.48 A2-Central There are two different ways to accomplish this and similar tasks. They go by the names ‘polling’ and ‘interrupting’. With polling, your program repeatedly takes snapshots of the clock and updates the screen whenever it isn't doing anything else. Typically, you'd create a loop that would take snapshots of the clock inside the same subroutine that collects keypresses. This subroutine would check to see if a key had been pressed and, if not, would get the time and update the screen. For this to work, you'd have to remove all of your INPUT statements and change them into keyboard PEEKs. Here's some routines you might find useful. Replace all your INPUT X$ statements with GOSUB 30000 : X$=A$ and all your GET X$ statements with GOSUB 30050 : X$=A$. Make Sure you aren't using A$ for anything else in your program: 30000 REM INPUT AS 30010 Al$="" 30020 GOSUB 30050 : PRINT A$; 30030 IF AS=CERS(13) THEN AS=A1$ : RETURN 30040 ALS=A1S+a$ : GOTO 30020 30050 REM GET ag 30060 REM first get time and update screen 30061: VP=PEEK(37) : HP=PEEK(1147) 30062: VIAB 1: BTAB 75 30063: PRINT CHRS(4) ;"FLUSH" 30064; PRINT PEEK(49043) ;":";PEEK(49042) 30065: VIRB VP+1 : POKE 1403, HP 30070 IF PEEK(49152)<128 THEN 30060 : REM key down? 30080 AS=CHR$ (PEEK(49152)-128) : PORE 49168,0 : REM (A2-Central |_| © Copyright 1989 by A2-Central Most righ reserved. Al programs published in A2-Central are public domain and may be copied and distributed without charge. Apple user groups and sgnfcant others may obtain peission to eprint articles from time to time by specc writen request, Wiriten, edited, and published by Tom Weishaar vith help rom Dennis Doms Sally Dwyer Dianne Plumberg Tom Vanderpool Steve Kelly Joyce Hammond Dean Esmay Jean Weishaar A2-Central,—ited Open-Apple through January, 1989—has been pub- shed monthly sine vanuary 1965. Wort-wie prices in US. dors; ama celery induded at no ado charge): $28 for 1 year, $54 for 2 yeas; $78 for 3 years. Al back issues are curently avalble for $2 each; bound, indeed ed tors of our fist four volumes are $14.95 each, Volumes end wth the January sue annex forthe rr vole fsinduded wth the February ssue. ‘The fll text ofeach issue of A2-Centrals availabe on 3.5 disks, along wit a selection of the best new pubic domain and shareware fles and po rams, for $84 a year (newsletter and ask combined), Single disks are $10. Pease send al coresponcence fo A2-Central P.O. Box 11250 Overland Park, Kansas 66207 U.S.A. A2-Central is sold in an unprotected format for your convenience. You ‘are encouraged to make back-up archiva copies or easy-to-read enlarged copies for your avn use without charge. You may also copy A2-Central for distribution to others. The distrbution fe is 15 cents per page per copy dis tributed WARRANTY AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. | warant that most ofthe information in A2-Central is usetul and correct, although drivel and mis takes are included from time to time, usually unintentionally. Unsatistied subseribers may cancel their subscripion at any time and receve a full refund of their last subscription payment. The unfiled portion of any paid subscription will be refunded even to salsied subscribers upon request. MY LIABILITY FOR ERRORS AND OMISSIONS IS LIMITED TO THIS PUBLICATIONS PURCHASE PRICE. In no case shal | or my contributors be liable for any incidental or consequential damages, nor for ANY dam- ages in excess ofthe fees paid by a subscriber. GEnie mail: A2-CENTRAL 913-4 3N 0885-4017 Printed in the U.S.A. 169-6502 30090 RETURN The line 30000 INPUT A$ routine simply calls the line 30050 GET A$ routine repeatedly until it sees you've pressed Return, CHR$(13), and then passes what's been input back to you. It uses Al$ as a temporary place to store the line, character by character, as you type it in. The line 30050 GET A$ routine begins by getting the time and displaying it in lines 3006 1-65. In line 30070 it looks to see if a key has been pressed. If not, it loops back and updates the screen time again. If so, it figures out what the character was in line 30080 and returns to its caller. Line 30061 saves the current cursor posi- tion. Line 30062 places the cursor in the upper right corner of the screen, where the time will be displayed. Lines 30063-64 use Myron Ker- ney's ‘Flushing out the time’ trick (April 1988, page 4.23) to take a snapshot of the clock and display it on the screen. Line 30065 returns the cursor to its previous position. Try the routine and see how you like it. It's better than Applesoft's own INPUT routine in some ways-~it accepts commas. It's worse in others-no cursor. Adding a cursor is beyond the scope of your question, so we'll slyly back down the hall here and leave that as an exer- cise for the reader, as they say. Interrupts are usually even more complicat- ed. You need a piece of hardware (probably the clock itself, in this case) to generate an electronic signal that tells the microprocessor to stop what it's doing and go do something else instead. That something else would be a small assembly language program that would get the time and update the screen for you. It's too complicated to explain all the details of how to do this here, but if you're interested, it's covered in Chapter 25 of ProDOS Inside and Out, by Dennis Doms and Tom Weishaar ($16.95: TB-006). One advantage of interrupts is that you won't have to change your program at all. Interrupts are usually used when the task to be accomplished just can't wait-for example, when an incoming character has arrived from a modem and a program has to save it before it gets overwritten by the next incoming charac- ter. Polling doesn't work as well for this. Polling does work well for updating the time on the screen, however, because it only hap- pens when your program isn't doing anything else. Turning on interrupts has a tendency to degrade performance because of the time spent servicing interrupt calls. Applesoft sends the ‘)’ prompt to the screen when it's started up. The prompt is captured by both DOS 3.3 and ProDOS to regain control of the computer after getting Applesoft going. You'd have to patch the operating system to prevent it, which is something we dont like to do for cosmetic purposes. Drive alignment I have an Apple llc with a new 5.25 Applied Engineering external drive. Anything that | save Vol. 5, No. 6 on disks in this drive cannot be retrieved (I can't even read the directory) on another Ilc-Plus with an external drive. The drive speed verifies ok. Joseph Oakes Glover, Vt. The drive head on one drive or the other is probably out of alignment. To figure out which drive is the one causing the problem, initialize a few disks with each one, labeling them to show which machine the disk was created on. Then try reading these with the opposite drive as well as with a few other drives. If the align- ment of one of the drives is a problem, you'll have trouble reading disks created on that drive on all other drives. Realigning a drive requires special equip- ment and the technical services of a dealer or manufacturer. If it's the new drive that is caus- ing the problem, let Applied Engineering know and they'll fix it for you under their warranty program. Fingerprint vs TransWarp My Fingerprint interface card won't work when I add Applied Engineering's TransWarp accelerator board. Why? David Langlois Oswego, N.Y. When you press the button attached to the Fingerprint card, the card tries to ‘grab control" of the computer. When you're using a Trans- Warp, it has already used the same technique to grab control, however, and isn't willing to give it back. The user is the big loser in this battle; you can't have both cards active at the same time. Georgia's EduNET I want to brag on a project one of your sub- scribers has initiated this year to provide oppor- tunities to isolated classroom teachers. The pro- ject is a component of the Regional Teacher Education Center here at Georgia College and is called EduNET. It allows teachers to easily and inexpensively acquire the information and the communication opportunities they need to con- tinue to grow professionally. What we're doing is this: first, we're placing 2400 baud modems (Epic) and the software to run on them (Point-to-Point) in all of the 200- plus schools in our service area that will agree to accept them. Second, we're providing multi- ple, state-wide, toll-free telephone lines so that the education community in our service area need not be daunted by the specter of outra- geous telephone bills. Third, we're providing a multi-caller information service that provides for up to 64 simultaneous callers, remote informa- tion providers and editors, and that has public conferences, private email, file sharing, and searchable data bases. Currently, the system uses software from Russ Systems (DBS or Data Broadcasting Sys- tem) running on a network of Apple Ils served by a Corvus drive. Similar software for the AppleShare environment is expected to evolve from Russ System's Lets Share Apple II net- working interface. Lets Share is a vast improve- ment over Apple's Aristotle. We're very excited about the tremendous potential to do good things for teachers and those who support them using this approach. Educators outside of Georgia can take a peek at our system by calling in on their own nickel, if they like-the number is 912-453-1897. Dr. Frank Lowney