Psdbview. Version 3.83 03/05/1999 Psdbview is a program for reading , updating and creating database files . The file format it uses is Psion dbf ( Series 3/3a/3c/3mx format ), this has two advantages , 1. You can use the Psion dbf.vbx control in Visual Basic to create new databases ( something not possible in Visual Basic usually - at least unless you go to the professional version ) . 2. The file format is far more compact than the dbase files or mdb files Visual Basic normally runs on . This is now the umpteenth complete program , it may not yet be 100% !! I am supposed to have tested it but it may still have odd bugs here and there , if you find one please let me know ( mkstevo@nildram.co.uk ) . In use the program should be self-explanatory , if you can load and read this text file you should have no problems getting the hang of the program . A few things may give cause for confusion however so do have a quick read through , with particular mention to the multiple search commands and the help file on Invalid files . The following list details the changes the program has had , it does in most cases give some guidance as to how to use some of the more unusual features . 01/03/1997 I have added a group find facility which enables whole groups of records to be located in one pass , these can now be printed out - see the printing section below . 05/03/1997 The Insta-Search is now selectable and has a 3 second delay added for the program to catch up with the typing . The compress option has had to be removed as it could on occasions corrupt datafiles . 15/05/1997 I added and then removed a sort facility as it was unbelievably slow . ( There is a secret way of calling up the sort , if you want to risk corrupting your database and don't mind an eternal wait - email me for the secret password . ) The 'not found' reporting should be more accurate now . 22/07/1997 There was a bug in the add section of the program , instead of allowing you to enter as many new records as required it would only allow you to enter 1 ( correctly ) then any subsequent ones it seemed to lose the first field ! There was also a bug in the edit labels function which I have rectified . 16/08/1997 I have added a "most recent" file list to the file menu to enable quicker file switching . 28/10/1997 I have modified the way that files are saved to disk so that only valid fields are stored ( in previous versions 32 fields were saved automatically even if they had no data in them ) the only effect this will have is to improve compatibility with the Psion Series 3a based program ( data-selector ). 12/12/1997 I have added the facility to move between fields whilst adding or updating records by pressing on the F12 ( next ) and F11 ( prev ) keys , saving of records is possible by pressing F2 . 09/02/1998 I have tidied the buttons into one area which should make it easier to navigate around the program , it also now looks a lot neater . I was alerted to an error whereby on opening a new file the last opened file had all it's records removed , I hope I have sorted this nasty bug out . I found that some of the command buttons dissapeared after certain actions , I hope that I finally have sorted this one . I have made it easier to create new files ( I hope !! ) you can now navigate to the correct directory using a dialog box before setting the new file name . 14/03/1998 I have added a print facility , this can print single records or a whole file ( or if a group find is present just this selection ) . I have had to write my own word wrap routine as printers do not automatically do this , this may cause odd effects if the text to be printed has no punctuation in it and is over 40 letters , the word wrap routine should simply break this up into shorter lines in order to print it but it won't be able to 'word wrap' this type of line . I have used the same routine to tidy up the display of records in the main viewer , this will also suffer odd effects on long lines of text with no spaces in it . If the field labels are more than about 10 letters this may cause the printout/display to become uneven , and if you have long field labels and long lines of text with no spaces the program may lock up when trying to print or display them . It is now possible to save selected records only to a new file , to do this perform a group search until the correct records are selected click on 'Save as' (Ctrl+a) after setting the file name to save the records to you will be able to choose whether to save only the selected records ( Yes ) save all records in the file ( No ) or cancel . If you choose to save the selected records only a message will appear asking you to wait while a copy file is created , this may take a while ( depending on how many records you are saving ) as Psdbview has to copy all of the selected records to a temporary file , create a new database file and then copy the records from the temporary file to the new file finally deleting the temporary file . If no group search is valid , 'Save as' will save ALL records in the current file to the new file . ********************************************************************** IF SAVING SELECTED RECORDS TO A NEW FILE YOU MUST ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE AS MANY FIELD LABELS AS FIELDS . ********************************************************************** The reason for this is that the first operation Psdbview carries out is to copy the field labels to the temporary file , it then calculates the number of fields in the database from the number of labels , if you do have more fields than labels you may find that the records become out of step with the labels or the records will more likely be truncated to contain only fields which have corresponding labels , either way heed this warning !! ********************************************************************** I have added a 'block delete' facility , this deletes records in a group find . The idea is that you can find a set of records with the group find , save them to a new file , and then delete them from the original file thus moving them out of the original and into a new file . This can be handy for splitting large files into several smaller ones . The most recently used list should now not show more than one copy of any particular file name as was possible if the file name appeared on the MRU list yet was opened using the open file command . If the file name was passed to the program as a command line parameter ( if the file was dropped on Psdbview in File Manager or Explorer or if Dbf files are associated with Psdbview in File Manager \ Explorer and then double clicked ) the MRU could be confused and file names seemed to dissapear almost at random . I hope to have corrected this and the MRU should react in the same way as if the file was opened using the open file command . ( But doesn't always !! ) 20/05/1998 I have re-written parts of the program to allow the program window to be re-sized in the usual way , the program text boxes and command buttons should now adjust themselves to fill the availiable space , the program window can not be shrunk below certain pre-set limits . The screen font can be enlarged and reduced at will ( file/font/size ) and the selected font can be displayed in either bold or italic styles . Any changes here are reflected in the text sent to the printer with the print command . The compress option has been re-installed on a trial basis ! It does not compress the file in the 'zip' sense of the term , it merely removes deleted records from a file . I suspect that it was not this that was causing the problems in earlier versions , if you have a lot of error messages on opening files please let me know ( if you press the 'ignore' button you may find that no further errors occur until the file is closed and re-opened ) . 01/06/1998 The font size , font style and InstaSearch settings are stored in the Psdbview.ini file , which should be stored in the same directory as the program file - Psdbview.exe . If you have two program files in different locations you will have two initial settings files too . The settings will only be stored when you close this latest version for the first time ( IE it can't tell what settings you used on previous versions - only from version 3.64 on ) . I have done this as I found myself constantly re-setting the font size on my laptop and got fed up with having to do so , I finally realised how much better it would be if the program could remember the settings for me . Should you delete the file Psdbview.ini , all settings will return to their defaults , on closing , a new file will be created with your current settings stored in this ( hopefully !! ) . I have fiddled with the MRU list routines , I am slowly getting this to work correctly even with command line parameters . I am hoping that it will not lose odd lines seemingly at random when files are opened by double clicking on them - but don't expect too much ! 04/06/1998 I have added an 'Add new record based on the current record' ( Ctrl+k ) this does just what it says , it adds a new record to the end of a file using the current record settings as a starting point . Another slight modification is that after a search has been carried out , the search text will be highlighted . In this way simply starting to type a new search text will automatically delete the previous search text . 16/06/1998 When selecting Add , update or Add new based on current , the first field should be automatically selected , it was possible to enter text without first selecting a destination field , this could lead to rather unpredictable results - the text could be placed across all 30 possible fields in such a fashion that made it impossible to delete without deleting the entire record . 01/07/1998 It is now possible to hide the field labels , this can be done on the File/View menu command , this can also be called by double clicking on the main display area . The search options menu can be called up in the same way but this time by double clicking on the 'Search request' label . 05/07/1998 The file menu can also be called by double clicking on the file name box . 07/07/1998 SEE LATER ENTRIES , THIS FEATURE HAS BEEN UPGRADED !! I am experimenting with a dual criteria search . This only works on a group find ( F3 ) . To activate this simply enter the first required search text in the text box , follow this with " ## " - minus the quote marks but WITH the spaces - and then the second required search text . The spaces either side of the "##" will be discounted within the search . Example . To search for Pete in London enter :- pete ## london . Then press Group Find ( F3 ) , all the records which contain Pete AND London should be returned in a group , this assumes that the file does contain some records with Pete and London !! Searches may take a little longer this way . The order of the search requests is unimportant to the search routine , although if you have the search options set to "Case dependant" this will only apply to the FIRST search request and not to the second . SEE LATER ENTRIES , THIS FEATURE HAS BEEN UPGRADED !! If you attempt to save an empty record PsdbView will not only not save it but will also press the cancel button for you . This means that if you have finished saving new records you need only to press F2 twice ( once to save the new record and once to 'save' the blank record ) to exit from the Add Records screen . I find this quicker than pressing F2 and then Alt+C or clicking on 'Save' then 'Cancel' . 16/07/1998 I have added a new 'Help' topic regarding the 'Invalid File Format' messages as I was fed up with explaining that the program will only work on PSION format database files , this will hopefully stop this !! 29/07/1998 You can now enter the date in a record when adding or updating a record . Simply highlight the Date field and either right click on the field list , double click on the text entry area or press enter whilst the text entry area has the focus . Todays date will be entered in the DD/MM/YYYY format . THIS WILL ONLY WORK IF THE CURRENT FIELD LABEL IS SET TO 'Date' , DATE , date or anything else will not work . 11/08/1998 When opening files the currently open file ( if any ) will be used as the starting directory for the open file dialog , this should make file navigation easier . 25/08/1998 I have played with the MRU ( Most Recently Used ) lists again ! the effect this time is to place the MRU list under a sub-menu ( Open recent ) . The advantage of this is that double-clicking on the file name box will only bring up the MRU list ( and the open file command ) instead of bringing up the whole file list as before . I have further refined the checking of the files listed on the MRU so that files which no longer exist are not shown on the list . If there are no files on the MRU then the Open recent sub menu will not be displayed on the file menu and double clicking on the file name box will only bring up the Open file command . I have said it many times before but I hope that I am finally getting the MRU to work in a logical and more importantly - reliable fashion , truth will out itself !!!! 14/09/1998 It is now possible to initiate a search simply by entering the search request in the search box and pressing Enter , this enhances the 'InstaSearch' by allowing you to enter a search request , wait for a few seconds for the InstaSearch to find the first matching record then pressing Enter will find the next matching record . Pressing Shift+Enter will cause the search to find the previous matching record . This assumes the Search options are set to either Find next ( the default setting ) or Find first . If you have set the search options to Find previous then pressing Enter will search backwards and Shift+Enter forwards . Likewise for Find last . Since the inclusion of the 'Press F2 twice to quit saving records' shortcut it has not been possible to update field labels . This now works correctly ! 29/09/1998 You can now select the printer device . Unfortunately due to limitations in Visual Basic this will alter the default Windows printer to that set in this dialog box , if you do not wish to alter this simply OK or cancel the printer setup dialog box without changing any of the settings . 30/11/1998 I have made some alterations to the printing routines , this is to counter the effect noticeable on some newer printers ( newer than my old dot matrix printer ! ) of when text was wrapped to the top of a new page it could be printed with a grey background until a new record was reached . This should now not occur . The print dialog will also report the print progress as the file / record is printed . The printed page will also show the date , name of the printed file as well as the page number . 09/01/1999 The wordwrap routine will now ( at long last ! ) wrap on most punctuation marks . The previous limitations on long lines containing no spaces should no longer exist . I never found this much of a limitation really which is why it took me so long to get around to altering it . As the print routine uses the same technique this should also now print long lines ( assuming there are SOME punctuation marks or spaces somewhere in it ) . One 'Effect' you may see is that if a line of text is sliced at the point of a punctuation mark then that mark is repeated at the start of the next line , I am trying to prevent this but it is a safety feature , if this is not in place the first letter of the first word on the next line can be truncated . I find it better to repeat the punctuation than to randomly misspell words . 10/01/1999 The search commands are now entered onto a drop-down list which remembers the search requests entered . This list is NOT saved when the program is closed . Clicking on the down arrow in the search area will show a list of all the recent search requests . 10/02/1999 I found that the reverse search ( started by pressing Shift+Enter after typing a search request ) skipped one record before searching . Strange that nobody spotted that ?? 03/05/1999 The multiple search request has been upgraded to work on ALL search commands , the separator has been changed to ' and ' . IE paul and london .