★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ RANK AND FILE|8000 Plus magazine) ★ |
| Lindex | Applications Divers |
When it comes to examining those LocoScript discs, Lindex will supply you - at the press of a button - with all the information you need. One of LocoScript's least publicised features is the Edit Identity option that can be used to 'label' each freshly-created document. This optional label consists of a brief (up to 90 characters) description of the contents of the file to which it belongs. It is a facility which comes in handy when you're looking for a particular document. Instead of having to work your way laboriously through all the files on your LocoScript disc opening and closing each one to check its contents, you simply place the cursor on the file name at the disc management screen, press the [f5] Document menu and select Inspect document. The identity text that you keyed in earlier will tell you all that you need to know about the highlighted file: when you wrote it, for example, what it contains and for whom it was written. The drop-down menu allows you to insert a small piece of text like the following: 21st December 89. Letter to Colonel Huffington-Puffington requesting renewal of membership. Press [ENTER] and exit from the letter in the usual way. Lindex will also include non-LocoScript documents in its catalogue if required. This is a facility which will come in handy for those users who have made Ascii versions of their LocoScript files. Lindex is a program that is refreshingly easy to use -perhaps because it was written for those people who only ever use LocoScript. Installing it couldn't be easier. All you have to do is load CP/M to get the A> prompt, insert the program disc, type install, follow the on-screen prompts and away you go with a new disc that will load both CP/M and Lindex in one go. Cataloguing success The program's screens are clear and precise. You are presented with four options. The first [f 1 ] option prompts you to place the appropriate LocoScript disc containing the files to be catalogued in the appropriate drive. The second [f3] File pattern menu should be used if you wish to restrict the catalogue that the program will create to files with names of a certain pattern. You might prefer, for example, just to catalogue all your letter files. You would, consequently, instruct the program to disregard those files that didn't have a .LTR suffix. The [f5] Group menu allows you the choice of cataloguing one specific LocoScript group of files or all of them. The [f7] Options menu affords a number of interesting selections. If you prefer to index non-LocoScript documents, the program will list the first 90 printable characters in the file to your screen. You can choose, at this stage, whether you want all your limbo files to be catalogued; in other words, those files that have been erased from a main group. The ‘Output to printer' option is. again, rather self-explanatory. Once you set this option, (by pressing the [+] key in true LocoScript tradition), Lindex will print a single line for each file in the group or groups being catalogued. The program will print out the name of the file, which version of LocoScript is being used (1 or 2), the size of the file in both K and eighths and, finally, the identity text. You don't have to print out the catalogues that Lindex produces. Outputting the catalogue to the screen may be all that's needed to jog your memory. Once again, the screen presentation is professional-looking and easily controlled by use of various keys. Press [f1], for example, and the screen will stop scrolling so that you can examine the catalogue at leisure. Hit [STOP] and the screen will continue to scroll. You can exit from the program at any time. Lindex is a simple, well-crafted program that will probably be of unlimited use to any dedicated and organised LocoScript user who needs to know on a day to day basis just what each disc holds. Full marks must go to its writers.
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