Actually this page was written after the outstanding editorial of page 1 and 2. After reading it I didn’t think it did justice to the two programs of this issue, so I’ll expound a bit, and be somewhat repetetive.
The two programs are in CRASH FREE BASIC. Both programs were originally designed to consolodate into a Dock Cartridge, along with another major software. Vars files of each are supportive. The disk drive is used to hold supporting menus for “SDOS MAIL MERGE“, thus saving about 2K of program memory. We will have a future article about doing the Dock Cartridge transfer.
SDOS MAIL MERGE: If you have “Pro-File” and like it, you’ll also like this software. There are two flexible data bases. One is the “mail merge” base which has up to about 120 fields of 7 lines each. The user decides the number of fields needed and sets the first dimension by prompt. Each of the seven lines are set for 31 characters each. You can make the lines longer or shorter by editing line 2006 and changing from 31 characters to whatever you want as a line length. The primary purpose of this data base was designed to be a Mailing List, using the first four lines of each group (field) for “address data lines”, plus the “first name” of the individual as the fifth line. Then two more data lines are provided for ancillary information about the person or company.
Labels and envelope printing uses the first four lines only. Prompts allow you to set up both vertical and horozontal spacing to strike a series of labels or envelopes uniformly. Another prompt provides the option of printing your own return address label after each “out label” prints. Disk files of mailing lists may be ordered for loading and printing. Also, automatic SAVE to disk by discrete file number is a menu option. The data base is ideally suited for many other purposes, such as setting up invoice fields, inventory lists, magazine article listings, or just anything that one needs to retain as data. The menu allows a selectable number of lines of the fields to be printed. Automatic page control with page number is a option.
Sorting is provided by either first name or last name. When the data base is used for inventory the sorting can be by either stock number or noun. Sorting in BASIC is rather slow, but not awfully slow, and how often does one need to sort a list?
The second data base is “OUTLINE”. This data base is entirely flexible and is set by input prompts for: “Number of Major Topics”, “Number of Minor Lines of Each”, and “Line Length”. The printing is set by input of TAB, and Spacing. The outline prints to input TAB for the major topics and TAB+5 for the minors. Automatic page control and page numbers are optional. Centered Subject captions are also optional. The menu allows complete page management for the printing of either data base. No supporting printer software is required when using the SAFE DISK system, as the LET/P=0 or LET/P=T protocol is used in the programming. Prompts simply ask whether you want to print with a Centroncis printer or the TS-2040. “MERGE” is MENU DRIVEN, every function before your eyes in simple English.