DTFWIN DEMONSTRATION (WINDEMO) September 21, 1999 JOHN T. DOW 6560 ROSEMOOR STREET PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA 15217-3026 Voice 412/973-9473 Internet info@johntdow.com Web page www.johntdow.com Copyright 1998,1999 by John T. Dow All rights reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT IS DTFWIN? --------------- DTFWIN is a Windows program that greatly enhances the capabilities of Q&A Windows. It provides the type of capabilities that Q&A 5 DOS does, but because it's a C++ Windows program, DTFWIN actually has more power than Q&A DOS. DTFWIN is fully configurable using an INI file. In this file, you list your databases, define your menus, and define the actions to be taken in various situations. For example, you can store the file names of images in a field and then launch an image viewer when you click a button next to the field. WHAT DOES WINDEMO DO? --------------------- The old WinDemo has been replaced as of September 1999 with a demo based on the DTFDATA demo. This has three databases: ORDER, CUSTOMER, and STOCK. With these databases, using either Q&A Windows or Q&A 5 DOS, you can enter an order. In so doing, you select your customer from a popup list. Then when you fill in the order itself, you select items from stock using another popup list. Finally, you are asked if you want to post the order, and if you say yes, the stock database is updated to reflect the items ordered. WINDEMO provides a menu that is specific to this application. The user controls the application via the WINDEMO menu, not the Q&A menu. WINDEMO also enhances the capabilities of Q&A Windows, making the application more powerful and more user friendly. For example, to create a new order, merely select "New order" from the WinDemo menu. The description of this demo is brief. The purpose of the demo isn't to illustrate everything in great detail but to provide an idea of what is possible. Further information about DTFWIN's features is available in FEATURES.TXT. A history of changes is in WHATSNEW.TXT. For very detailed information about how to actually develop using DTFWIN, read DEVGUIDE.TXT (the developer's guide). CUSTOMIZATION ------------- IMPORTANT FACT ---> Everything this demo does is completely controlled using the INI file and the programming in the ORDER database. Nothing that this demo does required customization. Powerful as DTFWIN is, you may need some special pop up or other feature that is beyond the capabilities of DTFWIN. In that case I can easily customize your own copy of DTFWIN. But as you will see from this demo, you can build a complete application with no customization by me. INSTALLATION ------------ The installation of WINDEMO in no way affects your existing Q&A programs or applications. You can remove it by simply deleting one directory and some easily identifiable files in your qawin directory. You should first create the directory C:\WINDEMO and run the DEMWIN.EXE program in that directory. (You can give it a different name and location if you wish.) If you're reading this file, you have presumably already taken this step. Make sure your Q&A Windows is version 4.06. That's the version number assigned if you've applied the patch that comes with Q&A 5 DOS. This is necessary because this demo uses Q&A 5 compatible databases. Change into the directory where Q&A Windows in installed (perhaps C:\QAWIN?) and type these commands at a DOS prompt: C:\WINDEMO\QAWINCPY 1 C:\WINDEMO\QAWINCPY 2 This will create two more copies of Q&A Windows that will automatically be used by WinDemo when it opens all three databases during start up. Edit the WINDEMO.CFG file to set the following two parameters: qawindir=c:\qawin tempdir=c:\windows\temp The first should indicate where Q&A Windows 4.06 is installed. The second should indicate a temporary directory. DEINSTALLATION -------------- Delete the C:\WINDEMO directory and everything in it. In your qawin directory, delete all files that start with the letter "Z". STARTING WINDEMO FOR THE FIRST TIME ----------------------------------- You can try the demo using either Q&A Windows assisted by DTFWIN, or for comparision you can use Q&A 5 DOS assisted by DTFTALK and DTFDATA. For Q&A 5 DOS, you can run the demo simply by opening the ORDER database to add a record. Run Q&A 5 as you normally do, then specify the full path to the ORDER database when you open it to add a record. It is not necessary to change the default database directory to run the demo, and you do not have to install the demo in your Q&A 5 directory. For Q&A Windows, you can run the demo using the Windows Explorer and clicking on WINDEMO.EXE in the C:\WINDEMO directory. (Alternatively, you can run it from a DOS prompt, or do Start, Run, and enter C:\WINDEMO\WINDEMO.) First the WinDemo program itself will start. Then it will open the ORDER database, the CUSTOMER database, and the STOCK database. Please wait a few moments while these all open. Once the databases are opened, you can click on any of the databases to change the focus to it. You can also select one using the Windows menu choice on the WinDemo menu. You can also press the F11 key repeatedly to cycle between the databases. To move from a database to the WinDemo menu, you can either use the mouse to click on it or press Alt-F11. Press F11 to switch back to the databases or use the Windows or other menu choice (it depends on the application what menu choices are available.). To see the demo in action, click on "New order" on the WinDemo menu. Then notice the pop up list boxes and messages that guide you through the process. When you have actually entered the one or more items to be ordered, select the "Cancel" button (you can press ESC if you wish) to clear the list of stock items. At that point you will be asked if you wish to post the order. If you select "OK", it will update the stock database with your order and then display the current status of whatever stock items you ordered. This is the complete menu structure for the program: File print Portrait Print current form portrait mode. print Landscape Print current form landscape mode. eXit Exit from WinDemo. New order Create a new order. Old order Search for an old order. Lookup Databases Access the customer and stock databases. Customer Access the customer database. Add New Add a new customer. Search/Update Find an existing customer. Delete Delete the current customer. Stock Access the stock database. Add New Add a new stock item. Search/Update Find an existing stock item. Delete Delete the current stock item. Windows Select a window. Order Select the order database. Customer Select the customer database. Stock Select the stock database. Navigation Go directly to a field. Help Display help. Technical Display technical information. About Display version info etc. You can see that this menu is not generic (like Q&A's) but is specifically designed for this application. As you will see, some of these menu choices map directly into Q&A actions. Others have nothing whatsover to do with Q&A. And others are a combination of Q&A and non-Q&A behaviors. COMMENTS ON THE DATABASE DESIGN ------------------------------- The demo on requires a VGA screen, 640 x 480. Most applications probably use 800 x 600. This of course makes it look rather cramped. Also, the demo shows how you can have several databases open at once. With the 640 x 480 layout, this makes for a pretty tight fit. In practice, you may not want to have multiple databases visible at once. You can have two or more open at once, with one covering another. In that case, the Windows menu choice and the F11 key let you move from one to the other easily. PARTING WORDS ------------- This is just to give you an idea of what's possible. If you need more information, please feel free to contact me at 412-973-9473 or via info@johntdow.com. PURCHASING INFO --------------- BASIC PRODUCT: The base purchase price of DTFWIN is for one user and includes the standard features, including your ability to control many of them through the INI and other files. The basic product is $300 for a single user, $50 for each additional user. When you purchase DTFWIN, you are actually contracting with me (John Dow) to develop a customized Windows 3.1 program. (The program is known to be fully compatible with Win 95 and Win 98.) Although I do create a customized program, in fact nearly all if not all of the functionality in this new program is controlled by one or more files that you or I can create. With your purchase you get 2 hours of my time customizing the program and helping you in setting up these one or more of these files. Beyond that, you can do it yourself, or you can contract with me to do additional work. I am also available to help you with your database forms design and programming if you wish. Your customized program will, to a large extent, take control of Q&A Windows to make it behave exactly as you want. In this way some of the deficiencies of Q&A Windows can be eliminated and its power can in fact be extended.