Master-Dex 64 is an electronic Rolodex that will help you keep track of addresses of your friends, relatives, and associates. Talk about bells and whistles, Master-Dex 64 has everything. It prints labels and envelopes and is slick throughout. You can store up to 123 "cards" (entries) in each file, and it remembers your own name and address when you print envelopes. It supports CMD subdirectories, and 1581 partitions. It's joystick, mouse or keyboard controlled, written completely in machine language for speed, and has a user friendly menu system that makes it ultra-easy to use. Menu System ----------- Master-Dex 64 uses an intuitive pull-down menuing sytems like GEOS. On your screen, you'll find a white arrow which you can move in any direction. It's your job to mode a little arrow to the feature that you want to use, then "click" to select it. At the top of the screen is the menu bar. Each menu is labelled. To pull down a menu, just click on the name of the menu. If you're using a keyboard, press SPACE. If you're using a joystick, press FIRE. Like no other menu system, the point and click system allows you to "tool around" a program, even a complex program, without relying on sometimes cryptic expectations of the programmer. INPUT CONTROL (Read Before You Run!) ------------------------------------ Master-Dex 64 can be configured to work with MOUSE in port 1, JOYSTICK in port 2, or KEYBOARD controls. This configuration is saved to disk. Master-Dex 64, as found on the LOADSTAR disk, is configured to work with the keyboard. INPUT OVERRIDE KEYS ------------------- While booting hold down: * CONTROL to enable the keyboard * COMMDORE KEY to enable the mouse * SHIFT to enable the joystick Only one device is active at a time. Once you're in the program and can move the arrow, you can pull down the SETUP MENU and change INPUT DEVICE until it displays the one you want as the default. Then save your setup using the SAVE SETUP option. NOTE: The new setup won't be active until the NEXT time you boot up, so once you save the settings, quit the program and boot up again. You shouldn't have to do this again, unless you decide to change the default input device. THE MAIN SCREEN --------------- The main screen is where you scroll through all your cards with the up/down arrows. To enter a name and address, click on a card slot and then click on the VIEW button. The card will open to show you its contents. Just click on the line that you want to edit. CRSR up/down will move between fields. While viewing a card, you may elect to print it either as a label or as an envelope. Click on the word to toggle the choice. Press BACK ARROW to exit the edit mode and get your pointer back. Remeber this -- there's no button or indicator on the screen to tell you this. TAGALL will highlight all cards in your dex file so that you can print or export them all. Note that blank cards will appear to be tagged, but won't print. UNTAG will unhighlight individual cards. CLRTAG will unhighlight all cards. TAG will highlight individual cards. LIST will print an entire list of names and phone numbers. UP and DOWN ARROWS will scroll the list when you click on them. P BUTTONS will page up and down. The P at the top will page up. The P at the bottom will page down. DVC: shows the current drive. It doesn't look like a button, but if you click on the drive number, you'll go to a screen that allows you to switch to any other active drive. DIR: allows you to change subdirectories. Your RETURN ADDRESS is the last record in a file. Just move to the end and enter your address. You must do this if you want to print envelopes -- IF your printer can handle envelopes. THE FILE MENU ------------- This menu handles all your saving and loading, plus a few other features, including: * Start New File * Load * Save Current File * Batch Print * Batch Seq Export START NEW FILE erases the current file from memory and renames the "current" file to "untitled". LOAD opens a file requestor that allows you to LOAD a file. DEX.DEFAULT is automatically loaded, so if you use that file, there's no need to manually load a file. The requestor allows you to navigate your drive and its directories, if any. You can change to a different device simply by pressing its description in the list. The upper right area is the file list, which displays DEX.FILES. A DEX file can be LOADed by clicking on the name in the file list. The file list will hold approximately 300 DEX files. The list can be scrolled up and down by clicking on the up and down arrow buttons on the right. The bottom list area displays all subdirectories currently available. This list will show either CMD directories (DIR) or 1581 sub- partitions (CBM). You may move to a DIR or CBM directory by highlighting it and pressing the "DIR DOWN" button. The "DIR UP" button will move you to the parent directory. The list will display up to 100 subdirectories. You can move back to the file requestor. If the current device is a 1541/71, these buttons will be inactive. The OK button will return you to Master-Dex's main screen. SAVE will open a requestor, allowing you to save, or rename and save, the dex file currently in memory. BATCH PRINT will print all tagged files. Tagging a file is accomplished by clicking on it, and then clicking on the "TAG" icon. Of course there are "UNTAG", "TAG ALL" and "CLEAR ALL" icons. BATCH PRINT will only print labels. If you want to print envelopes, you must view the record and then click on PRINT. BATCH SEQ EXPORT will save all tagged files into a SEQuential file called "exportfile". You can use this file in your word processor or for whatever reason you'd want the data in generic form. EXIT TO MAIN MENU will boot a program (not written at this date) that will tie Master-Dex with other programs of its type. SETUP MENU ---------- The SETUP menu allows you to configure Master-Dex 64 to work with your particular system, allowing you to control: * Linefeed * SuperGrafix Gold fix * Selecting input device * Selecting mail label size * Printer escape code settings * Save settings LINEFEED toggles between YES and NO when you select it. If your printer prints everything on the same line, you need YES. If your printer is double-spacing, you need NO. SG INTERFACE fixes Master-Dex 64 so that it never checks for device #14. Super Grafix Gold shows up as device 14, which locks up programs that try to treat the interface as a disk drive. If you have a Super Grafix Gold interface, you need to enable this. INPUT DEVICE allows you to select the default input device, which we've already covered twice. LABEL LENGTH sets the number of lines per mailing label to ensure correct label printing. The default value of 6 is the one to use for standard tractor-fed labels. PRINTER SETTINGS pops up a requestor box that allows you to define the escape codes and then send them to your printer. TEST prints an alphanumeric line of text to test the effects of the command. EDIT allows you to change the actual bytes sent to your printer for each command. SAVE SETTINGS will save all the changes you've made so that you won't have to enter them again. THE DISK MENU ------------- The DISK MENU allows you to send disk commands, including changing the device number. THE EDIT MENU ------------- NOTE: All functions work on the currently highlighted card: CUT will COPY the current card into the buffer, and then DELETE the entry from the list. Use this to move entries from here to there. COPY will COPY the current card into the buffer with no effect on the list. PASTE will place the card that is in the buffer into the currently highlighted slot. The highlighted slot, and all slots beneath it, are pushed down to make room. INSERT will push cards up to make space for a new blank card (if there is any room). DELETE Will delete the current card, pulling all higher cards down. LOADSTAR -------- This allows you to return to LOADSTAR if you're checking out Master-Dex from the LS disk. To actually use Master-Dex you should copy the program over to another disk. If you keep your lists updated you'll be writing to the disk often and it's not good to write to a LOADSTAR disk. This is a powerful and upgradable program. The hidden features abound, but the point and click nature of Master-Dex 64 makes navigation painless. Look forward to more modules in this line of software from John. JLJ