buyskes@lafcol.UUCP (Steven Buyske) (12/30/89)
Can anyone who has used Address Book Plus of DynoDex or QuickDex or whatever give their impressions of it/them? I'm interested in using one of them in conjunction with my DayTimer/FiloFax book, so a smooth job at printing is important. I also wonder if there are notes fields, so that I can keep track of what I've sent to whom without putting it into the address. Thanks Steve Buyske uucp : rutgers!lehi3b15!lafcol!buyskes Mathematics Department Bitnet : BUYSKES@LAFAYETT Lafayette College Easton, PA 18042
kovar@popvax.harvard.edu (David C. Kovar) (12/30/89)
When I called PowerUp! they said that Address Book Plus was not available yet. They expected it to be out very shortly. I am also quite interested in any responses to this question as I'm now lugging around a Portable rather than my briefcase and DayTimer. -David C. Kovar Consultant ARPA: kovar@popvax.harvard.edu Eclectic Associates BITNET: corwin@harvarda.bitnet Ma Bell: 617-646-0428 MacNET: DKovar "It is easier to get forgiveness than permission." [All opinions expressed are my own. Noone else assumes responsibility for me.]
taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) (12/30/89)
Steven Buyske recently asked about Address Book Plus, DynoDex, QuickDex and/or any other phone book type software... I have been using QuickDex ever since Cassady & Greene were kind enough to send a copy of it to me for evaluation. Additionally, I have a copy of DAtabase from Preferred Publishers, though frankly I haven't yet had the time to play with it. My impressions so far are that for what I need, QuickDex is a great solution. Basically, it's an 'all words are key words' stack of cards that you can use for just about any purpose you'd like. It lives as a DA so it's quite convenient, AND adding and deleting cards is very straightforward. My needs are quite simple; an easily accessed database of phone numbers and addresses for personal and business contacts that I can move through and find quickly. Currently I would guess that I have over 130 entries in the program, with a typical one being: Software Ventures 2907 Claremont Ave Berkeley, CA 94705 (microphone II, version 2.0) (415) 644-3232 With this type of information I can search by telephone number to resolve strange phone bills, search by product name, or by the name of the company... The only problems I have with the program are that it doesn't allow you to have more than one 'card' of information, though it seems to me that adding a scroll bar and allowing scrolling on the card would be quite simple. The other gripe? I like to use TAB characters in my cards to indent things like addresses, but the tab immediately puts me into the "search for" dialog box (and the second puts me back in the card window)... it would be nice if I could change that. Finally, the printing feature is pretty lame. They supply a separate program called "PrintDex", but it is pretty much geared to one-page-of-info per sheet of paper, which makes a printout of my database, at 130+ cards, a bit prohibitive! It would be much nicer if I could somehow specify that eight cards per page, with borders, please, would be ideal.. Another nice thing about the package is that the designers realized that many people might well have data files already existing that they'd like to convert, so they include in the documentation exactly how to create a "data file" for the program... quite simple... and sure enough, with some help from a Unix "awk" script, I was up and running in an astoundingly short period of time! DAtabase, on the other hand, appears to be overkill for something as simple as a phone list... I'd be most interested in hearing about this Address Book Plus program if someone can supply information. -- Dave Taylor Intuitive Systems Mountain View, California taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor
dan@s3dawn.ARPA (Dan Peterka) (12/30/89)
I just inquired about all the available address book formats and have recently purchased Address Book Plus. I've now got my entire address book done up in it and it's great. DynoDex limits you to 4-5 lines of text per entry, ABP gives you about a dozen data fields, each of which can be up to 256 characters long. It has a myriad of options for selecting which entries get printed, how they get printed, and cross-referencing. It prints address books, phone lists, envelopes, labels, and rolodex formats. Get it! A statisfied customer... _______________________________________________________________________________ Dan Peterka S-CUBED 3398 Carmel Mtn Rd. dan@scubed.scubed.com (619) 587-8338 San Diego, CA 92121 _______________________________________________________________________________
oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (12/30/89)
I am the programmer of Address Book Plus from Power-UP! Software, San Mateo, CA., so you can tell where my biases lie. I think it is a great program, I use it myself. Address Book is out, I've been told that some of the larger dealerships have even re-ordered because they've sold out their first shipments. Here are some of the data entry features: 17 text fields, each can hold up to 255 characters, many of which you rename away from our suggestions to use for your own purposes. Two are predefined as comments fields. Three are predefined as phone number fields. Pattern matching data entry, so, if you want to, you only need to type a short, unambiguous prefix, and the program will look up the entry and put it in the data entry field. The "state" field has a predefined database of all the American states, but you can add your own. The "country" field has a predefined database of the world's countries. Customizable popup menus on the data entry screen, so you can put common items in the menu, to get at them quickly without typing. (but you can do data entry using only the keyboard, if you prefer.) A "Yellow Pages" feature so that a single person's data entry record can appear by name, by company, and by profession, if you so choose. Import/Export features: Import and export to tab or comma delimited text files. You can merge files by importing into an existing file. You can include/exclude fields from the import/export. Here are some other features: A dialer desk accessory. If you move the same file between work and home, you can independently set up the telephone parameters for each place. A "Categories" feature that give you ten checkboxes that you can name to divide your personal address book into groups. (When my wife prints our Address Book, she excludes those people who are just in there because they are my business contacts.) The search command has a checklist of which fields to look in. You can sort by most fields, ascending or descending. Address Book has a predefined set of primary and secondary keys, so when you sort by state, it uses the zip code as secondary key, and the city as a tertiary key, then last name, then first name. You can sort birthdays either by year, to find which of your contacts is oldest, or by month, to find which have birthdays coming up. (You can omit the birthday, or just the year, of course.) We include a file of the addresses of all the U.S. Senators and Representatives, to make it easier to be more politically active. We also include a directory of 800 numbers. There is extensive on-line help. It is really pleasant to use: there is cut/copy/paste & UNDO on every dialog, including the "save as" dialog. You can work with multiple files simultaneously. If you've been following my writing in comp.sys.mac.programmer, I recently wrote about more than one dozen user interface features Address Book has, that make it more in accordance with Apple's User Interface Guidelines. If there is interest, I can post that list here. But the best thing Address Book Plus does is print. I know from personal experience that it will print on any printer Apple makes, and the beta sites tell me it works fine on other brands, including Hewlett-Packard. You can define your own paper formats, though it comes with 12 predefined ones. You can use it with a DayTimer/FiloFax book. In fact, Address Book Plus is available in two flavors, one with a leather Daytimer book included, and one without. (At least the leather book I have says "Daytimer" in small gold letters in the inside.) You can set the font/style/size of each field. (I put my comments in italics.) You can put the phone numbers after each address, or in a separate column, to the right. It comes with a very clever spiral binding system. The "Jr. Address Book" size paper comes with vinyl binders in the paper package, so you don't need a leather binder, and it produces a book half the size of a standard checkbook, which is just right for a wallet pocket. A leather binder is also available for this size. In addition to Address Books, it also prints Phone Number Lists, rotary cards, envelopes, and mailing labels. --- David Phillip Oster -- No, I come from Boston. I just work Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu -- in cyberspace. Uucp: {uwvax,decvax}!ucbvax!oster%dewey.soe.berkeley.edu
oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (12/30/89)
Here are some Address Book Plus tips my wife and I came up with, that aren't in the manual: 1.) make a file with 1 entry in it, yourself, and give it a fairly large font. Add a comment: "If found, please return to:" Use this as a title page . 2.) If you are doing a mailing, you can save time by printing the return address on the upper left corner of a large mailing label. This saves printing the return address on the mailing itself, but does require slightly larger labels than if you were printing just the address. To get get mailing labels with return addresses on them, define a sheet of custom envelopes, where "each" envelope is label size.