Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

There are indeed a couple of cardfiler datafiles which contain pictures of
astronauts.  I have a copies at GVRIEL::DUA1:[SCHOELLER.CARD]SPACE_*.CARD.

Dick

    .1
    	Can you please un-protect the files. 

    FTSV Job 658 (FTSV_0658) finished at 15:48:27
    COPY GVRIEL::DUA1:[SCHOELLER.CARD]SPACE_*.CARD CA_LOG_01:[ZANZERKIA.DECW]
    %RMS-E-PRV, insufficient privilege or file protection violation

    thank you,
    Robert

Not regarding astronauts or anything...

    When  CARDFILER  starts  up, is there a way for it to know which .CARD 
    file is to be displayed. every time mine gets going, I have to tell it 
    which  file  to  use  with  the FILE - OPEN... pulldown. I guess I was 
    hoping  for a logical name or even a default location and filename for 
    the cardfile...

						Thanks,

						jr

This works for me:
$ set def card$
$ card :== $decw$cardfiler
$ card card$:'p1
$ exit

The only "gotcha" I've found is that you must specify the .CARD
suffix

Regards,

             == ken miller ==

Double-clicking on a .CARD file in FileView does the same thing.

You can also save a view (called, for example, "Card Files") that
has "mydisk:[me.mycards]*.CARDS" in the FileFilter.  Selecting
that view with the shift key held down will give you a new FileView
window containing your card file list.  Double click and you're off.
You could even save the size and position of the window.  In the next
version, you should even be able to set the icon name and window title.

-steve-

    
    It is my understanding that the images of the astronauts were scanned
    from a poster done by the Smithsonian.  As such, it may be OK to use
    them internally (but I wouldn't want to be "responsible" even for that).
    However, the use of these images for any external purpose that might
    be construed as for profit or other benefit (including demos) is
    very likely illegal and unethical.  This might include the case of
    demos shown on an engineer's system at work to a prospective customer.
    Please be extremely careful in protecting the corporation's interests
    and your own when dealing with scanned images.  If we didn't create it,
    then we don't own it.  Nuf said?
    
    John Hoffman
    ULTRIX DECwindows Engineering

RE: .6

	I got my copy of the astronauts in cardfiler format from
	the DECwindows demo at DECworld.

						mike
						Former sysmgr @ DECworld'88

        Is there any way of having the cardfiler default to the size of
        the card. Unless I specifiy a particularly large card size, they
        get truncated...
        
        q
        

    I s'pose I should ask here while I'm thinking of it ....

    Why will the cardfiler not shut down cleanly without reporting an X
    error?  Unfortunately, I can't run windows at home so I can't tell you
    the exact error.  I'm running SDC DW and will eventually get 'round to
    QARing it if no one tells me it's a known problem.

Protection problem is fixed.  Sorry about that.  I snuck off to go skiing  8^{).
I usually stop in here a few times each day.

Dick

    Some answers:
    
    I created the "space" as John described in order to show how the
    cardfiler can display people's pictures.  I did NOT get any permission
    to cut up the poster and scan the images in.  Care should be taken
    in pasing these images around.  If any one has a set of pictures
    that I could legally use I would appreciate it.
    
    The X11 problem is a toolkit bug with the file selection widget
    that I see the first time I open the file not when I exit.  Are
    you seeing a different problem?  This is fixed in next functional
    version type of problem (VMS 5.3 and UWS 2.3)
    
    The card size can be set with xdefaults, see the example in
    sys$library:decw$cardfiler.dat
    
    Neal

    The defaults file show how to change the size of both the index
    and the cardwindow.  The appropriate lines are:
    
	*cardmainwindow.width:		330
	*cardmainwindow.height:		200
    
    The is a know, release noted problem where an Xerror is generated
    the first time the file selection widget is called up.   This turned
    out to be a toolkit problem that should be "fixed in next release".
    
    Neal

    Does anyone have the equivalent card file for Ultrix systems, or
    can Ultrix systems even display this type of cards?
    
    /jim
    

    re .13
    Your question is either too obvious or not at all clear.
    ULTRIX and VMS both use identical formats for cardfiler cards.
    The only difference is in the file naming conventions for
    the systems.
    
    John

One thing to note...

You can copy a cardfiler database from a VMS system to an Ultrix system but you
MUST use -i switch on the dcp line.  The databases must be treated like images
not text (like DDIF must treated).

Neal

    Would it be possible to have an entity in .DAT that the user could set
    to his desired initial card file?
    
    Gary
    
    P.S. Having asked that, I will now go look for said quantity in said
         file.

    Is there a way under VMS V5.3 to bring up the Cardfiler in iconified
    state?  My former (V5.2) method either doesn't work any more or got
    blown away, and I can't figure out how I did it there.
    
    Thanks...Gary

    Try to include this line in your DECW$XDEFAULTS.DAT. 
    
    *Cardfiler.initialState: 3
    
    
    
    Pierre.

    Any way to get cardfiler to put the name of the card file on the icon? I
    mean the main icon, not the individual card icon although that might be nice
    too...
    
    - steve

    RE: .19
    
    Ditto! (I'd like to know too!). I use a Cardfiler as a phone book, and
    would like set the name of the ICON (or at least have it default to the
    filename of the current .CARD file open).

I have added putting the file into the card icon to the wish list for the next
version.

Thanks for you input.

Neal

    Is there any way to tell Cardfiler in which directory to look when
    started from the session manager?  It always looks in SYS$LOGIN, which
    is always the wrong place as far as I'm concerned.  If I kept as many
    files in SYS$LOGIN as applications seem to require, then there'd be no
    reason to keep subdirectories and my login directory would contain
    thousands of files.

re:                       <<< Note 92.22 by HPSCAD::MAYER >>>
>                           -< Default Directory Spec? >-
> 
>     Is there any way to tell Cardfiler in which directory to look when
>     started from the session manager?  It always looks in SYS$LOGIN, which
>     is always the wrong place as far as I'm concerned. 
    
    Are you sure?  I don't use Cardfiler anymore but when I did (V1) it
    always searched my *current* directory; thus, doing a set default prior
    to invoking cardfiler always did the trick.  Can't verify it, though,
    cause I'm at home.
    
    Hope that helps,
    
    	 	== ken miller ==

    Re: .23
    
    Yes.  I'm invoking it from the Session Manager which always defaults to
    starting up applications with a default directory of SYS$LOGIN.  If you
    RUN the cardfiler from a DECterm terminal (and maybe Fileview) then it
    will use the default directory.
    
    		Danny

Following onto several ideas suggested earlier...
I usually keep three cardfiles open.  I also would like to see the file name, 
but not the extension, shown in the icon.  I would also like to specify the
cardfile to use in some default file.  Expanding this some to my situation, it
would be nice to be able to say how may cardfilers to automatically startup
and the file to use for each one.  Something like - 
	Cardfiler.count:	3
	Cardfiler.file.1:  	Phones.card
	Cardfiler.file.2:	ToDo.card
	Cardfiler.file.3:	Misc.card

The two things I do most often are open and close cards and save card files.  
It would be nice if there were buttons for those commands.  The CLOSE button 
should be at the far right bottom of the Card window, next to NEXT and PREVIOUS.
The SAVE button should be at the bottom index window.  A NEW CARD button at the
bottom of the index window would also be nice.

Now for two more complex requests....

I use the cardfiler as a continuous notepad.  As such it would be nice to have
an automatic save option, with resources to turn the option on or off and to 
control timing of automatic saves...after N lines of text or X minutes regardless
of the amount of text entered.
	Cardfiler.autosave:		On
	Cardfiler.autosave.minutes:	30
	Cardfiler.autosave.characters:	200


The other thing that would be usefull would be the ability to nest cards, like
subdirectories.  Then a card could contain data and an index of lower level 
cards that could be read.  This probably takes an otherwise very straight
forward tool far beyond it's intended purpose, but I could have used this
feature several times already.  

Why does CARDFILER create the file sys$scratch:cardfiler.tmp?
Even more so,  why does it not clean up after itself?  Every time you run reboot
and startup cardfiler,  it creates a new version.

Is there any way for changing the font to get a mono-spaced font so that the 
CARDBUILD from Toolshed will give us tabular format?

Is there anyway to preset the filter on cardfile open so that a logical
name can be put in to select other than the current default sub-directory 
- I want to map over a user shared area.

I will try to answer these questions the best I can...

RE .-1

The cardfiler uses the .tmp file to store any created or modified cards during
the use of the product.  The souce file is only changed when a save operation
is done.  The cardfiler deletes the .tmp file when it exits.

If you reboot your machine without exiting the cardfiler then the cleanup phase
never gets executed and the .tmp file is never removed.

If the file is not being removed after a normal exit then its a bug.

RE .-2, -.3

The cardfiler opens file from whatever directory you start it from.  The session
manager apparently starts it from sys$login.  There is no logical to override
this.

The cardfiler does accept p1 as a file name.  On Ultrix this is easy:
> dxcardfiler /directory/cardfile_name

On VMS this is not as straight forward since there is no DCL verb:

$ dwcard :== $ SYS$SYSTEM:DECW$CARDFILER
$ dwcard directory:cardfile_name

I do not believe this can be done as one command in the session manager.
However, all is not lost.  The examples in the session manager are all dcl
commands that run applications but there is no reason why the command couldn't
be a DCL command procedure.

I now have a PMAX so I don't have easy access to a VMS session manager to try
this but it should work.

Try the following:

Define a new "application" called (say) multi-cards to run a command procedure
@$USER1:[FINNEGAN.COMMAND]START_CARDS.COM

The command procedure should look like:

$ DWCARD := $ SYS$SYSTEM:DECW$CARDFILER
$ SET DEF $USER1:[FINNEGAN.CARDS]
$ SPAWN/NOWAIT/INPUT=NL: DWCARD TODO.CARD
$ SPAWN/NOWAIT/INPUT=NL: DWCARD misc.CARD
$ SPAWN/NOWAIT/INPUT=NL: DWCARD Phones.CARD
$ EXIT

RE .25

The cardfiler used to have the CLOSE button along with PREV and NEXT but human
factors asked me remove it.  I believe they felt that having the PREV and NEXT
buttons next to each other for minimum mouse movement was more important.  The
close option is bound to the ALT/Q key so its not that hard to use (V2.0 and
later).

I'm not sure what an open button means.  If the card is closed then only the
INDEX is open and there is no real room on the index for such a button.  Is
selecting the entry in the list box that hard?  I hardly ever close the card but
thats my style.

As for the Autosave feature, thats very interesting I'll add it to the V3.0
wish list.

RE .26

The card is nothing more than a text widget with window dressing.  If the text
widget can handle fix spaced fonts then there shouldn't be a problem.

Try setting the font of 

CardfilerCard*cardmainwindow.card_workarea.font

to fixed font (like a DECterm or courier)

Neal

Instead of using a .com file you can have the session manager use the following
command:

MCR DECW$CARDFILER DEV:[DIR]FILE.CARD

MCR is a nice short cut around setting up a symbol.  It says run the following
as a foreign command.

Dick

If the CARDFILER.TMP holds the changes etc. as mentioned a few notes ago, and is
handled appropriately when you exit cardfiler (I think it even says "there are 
changes, save them?").  Would it be possible to add a feature to recover the 
data in these files in the case where carfiler was not terminated neatly, like
system crash/reboot, or link failure?

					-JP

Recovery using the .tmp is on the wish list for the next version but I wouldn't
hold your breath.  The wish list is getting pretty long and there is still a lot
of information in memory that would need to be written out.

Learn something new every day, I didn't know that MC works like a foreign
command.  That makes things a LOT easier!

neal

Whilst thinking about the wishlist,  could the .tmp file be named with the
prefix DECW$,  and could it not be colocated with the other files that get
created for the user,  currently SYS$LOGIN:?  Is there some sort of agreed 
practice for such naming and placing conventions?

There is a location convention, for VMS is sys$scratch (which is sys$login by
default but you change that in your login.com) and for Ultrix is /tmp or
/usr/tmp.

Since the file is not supposed to stay around I was not being too carefull with
the name but I suppose adding DECW$ in front doesn't hurt.

Neal

.28�As for the Autosave feature, thats very interesting I'll add it to the V3.0
.28�wish list.
    
    Did it make it to V3? This is a feature I would like a lot. In the
    interim, is there any way of saving without doing explicit mouse
    actions? I'd like to try to hack some AutoSave functionality.
    
    Keith

I am trying to catch up here so sorry for the late response.

There were very few new features added to clock, cardfiler, calculator or puzzle
in V3 but since they were converted to MOTIF the cardfiler does have an
accelerator for save.

neal