"If pornography relieves sexual frustration, why aren't cooking
books given to the hungry?"
ST Tribe
ATARI UTILITY REVIEW: "ADDRESS" V1.83e BY CARSTEN SETJE-EILERS
by Michael Noyce
Address books can be useful things. They contain all those
important addresses, telephone numbers, and other useful pieces
of information you need. Unfortunately, being the disorganized
soul that I am, my idea of an address book never got past the
collection of little scraps of paper or sweet wrappers with some
weird form of hieroglyphics scribbled on the back. Now there's
nothing wrong with this, but can I find that piece paper when I
need it? Hell no! It mysteriously vanishes?! Those of you who
live with your parents or a partner will probably find this the
case <grin>.
In short, I got fed up with this and decided to look for a
computerized solution. At first I used a rather crappy PD
database program, but this proved rather inflexible and far from
useful. Enter stage left Carsten Setje-Eilers' "Address" from
Germany.
"Address" is a utility that can be run as either an application
or accessory by simply changing the extension to .APP or .ACC. It
has a nice, attractive GEM interface that uses all the latest
features and mod-cons (as does most software form Germany) such
as non-modal dialogs, pop-up and pull-down menus, colour icons
and 3D buttons on all Atari machines regardless of TOS version.
When the program is first run you are presented with the List
Window. From here you can load and save different address books,
edit, import/export, print, and delete addresses. A large
proportion of the window is taken up with a list of the current
addresses loaded, which can be scrolled through or searched by
entering the letters for certain or all fields.
Double-clicking on the edit icon opens the Edit Window, which
displays the current address selected or a new blank form ready
for you to enter a new address.
There are numerous fields such as title, name, address, town,
postcode, telephone, etc, but these names are not set in stone
and this shows just how much thought has gone into the program.
By double-clicking on the fieldname you can change the name to
something you prefer. UK users would probably like to rename the
postcode field from 'Zip' to 'PCode'. However, you can do more
than just enter address details! You can dial telephone or fax
numbers if you have a modem connected and enter any birth dates
that you want to be reminded of when you boot the system. This
last feature has proved extremely useful in getting friends and
relatives off my back and nagging me about forgetting their
birthdays <grin>. Never again!
It's also possible to categorize the addresses into groups. For
example I have a group entitled 'Private' which is further sub-
divided into 'Friends', 'Contacts' and 'Relatives'. This can be
useful for compiling mailing lists to be exported.
The import/export feature is probably the most powerful feature
of "Address". Each field in the address book has a keyword
associated with it no matter what you renamed it to and using
this it's possible to define the format in which the data is
imported, enabling conversion from other formats, or exported to
other applications.
For example, a format such as:
%VOR§%NAM%n%NA1%n%NA2%n%STR%n%LAN§%PLZ%n%STA%n
Will produce the following output for all the addresses
selected:
Michael Noyce
1 York Chase
CHICHESTER
West Sussex PO19 4DY
England
Once you have defined the format it's possible to save the data
as a text file or to the GEM clipboard so it can be pasted into a
document (which is how the above address was transferred into
this article!). The other way is to export the data directly into
the document using the XAcc transfer option. Of course your
application must support the XAcc protocol, e.g. "Write On", for
this to work. Just select the destination, click on 'Output' and
hey presto (and a flick of the wand) the address magically
appears in your document.
"Address" also supports the increasingly popular hypertext
program "ST-Guide", which provides on-line, contexted sensitive
help at the press of the Help key.
Conclusion
"Address" is a powerful and flexible program that has proved
invaluable over the last few months that I've been using it. It
is a very reliable and well programmed, though there are a few
very minor cosmetic niggles that need sorting out. Nothing
serious. Certainly nothing that would inhibit the use of the
program.
This is yet another shareware winner that has found a welcome
home on my hard drive amongst the ever increasing throng of
registered shareware titles.
Shareware Registration Details
"Address" can be registered for DM30 with the author directly at
the following address:
Carsten Setje-Eilers
Aschauweg 18a
24119 Kronshagen
Germany
Users in the UK can register for £15 by contacting Joe Connor,
who also handles a number of other quality shareware programs,
at:
Joe Connor
65 Mill Road
COLCHESTER
Essex
CO4 5LJ
England
Don't forget to include a blank disk, SAE, and stamps or IRCs!
Disclaimer
The text of the articles is identical to the originals like they appeared
in old ST NEWS issues. Please take into consideration that the author(s)
was (were) a lot younger and less responsible back then. So bad jokes,
bad English, youthful arrogance, insults, bravura, over-crediting and
tastelessness should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Any contact
and/or payment information, as well as deadlines/release dates of any
kind should be regarded as outdated. Due to the fact that these pages are
not actually contained in an Atari executable here, references to scroll
texts, featured demo screens and hidden articles may also be irrelevant.