The "viewer" for the Collectors Library CD-Rom (CL) is not only a viewer, but with the right setup, it can also edit an infobase.

          Have you noticed that when you brought up the help contents that a totally new copy of views is opened, not just the help file in the same window? This is because it uses a different .ini file to load a new copy of views to view it. The CL comes up by default in read-only mode, whereas the help is loaded without that restriction. It uses different command line options to bring up the new copy. The option RO means "read only". MU means "multiple user" (I think). (Note: you can just bring up the help, and from there load a .nfo file to edit. That's ok, but it takes a while to go through the steps.)

          Here are the steps to set up the .nfo file to be edited.

• If you have the CL, copy the "foliohlp.ini" file to another name. I copied it to "editing.ini". This will allow you to change the button bars and options for the "editor", and still leave your help file with the same look as before. If you don't have the CL, then copy the views.ini file to "editing.ini" Note: this needs to be done only once, and then you can use the editing.ini for all the infobases you plan to edit if you want.
   
• Copy the blanknfo.nfo file to another name, so that you can keep a blank copy of the file. It takes a long time for views to delete information as you will find out. You won't want to try and delete all of the stuff in the infobase to start over on a project!
   
• Create a new icon on the desktop for the infobase you plan to edit. Views lets you specify which .ini file you want to load when you open an infobase, which is really nice!
   
• In the target field, you place three things: 1) where the bviews.exe file is; 2) the .nfo file location and name; 3) which .ini file you want to use. My target line (in Win95) after copying the blanknfo.nfo to conferen.nfo looks like this: "C:\Program Files\Infobase\BVIEWS.EXE" C:\programf\infobase\conferen.nfo -cc:\programf\infobase\editing.ini   It should all be on the same line.

  If you want to just double-click on nfo files in your file manager, then copy the editing.ini to the windows directory and rename it to views.ini. The Folio software looks for a views.ini file in the windows directory by default, if one is not specified.
   

• In the "start in" box, put the directory of the bviews file, or where your infobases will be, it doesn't matter.
   
• That's it! Now just double click on the new icon, and it should load the .nfo file and be ready to go!

          One trick to working with these files this way is the "security" options. If the infobase will contain sensitive material (a journal for example), you can go to file|security and add a new user. Then delete the other users (guest and owner) and set a password for your new user. Whenever you open the infobase, it will prompt to "login" and enter the password before it shows any information.

          The default user is guest. In the blanknfo file, I gave "guest" the owner's rights. That way, it doesn't prompt you to login as "owner" and give a password when you open the file every time. You can change this if you like, but just play with a copy of the blank .nfo file, ok.

          To create a shadow file of an infobase, just open the infobase, go File|New and select "Shadow File" on the type of file. Give it a name, and that's it. Now you can just open and edit the .sdw file instead of the actual .nfo file.

          If you have any comments or suggestions, or if this doesn't work, let me know. Feel free to ask questions. Who knows, maybe I got one of the steps wrong!

Ryan Henrie
email: slhjy@cc.usu.edu