NOTE: this software is for Classic Mac OS (eg: OS 9) and cannot be used on Mac OS X.
Nisus Writer Classic is no longer for sale. This page is only for archival purposes.
The last time we met our indefatigable author Ben Hurmak he was busy finishing his novel about Don Diego de la Escribir. He needed to contact his publisher and wondered what that phone number was. Over the years (while researching the descent of the Anglo-European into the San Dieguito River valley and solving the sad disappearance of Dawn off the Del Mar coast) he had accumulated a number of data bases. Some of these he had kept in separate little PIM applications that kept track of the phone, FAX, email and other addresses. Sadly, as his Macintosh Operating Systems had progressed, these various tools had, mostly, become, first abandoned, then nonfunctional. Eventually, he anted-up and bought a full featured database application. But, while he found it useful for keeping track of his music CD collection, he found it a bit overkill to open a huge application and database just to find someone's phone number. After much soul-searching, Ben remembered one of the wiser slogans of that now-defunct ahead-of-its-time hypertext publishing company Voyager: "Text: The Final Frontier". Ben realized that he had the best tool for handling text already at his fingertips. Yes, Ben's (like most people's) data is text. And, "TEXT IS PLASTIC." Text is malleable, it can be shuffled and shifted into a wide variety of shapes. So, with Nisus Writer's unparalleled find/replace capabilities, he could find any text snippet he wanted easily!
Yes, there was that simple macro he had at his fingertips. It allowed him to search his own rolodex right there in Nisus Writer. He pressed COMMAND and typed SR and Nisus Writer requested:
So, Ben typed what he wanted to find. (He didn't remember the name of his favorite publisher, but he did remember the category and he'd added that to one of the any number of available fields in his rolodex database.)
He clicked the OK button, and Nisus Writer searched in the Rolodex file and selected exactly what Ben wanted to find. (Note that all the data in Ben's rolodex have been scrambled to protect the "innocent".)
What a cute little window!
But, what are all those funny (down and to the left pointing) arrows? Most databases keep their information in Tab or Comma "delimited" (fancy technospeak term for "separated") "fields" (as in "football" and "baseball" or "corn" and "wheat") so that each "field" has (as is biblically correct) only one kind of crop, or in this case, information. Many "fields" make up a "farm". In database technospeak, a "farm" is called a "record" and the border of a farm/record is indicated by a Return character.
If Ben had used commas, the record would be hard to read, all compacted in one long line of text.
Kama N. Zshlinn,favorite publisher,Tapp. up Mail Aizpal Zpetoaz,5196 Ploaza Pwtk.,Emovalzpoy up Noshokim,Im Ilpul, CO 60312,535-969-1126,ul tapp. 986-1536,Inal. Uloampiw Zusoapy sunpepal sunnoppaa.
If he had used Tabs, the fields would be spread across the screen with some of the information out of view beyond the right edge of the document window.
So, Ben used the "Soft Return" (or "new line" character; ASCII 11 for the geeks reading - type: SHIFT-RETURN) to put the new field on a new line, but still part of the same paragraph (record).
Ben made his window just big enough to display a few records at a time and he saved it in a corner of the screen, so that, when it appears, it doesn't cover over his other work. But, Ben also made the entire document a special size. You see, Ben is a world traveler, and he doesn't have one of those little, expensive, hand-held devices. So, when he's out tracking down leads for his next novel he likes to have a little 3" by 5" size notebook tucked in his "fannypack" with the phone numbers of his local contacts.
Before setting off on a trip, Ben searches for any paragraph that has a particular area code in it. He does a Select Inverse and deletes everything not in that area. Then Ben prints the little booklet on index cards that he can keep together. Pretty low-tech, but it works for Ben.
Next time:1. First, you have to make the file with the information. You can take any existing database file and "massage" it so that it has the information you want in it. Or, you can just get your little black book and start typing. Remember to type SHIFT-RETURN to get the new line in the same paragraph.
2. Then you need to save the file somewhere on your hard drive. We don't care where. However, try to find a location that you don't think you'll need to move around a lot. The more you move something; the harder it is to find it later. Please don't close this file (yet)! Nisus Writer needs to know where you've saved that file.
3. Open the Clipboard (choose Show Clipboard from the bottom of the Edit menu or double-click the Clipboard Menu button
on the Horizontal Button Bar) and type:
clipboard=docpath
4. Choose Select All from the Select submenu of the Edit menu.
5. Choose Execute Selection from the Macros submenu of the Gear or Cogwheel menu.
This puts the technospeak alert "pathname" on the Clipboard. (A pathname (duh...) is the "name" of the "path" to your file, or, like a URL (Universal Resource Locator on the WWW) in English, a list of all the folders enclosing your file, (on the Macintosh) separated by colons.) For example:
"Your Hard Drive:This Folder:The Folder Inside That:The Next Inside Folder:Rolodex".
6. Now we need the tool that requests your input, fetches the file and finds what you want.
Some more technospeak for you: These are three different little tasks. When we tell the computer to do something, we don't make requests of it; we "command" it. So, we refer here to three commands. Usually, when we refer to a bunch of commands grouped together to perform a specific task we call this grouping of "micro" commands a "macro".
7. Yes, we need a macro. Choose New Macro Command from the Macros submenu of the Gear or Cogwheel menu.
8. In the dialog that appears type Search Rolodex (or whatever you want to use) and click Name.
The macro editing window opens ready for you to type in the commands you want Nisus Writer to carry out.
8. Here's the text of the macro. You can copy this and paste it into your macro file, or you can type it in from what you see in the graphic above. Those "//" characters indicate a comment in the macro. Everything else is a "micro" command. Where you see the red text you should paste in what you have in your clipboard (the pathname). Be careful there may be some "leading" spaces and Return characters inserted by your Web browser.
//Search Rolodex
//Switch to an unused clipboard.
8
//Put up a dialog asking for the key word (you can type a first and last name in the dialog when it comes up, but you better type it the way it appears in the file or you won't find it) and put what you type in the dialog on the clipboard
:1 "Enter the name of the person you wish to search for in the Rolodex." "Type a name (or some identifier) here."
//Put your rolodex file on a search list.
Show Catalog "Pathname:Rolodex" "A"
//Copy what's on the clipboard to the find dialog so you can find more than one occurrence of that key word.
Find Next '\CC' "C"
//Find the text you're looking for.
Find Next '\CC' "ioMtW-S"
//Remove your rolodex file from the search list.
Show Catalog "Pathname:Rolodex" "R"
//Return to clipboard #0.
0
//If what you're looking for does not appear, put up a notification.
If (NumFound == 0) GoTo nothere
exit
nothere:
:1 '"\CC's" name was not found in the Rolodex. Try again.'
9. Save the macro.
10. Assign a keyboard shortcut to the macro command as explained here.
Learn how Ben adds new contacts to his rolodex.
