JCards Screenshots and Help

Starting out

Starting screen

When you start JCards for the first time you will be presented with this screen. The blank line underneatch the toolbar indicates that no fields have been defined yet. Below are some steps to define a simple address book.

Define some fields

Define some fields

Either select the DB | Fields... menu option or click the Fields button on the toolbar to start defining fields. The screen at left will be shown.

Add a field

New name field Click the Add icon to display the add field dialog. Enter values as shown. Click the OK to confirm your changes. Note that the field list now shows your new field with an asterisk. The asterisk indicates that the field is mandatory and as there must always be one mandatory field it has been automatically made mandatory.

Add other fields

Now add other fields as shown below:

New age field New address field New DOB field New phone field New notes field

Edit field type

You should now have fields defined that look something like this:

Defined fields

If you decide that maybe it would be better if the Notes field was a multi-line field you can edit it. To do so either double click the field or select it and click the Edit icon.

Editing Notes field

Changing the fields type to Memo allows you to set the number of memo lines. Click the OK icon until you get back to the main screen. Note that the first field has been added to the visible fields list (see preferences) and used as a column heading.

Define a category

Categories dialog

Either select the DB | Categories... menu option or click the Categories icon to open the Categories dialog.

Categories dialog with items

Click the New button and enter a name of Title. Title should be selected in the Category: choice box. Now click the Add icon to add category items. I suggest Mr, Mrs, Miss and Dr.

Click the OK icon to close the dialog.

Set field category

Creating a field with a category

Go back into the fields dialog and add a new field. This time because a category has been defined you can set the field type to Category. You can also set a default which must be one of the existing Category items.

Deleting a field

We now decide that the Age field is not that useful and want to get rid of it. Select it in the fields window and click the Delete icon. You will be asked to confirm the deletion. Note that deleting a field in this dialog will also remove all data that is associated with it in the database. Adding a field with the same name will not restore the data.

Changing a fields order

Move field operation

We now decide that the Title field should be the second field. Select it and click the Up or Down icons to move it to the right position.

Click the OK icon to close the dialog.

Create a record

New record

On the main screen either select the Edit | New card menu option or click the Add icon to create a new record (or card = JCards). Note that because the Name and Address fields are mandatory their labels are in bold to remind the user. Also note that the default for the Title has been automatically selected and the date format for the Date of birth is shown.

Update record

Enter values as appropriate and click the OK icon to close the dialog. If you had entered an invalid date JCards would have reported an error and not let you save the record.

Edit a record

Main with one card

To edit an already entered record you can either double click it, select the Edit | Edit card menu option or click the Edit icon.

Copyright © Nick Sydenham <n-nospam-sydenham@yahoo.co.uk>