It is recommended that you experience the program before you read this. The controls are very straight forward and balloon help is available on Macs that support it. When you first launch the program you will see the About! menu. EZgather! is shareware. You may freely copy and distribute this software as long as all of the elements remain intact and together. You may test the software but if you decide to keep and use it on your computer you are required to pay the registration fee. Once you receive your registration codes they will be entered in the About menu! For now you may just click Not Yet! The first window is where all of your databases will be listed, deleted, and renamed. Since this is the first time, you will need to enter a name for your database and click New!
The second and only other window is the where the database records will be managed. There are three ways to create the text in a record. You may simply type text in the large main window, you may paste text from other documents, or you may import documents. Imported documents must be saved in the Text format in order for EZgather! to read them. If your program does not support Text save, then it is a simple matter to highlight the Text in the original program and then copy and paste it into EZgather! Once you are finished with the text in the main window you may want to enter some key words in the smaller window below it. EZgather! performs either main record text searches or key word text searches. Key word searches will not necessarily be faster but since the search words are limited, key words may help you narrow your searches more efficiently. Therefore, key words should be chosen with care for uniqueness. You are now ready to save the record. Each record is assigned a unique number when saved. These numbers are listed in the vertical box on the right. Any record may be loaded by double clicking its number. Records may be added to other records by selecting their number and clicking the Append Record button below the box. The record may then be saved as a new record or you may update the existing record! When records are saved information is added at the bottom to show when the record was saved. If you wish to make changes to a record then you should choose Update Record when you are finished. This puts the record (with the changes) back onto the same record number with a note at the bottom that the record was updated. If you choose save, the record will be given a new record number and no changes will be made to the original record. The Export Record button allows you to save the text in the current main window as a text file. Most word processors will be able to read this file. If your word processor cannot import text files then you may copy the text from the EZgather! window and paste it into your application. Export Record is useful if you want to print a record, as EZgather! does not support printing at this time.
The Backup Database button is provided so that you may make a protection copy of the current database as you are working. It is advisable to do this periodically if you are entering large amounts of text at one time, so that you will not have to re-enter the data in case of computer failure. The database is automatically copied when you quit the program. The name of the backup file follows this format: The first two letters of your file name, followed by numbers that represent the current year, month, day, minute and second. This format provides a unique name for each file as well as helping you to determine the most recent file. The good part of the safety features built into EZgather! is that you have protection for your data. The down side, is that large numbers of files can quickly appear. EZgather! provides easy file management with the delete file capability built into the first window. When you delete a record, you will be shown the record number that is to be deleted and given the chance to cancel. A deleted record cannot be recovered unless you wish to open a backup file. Records may be transferred from one database to another by several methods. You may open the record in one database and then open the new database. The information will remain in the window. It may then be saved in the new database. You may also use copy and paste as well as export and import to transfer records. EZgather! is designed for and best suited to smaller records. (three to five pages of text) EZgather! does have a number of built in features for storing larger records. Larger records will be split and information will be added to the bottom of each record to help you keep track of them. The more times records are split the more difficult it may become to keep track of them. Append Record can help with this. The Append Record button allows you to put split records back together and then edit them and re-save them with sequential record numbers. All searches performed by EZgather! are full text searches, the larger the database becomes, the longer searches will take. It is up to you to determine when search times become longer than you like and it is time to start a new database!
Since EZgather! allows you to quickly switch between databases, it may be more efficient to have many smaller databases, than to concentrate all of your data into one large database!
All programs sold by Unvisible Universe Software are extensively tested and should present no problems. However everyone's system is a little different and it is impossible to test every program under every circumstance.
EZgather! is provided as is, with no warranties. Use EZgather! at your own risk. The author, Bryan T. Beasley, assumes no responsibility or liability for loss of data or for any problems or damage caused directly or indirectly by this program. If you do not agree with this : Don't use it !
