Star Wars Figure Tracker Readme

Star Wars Figure Tracker

v2.3

June 4, 2002

THIS PROGRAM IS SHAREWARE. IT IS NOT FREE! PLEASE READ THE SECTION ENTITLED "PAYING JOHN FOR HIS NOT-SO-HARD WORK"

IF YOU UPGRADING FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION PLEASE READ THE SECTION ENTITLED "UPGRADING"

Raison d'être

Star Wars Figure Tracker (SWFT) came to be because I needed some way to manage my rapidly growing collection of Star Wars figures. The main feature that I desired in this program was to be able to print a shopping list showing what figures I need to reach my target of owning 2 of every figure, including all variations of each figure. The sheer number of figures & variations that Kenner/Hasbro has released makes this a daunting task to complete manually, thus the Star Wars Figure Tracker.

About This Version

This is the second major revision to the second generation of SWFT (wasn't that clear?). This release adds the ability to track information on the new Star Wars Saga (SWS) line. See the Version History section at the end of this document for a more detailed listing of the changes. As always, I value your input and suggestions. Please e-mail all of your thoughts and feelings to jkinne@anarchydivine.com

How to Use this Thing

The online help for this version has been vastly improved from prior releases. Press the F1 key from the main SWFT screen to peruse the help file. All screens with input fields now have 'What's This?' help as well. Click on the question mark icon on the top right-hand corner of the screen and then on the field use wish to view help on.

What's in the Database

The database contains an entry for every variation of every figure that I currently have. So you can be assured that what descriptions come preloaded in the database are for figures that actually exist. I did not attempt to put other figures or variations that I know of in because of incomplete info on my part, etc. Make of it what you will. If you have corrections/additions that you feel should be made, send them along. See the Adding Items to the Master List help topic for contact info.

The Next Version

See the FAQ on the WebPage for info on what's planned. (http://www.anarchydivine.com/swft/swftfaq.html)

Paying John for His Not-So-Hard Work

It takes time and effort to create software, and I'm not in it for you, princess. Actually.... Anywise, if you like this program send me money. If you hate this program, don't use it. This version has features that are only available to registered users. I hate to have to do this, but only a couple of people have ponied up, so we'll see if this works. When you send me money or a figure (see below) I'll send you a registration code that will unlock all of the features of the program. This code will be good for all future versions of the program. You'll also get my undying gratitude and praise. So, to be a good guy and register...

Send $10 to:

John Kinne

180 Robert Quigley Drive

Scottsville, NY 14546

Or, I've decided to try something funky. If you prefer, you may send me one of the figures that I currently need, instead of sending money to become fully registered. The only conditions are that the figure must be MIB (mint-in-box) and shipped in such a way that the figure arrives to me MIB. This deal enables me to subtract from my "Need 2 Buy" list, and in many cases is cheaper for you, the consumer, as many of these figures are worth far less than $10. So everybody ends up happy. Just make sure that you check the list before sending a figure to make sure that I still need it. (I go shopping quite often).

To see the list of what I need, visit:

http://www.anarchydivine.com/swft/whatineed.html

Version History

What's New in v2.3 (June 4, 2002)

· New category for the new Star Wars Saga line

· Registered users can now export some reports to a Palm device

· Old bugs fixed, new bugs added

What’s Changed in v2.2 (March 1, 2001)

· New category for the new Power of the Jedi Line

· Prequel category renamed to ‘Episode I’ to more accurately reflect what it is

· New import function necessitated by the new upgrade procedure

· Of course, bug fixes - with new bugs added

What's Changed in v2.1 (Unreleased)

· Many bug fixes (especially for Windows 2000)

· All references to frontiernet.net changed to anarchydivine.com

What's Changed in v2.01 (April 1, 1999)

· Collection statistics now properly excludes deleted records from calculations

· Maintain POTF2 vehicles master list now shows proper package type

· Having a prequel vehicle in the database no longer causes program to crash

What's New in v2.01

· Nothing

What's Changed in v2.0 (December 20, 1998)

· Everything

What's New in v2.0

· You can now track vintage figures and vehicles, Prequel figures and vehicles, and Action Collection items.

· Items are now tracked individually instead of by item type.

· You can assign conditions, storage locations, price paid, and notes to each individual item in the collection.

· Package types, package colors, and conditions are now separate tables in the database. This means that new package types won't necessitate changing the program.

What's Changed in v1.3 (April 1, 1998)

· The window size and position is now saved between program executions.

· The printer selection window will now pop up the first time the program is run. This is to avoid a bug where when the Windows default printer was read FoxPro put it into all-CAPS, and then printing would fail because the names didn't match.

· All quantities should now default to 0.

· "Restore deleted figures" menu option renamed to "restore deleted records" because it restores both vehicles and figures.

· Wave added to figure data.

· Most reports changed to show monetary values.

· The red card color has been renamed everywhere to Orange, because that seems to be the more popular choice.

· Need to Buy short version is now available to unregistered users (again).

· The figures by storage location report now allows you to select which storage locations you'd like to print.

What's New in v1.3

The Maintain Menu

· POTF2 Vehicles - allows you to track information about the various vehicles that you've purchased.

The Report Menu has been split into submenus.

· Quick Statistics - shows you at a glance how many figures/vehicles you have, how much you paid, how much they're worth, you get the idea.

· POTF2 Figures - contains the various reports that show you info about your figures.

· POTF2 Vehicles - contains two reports at this time, more will be added in the future.

The Help Menu

· SWFT Help Topics - SWFT now has a help file. It's pretty weak at the moment, but it'll improve as the versions roll on.

What's Changed in v1.21

· Bug fixed where running maintenance would clear the holosticker flag for all figures in the database.

· Maintain Figures screen will now order the figures based on the description field when you navigate through them.

· Bug Fix - Default card color is now "No Card" for upgrade users (as it is for new users).

What's New in v1.2

The Report Menu

· Figures by Storage Location - will print a short-format figure listing divided into storage locations.

· Have to Sell (Long & Short) - will print a report showing what figures you have over a given quantity. Useful if you have a whole lot of figures and want to know what you may be able to get rid of.

The Help menu

· Register - will allow you to enter your registration code to unlock all of the program's features.

What's Changed in Version 1.2

· Maintain figures now allows you to input price paid, book value, and a flag for a film-slide on the card. (Note that the price and value currently do not print on the reports).

· All reports have been updated for the film-slide flag.

· Storage location now defaults to NONE.

· Short reports should no longer "lose" assortment/number/printer's code when one of the values is zero.

· Need to buy report now allows opened figures to be counted towards collection target.

· Maintain data files now reorders the figure database so that the figures on reports will print sorted by printer's code (after being sorted by description or assortment+number).

· The whole darn thing is prettier.

What's New in v1.1

The File menu

· Select a Printer - will allow you to select which printer your reports are printed on.

The Edit menu

· The standard Copy, Cut, Paste functions have been implemented. Edit functions have also been added to the popup (right-click) menu on input fields.

The Report Menu

· Figures by Description - will print a detailed figure listing sorted by the description field.

· Short versions of all reports, which make for a much more concise printout.

The Tools menu

· Maintain Data Files - will reindex and pack tables to prevent problems. Note that deleted records are purged during maintenance and you can not restore a deleted record after maintenance.

· Restore Deleted Figures - will restore all figures in the database that are marked as deleted. The description of the figure will be prefixed with an asterisk (*) so that you may determine what was restored. Useful if you accidentally delete a figure or two.

· Backup Data Files - will make a backup of the storage location and figure data in case you need to restore such at some later date.

What's Changed in Version 1.1

· The "Need to Buy" report is now sorted by the description field. (I've found this to be much more convenient when shopping).

· Input screens work 'better'.

· Figure sorting by number actually sorts correctly now.

· The quantity input for your desired collection target is saved between sessions. (you don't have to enter it every time you run the need 2 buy report).

Upgrading

From 2.x

Before installing the new version, copy all files in your SWFT2 directory to a backup dir

Install the new version, which will overwrite all data files

From the tools menu, take the import option and point it to the backup you made in (1)

Now you should be good to go

From v1.x - Because of the vast amount of changes in v2.x you cannot move data from v1.x to v2.x. Because of this v2.x's default install dir is different from v1.x. You should not install v2.x to the same directory as v1.x. There are good reasons for this. One is that you can run both versions side-by-side until you have all of your data in v2.x. The best way to move from v1.0 to v2.x is to print a short item by description report from v1.x. You can then go through the tables in v2.x and input your quantity and price paid data. This goes pretty quick and painlessly. Other than that, piece of cake.

To remove v1.x from your system - Once you have all of your data moved into v2.x and are happy things are running well you can remove v1.x from your system. To do this:

1) Delete the SWFT directory (should be C:\Program Files\SWFT unless you changed from the default when installing).

2) Delete the SWFT program group. (See your Windows documentation for instructions on how to do this).

-- Below for people who know what they're doing! --

3) If you want to be really through delete the following files in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM: vfp5enu.dll, vfp500.dll, and vfpole50.dll. These are the Visual FoxPro 5 runtime files, and may be needed by some other application.

4) And if you want to be really, really through delete the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\AnarchyDivine\SWFT. Not SWFT2, which is the v2.x reg key.

Adios....

John