Hi Freebies, I'd like to announce that SpeedBMD Version 1.10.10 is now available from the FreeBMD web site and coordinators be warned that this is the version that new recruits will pick up. It fixes a few bugs and irritations and has some minor new productivity aids; you can find a list of the main features at the bottom of this email. Please don't all rush to install it, if you are happy with Version 1.9 then just aim to do it over the next couple of months. I say this for self protection as if there are any "funnies" in it I don't want inundating with queries. I'll put out a reminder in a month or two, when things have settled down, as ultimately it's best if we are all on the same release. The testing and beta testing went well though and the teams involved have been happily using it for a couple of months now so I'm not expecting any severe problems. Cheers Peter Cox ================================ Version 1.10 Features This version looks pretty much like version 1.9.n but a number of bugs and irritations have been removed which I won't go into. There are also a few new performance/accuracy aids........ Start Up Menu =========== F8 Change Colours. Invokes Notepad to display a file called COLOURS.TXT. Instructions are held in there on how to change the screen colour schemes. It may be useful for people with monochrome screens or vision impairment but not recommended just for the sake of change. If you select a batch from the F4 list with F6 then the batch will be opened in Notepad. Renaming a batch will no longer require a change to line 2 of the batch. Header Options ============ A new Surname Skip option - if set to Y then Tab into a new, Single Line Mode, entry will copy the surname above then jump to Forenames; N will copy the surname above then wait at the end of Surname. Single Line Mode ============ Alt F1 will display a keyboard hints list. It's not very pretty but does the job. Surname - Type 1-9 and that many characters will be copied from the previous entry. It only works when the cursor is at the start of the cell, so you can type 1-9 later if needed. If Header field Surname Skip is set to Y then Tab will copy the Surname above and jump straight to Forenames. Surname and Forenames - 0 (zero) If the field is empty then the first word of the field above is copied in. If the field so far matches the initial words in the field above then the next word is copied from the field above. Forenames - If Skip Dist in the Header is set to A then the top Pick list entry will "ghost" just like District does in version 1.9. Page Number - Space will type as ; in . This is supposed to make it easier for touch typists to build a page list. Block Mode ========= All the applicable Single Line Mode features plus..... Alt B will backfill empty cells in a column with the value in the cursor cell. If however the cursor cell is blank then the first non blank value it can find in the column will be used. Wonderful when you have 200 Smiths to enter. Alt 1 to Alt 9 will copy the cursor cell down the column that many times. Tab from an empty cell will move right. Tab from a non-empty cell will move in the direction, right or down set by hitting F8. A message at the bottom centre of the screen will remind you what the direction is at the moment. / - Its use as a "copy" key has been discontinued so it can now be used as a typed character. Alt F1 will display a keyboard hints list. It's not very pretty but does the job. Batch Saving ========== Whenever a batch is saved the message now includes a true entry count, ignoring header lines, comments etc.

Hi Friends, One of my syndicate had a problem with correcting an error in the batch header details. I was sent a copy to see if I could solve the problem. The year had been entered as 1980 rather than 1890 and no amount of fiddling about in Notepad could either of us get an alteration that would stick. We could get a text document that reflected the changes but could not get a .sca document. Has anyone come across this before? In the end we got over the difficulty by re-entering the header details correctly as a new batch along with the first two lines of data, then saved and exited. This document was opened in Notepad as was the text document. All data bar the first two lines was cut and pasted from the text document to the new .sca document. This was saved and notepad closed down. Result was a new file with the correct header and all the data ready for uploading QED or have I missed a trick? Come on you experts tell me please!! John