Each line after the line [Sessions], up until a blank line
or the end of the file, describes a possible session
of using the program, showing the output filename, level, next sequence
number, and title.
Th example file above shows 5 possible things you could work on. You can select any one of them during a session. When the program is started, it will display the 5 lines and ask you which one you want to use, like this:
Do you want to use one of the following sessions? 0 (no session) 1 sequence.C3 C3 12 NACC, June 1995 2 sequence.C4 C4 31 NACC, June 1995 3 workshop C1 75 My Wednesday group 4 + A2 9 NESRDC 5 * A1 2 Lake Shore Farm 6 (create a new session) Enter the number of the desired session:
In Sdtty, type the number of the selection that you want.
In Sd, either select the desired line with a double mouse click,
or use the cursor keys to highlight the line and then press
ENTER.
If you select "0", or just press ENTER, the program will ignore the sessions and proceed normally. If you enter the number of one of the lines that are displayed, the program will operate at that level, and use the named output file and title. It will also print a sequence number on each card, starting with the number shown. For example, if you entered "3" after the file above is displayed, the program will operate at C1. The output file will be "workshop" instead of the default "sequence.C1". Cards will be serialized starting at 75. Each card will have a title saying "My Wednesday group".
If the given file name is "+", the program will generate a file name for you, based on today's date. This may be useful for managing files, so that you know when it is safe to delete a file that you have printed. The program will of course tell you what the name of that file is. All runs of the program using that session on the same day will append their sequences to the same file. The file name will be something like like`9mar96.C3'.
If the given file name is "*", the program will generate a file name in the same way, except that it will always generate a new file for each run of the program. If the program is started several times in one day, the files will be different. The generated file names will be something like `9mar96a.C3'. Note the `a' after the year.
At the end of the session, the initialization file will be updated with the next index number. For example, if you wrote 12 sequences, they would be numbered 75 through 86, and the file would be rewritten as
workshop C1 87 My Wednesday group
so that the next session for that group would start with sequence number 87.
The title bar displays the level, session title, current sequence number, and starting sequence number.
If, at any time during the session, you change the output file
(with the Change Output File operation) or the
title (with the Change Title operation),
the initialization file will be updated at the end of that session to
show the effect of the change.
When the program starts, you can tell it to create a new entry in
the file by entering the number corresponding to (create a new session).
In the above example, select "6". The program will ask you for the
level and title, and will set the output file to the standard "sequence.C1"
or whatever. You may
use the Change Output File command and the
Change Title command to change these later if you wish.
At the end of the session, item number 6, containing the appropriate data,
will be written to the updated initialization file.
If you no longer want some entry in the initialization file,
you can delete it. In Sdtty, type the negative of its line number.
In the above example, if you entered "-4", the line
+ A2 9 NESRDC
would be deleted. In Sdtty, check the box labeled
"Delete this session" and select the line to be deleted.
Either way, the program will terminate
immediately after doing this. Run it again to use the new initialization file.
Whenever the program updates the initialization file `sd.ini' at the end of a session, it saves the old contents in `sd2.ini'. By copying that back to `sd.ini', you can restore it.
You can also edit the file with an editor. Simple editors, such as `Emacs' and `Notepad' are preferable to sophisticated word processors when editing this file, since word processors often insert specialized control information into the file. The simplest way to edit the file is to double-click the icon `Edit sd.ini' in the `C:\sd' folder. This is a shortcut to the `Notepad' editor.
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