Help Contents
Contents - The Star Trek Referener Help

The online help for The Star Trek Referencer is designed to aid you in navigating about the program.  If at anytime during execution you desire help, press F1 and help will be initiated.

To learn how to use Help, press F1 or choose Using Help from the Help menu.

General Help

  Overview

  Program Information & Sources

  Registering

  Troubleshooting

Help On...

  Displaying and Selecting Episodes

  Performing Searches

  Printing


Overview of The Star Trek Episode Referencer
Overview

  The Star Trek Referencer provides information about all 79 episodes of the Star Trek television series.  The episode window provides the basics: title, plot summary, technical notes, and stardate.  Further information can be obtained from the credits window, principals window, and quotes window. Searches of the data can also be performed via the search windowSEARCHFORM.

  If there are any problems running The Star Trek Referencer, consult the troubleshooting of this Help file.

  Register The Star Trek Referencer today!


Program Information & Sources

  The Star Trek Referencer is written in Microsoft Visual Basic 2.  There are five files included with this program:

TREKREF.EXE	Main executable

EPISODES.TRK	Contains all information

TREKREF.HLP	Windows Help file

VBRUN200.DLL	Dynamic Link Library for Visual Basic calls

THREED.VBX	Additional Visual Basic file

The VBRUN200.DLL and THREED.VBX files should be in your Windows directory (taken care of by the installation procedure).  All other files can be in their own directory, or anywhere you wish, provided they are kept together as a group.

  The information contained in this program (and spellings) are primarily obtained from:

The Star Trek Compendium by Allan Asherman, Pocket Books, 1989.


Registering The Star Trek Referencer

  The Star Trek Referencer is NOT Freeware. A great deal of time and effort has been put into the creation of this program.  I would like to put out future versions including many more features and information, such as a complete character index with descriptions of all Star Trek characters as well as a planetary index, with descriptions of all planets and colonies of the Star Trek universe.  Perhaps even a trivia game and a random quote generator.  If you would like to see future versions, please support the author and register this software by sending $5 to:

Scott Davenport

S-289 Castle Point

Hoboken, NJ 07030

By registering, you will immediately be notified of any revisions as well as receive future versions at a discount or free, I haven't decided yet.

All suggestions, comments, etc. are welcome and can be sent to the address above or to Internet Address:

sitsrv.stevens-tech.edu@u94_sdavenpo


Displaying and Selecting Episodes

  The episode window is the main window of The Star Trek Referncer, and shows the title, stardate, plot, and episode notes of the currently selected episode.  Episodes can be selected from the list in the upper left corner by clicking on any given episode.  All data displayed in the window is immediately updated.  There are also three command buttons: Principals, Quotes, and Credits.  Each button corresponds to another information window - the principals window, the quotes window, and the credits window, respectively.  By clicking one of these buttons, additional information concerning the selected episode can be obtained.


Using the Credit Window
The Credit Window

  The credit window displays the following information about the selected episode:

original airdate

writer(s)

director

season aired

  Searches can be performed using this information by clicking the command button to the left of the information item.  If the airdate is selected, you are prompted to either choose the year or the month of broadcast.  If there is more than one writer for the episode, you are prompted to choose which of the writers you wish to search for.  When the search is performed, program control is transferred to the search window.

  A search does not have to be performed when viewing the credit window.  If no search is desired, click the command button in the lower right corner. (Note: The credit window does not have to be closed before choosing another episode. This is handy for SVGA displays which can show more windows on a single screen.)


Using the Quote Window
The Quote Window

  The quote window displays various quotes from the selected episode (a maximum of 5).  The command button in the lower right corner closes the quote window.  (Note: The quote window does not have to be closed before choosing another episode. This is handy for SVGA displays which can show more windows on a single screen.)


Using the Principal Window
The Principal Window

  The prinicpal window displays the major characters who appear in the selected episode (a maximum of 14).  (Note: The principal window does not have to be closed before choosing another episode. This is handy for SVGA displays which can show more windows on a single screen.)


Using the Search Window
The Search Window

  The results of a search from the credit windowCREDITFORM are displayed in the search window.  The top line describes the nature of the search (i.e. Director: Marc Daniels).  The episodes contained in the list match the search filter.  Choosing an episode and clicking Go To will return you to the episode window displaying the information of the chosen episode.  Also, the search results can be printed using the Print List command.


Printing Information & Printing Specifications
Printing

  The Print... command in the file menu prints the currently selected episode.

  The Print All... command in the file menu prints all episodes.

  The Print List command in the search window prints the search results listed in the search list.

Printing Specifications

  All printing done by The Star Trek Referencer is text based.  It is designed for a laser printer configured for 80 columns per page, 66 lines per page (HP LaserJets for example).  If you are using a dot-matrix printer, you may try configuring your printer using the above parameters.  This will be a main concern if you plan to use the Print All... command for form feed problems may occur.


Troubleshooting

  If you are unable to run The Star Trek Referencer, ensure that the files VBRUN200.DLL and THREED.VBX are in your Windows directory.

  If the help file does not load properly, check the following:

that the file TREKREF.HLP is in the same directory as TREKREF.EXE

your working directory is set to the same directory containing TREKREF.EXE (Windows 3.1)

  If printed pages are not formatted properly, consult the printing specifications in this Help file.