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This preview will show you what
the Tropez program looks like
and what most of its functions are.
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Record Browser
The Tropez record browser displays records in your database one item at a time. In
addition to the physical item information, the record browser also
displays the following:
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Purchase information (i.e.,
date, price, and location)
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Generic description of the item
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The year the item first
came out
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Packaging information
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The location of an image of the
item
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Notes about the item
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The estimated value of the item
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The total value of your collection
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An image of the item
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The status bar at the bottom of the
record browser provides extra information. On the left of the status bar,
messages will appear giving you more information about the button on the tool
bar that your cursor is over. The word "Ready" will normally be
displayed here when your cursor is not over a tool bar button. The first pane on the status bar will tell you how many
records of the total number of records in your database have been filtered.
Normally this will display the words "All Records" as seen
above. The second pane will display "X of Y", where X is the
current record number of the set of records, and Y is the
total number of the set of records. See Filter
Records for more information about these status bar panes. The
last three panes are to let you know whether the Caps Lock (CAPS), Num Lock
(NUM), and Scroll Lock (SCRL) keys are active. |
| Toolbar
The toolbar is a row of buttons near the
top of the record browser. The following is a description of the
toolbar buttons:
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New. If
you want to create a new database, click this button. The Record
Browser will be cleared of any existing records and you can start adding
new records.
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First. Click
this button to display the first record in your database.
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Open. If you want to open a
database that is on your hard drive, click this button. The Open
Database dialog box will appear.
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Previous. To
view the record before the current record, click this button. If you are
at the first record, you will be
taken to the last record in the database.
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Save. After
you have finished adding your records you can save the changes.
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Jump To Series.
To jump to the first record for a particular series, click this button.
The Select Series dialog box will appear.
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List Maker.
When you click this button the List Maker dialog
box will appear, from which you can choose what type of list you want, and how you want
to view it.
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Next. To
view
the record after the current record, click this button. If you are at
the last record, you will be taken
to the first record.
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Print. Click
this button to print a list of all or filtered item records directly to a
printer.
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Last. Click
this button to display
the last record in your database.
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Print
Preview. Click this button to preview a list of all or filtered
item records before printing.
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Search.
Search for an item in your personal database. The
Search for Item dialog box will appear.
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Add. Click
this button if you want to add a new record (e.g., a dispenser) to
your current database. The Add New Item dialog box will appear.
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Go To. If
you want to go to a record of a specified number, click the Go To
button. The
Enter Record Number dialog box will
appear. |
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Modify. To
modify the current item record you would click this button. The
Modify Current Item
dialog box will appear.
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Filter If
you want to filter the records to get only the items that match a certain
criteria, click the Filter button. The Filter
Records dialog box will appear.
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Duplicate.
If you want to add a new
record (e.g., a dispenser) and populate it with the information in the current
record, click this button. You will be prompted to complete the
duplication.
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Add/Remove Filter. After you've done a
Filter and you want to be able to see all of your records, click this button.
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Delete. You
would click the Delete button if you want to remove the current record
(e.g., dispenser) from your database.
You will be prompted to complete the deletion.
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Help. Use this button to get
context sensitive help on the Tropez program.
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Image.
This button is clicked to turn on/off the viewing of the selected image file of a
item.
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Fit.
Clicked this button to turn on/off the fitting of the selected image file of a
item.
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Open Database
To open an existing Tropez database file, click
the Open button on the toolbar and this dialog box will appear.
The database file extension is
.ddb.
If you type in a different extension you will not be able to see it in the
file list box of the Open Database dialog box. If you
leave off the extension, the .ddb extension will be added.
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List Maker
The List Maker lets you decide what kind of list you want and how
you want it outputted. If you select Plain Text (.txt) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) as
the output file type, the text editor(s) you have associated with these file types will open
and display your list. If you select HTML as the output file type, your web browser
will open to display your list. A Sample List Output will display based on
the Format and Output File Type selections.
You can choose your list to be in either column or row format.
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You can choose from four different types of lists:
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Filtered records items. If you do a "Filter
Records" to get a subset of records (e.g., all of your Santa Claus dispensers), a list containing only this subset will be created.
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Items that you own. This choice will
create a list containing all items in your database.
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Items that you do not own. A list containing all
items that you do not
own will be created.
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All item variations. All of the variations contained in the catalog
will be made into a list. You can also select to create a checklist for
this option.
You can also customize a list that is in row
format. You can choose what fields
to include and in what order they appear. This
customization is only applicable for types 1 and 2 listed above.
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Add New
Item
The Add New Item dialog box is what you use to add a new item to your
database. Initially, the Series, Sub-Series, Character, Issue, and
Variation drop-down boxes will be empty. After you've selected a
series from the Series drop-down box, the Sub-Series drop-down box will list
all of the sub-series in the selected series. After you've selected a
sub-series from the Sub-Series drop-down box, the Character drop-down box
will list all of the characters in the selected sub-series. After
you've selected a character from the Character drop-down box, the Issue
drop-down box will list the issue letters for the selected Character.
If the character has only been issued once the Issue drop-down box will only
contain a dash (-), which will automatically be selected for you. After
you've selected an issue from the Issue drop-down box, the Variation
drop-down box will list the variations for the selected Issue. If the
issue does not have any variations the Variation drop-down box will only
contain a dash (-), which will automatically be selected for you.
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Instead of making a selection
from each drop-down box individually, you can click the Search button to
search for a particular character. If you click the Search button, the Search for Item dialog
box will appear.
After you've selected the series, sub-series, character, issue, and
variation the Text
Description tab will give a description of the selected item, the Sample
Image tab will show an image example of the selected item, and the production
years of the item you selected will be displayed.
The Country drop-down boxes
contain the country number and names where items are made. You
will need to selected the country number from the small drop-down box on the
left.
The Stem Color drop-down box
contains a list of several possible item stem colors. If you
don't see the color you want you can simply type it in and it will be added
to the list.
The Made For drop-down box contains a list of some countries that the
item may have been packaged for. If you don't see the country you want you can simply type it in and it will be added to the list.
The Wrapper drop-down box contains a list of package types (e.g., MOC, MIB, or Loose). If you don't see the wrapper you want you can simply type it in and it will be added to the list.
All of the other fields are
pretty much self-explanatory.
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Modify Current
Item
The Modify Current Item dialog box looks and works just like the Add New
Item dialog box as
described above. The only difference is that the Modify Current Item dialog box fields will be populated with the information of the
current item record, whereas the Add New Item dialog box always
comes up blank. |
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Search
for Item
The Search for Item dialog box is used to search the catalog
for a particular item. The user enters what they want to search
for in the field and then clicks the Search button. The catalog will be searched looking for
items that contain the text entered. If one or more items are found matching the text you entered, they will be listed.
The user would then select the item that they where searching for. If
searching from the record browser, the selected item will appear in the
record browser. If searching from either Add New Item or Modify Current
Item, the Category, Series, Sub-Series, Character, Issue,
and Variation drop-down boxes will be filled
with the selection. |
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Select
Series
The Select Series dialog box is used to select a series so that you
can jump to the first record in your database that matches the
selected series. This dialog box also shows the record number you
will jump to for the series you selected. |
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Enter
Record Number
The Enter Record Number dialog box is used to specify the number of a particular record to go to. After you've entered the number, click the OK button. You will then be taken back to the program’s record browser displaying the record for the number you specified. |
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Filter
Records
The Filter Records dialog box
is used to enter and select filter criteria to help you filter on particular
items. After you've
selected your criteria, click the OK button. You will then be taken
back to the program's record browser and only those records that match your criteria
will be available to you. To make all of the records available to you,
click the Remove Filter button.
After you do a filter, the first pane
of the status bar will now display "X of Y", where X is the number of
records that match your filter criteria, and Y is the
total number of records in your database. For example, if you have 100
dispensers in your database and 5 of those are Santa Claus dispensers, the
first pane of the status bar will display "5 of 100" when you do a
filter for the Christmas series and the Santa Claus character.
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Installed
Images
The Installed Images dialog box is used to list how many images are
installed for each series. If all of the images for a series are
installed you will see the word "Complete" along with the
number of images. |
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Options
The Options dialog box is used to
change program options. There are six
types of options available: General, Currency Symbol, Price List, Exchange Rate, Date Format, and Backup
Settings. General option allow you to choose whether to load the last used
database at startup and to show the splash screen at startup. The default currency symbol is the dollar ($) symbol. The default date format is mm/dd/yyyy (e.g.,
03/27/2011). Backup Settings allow you to choose how
many backups to keep and how often to backup the file.
Check
the boxes to enable loading of the previously used database at startup and to
enable showing the splash screen at startup.
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To select from a list of common currency symbols, click the first radio button and select the symbol from the pull-down list. If you the symbol is not in the list, click the second radio button, labeled Other, and type the symbol in the appropriate symbol. |
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Select the option that describes what values to use
in displaying the estimated values of the items in the database and in
calculating the Collection Total value. Select "Use only my estimated values" to
only use the estimated values entered in the database. Select "Use only the
price list values" to only use the values from the provided price list. Select
"Use my estimated value when set (Otherwise, use the price list values)" to
always use the estimated value entered in the database if the value are greater
than zero, otherwise use the value from the provided price list. |
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The values in the provided price list are in US
dollars. If you want the estimated values and Collection Total value to be in
something other than US dollars you will need to set the exchange rate. To
change the exchange rate, select the country from the pull-down list for the
appropriate currency (e.g., "Canada - Dollar - CAD") and then click the Update
button. The top field will update to the correct (and current) exchange rate and
the price list values will automatically be adjusted by this rate. You may want
to occasionally update the exchange rate to get the latest rate. |
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To change the date format select a
format from the list. This format will be used on the program’s record browser for the Purchase Date.
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Enter
how many backups to keep and selected how frequently to make the backup.
You can backup the database every time you run the program or you can specify
how many days to wait before backing up the database. If you do not want
to keep any backups, enter zero for the number of backups to keep.
These options will be retained from one usage of this program to the next.
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Counter
The Counter dialog box is used to
count items in the database. Besides a total count, which can always be seen on the Status Bar, this command also allows
you select which categories and series' to include in the count, and allows you
to exclude duplicate items.
To include particular categories in
the count, check the boxes next to the names of the categories you want.
To include particular series; in the count, click the plus box next to the
category and check the boxes next to the names of the series' you want.
To exclude duplicate items, check the box next to 'Exclude duplicates from
count'. The box is checked by default.
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After all choices have been made, click the Count button to obtain the count.
The Count Total box will appear displaying the count total. |
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