Copyright: © 1998


Adding and Saving Entries
Adding and Saving an Entry

Adding

To add a new entry, pull down the 'Student' menu and click on "New". Or click on the "New" button.

All text controls will be cleared except the Chapter field which is set to the selected tab control. Enter all relevant information. Then save the record by pulling down the "Student" menu and clicking on "Save" or by clicking the "Save" button. To abandon the text you have entered and delete the new record, pull down the "Student" menu and click on "Delete" or click the "Delete" button.

If you select another record before you have saved or deleted the pending add, it will be saved or abandoned depending on what was entered. If the Students name was entered the record will be saved. Otherwise, the record will be abandoned.

If you want to add an Entry that is similar to an existing Entry, you should use the  "Duplicate" menu or the "Copy" button.

Saving

When the cursor is on a text field, the "Save" menu item and the "Save" button are enabled. Any changes you make to the entry will be saved if you pull down the "Student" menu and click on "Save" or if you press the "Save" button. Your changes will also be saved if you select another entry in the list box. You can abandon your changes by pulling down the "Book" menu and clicking on "Undo" or by pressing the "Undo Book" button.


BookReporter Features

Fields

The Last Name and First fields are for the student's name who is doing the entry.

The Date field is the date of the entry.

The Chapter field is for the current chapter. Leave this blank if doing an entire book or article for each entry.  Each time you enter a new chapter a new tab will be formed at the top of the screen.  This enables you to quickly look at who has completed each chapter and makes the number of entries easier to scroll through.  If you get too many chapters to fit on the screen merely use the scroll buttons on each side of the tabs to scroll to the tabs that are off the screen.

The Title field is the title of the book/article being reported.

The Author field is the author of the book/article being reported.

Report Section

The report section is where the student writes the report.  This space is limited to 2000 characters.

Teacher's Only Section

This is the grading and comment section to be used by teachers.  A beep is sounded when entering this section to alert the teacher to any student trying to access it.

Alarms

To prevent students from entering the teachers section or from changing another student's entry a beep will sound when either of these actions are taken.


Browsing BookReporter
Browsing BookReporter Entries

There are a number of ways to browse through the entries in the BookReporter. Pressing an alphabet button "jumps" to the first entry matching the selected letter. While the list box is highlighted, you can type a letter on the keyboard to achieve the same effect.

Clicking on a Tab control accross the top of the screen "filters" the file, showing only those entries with matching Chapters. To resume display of all entries, click on the "ALL" tab control. All tab controls may not be visible at once. To show additional tab controls, click the left or right arrows on the tab row.

You can also browse the books by dragging the "thumb" up or down. The "thumb" is the square button on the vertical scroll bar. Clicking the up and down arrows in the vertical scroll bar scroll the list box down and up, respectively. Clicking in the spaces between the thumb and the arrows scrolls a page of entries.

The book designated by the highlight bar is "selected". The selected record is displayed in the text controls.


Creating A New BookReporter File

To create a new empty BookReporter file, pull down the "File" menu and click on "New File".

In the standard file selection dialog box titled "Create New File", select the disk drive and folder to receive the new file. Then enter a file name. It is normal, but not necessary, to use an extension of .BKT.  If you have named a file that already exists, you will be asked whether you want it replaced with a new empty file. If you answer "No", the process is abandoned and the existing file is unharmed. If you answer "Yes", the existing file is deleted.


How to Print a Report

To Print a report, click on the 'Report' subject at the pull-down bar and choose which field you would like the print to be sorted by.  You will then be shown a sample screen of what you want printed.  If you are satisfied that the report is correct press the printer icon and the report will print.


How to Use BookReporter

BookReporter is a unique way of having students do book reports.  Doing a report on the computer in class can have a number of advantages including being more interesting to the students, helping them to further their typing and computer skills, and keeping them from falling behind by requiring them to enter each chapter at a time.

For teachers it has features such as the report generator which will let you print reports sorted by a nubmer of fields including Student, Author, Date, Chapter, and Grade.  You can quickly tell which students are keeping up and how well they are comprehending the material.  Another advantage is having all this information on a single disk instead of piles of paper.

To use the BookReporter, you merely have the student enter the fields including name, Title, Author, and Date they are writing the entry.  The student then types in the report into the report section.  The teacher then presses the 'Teacher's Only' button and enters any comments/grade they would like.  Later, the teacher can print sorted reports on all the information entered if desired.

BookReporter saves all this information in a special file format usually (but not necessarily) designated by a file extension of .BKT. You can create as many BookReporter files as you want, BookReporter always "remembers" the last file you were using.

Click on any of the titles below for more information:

Running BookReporter for the First Time

BookReporter Features

Adding and Saving Entries

Browsing BookReporter

Creating A New BookReporter File

Opening a File

Renaming a File

Undoing Changes and Deletes

How To Print A Report


Opening a File

To open a different file, pull down the "File" menu and click on "Open File".

In the standard file selection dialog box titled "Open a Different File", select the disk drive and folder and filename of the BookReporter file you wish to process. This dialog box requires you to name an existing file that was created by BookReporter. You can abandon the process by pressing the "Cancel" button or the "Close Window" icon.


Renaming a File

To save a file under a different filename, in a different folder, or on a different disk drive, pull down the "File" menu and click on "Save File As"

In the standard file selection dialog box titled "Save File As", select the disk drive and folder to receive the renamed file. Then enter a file name. It is normal, but not necessary, to use an extension of .BKT. If you have named a file that already exists, you will be asked whether you want it replaced with the renamed BookReporter file. If you answer "No", the process is abandoned and the existing file is unharmed. If you answer "Yes", the existing file is deleted.

After the file is saved into the new filename, BookReporter redirects all new changes to the new filename.


Running BookReporter for the First Time

The first time you run Booktracker, you will be asked to select a BookReporter file. After that, BookReporter remembers the last file you were using.  For an example you can select "Example.bkt", a BookReporter file that is probably in the same folder as Booktracker.exe.  "Example.bkt" is a file that contains an example classroom exercise in BookReporter.


Undoing Changes and Deletes

If you delete an entry and then have second thoughts, you can restore the entry by pulling down the "Student" menu and clicking on "Undo" or by pressing the "Undo" button. Similarly, you can undo changes you have made to a entry. "Undo" refreshes the image as it appeared before the Entry was saved. "Undo" restores changed and deleted Entries in reverse sequence. That is, the last operation entered is the first operation to be "undone". "Undo" will only reverse operations entered since the current session of BookReporter was started. However,there is virtually no limit the number of operations that can be reversed in a BookReporter session.