Quick Start

ReaderwareVW is an extremely powerful product. This quick tour of the highlights is designed to show you some of that power and to get you started on cataloging your video library, searching and maintaining your database and shopping online. It will only take a few minutes.

Most users will have an existing library of videos they want to enter into the system. The easiest way to do this is to use the Readerware Auto Catalog facility. You build lists of videos you want to catalog using the UPC number or bar code. You can scan the bar code or type in the UPC numbers that appear under the bar code. Readerware does the rest by searching various internet catalogs and importing the data into you local database.

Start Readerware and select the auto-catalog button from the toolbar,  or select the Web->Auto Catalog menu item. The Readerware auto-catalog wizard will guide you step by step through the process of cataloging your videos. If you ever need help, just click on the wizard help button for full context sensitive help. When you reach the item input page of the wizard, rather than enter  UPC codes manually you can use the sample UPC list included in the distribution if you prefer. Just click on the Browse button and select the "vwSample.RWB" file. in your Readerware installation directory. Readerware will display a UPC list, these are the videos we will catalog. Readerware will search the Internet and automatically catalog these videos for you, complete with cover art.

Once the auto-catalog wizard completes, Readerware will automatically search your new database and display all the videos cataloged in a table view.

Notice that many of the columns displayed in the table are displayed like links in a browser. You can click on them to further refine your search. Click on one of the values in the format column. Notice that another list is displayed, listing just the videos in this format. You can hit the Back/Forward buttons, , in the toolbar to navigate through your search results. You can reformat the display, by dragging columns around to reorder them. Simply click on the column header and drag. You can show and hide columns,  sort by column etc. Having trouble with the table view, just click on the Help button, ,  in the toolbar or hit the F1 key, context sensitive help is always just a click away. Try some of the other views, like the tree view, simply select a new view from the drop down list in the toolbar. You can also create your own views. Click the Print button, , to print the current view.

So far you have cataloged some sample videos using the Auto Catalog method and seen how easy it is to search your database, change the format of the table view and produce a report. But there's more!

Now select the Web->UPC/Bar Code Search and Import menu item. A second window opens. Scan a bar code or enter a UPC number, select the sites you want to search, exactly as you did in the auto-catalog wizard earlier, and click on Search and Import. You will see Readerware searching through the sites selected until it finds the video. Then the detail view is displayed in the main window with the extracted data included. Just click on Add to add the video to your database. (You can configure Readerware to add items automatically if you prefer). This is an example of how easy it is to import while browsing the web. From the Readerware web browser window, select Basic Search from the search type list box and select your favorite site. Readerware displays the search page for that site. Search for some videos and when displayed click on the import button. You have just added another video to the database. It's that simple!

Back in the Readerware main window, click on the shopping cart button, , in the toolbar. The shopping cart window opens and displays the titles you just added. All new titles you add while browsing the web are automatically added to your shopping cart. Select one of the entries and click on Price Check. Readerware now goes out on the web and finds the lowest price for the item. Notice that there is a list box displayed for each entry in your shopping cart. Once the price check finishes, the site with the lowest price is displayed there. You can click on the list to see all the sites checked and their prices. To order a title click on Order, try it now. Don't worry you won't actually place the order yet, it will open the Readerware browser window and display the selected video. Now you can simply select the order button at the site you chose, just as you normally would. Notice that the shopping cart now indicates that you have placed  an order in the ordered column. You can use this to track your orders, once the package arrives, remove it from your shopping cart. Think of the Readerware shopping cart as your want list, it's not just for online shopping. You can add as many titles as you want to the cart, they will stay in your cart until you remove them, between Readerware sessions. Using your cart you can shop for bargains, order online, print it out as a shopping list when you visit your local brick and mortar retailers, transfer it to Readerware Palm Edition etc.

Back in the Readerware main window, click on the default search button, .The new titles you imported are all there, they were added to the database as well as the shopping cart. Removing them from the shopping cart does not remove them from the database.

That completes the quick tour of Readerware, hopefully you have been able to see some of the power and ease of use that the product provides. Full documentation on all functions is available in the online help. If you want to clean out your database after completing the quick tour you can delete each item separately or simply create a new database by selecting the File->New Database menu item.

As always your feedback on Readerware is welcome. If after taking the quick start tour, you have questions or comments not covered in the online documentation or FAQ, please don't hesitate to contact Readerware.

Thank you for taking the Readerware quick start tour.
 

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