Downloading dbCindex

• Install the program on a computer where it hasn't been used before. To do this, you need to do a full install (which puts some Borland database utilities onto your computer as well as dbCindex itself).   In this case,  click here.  I suggest that you download the program to your c:\temp directory.  Having downloaded it, use Windows Explorer to find the file dbczip.exe, and double click on the program to run it.  It will unpack itself into numerous files, which by default will go into c:\temp.  Use Explorer to find the file Setup.exe, and run it.  That should install the program.  Once you have done this successfully, you can delete dbczip.exe and the files it put into c:\temp. Note that at present, this won't give you the vary latest version of dbCindex - so you may want to go on and do the next thing described as well.
• Update the version of dbCindex in use on a computer where an earlier version has already been installed.  In this case, all you need is the latest version of the file dbCindex.exe; you can get this by clicking here.  Warning: if you do this without first doing a full install, it probably won't work - unless you already have some database software supplied by the Borland company on your computer, the program will download ok but it won't run correctly.

Bugs and limitations

• There are a number of situations in which the program sometimes hangs up with the error message "cannot perform this operation on a closed data set".  A quick workaround is to go to the File menu and use the Reinitialise option.
• Using the facility for interposing a topic between the current topic and an upward or downward reference seems to be causing the program to hang up in the version dated 8/1/99 and possibly in earlier versions.
• Using the Explore menu to check the integrity of the data base can miss situations where a Topic or Paper reference number has been duplicated.  This can only happen as a result of another fault, so it should be rare.
• The procedure for closing down dbCindex after 10 minutes' idle time is currently disabled, so machine crashes could corrupt your database.  Therefore always close dbCindex when you have finished using it.
• Occasional unwanted double spaces are inserted in bibliographic output.
• Occasionally the wrong Journals holding information is inserted in bibliographic output (the same, wrong, catalogue number is given for all Papers).  Cure: close dbCindex, reload, and try again - the bug will usually have gone away.
• Clicking OK after inserting Journals information can cause the information to be lost (very annoying).  Workaround: click the forward and back arrows ont he journals info screen once each - this makes the information safe.
• When using the Update button to enter author information at the Paper Details screen, the journal title "Sex Roles" is sometimes inserted erroneously.  Cure: change it to the correct title.

New facilities and fixed bugs

• Journals information tables added 10/99
• Reference reader for new version of PsycLit added 10/99
• Reference reader for Web of Science added 9/99
• Created a "search in details" facility for Papers 5/99
• Simple procedure for repairing a database damaged by a machine crash ("conservative correction" of errors found during a data integrity check) added 5/99.  This will fix some but not all errors.
• Introduced a facility to reconstruct all the indexes of a database.  It is hoped this will mend the database if it has been damaged in a hardware or software crash - though this has not yet been tested in a problem situation.  31/3/99
• Incorrect formatting of chapter and book references on output corrected (publisher was being given before place in both cases).  Fixed 31/3/99
• Fixed a set of minor bugs arising when 2 versions of bibliographic information have to be compared. 31/3/99
• A simple popup menu has been attached to the right mouse button when the cursor is over the Topic or Paper grid. Right-clicking a topic or paper gives basic information about the item, and allows some basic actions (move to previous or next, delete, rename, link/unlink to current paper or topic, show details, read references from clipboard and add them to a topic, read details from clipboard for a Paper, copy Paper reference to clipboard. These popup menus can also be reached from two new main menu items, Edit Papers and Edit Topics. Added 28/12/98, expanded 31/3/99.
• After 10 minutes of idle time, the program now closes down the current data base and reverts to the opening screen.  This has been added because if the program is active during a machine crash, the database can be damaged.  The number of minutes before cutout can be modified using a new Tools menu (select item Options).  Added 29/3/99 but disabled 10/99.
• The program now checks when it is started to make sure it was correctly closed down when last used, and queries the user if it was not. The main purpose of this is to reduce the risk of accidentally starting two versions of the program at once, which could damage your database. If you get a warning, check that the program is not already running, and if it is not, proceed with caution. Added 8/1/99.
• On starting the program, and attempting to move to the directory where your database resides, you could not move to drives other than the one where the program file resides. This is fixed in the version of 28/12/98
• On starting the program, and attempting to move to the directory where your database resides, when you selected the root directory of that drive, the program would sometimes hang up (sometimes it would return from this condition after a few seconds). This is believed to be fixed in the version of 28/12/98.
• Buttons for moving to the previous or next paper have been added to the Paper Details screen. Added 28/12/98.
• The Renaming procedure for items and topics has been tidied up. The changes the user sees are slight, but they required some fairly radical internal changes, so beware of a risk of new bugs in this area. Added 28/12/98.
• The main screen caption now specifies the directory where the data base in use resides. Added 28/12/98.
• The link button on the main screen will now unlink the current topic and paper if they are already linked. Added 28/12/98.

Wishlist

• The most urgent task is to update the Help files, to take account of new facilities and bugfixes since March 1998. I would very much welcome reports of situations where Help wasn't much help to you.
• double-clicking a reference and getting its details directly, bypassing the show details button. Good idea, but it turns out to be irritatingly difficult to implement... the new popup menus on right-clicking fulfil something of the same need.
• Information about a paper's "Source of Reference" (this would indicate whether the reference was downloaded from APA, PsycLit or BIDS, useful info for managing where it came from).
• There is a number in the lower left-hand corner of the Details window which is different for each reference that is shown.  What does this stand for? And if it is important it might be a good idea to title it (i.e. tell the viewer what it means).  It's the ID number of the item (Paper or Topic) used by the relational database technology that underlies dbCindex.  You might need it if your database gets damaged, e.g. in a machine crash, and you have to mend it using an external database manager.  The easiest way to document it would be to put something in Help.
• Making a way in which users could specify new input and output formats for reading and writing bibliographies, so new databases or journal standards could be accommodated without waiting for an upgrade of the program. This would obviously be a major improvement, but it could be a big job
• Setting up a way of printing directly from the program instead of having to write to a file and print from there.  Look, you already know that I don't approve of printing... but it would be logical to do this.  Unfortunately it turns out to be a surprising amount of work, so I keep putting it off.
• Creating some extra fields in the database, that users could give their own names to.
• Adding topic references to the full-detail output of bibliographies.
• Some way of listing all the topics that are directly or indirectly the current topic in the semantic hierarchy, and all the papers they (plus the current topic) refer to.
• A more comprehensive facility for reconstructing the database indexes is urgently needed: if the computer fails while dbCindex is running, these indexes are sometimes left in an unstable state, which can cause the program to malfunction when restarted.  In the version of 29/11/99, there is a submenu entry for conservative reconstruction on the data integrity part of the Explore menu, but it does not fix all errors.
• Multiple invocations of the program on the same machine could be allowed so long as they were using databases in different directories.  This is a low priority item.
• The memo box used to display bibliographies should be improved to allow italic display of journal titles etc.