123g

1-2-3 GUI Menu for the HP100/200LX, Version 1.77
Copyright(C) 1995-1997 by "guel", All Rights Reserved

WWW Page: http://www.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002322/

| Copyright | Introduction | Quick Start | More Information on Installation | Troubles and Solutions |

This page was designed on 200LX with HV.


Copyright, Distribution Policy and Disclaimer

This program is a copyrighted freeware. Its copyright is owned by its author. You may use it freely, but you are not permitted to use it for any commercial purpose. If you want to post this program to other BBS, ftp site or network, or if you want to bundle it to other program or publication, you should receive prior permission from its author. The author is in no way liable to any damage, which may be caused by the use of or inability to use this software.


Introduction

123g equips the built-in Lotus 1-2-3 with the GUI (Graphical User Interface) menus.
(Please refer to the attached file, image for a screen capture of 123g).

Lotus 1-2-3 made a debut in 1982 and immediately became popular due to its high performance and smart operation. It was a "killer" application, which helped the IBM PC - released in the previous year - to become a "de facto" standard in the PC industry.

10 years later, the HP 95LX was released and shocked many people by its built-in 1-2-3. It was fantastic to see the 1-2-3 working on a small, palmtop, IBM compatible PC. And its followers, the HP 100LX and 200LX, has the same advantage of the built-in 1-2-3, which is not found on other palmtops.

However, the times have changed. Now everywhere you have Windows, with its GUI - Graphical User Interface. Therefore the "archaic" user interface of the built-in 1-2-3 is sometimes a barrier to new users. And I found myself already using Excel on Windows 95 for business purposes.

It gave me an idea. If its user interface is improved, the built-in 1-2-3 would have much wider acceptance.

This is exactly the goal of 123g.

On the built-in 1-2-3, 123g enables the same user interface as other built-in PIM applications, with the same pull-down menus.

Remark:  123g is a system manager compliant program (.EXM) and 
         works on the HP 100LX and 200LX only.  It does not 
         work on the 95LX, because of its different video mode 
         and the lack of GUI modules on its ROM.


Quick Start

Standard installation requires MoreEXM and EXkey. You can download these software from the data library of the HP Handheld Forum (HPHAND) on CompuServe, or WWW page : Palmtop Net.

  1. First place your 123G.EXM to your preferred directory (A:\EXM\ in the following example) and add it to your MOREEXM.INI file with any start key ({Alt+F9} in this example). Following is an example:

        A:\EXM\123G.EXM,7000,1,123g
            (Note: 7000 is a key scancode for {Alt+F9})
    
  2. Then add following line to your EXKEY.INI:
        {Alt+Menu}={ALT+F9}
    
  3. Reboot the system to make these changes to take effect.

  4. Start 1-2-3. Then press {Alt+Menu}. A familiar menu bar, common on all the internal PIM applications, will appear. If you are familiar with the built-in applications, you do not need any further instructions. Try any pull-down menu or any function keys. Frequently used commands, such as 'copy' or 'move', are placed also on function keys.


More Information on Installation

Installation of 123g requires the addition of following two items:

  1. Adding 123G.EXM to System Manager by MoreEXM.
  2. Substitute a hot key with a more convenient position by EXkey or built-in key200.
Following example uses {ALT+F9} (keycode: 7000) as a hot key.

1. Add 123g.exm to A:\MOREEXM.INI as follows:

     A:\EXM\123G.EXM,7000,1,123g
123G.EXM is assumed to be in A:\EXM\ directory.
Don't forget the third parameter '1'.

2. Remapping the hot key

The above example adds 123g as the {ALT+F9} key, which is not in a good position to invoke a Menu in 1-2-3. You may want to move it to a more convenient key. You can do this as follows:

  1. Using EXkey
    Add a following line to your EXKEY.INI.
               {Alt+Menu}={ALT+F9}
    
    Or you can also use
               {Shift+Menu}={ALT+F9}
    
  2. Using key200 (found in d:\bin\)
    You can assign a double click Menu key as a hot key for 123g. Add a following line to your key remapping file for key200:
              ^Menu Menu : Esc Alt F9 ^F9 ^Alt
    
EXkey and key200 are not absolutely necessary, since you can start 123g without it. However, it is much more convenient to use it.

Exkey and key200 does not work together. My recommendation is to use EXkey.


Troubles and Solutions

Most of the reported troubles are caused by installation errors. Following is the examples of these errors.

  1. Not installed MoreEXM
  2. Not installed EXkey or key200
  3. Error in the format of moreexm.ini or exkey.ini
  4. The file 123g.exm is broken.

Using with Buddy

If you are using Buddy, and you have marked the checkbox in
     [ ] Lotus keyboard shortcuts ...
within 'Other Settings' Section of the configuration program of Buddy (BUDDY.EXM), you may have interferences with 123g. If you have problems with Buddy's keyboard shortcuts working against the features of 123g, please remove the mark from this checkbox.


Contact

I hope you enjoy working on 1-2-3 with 123g.
If you have any comments on 123g, feel free to contact me by e-mail.

e-mail : GHF02463@niftyserve.or.jp
WWW Page: http://www.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002322/


Acknowledgements

I would like to thank to many people on the FHPPC, forum of NIFTY-Serve - a Japanese BBS similar to CompuServe: To Mr Nakamoto for his NKIT, which I used for this program. (My compiler is Turbo C++ ver.1, made by Borland); to Mr Brahma, whose "Introduction to EXM" and "Introduction to LHAPI" are valuable references for my code; to these two gentlemen as well as Mr Ohata, Mr Hiro and other wizards in the FHPPC Section 8, who made available the source code of their EXM programs; again to Mr Hiro, who taught me in Section 8 how to read 123.cnf and how to check the presence of Buddy in memory. My thanks are also to those who posted their comments in Section 7 and cooperated in the verification test of the program.

I would like to thank Mr KTR, Mr Hiro and others for making 123g reviewed in the following journals and the book.

Periodicals:

"PC TsuShin GaZaPee" November1995 AI-Publication
"Pocket Computer Journal" December1995 KOGAKU-sha
"Mobile PC" March1996 SOFTBANK
"THE HP Palmtop Paper" Jan/Feb1997 Thaddeus Computing,Inc.,
"DOS/V POWER REPORT" April1997 impress
Books:
" HP200LX Software Bible"by Mr Hiro1996 SOFTBANK
"PACK FOR WIN" 1996 VECTOR
"Pocket PC King" 1996 SOFTBANK

Note: These journals and books - except "THE HP Paltop Paper" - are Japanese language edition.

Finally, I would like to thank Mr Toshiki Sasabe (Janbe) for translating this document and for introducing 123g to world.


==== Appendix A ====

TIPS of 1-2-3

  1. If you are going to apply plural operations to the same range, you can save time by first preselecting the range and then issuing commands. Function key PreSelect is used for this purpose. Copy, Move, cell format modification, and other command can be used.

  2. Date/time is displayed on the lower left corner of the worksheet by default. You can change this to file name, so you can always be sure which worksheet you are now working on. (123g also displays the current file name on the left side of the title bar).

  3. The default directory of the file-open dialog box (for saving a file to, or restoring from) is the same as the one set by 1-2-3. You can set it by pressing '/WGDD', entering the directory and select 'Update'. For details, please refer to the user's guide of 1-2-3 .
    A temporary change of the directory by 1-2-3's '/FD' command is not recognized by 123g.

  4. If you use same worksheet frequently, you can invoke it by pressing one key, using a system macro. You can also use Pocket Launcher, created by Mr TONTATA, to open a 1-2-3 worksheet and other data files. It was uploaded on the HPHAND forum of CompuServe.


==== Appendix B ====

Version History


 ver.0.00      95-05-13  Started coding
 ver.0.50      95-05-28  changed compiler from LSIC trial
                         version to TC++ 1.0
 ver.1.00      95-06-01  Alpha version, releases in KYOTO
                         OFFLINE meeting to welcome Mr YAFO.
 ver.1.10      95-06-12  Beta1, uploaded to FHPPC LIB 8 (#265)
 ver.1.20      95-07-01  Beta2, uploaded to FHPPC LIB 8 (#291)
 ver.1.50      95-09-21  Official release, uploaded to FHPPC
                         LIB 7 (#273).
 ver.1.51j     95-09-24  Japanese menu version, uploaded to
                         FHPPC LIB 7 (#281).
 ver.1.52j     95-11-01  Not released.
 ver.1.53j     95-11-25  Uploaded to FHPPC LIB 7 (#334).
 ver.1.6       96-01-15  Uploaded to FHPPC LIB 7 (#379).
 ver.1.6j      96-01-15  Uploaded to FHPPC LIB 7 (#380).
 ver.1.7, 1.7j 96-02-17  Released during FHPPC "SKIING" Offline
                         meeting.
 ver.1.73      96-03-17  Not released.
 ver.1.74      96-03-23  Not released.
 ver.1.75e,j   96-03-31  Released to FHPPC LIB 7 (#438,439).
 ver.1.77      96-11-30  This version (English document).
 ver.1.80g     97-03-30  for German LX
 ver.1.80gg    97-04-03  for German LX with German pulldown menus


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