User Guide

Contents

• Introduction
• Application Structure
• Screen Layout
• Notebook
• Separating Lists
• Selected Item
• Changing Order
• Urgent Indicator
• Activity Frames
• Frequent Purchases
• Maintain Lists
• Actively Shopping
• Prices & Totals
• Entering Prices
• Shopping List Totals
• Bought List Totals
• Beaming
• Beam Item
• Beam List
• History
• Edit Historic Data
• Delete Historic Data
• Preferences
• Hardware Buttons
• Technical Notes
• Compatibility
• Backing Up
• Support

Introduction

Pocket Productivity: Shopping List is intended to make the writing and updating of your shopping lists as easy as is possible.

Consider the following situations:

Pocket Productivity: Shopping List is designed to make this whole process as easy as possible using your Palm OS® device.

• You can add the things you often buy to your list with a single button tap.
• Things you have not bought before are rapidly added by entering the name, quantity and tapping a button.
• When out shopping you can quickly see what you have bought and what remains on side by side lists.
• You can transfer items to the bought list with a single button tap.
• You can organise your shopping into multiple separate shopping lists.
• You can change the order of items on a list by dragging and dropping.
• You can record prices for any shopping list item.
• You can see total prices for shopping lists or bought lists.
• You can beam items or entire lists to another device running Pocket Productivity: Shopping List.
• You can configure the hardware buttons to perform frequently used tasks.
• You can flag items as urgent for extra emphasis on the shopping list.

Application Structure

There are 3 stages that a shopping list item goes through:
1. Active: On the list and still needs to be bought (Shopping List).
2. Bought: Has been removed from the active list but not yet transferred to the history (Bought Items List). Items in this stage would usually only exist during a shopping trip.
3. History: A count of the number of times any item has been bought (History).

There are 3 groups of activities:
1. Frequent Purchases (orange arrows). This group of activities deals with using the historic information. Items from the history may be added to an active shopping list; the history may be edited or deleted in this area.
2. Maintain Lists (green arrows). This group of activities deals with maintaining the data on a shopping list. New items can be added and existing ones edited or deleted.
3. Actively Shopping: (purple arrows). This group of activities would be used during a shopping trip to check off bought items and to transfer then to the history when the shopping is done.

Screen Layout

Notebook
The notebook shows those shopping list items you need to buy. It will show up to 11 items on the screen and the scroll bar to the right allows the viewing of up to 999 in any single list. The notebook will always be visible regardless of the activity performed. See Notebook for further details.

Selected Item
The selected item is shown with a darker background. See Notebook for further details.

Item Count
The item count shows the total number of items in the selected shopping list and the total number in all lists, unless the "All" list category is selected in which case they are the same.

Total of Prices
When the Prices & Totals are switched on the total price of all items in the shopping list is shown. See Prices & Totals for further details.

Scroll Bar
The scroll bar becomes visible when there are more than 11 items on the selected shopping list and allow viewing of the entire list. See Notebook for further details.

List Category Selector
The list category selector shows which list is currently displayed and allows changes to the list categories. See Separating Lists for further details.

Activity Frame
The activity frame is a panel with fields, lists and button which changes depending on the activity being performed. See Activity Frames for further details.

Frame Switch Boxes
Small boxes which when tapped change the activity frame. From top to bottom these correspond to:
- Frequent Purchases
- Maintain Lists
- Actively Shopping
The current activity frame is indicated by highlighting one of the boxes.

Action Buttons
Tapping the action buttons performs a function specific to the activity frame.

Notebook

The left hand side of the screen is the notebook which shows active shopping list item names with quantities in brackets if used.

Use the scroll bar in the middle of the screen to scroll through a notebook with a large number of items.

Separating Lists

Up to 16 separate lists may be managed. These are distinguished by the List Category which is selected using the List Category Selector at the top right of the screen.

Selecting "All" will show all lists combined on a single notebook.

On the List Category Selector there is also the option to "Edit Categories...", which allows adding new shopping list categories or renaming, merging or deleting existing ones.

Example of how shopping lists may be organised are:
- type of item, e.g. groceries, household
- timeframe, e.g. things to buy today, needed within a few days
- where you are shopping, e.g. local shops, town centre, internet
- specific shops

Selected Item

The selected notebook item will be highlighted with a darker background than the other items. This is the item that actions are performed on when action buttons are tapped.

The selection can be moved up or down using the up and down hardware buttons or by tapping on another item in the notebook.

Changing Order

To change the order of items on a shopping list drag an item to its desired position in the list.

The moved item will be inserted where indicated by a dotted line.

Urgent Indicator

When an item is identified as urgent, see Maintain Lists, it will be indicated by an icon to the right of the item description in the notebook.

Activity Frames

The right hand side of the screen contains the activity frame.

Switch between the 3 available activities either using the menu or tapping one of the boxes in the title of the activity frame. Each frame has action buttons at the bottom.

Frequent Purchases

This frame will be used to construct your shopping list based on frequently bought items from the past.

A list of historic purchases is shown. The order will be determined by the application preferences described in the Preferences section. The orders options are:

• first by the number of times the item has been bought then alphabetically
• entirely alphabetically
• first by the number of times the item has been bought then alphabetically for all items with a count above a limit and alphabetically for the rest

Quickly select an item in the list box by entering the first character in the Graffiti drawing area. This is particularly useful for long lists when the history is sorted alphabetically.

The number of items appearing in the list, the separation of historic items by list category and an option to show the count in the list box are described in the Preferences section.

Maintain Lists

This frame is used to add new shopping items and to edit or delete existing ones.

Fields for Name, Quantity, Price, the List category and an Urgent checkbox are displayed for the currently selected notebook item.

The Price field will only be available if the Prices & Totals option is set. See the Preferences section for further details.

Actively Shopping

This frame is used whilst shopping, you use it to remove bought items from the notebook and to transfer bought items to the history.

A list of bought items prior to transferring to the history is shown.

If the Prices & Totals option is set a total of all prices of bought items is shown below the list. See the Preferences section for further details.

Quickly select an item in the list box by entering the first character in the Graffiti drawing area.

Prices & Totals

To be able to enter prices and see totals the Prices & Totals option must first be set on the Preferences screen.

A Price may be set for any shopping item and is kept with the item after being bought and after being sent to the history database. If an item already exists in the history with a different Price it will be updated with to latest Price.

The Price for an item is for the whole rather than the unit price if the Quantity is more than one.

There is only one currency used and the currency symbol is set on the Preferences screen. For example the currency could be set to $, £ or €. See Preferences for further details.

Entering Prices

Prices can be entered in the Maintain Item frame. Amounts up to 99999.99 can be recorded, with the currency as set on the Preferences screen.

Shopping List Totals

The total of all Prices in a shopping list (not just those shown on the notebook) will be shown below the notebook, limited to 99999.99.

Note: If the total of prices is above this limit 99999.99 will be shown, further additions will not change the total and subtractions will not be properly reflected until the list is reloaded, e.g. the application is restarted.

Bought List Totals

The total of all Prices of bought items will be shown below the bought items list.

Beaming

The beaming options will operate on devices equipped with an Infrared link. There are two options for sending:

• Beam Item: will send a single shopping list item to another Palm OS® device with Pocket Productivity: Shopping List installed
• Beam List: will send the whole list

In each case if the receiving device is currently running Pocket Productivity: Shopping List the received item(s) will be added to the currently selected shopping list, unless "All" is selected in which case they will be added to the "Unfiled" list category.
If the receiving device is not running Pocket Productivity: Shopping List the received items will be added to the "Unfiled" list category.
See Separating Lists for further details on lists.

Beam Item

Reached from the "Actions", "Beam Item" menu option.

After a receiving device is located the selected shopping list item, including the Name, Quantity, Price and Urgent flag, will be sent to the receiving device.
If no item is currently selected nothing will happen.

Beam List

Reached from the "Actions", "Beam List" menu option.

Before sending the whole list there will be a warning message. Should you proceed every shopping item in the currently selected list will be sent to the receiving device.

History

An historic item is made up of a Name, a Count a List and a Price.

The Name is matched to bought items when the button is tapped on the Actively Shopping activity frame. Matches are case insensitive, e.g. "Coffee" and "coffee" would both match to a "Coffee" historic item. The match will also disregard the Quantity used with the original item.

The Count is the number of times an item has been bought, i.e. transferred to the history. The count is limited to 999.

The List is the shopping list category most recently used when the item was bought.

The Price is the price of the item most recently bought.

Edit Historic Data

Reached using the button on the Frequent Purchases activity frame.

If the historic data needs to be changed, for example changing the name of an item or the count to affect the position in the list this dialog may be used.

Under normal circumstances it would not be necessary use this option.

Tap the “Delete…” button to Delete the historic item.

Delete Historic Data

Reached using the "Delete..." button on the Edit Historic Data dialog.

After tapping "OK" on the warning message the historic data will be deleted.

Preferences

Reached from the "Options", "Preferences..." menu option.

Frequent Purchases

Show item purchase count
If selected, and if space allows, the number of purchases of a historic item will be shown in the Frequent Purchases list in brackets after the name.

Group by shopping list category
Depending on how the list categories are used this provides an option to show all frequent purchases in the list regardless of the selected list or, if selected, only those most recently purchases from the currently selected list.
For example if the shopping lists are categorised by timescale, (e.g. Today, This Week, Soon) it may be most appropriate to show all frequent purchases, if however they are categorised by shop separate frequent purchase lists may be more appropriate.

Limit list to
If you find you rarely use items in the lower part of the Frequent Purchases list you may want to limit the number of items shown in the list box to 10, 20 or 50.

Sort by count
If selected, the number of times a historic item has been bought will be used as the first sort parameter; sorting will be alphabetic otherwise.
If not checked the order will be entirely alphabetic.

Above
Available only when the "Sort first by count" is checked. This sets a limit for the number of purchases sort parameter. All purchase counts at or below this number will be sorted alphabetically.
Use the up and down arrows to change the number within a range of 1 to 255.

Prices & Totals

Show totals
If selected, prices may be entered for shopping items in the Maintain Lists frame and totals are shows for shopping lists and bought item lists, see Prices & Totals for further details.

Currency symbol
Set the currency symbol character which will be used to prefix prices and totals, for example $, £ or €.

Hardware Buttons

Most of the key functions within the application may be assigned to any of the 4 hardware buttons.

For example you could use the right button to switch to the actively shopping view and the left button to it to buy the item on the shopping list.

The actions available for assignment are:

• Default system action
• No action: Nothing happens
• View frequent purchases: Switch to the 'Frequent Purchases' view
• View maintain lists: Switch to the 'Maintain Lists' view
• View actively shopping: Switch to the 'Actively Shopping' view
• Buy item: When an item is selected and actively shopping
• Unbuy item: When actively shopping
• Insert item: When in the maintain lists view
• Change item: When an item is selected and when in maintain lists
• Delete item: When an item is selected and when in maintain lists
• Insert from history: When in the frequent purchases view
• Edit historic item: When in the frequent purchases view
• Switch on/off totals
• Beam item: When an item is selected
• Beam list

The assigned actions will only operate while the application is active.

Technical Notes

Compatibility

This application is designed to run on Palm OS® version 3.5 and later.

The application is designed to use 8 bit colour, 4 bit greyscale or monochrome display standards.

Backing Up

During a HotSync® the applications databases will be backed up as the following Palm Database Files:

• PPShoppingList.pdb
• PPShoppingBought.pdb
• PPShoppingHistory.pdb

These will be located on the desktop computer in the Backup directory of the Palm Desktop.

Note that these databases will be automatically restored in a HotSync® following a hard reset.

Support

Support from Thompson Solutions Limited
e-mail: thompsonsolutions@btinternet.com
Further details: http://www.thompsonsolutions.btinternet.co.uk