SUPERLOG 4 NOTEBOOKS MADE LOOSE-LEAF
by
Robert M. Doerr

SuperLog 4, from K-Soft, is a highly useful electronic notebook, that can even be used as a database program.  It functioned much like a window before windows became popular.  Its keeping of date/time records is unmatched.  Gary Ludwick reviewed SuperLog 4 in the August, 1985 issue of =80 Micro= and rated it  a full 5*.

Good as SuperLog 4 is, the basic SL4 package lacks several important functions.  Would you like to move pages within your SuperLog 4 notebooks?  to sort the pages alphabetically?  to add pages from other SuperLog 4 notebooks?  to delete obsolete or erroneous pages?  to copy pages to where YOU choose, in the /LOG book YOU choose?

LOOSLEAF, in BASIC, enables the user to do all these things easily.  If the SuperLog 4 notebook to be worked upon is kept under 54 pages (as a maximum during working on it), on a 128k Mod. 4 LOOSLEAF uses MEMDISK and runs fast; otherwise, operations are on floppy disk and are slowed.  Ludwick, in his review, indicated that use of the machine-language SuperLog 4 utilities package, which provides much the same enhancement as LOOSLEAF, is difficult.

The LOOSLEAF functions that move pages, except sort, operate on blocks of 1 to 5 pages, and the copy functions enable insertion of multiple copies of the block being copied.

LOOSLEAF, in sorting, does not move page 0 of a book, nor does it permit the user to move or delete page 0.

LOOSLEAF automatically renumbers all pages affected by any of the functions that move pages, but retains the date and time information unchanged.  Import pages are given the name of the book into which imported, but the book from which they are imported is left unaltered.

LOOSLEAF does not provide for editing of SuperLog 4 pages; SuperLog 4 itself is too good at that to justify such editing in BASIC.  It should be noted that SL4 operations, especially searches, on /LOG files on MEMDISK are pleasantly rapid.

The main menu for LOOSLEAF presents ten choices with respect to the current book:

 1. Move a block to elsewhere in the book.
 2. Copy a block to elsewhere in the book =+n+= times.
 3. Delete a block from the book.
 4. Sort the book, by the first 32 text characters of each page.
 5. Copy a block to a disk buffer for later export to a different book.
 6. Import a block from the disk buffer and insert it =+n+= times.
 7. Import a block directly from another book, which must be on line.
 8. Display the first 14 text characters of each page of the current book.
 9. Save the changed /LOG book, then quit.
10. Quit without saving changes (Oops!).

Users with hard drives will want to alter some of the parameters in lines 10-18 and in line 9100.

Notes to programmers:  Only I, J, and Q$ are utility variables; N, for example, is a special-meaning integer in this program.  Integers with names starting P are page numbers running from 0 to PZ, consistent with SuperLog 4 page numbers; the number of pages, NP, then, is 1 + PZ, which is the number of the last page.  FNR(I, J) returns the proper record for page I, quarter J, in the random /LOG file(s), the record numbers in which run, not from 0 to PZ, but from 1 to NP.

Further note from Peter Besenbruch.  When using the MEMDISK option, LOOSLEAF/BAS assumed the MEMDISK was on drive 4.  I edited LOOSLEAF/ BAS and LOOSLEAF/JCL to run with the MEMDISK on drive 2.  LOOSLEAF/ASC retains drive 4.  Line 17 contains the drive referance.  BREFLIST/BAS is a Basic cross referancing utility.  A sample ot its work can be found in LOOSLEAF/XRF.