  Ŀ
   This is the help file for use by Six Of The Best. It should not be     
   added to or edited by the end user, as doing so may prevent Six Of The 
   Best from finding the appropriate help reference point in this file.   
  
<<AboutSIXOTB>> About Six Of The Best
If you are reading this as a result of pressing F1 from the 'About Six Of The
Best' screen, then selecting 'More Information' from that screen will let you
browse the READ.ME file.

If you came here from any other point in the help system. Quit help, then
select 'About Six Of The Best' from the main menu. This will give you access
to the READ.ME file browser.

<<BaseScreen>>  Base Menu Screen
<Getting Around>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Navigating your way through the menus and options can be done in a number of
ways:

The first, and probably the easiest, is to use a mouse. You will probably be
familiar with how a mouse works as a result of your experience with other
software, but in case you are unsure; move the mouse pointer over any of the
menu options or screen buttons, and 'click' the left mouse button to activate.

Another method is to move the highlighted option, using the up, down, left and
right cursor keys. When the required option has been highlighted, pressing the
Enter key will action that option.

Finally, many of the screen buttons have a 'hot-key' show in a contracting
colour. If you press and hold the Alt key and then one of the hot-keys, the
option associated with that hot-key will be actioned.

To back-out of a part of the program, you will usually see an exit or quit
screen button, but where there is no such button, pressing the Esc key will
have the desired effect.

<Using The Help System>
======================
Help is presented in sections, with the section appropriate to where help was
called from being retrieved and presented on screen. A section may contain
only one screen of information, in which case many of the options will be
dimmed out (not made available). When there is more than one page (roughly 20
lines), you will be able to move through the section with the 'Next' and
'Previous' options. 'First' and 'Last' will also be operational.

Within a section, there may be topic headings. These are reached simply by
reading through the pages, or selection the 'Topics' option to see a table of
topics available in this section. Selecting a topic of interest, allows you to
jump to the part of the section containing the required topic, or print out
the topic if you prefer.

Word search may be helpful when a large section is encountered. Remember
however that the search operates on this section (including all topics in the
section). To perform a search, select the 'Word Search' option and press
enter, or click on this option with the mouse. You will then be asked to enter
a word or string of words to use as the search string. One you have entered
something, all three options become operational. You would normally make use
of the 'Top Of Section' option, but if more than one matching entry is found,
the 'Current Position' becomes a useful option, as this will scan from the
current page, so finding the next match.

Finally we come to the 'Sections' option. When you press the F1 key from
within Six Of The Best, a section title is passed to the help system, so as to
hive you context-sensitive help. If you select the 'Sections' option, you will
be presented with a table of all the section titles in the system. You can
move the highlight to any title that interests you and by confirming your
choice with the 'Select' option, have the help system change to your choice.
By making use of this facility, you can access help on sections you might
otherwise miss, and some of the sections might in fact only be accessed by
this approach.

If you do choose to change to a different section, all the help facilities
will work in the new section. Once you leave the help system, Six Of The Best
will carry on from where you left off.

<Entry Management>
================
The first three of these options, start off by asking you for the player's
initials, the number of boards to play, and the number of weeks you would like
enter. By entering the player's initials, you will be able to track entries
and winnings against each player. This is a useful feature if you are managing
a number of syndicates.

Create New Entry
----------------
This option provides you with a method of generating entry number sets based
on a random selection process. You have control of the precise moment when
each number is picked, so you can influence the selection process to some
degree.

After the six numbers have been assembled, you can sort them in ascending
order if you wish, abandon this set and go for a new selection of numbers, or
accept the set and go on to see the representation of a board as it is filled
in with the number set.

If you have chosen to play more than one board, you will then be returned to
the new entry screen for the next set of numbers to be assembled. This repeats
until all the boards you have chosen to play have been filled in. Only then is
the entry saved.

Manual New Entry
----------------
If you already have a set of numbers you would like to enter in preference to
having Six Of The Best generate a random set, you can enter them using this
option. If you intend to play more than one board, the number entry process
will repeat until all the boards you intend to play are complete. Only then
will your entry be saved.

Re-Use An Entry
---------------
If you have a favourite set of numbers that you have already played, this
option allows you to view all earlier entries to pick up those you would like
to play again. After you have picked a board or number of boards, a new entry
will be completed using your indicated selection.

View Entries
------------
Is is often helpful to view earlier entries, and this option lets you do that.
The entries are listed in tabular form, and you will also be able to see any
winning entries.

<Results Management>
==================
Draw Results Entry
------------------
As soon as the results of the draw are known, you should enter the winning
combination into Six Of The Best using this option. Once Six Of The Best knows
the results, it will be able to find any winning entries for you.

When you select this option, you will be presented with a table of results. It
will initially be empty, but as the weeks go by, the table will build up. You
can add, change or delete any entry in the results table. You will probably
only want to use change and delete to correct mistakes you may have made
during entry.

Find Winners
------------
If you are running a syndicate or have many entries, this option will be a
real boon. It picks up the most recent winning combination and scans all
entries for any combination of matches that are winning entries.

<Reports>
=======
New Draw Entries
----------------
This will report on all entries made for the coming draw.

Earlier Entries
---------------
This report lists entries for previous draws. It will report on any winning
lines it finds, provided you have already entered the results for that week's
draw.

<Utilities>
=========
Wipe Out Entries
----------------
This presents you with a table of entries, and a means of filtering out any
that are not of interest. This is done by entering either a players initials
and a date range, or just a date range. From here you can select to delete all
the listed entries.

Being able to delete entries is useful in the event of someone failing to
register his or her entry in time for the draw. Under these circumstances,
there is no point in leaving the entry in Six Of The Best. You might also find
this option useful while trying out Six Of The Best, with trial entries you do
not eventually decide to play.

Password Control
----------------
The program can be password protected. By default, no password is used, so the
program just starts up without prompting for a password. If you wish to apply
a degree of security, make use of this option. You can have up to five
separate passwords, although one is usually sufficient. Once one or more
passwords have been established, Six Of The Best will prompt for the password
each time it starts up. If you do establish a password, don't forget it!

Default Settings
----------------
A few defaults, mostly concerned with printed reports, can be set using this
option.

About Six Of The Best
---------------------
This option displays some information about how often the program has been
used, as well as providing you with an option to read an in-depth description
of the program and its objectives.

You would use this option if you wanted details of who wrote Six Of The Best,
or how to obtain updates and notification of changes.

Quit Program
------------
This is the way out of Six Of The Best.

<<CreateEntry>> Draw Entry Form
This form lists the selection to be entered at the top, along with details of
the player, number of boards being played, the number of weeks to play and the
commencing week's date. Below this comes the columns of numbers as they appear
on an entry form. Your selection should be highlighted. You will also see the
board letter displayed at the top of the block.

After your number selection has been highlighted, the 'Save' button will be
selected, ready for you to confirm. If you select 'Quit' you will be taken
back to the starting screen and the current entry will be abandoned. If you
confirm your desire to save, and you are playing more than one board, you will
be returned to the preceding procedure, to pick another set for the next
board. This will be repeated until all the boards to said you wanted to play
have been completed, then the entry will be saved, and you will be returned to
the opening screen menu.

<<DrawSelector>> Random Selection Creation Process
When you first enter this process, you will see a 7 by 7 grid on the left of
the screen, a line of six empty boxes at the bottom, and a number of options
in the frame on the right. The options frame should announce that you are
playing board A, and the 'Fill Grid' option should be highlighted. The only
other option active at the outset is the 'Quit' option.

If you press enter or click on 'Fill Grid', you will see the grid fill with
numbers from 1 to 49. Once the grid is full, the 'Randomise' option in the
frame on the right will be selected, ready for you to start the process off.
Pressing enter or clicking the mouse will cause the numbers in the grid to
bounce around in a random manner. This will continue for a few seconds to
ensure the numbers are really scrambled, and then a prompt will appear to
indicate you can press the enter key or the space bar to freeze the grid and
allow a number at a randomly selected grid position to fall down to take its
place in the first box at the bottom of the screen. As soon as the first
number has been selected, the numbers in the grid all move up to fill the hole
left by the chosen number, then they again commence to bounce around. You are
again invited to press enter to freeze the grid long enough to allow a number
to fall through. This repeats until six numbers have been extracted at random
from the grid, and the entry set is complete.

Once all six boxes have been filled, you are given the opportunity to sort the
numbers into ascending order, so 'Sort Selection' is selected ready for you to
press enter to action the sort.

Once sorted, you have a choice of accepting the selection (which you would
normally wish to do), 'Do Again' to start with a fresh grid and get a new set
of six numbers, or 'Quit' to return directly to the opening menu.

Assuming you accept the selection offered, you will be taken on to a board
entry form, where your selection will drop into place on the board.

<<DefaultSettings>> System Default Settings
<Printer Initialisation String>
=============================
If you have access to the manual that came with your printer, you should be
able to find the control strings needed to perform printing control. These
most often include, the font, left margin, letter quality or draft mode, and
many others. If you leave this field empty, the normal power-up defaults of
your printer will be used. Entering any of the appropriate codes in this field
will alter the respective default setting of your printer (the codes are sent
as the first line of the report).

If you do make use of this facility, check carefully the codes you enter. Six
Of The Best cannot check to make sure the codes you enter are valid printer
control codes, so it's up to you to make sure that what you enter is valid.

<Block Graphics Support>
======================
Many printers can make use of the IBM block graphics characters defined in the
upper ASCII range (127-255). If your printer can handle these, tagging the
'Supports Block Graphics' box will cause Six Of The Best to make use of these
extended characters, so a more attractive report results.

If your printer fails to print the lines that should enclose sections in the
reports (possibly producing italics characters or foreign accented characters
in place of the line characters), you should look in your printer manual to
see if a code string exists to change to the PC8 character set. If so, you
might like to enter this string in the initialisation string field. If not,
un-tag the 'Supports Block Graphics' box and reports will avoid using any
extended characters.

Even if your printer can support block graphics, if it is a dot-matrix type,
you will probably find that printing block graphics is much slower than
printing reports that do not make use of block graphics. You might therefore
un-tag this box to produce reports more quickly.

<Page Alignment>
===============
You may need to experiment with the Lines Per Page setting, in order to get a
hard-copy that nicely matches your paper length. The Top Margin setting is
less important on dot-matrix printers, as you can manually position the paper
before starting to print. On laser printer however, being able to define the
space to allow at the top of the page can make the reports look much better.

<<EntryRanger>> Entry Preliminary Information Screen
Start off by entering the player's initials. You have to enter something here
so the system can correctly file away entries. If only one person wishes to
play more than just one set of boards for a given period, we recommend you use
something like 'AD1', representing 'Andy Davis 1', then AD2, AD3 etc. You have
a maximum of four digits you can use in any way you like, although try and
follow some common rule. It will be easier when returning to earlier entries
if the initials mean something to you.

Boards to play will set how many sets of numbers Six Of The Best is going to
collect before considering the entry complete. At the time of designing this
program, five boards is the limit per entry. If this ever changes, you should
contact Original Software Concepts for either an upgrade or suggestions as to
how to accommodate the changes.

If you enter more than 1 in the 'weeks to play' field, Six Of The Best will
duplicate your entry, starting from the date of the next draw, for as many
weeks as you requested (within the limits established by the lottery
operator). Each will be assigned a draw date, as appropriate.

The 'Starting On Saturday' field will default to next Saturday's date
(assuming the clock in your PC is set correctly). You can enter any future
date, if you want log an entry you will be entering in a future draw. More
often than not, you will be interested in picking up the date if the next
draw, rather than setting future dates. You can enter earlier dates, if you
want to put into Six Of The Best some entries you made before getting this
wonderful program. You would of course be using the 'Manual New Entry' option
from the main menu to get these entries into the system.

After you are happy with the information you have entered, you need to confirm
this to be taken on to the next stage. Cancelling will take you back to the
main menu.

<<FileViewer>> Viewing A Document
The file viewer just allows you to move through a report that was sent to the
screen. Any strange looking characters you see on the top line are most likely
to be printer control codes, and can be ignored.

You might also find that a line or two appears displaced to the right by a
character or two. This is also do to the embedding of control codes, and cam
be ignored. We thought about filtering these codes out, if you asked for a
report to be sent to the screen, but decided not to filter them out, since it
can be quite informative to have them in, in the case of control codes not
performing as expected.

<<FirstTime>>
This screen appears while the program has not been assigned to a user. It is
only necessary to enter the user's name and then save the record. This records
the install date and a few other starting parameters.

Take a moment or two to ensure you enter a meaningful name, as it cannot be
changed once the program starts to collect real data.

<<PWControl>> Password Control
Six Of The Best is supplied without any passwords. If you want to protect
access to the program and the data, selecting this option from the main menu
will reveal a small table, capable of holding up to five passwords. Enter
anything you like as a password. They are not case sensitive since what you
type is forced into capitals as you enter your passwords.

If you do make one or more entries, make a not of them somewhere. Forgotten
passwords could prevent you from getting back in again.

More often than not, one password will be all you need, but the facility is
there for more, should you need it.

If you want to take off the password control, just edit out any entries in the
password table. When an empty table is saved, Six Of The Best reverts to
unrestricted program access.

<<GetPassword>> Password Entry Screen
You only get this screen popping up if one or more passwords have been set.
Access to the main menu will only be gained by entering a correct password. Any
incorrect entry will result in the program terminating.

As you enter the password, you will see an asterisk for each character you
enter. If you know you have made a mistake, you delete back and then re-enter.
The reason for not showing the characters you enter directly on the screen is
to prevent any onlookers seeing and remembering your password.

<<ManualEntry>> Manual Number Entry Form
This screen provides you with six boxes into which you can directly enter the
number set you wish to use. As you enter each number, it grows to fill the
box, and then the next box in line becomes active. If you have made a mistake,
you can re-enter any earlier box by selecting 'First', 'Second', 'Third' etc.
'Do Again' can be selected at any time to wipe out your entries and start you
off again in the first box. You will not be permitted to accept the selection
until you have entered six numbers, and if you duplicate a number, the
duplicate will not be accepted.

When all six boxes are completed, you may sort them into ascending order
before going on to the next screen, if you wish, but it's not essential.

'Accept Selection' takes your entered numbers and completes the draw entry
form. If you have chosen to play more than a single board, you will be
returned to the manual entry form for the next set of numbers. If you
inadvertently create two sets of numbers that are the same, the duplicate
entry will be rejected and you will be asked to make another entry.

<<PickFromOld>> Pick An Earlier Entry To Re-Use
You will see a table of earlier entries in the left hand frame, with the top
entry highlighted. The details of the highlighted entry are shown on the
right. You will see the draw date, the player's initials and below this, the
selection made for each of the boards. As you move the highlight down
(assuming you have more than one earlier entry in the table), you will see the
details on the right change to match those of the highlighted entry.

When you find an entry you would like to re-use select the board or boards to
re-play. as you select them a tick appears against each board to confirm that
this selection will be used in your new entry. If you want to un-tick a ticked
line, just select it again and its state will be reversed.

As soon as one or more selections carry ticks, the 'Select' option becomes
operational, and pressing enter or click with the mouse on 'Select' takes you
on to another screen that asks you for the primary information.

The new entry will contain the same number of board entries as the number of
selections you ticked, so it does not have to ask you how many boards you wish
to play.

<<PreRep1>> Prior To Printing New Entries
This small screen simply identifies how many new entries there are in the
system, and asks you to confirm your desire to print these, or abandon
printing and return to the main menu.

<<PreRep2>> Earlier Entry Report Selector
Since a different report is used for older entries, the process starts by
presenting you with a table of entries from which to select those you would
like to print. The table fills with older entries, with the most recent at the
top.

The column headed 'Tag To Print' shows ticks against any you have tagged, and
you tag an entry by moving the highlight line over the entry to tag, then
press the space bar. Pressing the space bar when the entry is already tagged
causes the entry to be untagged.

To help you identify any that containing winning entries, the fifth column
will contain a star against any that are winners.

Assuming you have tagged at least one entry, the 'Print Tagged' option becomes
active. Just while on the subject of tagging, we have provided you with a
means of un-tagging all the entries in one operation, as a time saver.

Once you have chosen to print the tagged entries, you will be taken on to the
print destination screen, before the report is actually produced.

While on the topic of reports, you may like to know that provision has been
made for you to place an initialisation string into the header of the reports.
To set this up, select the 'Default Settings' option from the main menu. You
will also be able to set whether or not to include block graphics in the
report. This gives a better looking report, but may not be supported by your
printer, in which case, turning this option off will force Six Of The Best to
use reports that only use standard characters.

<<Redirector>> Print Destination Selector
Since you may not always want to send the report output to the standard
parallel printer, this screen lets you divert the output. The first two
options cater for parallel printer output, but don't select LPT2 unless your
computer has a second parallel port, and you have a printer attached to LPT2.

COM1 and COM2 might be used to send the output to a serially-driven printer,
but if this is the case, you must have set DOS MODE to handle the
communications settings. If you have not set either of these two ports up
correctly, or you have some other kind of serial device attached, you may find
that your computer hangs-up, if you try to make use of these ports.

The 'FILE' option, if selected, will prompt you for a filename. Any name you
enter here must conform to the DOS filename conventions.

'SCREEN' can be a useful destination while trying out the system (it saves
paper).

You should be aware of the fact that if the report is sent anywhere other than
the printer, you may see strange characters appearing at the start of some of
the lines. These are printer control codes, and have been put there since this
is a report, and it is assumed that it is destined for a printer, at some
point in the proceedings.

<<RegNeeded>>   Evaluation Elapsed Screen
After about a month of use of the Shareware version, it is time to decide if
you are going to register your intention to continue using the program in its
commercial version, or wipe Six Of The Best from your computer.

This screen never appears on the commercial version, but if it does appear on
the Shareware version, you must decide to register for the commercial version,
or stop using the program. It will not stop you completely, even after the
evaluation period has elapsed, but the screen will stay on screen for a while
before allowing you to continue. We could have easily had it wipe itself out
after a month or so, but have decided not to do this, as most uses will in
fact want to register, so we are being as fair as possible.

<<RegReminder>> Registration Reminder Screen
Since this program appears in two versions; the shareware (try-before-you-buy)
version, and the commercial version, the Shareware version reminds you that
Six Of The Best is not free software. If you have the commercial version, you
will never be bothered with the reminder screen.

<<RemoveEntries>> Entry Deletion Screen
It is sometimes useful to be able to delete entries. You may have put entries
into Six Of The Best just to see how it works, or perhaps entries made here
were never officially entered into the lottery, for any number of reasons.

The delete process commences by giving you a view of the entries in the
system, but before this table is filled in, the cursor first goes to the
'From' date field for you to narrow the range. You can enter a pair of dates
in the two fields, or leave them blank if you want to be able to list all
entries. A further filter is provided by entering a player's initials. If you
do so, the table will list only matching entries.

Once the table contains entries, the bottom two options become active, and if
you set a filter that excluded all records, you will be told that there are no
matching entries, and the cursor will return to the first f the filter fields
for you to make a less restrictive selection.

By using the filter to collect together a number of entries, you can batch
delete whole sections. This is obviously a really fast way of deleting. It is
however quite easy to get carried away with this approach, and find you have
deleted some that you wished to retain. So if you are using batch delete,
check the entries carefully before confirming the delete.

If you chose to delete a whole group of entries, after the deletion, you will
be told there are no matching entries. This is a confirmation of the fact that
they have really been removed. You might wish to make adjustments to the
filter values to build another table of candidates for deletion, or cancel the
operation, back to the main menu.

If you only have one or two entries to delete, it is best to leave the filter
fields blank, and then highlight and delete each separately.

You are asked to confirm you deletion before it finally gets removed, so you
are less likely to make mistakes.

<<Results>> Draw Results Table
This little table lists, in descending date order, the results of each week's
draw. After calling up this table, you may select the insert option to
introduce a winning entry. The first time you call this table up, it will go
straight to the insert form, since it detected there were no existing entries
to display.

As the weeks go by, and the table fills up, you will be able to go back to the
earlier entries by scrolling the table up.

You can change any entry, should you discover a mistake, and you can delete
entries if you don't wish to retain old records.

<<ResultsEntry>> Winning Combination Entry Form
This little screen is used for adding, editing and confirming a delete. When
adding, you will see that the Draw Date defaults to the date of the last draw.
If you are catching up and wish to enter earlier entries, you will need to
select the 'Prev.Week' option. This decrements the date, seven days at a time.
The 'Next Week' option is used for coming back up to the present week, should
you go back too far.

When the required date is shown, proceed to enter the winning set of numbers.
Take care to check that you have correctly entered the winning set, and bonus
number, as mistakes could cause Six Of The Best to notify you of a win, that
subsequently cannot be claimed. Conversely, it might fail to pick up a real
win under these circumstances, so save yourself a lot of frustration and
disappointment, check your entries carefully.

If you wish to delete an entry, you will see that all fields in the form are
dimmed out with the exception of 'OK' and 'Cancel'. You will also note that
the top line is prompting you with 'Select OK to delete'. If this was a
mistake, select 'Cancel' and the entry will be left in place.

<<ReUseRanger>> Making Use Of An Earlier Entry
Having picked the board or boards you would like to play again, it is
necessary to enter the initials of the new player, the number of weeks to
play, and if you don't want to start with next Saturday's draw, the chance to
change the date. Whatever date you enter here will be rolled-forward to the
Saturday.

There is no need for Six Of The Best to ask you how many boards you want to
play, as this is known from the number ticked against earlier entries.

Selecting the 'Save' option will make the necessary entries, if you cancel,
you will be return to the main menu without crating a new entry.

<<ViewEntries>> View Entries Screen
This screen can be called up directly from the main menu, or called up
automatically upon finding winners, through the 'Find Winners' option. The the
former case, all entries will be listed for you to inspect, in the latter
case, only winning entries will appear in the table.

All the details shown in the main part of the screen relate to the currently
highlighted entry shown in the table listing on the left. Moving the highlight
using the cursor keys, allows you to inspect any entry. You will see that the
table always lists the entries in descending order, so the most recent entries
are at the top.

If you are lucky enough to get a winning combination, the 'Match' column will
show the number of correctly matched numbers you have, and the 'Win' column
will contain 'A','B','C', or if you are really lucky 'D', to indicate the
level of the win.

<<ViewReadMeFile>>
This is a scrolling viewer for the 'READ.ME' text file supplied with Six Of
The Best. Use the up and down cursor keys to move through the document.
PgNd,PgUp can also be used for moving a page (20 lines) at a time.

Selecting 'Exit' will return you to the 'About Six Of The Best' screen.

<<WinnerTable>> Finding Winners Table
With this screen you can have Six Of The Best search all entries for winning
sets against any of the results listed in the table. This can be a great
time-saver if you regularly make many entries.

As with many other tables in Six Of The Best, the draw dates are listed in
descending order, since you are bound to be more interested in the more recent
draws then earlier ones.

If you have called this option up, and last week's results are not listed, it
just means you have selected this option before entering the results, and Six
Of The Best can only list the results it knows about.

After highlighting the draw week against which you would like to search for
winning entries, use the 'Select' option to commence the search. Six Of The
Best will tell you it is searching, and then if any winning entries are
discovered, take you on to the screen used for displaying entries, but this
time, only the winning entries will appear in the table on the left. This will
usually be just a single entry, but if you operate a syndicate and get really
lucky, you might see more listed. Make a note of the draw dates and the
players initials, and then get a printout (under the reports option on the
main menu) of these entries. Then dash along and claim your winnings.

