HABIT Reflect Reader Readme

For Windows 9X, XP

HABit Reflect Reader for Reflex databases converts database files produced by the Borland Reflect MS-DOS database (version 1 only) into plain-text files that can easily be read by or loaded into modern databases and spreadsheets.

CONTENTS OF THIS FILE

CONDITIONS OF USE

DISCLAIMER

DISTRIBUTION

FILES INCLUDED IN THIS PACKAGE

INSTALLATION

UNINSTALLING Reflect

HISTORY

USING Reflect

FURTHER INFORMATION

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

The HABit Reflect utility and all accompanying files are copyright (2004) to the author

Henry Bartlett

    237 Peel Street
    LAUNCESTON
    Tasmania
    Australia 7250
email: habitsoft@gmail.com

and may not be copied, decompiled or changed in any manner except as authorised by the copyright holder.

CONDITIONS OF USE

You may use Habit Reflect free of charge for as long as you wish except that if you find it useful, you are requested to contact the author by postcard or email to the address above to let him know that you are using Habit Reflect. Suggestions (preferably constructive) as to improvements are welcome.

All information received in this way will be held in strict confidence and not used for spam nor made available to others.

DISCLAIMER AND WARNING

This software is has not been tested on representative files produced by all versions of Reflex.

Accordingly, you should make sure that you have backups of all files that you use with Reflect and that you make sure not to overwrite these backups.

Further, Reflect has been designed to be fault tolerant so file errors may not be detected. You should independently verify any data that you obtain or retrieve through the use of Reflect.

The author disclaims all warranties as to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

The author has tried to ensure that programming errors in Reflect have been reduced to a minimum and that the program functions correctly but the author cannot be held responsible for any losses sustained through the use of Reflect.

DISTRIBUTION

HABit Reflect may not be included in any commercial package or in any Cover disk without the author's explicit permission. Otherwise, you may copy HABit Reflect and distribute HABit Reflect freely provided:

that the distribution package is copied complete.
(that is all files are included and no changes are made to any files that form part of the package)

that no charge be made for the media containing HABit Reflect that is more than the reasonable retail cost of the blank media.

Users of HABit Reflect who have suggestions about improvements or who find any problems in the use of HABit Reflect are invited to contact the author.

email: habitsoft@gmail.com

FILES INCLUDED IN THIS PACKAGE

readme.txt - this file
reflect.exe - the program file

INSTALLATION

Select or create a folder for your HABit Reflect files. (C:\habutil is suggested)

Find the folder containing the extracted files and copy readme.txt and reflect.exe to your Reflect folder.

Create Desktop and/or Start-Menu shortcuts in the normal manner.

UNINSTALLING HABit Reflect

Delete the files reflect.exe and readme.txt.
If you created a folder for HABit Reflect and it no longer contains files then delete it also.

if you installed icons:-

Delete any HABit Reflect shortcuts on the Desktop or in the Start-Menu.

HISTORY

Reflect beta-test version 3 (for Windows (9X, XP) version released Narch 2004.

30 May 2004: Reflect version 1 released

USING HABit Reflect

Start Reflect by clicking on the file reflect.exe in My Computer or Windows Explorer.

An Open File dialog will appear and you can select the file you wish to convert. The file will then be loaded into the Reflect window for preview. If the file is large it may take some time to load.

Reflect should be able to handle files of several MB in size.

Reflex, like most DOS programs used an 8-bit version of the ASCII character set using the IBM extended character set (ECS) coding but Windows programs normally use an ANSI character set based on Latin-1 coding. If the original Reflex file included any accented letters or other European symbols, it is likely that they would not be rendered correctly in Windows programs.

So, any characters in text fields that used the Extended ASCII codings (accented letters and symbols) will be converted into the corresponding Windows ANSI characters.

Once the file has been loaded, you should see the contents in the Reflect window.

To see more details about the original Reflex database file and its fields, click on the Summary tab. The Field details grid shows the field name, its type (text, numeric, date, integer or repeating text), the Format for date and numeric fields and the Precision (number of significant digits) for some numeric fields.

"Short date" dates and "Currency" numerics are displayed according to the Regional settings of your computer's Control Panel applet.

To save the converted data to file to use the data, click on the Save as Text and Tabs button.

A Save File dialog will appear for you to provide a name for the converted file. Make sure that this name is different from that of the original.

This text file can be loaded or imported into most modern database or spreadsheet programs.

If you wish, you can then load another Reflex file.

You can also run Reflect from the Run item of the Start menu:-

eg C:\habutil\reflect a:\olddata.rxd to convert the Reflex file olddata.rxd on A drive.

You can also start Reflect by dropping a Reflex .RXD file onto a Reflect shortcut in Windows Explorer, in My Computer or on the Desktop.

Please note that Reflect does not perform data- validation so that you should independently check any data that you retrieve from old files by using Reflect.

NOTE: you cannot edit files in the Reflect window. Load the converted file into a database or spreadsheet for editing.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For further information, contact

Henry Bartlett
email: habitsoft@gmail.com