***************** IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT *******************

New features and methods were introduced in version 4.20
which may not please all users. Be sure to read the 
whats.new file for a list of changes and ways in which
certain options can be turned off and on.

************************************************************

This is the 'official' read me file for Electronic Teller 4.20


CONTENTS:

    - Introduction
    - Installation
      - Selecting a cheque designer / printer
      - Installing Blowfish Encryption
    - Migrating from Earlier Versions
    - A Call for Translators
    - Importing (from QIF files)
    - Bug reports
    - Known Problems
    - Where to Turn for Help
    - Contact Information

                           INTRODUCTION 
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Electronic Teller is a home finance application. It features a rich 
set of functions and utilities, which include: 

      An attractive user-interface to handle various sets of 
       accounts. 
      Multiple-user support to shield accounts from one another. 
      A calculator.
      A reminder utility that can be used for upcoming fiscal 
       and/or social events with limited or perpetual repetition 
       options. 
      Two configurable cheque printers that support user-defined 
       designs and multiple cheque-per-page printing. 
      A wide assortment of reports, from budget to transaction 
       reports, with a variety of subtotalling options. 
      Investment tracking and graphs.
      Budget tracking and graphs. 
      Category tracking and graphs.
      Transaction fee or service charge tracking. 
      A converter to import and export QIF files. 
      International currency support, including conversion to/from 
       a domestic currency.
      International language support (French, German, Portuguese, 
       Spanish, UK and US English)
      Account Book transactions can be sorted chronologically 
       (default), by code, payee, category, or class.

Electronic Teller is released as shareware, and sells for $40.00 US.


                               INSTALLATION
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unzip the files in the archive to a separate directory and run the 
install.exe utility.  You will be asked to supply a destination 
directory.  DO NOT specify the '-j' switch to your unzip utility,
because install.exe expects to find the icon files in the  'Icon\'
subdirectory.

The destination may contain an existing copy of Electronic Teller
but remember that it is far better to install into a new directory
and to migrate existing portfolios in the event that you need to
revert to the previous version.  Note, also, that installing over
an existing installation may still require that existing portfolios
be migrated to account for any changes that may have been made to
the basic database structures.

The installation utility will not create folders containing existing 
accounts.  To have these created in Electronic Teller's main desktop 
folder, start the program.  As existing portfolios are read, WPS 
folders will be created.  As each portfolio is then opened from 
within the Service Desk, corresponding account objects will be created 
in the associated WPS folder.  Accounts can then be launched directly 
from their respective WPS object, bypassing the Service Desk altogether.


                 SELECTING A CHEQUE DESIGNER / PRINTER
                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Electronic Teller ships with two cheque designers / printers.  One is 
mouse intensive and uses metric measurements to instruct the printer 
where particular printable cheque items should be printed.  The second
is was created for users who experienced difficulties with the original
printer and is less mouse intensive.  Moreover, it positions printable
cheque items using pel, or pixel, measurements.

The original cheque printer's executable file is named etprnc.exe.  If
you experience difficulties in printing cheques or in designing layouts
with this designer 

  1) Close the utility.
  2) Rename original executable to etprnc1.exe.
  3) Rename the alternative executable from etprnc2.exe to etprnc.exe.
  4) Start the application from within an Account Book.
  5) Recreate the designs.

For those who use the cheque printer and decide to give the alternative
designer a try, it would be prudent to create the designs using different
names so that returning to the original design will not require recreating
the original designs.  I would also like to know what people's thoughts are
on the new design.  If it is found to be easier to use, then I will consider
eliminating the original design from future releases.  If, however, you find
the original design superior, then, please say so; otherwise, if the only
opinion I get is to scrap the original design, then I will.  One vote in
favour of the original design will guarantee its inclusion in future releases.



                       INSTALLING BLOWFISH ENCRYPTION
                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As of version 4.00, Electronic Teller can make use of the 3rd party Blowfish
encryption utility.  In order to use this encryption / decryption utility, you
will have to download it from the internet first and copy the BF.EXE program 
from the archive to you Electronic Teller installation directory.

The archive (BFISH163.ZIP) can be found on hobbes and its mirror sites. The
hobbes URL is:

  http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/encrypt/bfish163.zip



                    MIGRATING FROM EARLIER VERSIONS
                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A separate utility is included as of version 3.11 to handle migrating
accounts from earlier versions.

THIS UTILITY WILL MIGRATE ACCOUNTS THAT WERE CREATED WITH VERSION 3.10
AND LATER.  I must apologize for this inconvenience which is the direct 
result of my own stupidity.  I repartitioned a hardrive earlier in 1998
and lost the source code for Electronic Teller.  I had to work with an 
old backup copy.  As a result, I lost the data structures for the 
account files and could not recall what the structures were so that 
I could, at least, read the file and import directly into version 3.10.

                         Migrating from pre-3.10
                         ------------------------
To migrate accounts from any version earlier than this, it will be 
necessary to perform the following steps:

  1) export the individual accounts to QIF file using the old version 
     of Electronic Teller.
  2) Close the old version of Electronic Teller and start the newest
     version.
  3) Recreate the portfolios (what used to be called ATM Cards in
     previous versions and Folders before that).
  4) Access the Porfolio into which the account(s) are to be imported
     (do this by double-clicking on the portfolio).
  5) Select the 'Import QIF' item from the Service Desk's 'Porftfolios'
     menu.

Unfortunately, the QIF Converter packaged with versions of ET earlier than
3.10 will NOT preserve deleted, postdated, or voided transactions, so 
some repairs will be required to the transactions after they have been
imported or, if desired, by editing the actual QIF file that is generated
by the export function.  Since postdated setups are not exported, either,
instructions below describe what is required to ensure that deleted and/or
voided transactions are properly preserved on import:

  1)  After the account has been exported to a QIF file, open that file
      with a text editor.
  2)  Locate the individual deleted and/or voided transactions in the
      QIF file and, when one is located, add the following text 
      immediately to the right of the line with the 'P' prefix:

        for deleted transactions, add DELETED:
        for voided transactions, add VOID:

      For example, if the first deleted transaction has a line with
      a 'P' prefix that reads:  

        PHome Hardware

      that line would be amended to read:

        PDELETED:Home Hardware

      Similarly, if a second transaction was voided, it would be
      amended to read:

        PVOID:Home Hardware

  3) Save the file and invoke the QIF converter to import the QIF
     file.

Complete help on exporting/importing is available on-line.


                         Migrating from 3.10+
                         --------------------
To migrate from 3.10, it will be necessary, first, to install Electronic
Teller, and, second, to run the migration utility (double-click on the
Migrate object in Electronic Teller's WPS folder, or change to your
Electronic Teller installation directory and enter the command:  

     migrate <Enter>

Help on using the migration utility is availabe on line.  Quickly,
however, migration from 3.10+ requires the following steps:

  1) Following the installation of the current release of Electronic
     Teller, double-click upon the "Migrate" object.
  2) Select the appropriate option in the "Migrate from:" drop-down
     combination box, for example "From 3.10 to 3.12".
  4) Enter the directory in which the previous version to be migrated
     resides, e.g. d:\bin\et310.
  3) Click the "Migrate..." button.

That's it.

                            A CALL FOR TRANSLATORS
                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Code is in place to allow Electronic Teller to display different languages, 
although I don't envision translating this help file (the amount of work would 
be overwhelming).   

I have received, and accepted, offers for the following languages (items with an 
asterisk [*] to the right of it indicate accepted offers but no word from the
translator since, so I consider them to be available still unless otherwise
notified by the translator):

      French
      German
      Italian
      Portuguese
      Spanish

As translations become available, they will be posted to my home page.  If your
particular language is not listed and you would like to donate time, drop me
a line at <os2tools@yahoo.ca>.  Because Electronic Teller remains relatively 
inexpensive, I'm afraid I can't provide any monetary reward.  Translators, however, 
will receive a free copy of Electronic Teller, a free copy of PM PostNotes' Deluxe 
Edition (which I have also written), for a combined value of $70.00 US, as well 
as their name in the Product Information dialog.   

What is involved on the part of the translator is, of course, a translation of 
roughly 930 lines of text.  Some of these lines are quite small -- no more than 
a single word -- while others are complete sentences.  In short, any text that 
appears in Electronic Teller would need doing.  In addition, I would need to be 
able to get in touch with the translator easily so that additional translations 
can be provided or, perhaps, changes made to existing items.  In short, this would 
be an ongoing effort.   


                                BUG REPORTS
                                ~~~~~~~~~~~
All bug reports are to be directed to my e-mail address:

    os2tools@yahoo.ca

Please use the supplied 'problem.txt' template when reporting bugs.


                              KNOWN PROBLEMS
                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Styler/2, also known as Smart Windows, causes a number of problems resulting
in SYS* violations or unexpected, silent application termination.  Although
some of the incompatibility problems have been fixed, permitting some
basic functionality in ET, outstanding issues remain.  Having said that, 
I feel that I have done all that I'm prepared to do to support a third-party 
WPS enhancer.



                            WHERE TO TURN FOR HELP
                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Should have difficulty working with Electronic Teller, extensive on-line 
help is available.  Most, if not all, windows and dialogs come equipped
with context-sensitive help, and this can be accessed by pressing the
F1 key.  A 'Help' button will generally display help for the task being
performed or for the concept/usage behind the window for which help was
invoked.

If you still have difficulties with a concept, e.g. the difference 
between a category, subcategory, or class, explanations and examples
can be found in the online help under the 'Terms and Concepts' topic.

Should a satisfactory answer not exist in the help file, I can be reached
via e-mail.  Full contact information is available below.


                             CONTACT INFORMATION
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you experience difficulties, have question, or would like to comment
generally, I can be reached at:  

   os2tools@yahoo.ca

For update information, visit my home page at:  

   http://www.freewebs.com/os2tools

