Magz is an application I wrote basically to serve as an electronic checklist for a magazine collection. It has been designed to support the collection of any series of items with a regular release schedule, including support for atypical years within the run. Magz is not a full-purpose collection management database; there are much better tools for that job. It's just something you can keep in your pocket to help you remember which issues you're missing when you're pawing through the box you found at a yard sale.
Magz is distributed as a Palm OS .prc file and can be installed like any other Palm OS app on your host platform.
Magz is based around a single screen dominated by a table. Each row in the table represents a year in the run, and the bulk of the table is a 12-column checklist to represent the months of the Gregorian calendar. The screen will be nearly empty until you have started entering a series. You can do this by selecting "New Title" (stroke-T) from the menu bar. A dialog will appear allowing you to give the name of the series (up to 26 letters) and specify the standard publishing schedule for the series. You can also specify an initial range of year records to create. Once you have created a title, you will see a trigger in the upper-right corner. This functions like the category list in many other Palm OS apps, and lets you switch among titles. The "Edit Title" menu command lets you change the default publishing schedule that will be used when you create a new year record. You can also delete the currently active title. If you're using a Palm OS device that supports beaming, you'll see a command to beam an entire title to another device. Unfortunately, doesn't work yet.
You add years to a title by clicking the "New..." button at the bottom of the screen. You'll be presented with a dialog that lets you specify what year this record is for and which months exist for this year. If you select a year record in the table (by clicking on the year itself) you can change the schedule for the selected year, or mark all the releases for that year as owned by clicking one of the other buttons. Like "Details" windows in other Palm OS apps, you can also delete the record - optionally archiving it on your PC - from here.
The only other thing worth mentioning is that you mark any single release as being in your collection by tapping on the letter representing the release month.
1.0 (19991210): Initial release. Does everything intended except beam.
If you feel the urge to register your copy of Magz, please send a payment of US$5 and your e-mail address to:
Greg WestonRegistered users will have new releases e-mailed to them (unless they ask not to) and will receive tech support which sadly rivals that of many commercial ventures. Non-English versions are a distinct possibility if someone wants to help me translate the text. Translators will be credited with a registration of the non-English version they helped with.
The software and accompanying instructions are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. The author does not warrant, guarantee, or make any representations regarding the use of, or the results of the use of the software or accompanying instructions in terms of correctness, accuracy, reliability, currentness, or otherwise. The entire risk as to the results and performance of the software is assumed by the user.
Having said that, about the only situation I can think of where your data might be at risk is if another developer misrepresented the creating application for their databases, the user opened the database, and then the user deleted the "title."
Palm is a trademark and "Palm OS" a registered trademark of 3Com. Magz is a trademark of Gregory Weston. The contents of this page are © 1999 Gregory Weston.