[HoE] Equipment Cards - Ready

["Frank Janik" <FJ@onaustralia.com.au>]

The Equipment Card program is ready. I tested the installation on a Windows
95 machine and found a couple more database libraries were required. The
whole package now comes to 14Mb. Anyone interested in the program can read
the installation notes I have attached to this email. Until other
arrangements can be made you will need a ftp client to download the program.
Point your ftp client to:

yoda.cc.missouri.edu

with an 'anonymous' user name

it's the
                'HoE_EC_1.zip'     and
                'HoE_EC_2.zip'

programs in the 'hoe-dl' directory.

The database has only been populated with a few items as I am waiting for
the Wasted West source book to come out first. It shouldn't be a problem as
the program has the ability to import and export items.

The main purpose of the program is to print out equipment / cheat cards in a
6cm by 8cm format for use during gameplay. It prints 9 of these cards to a
page and all you have to do is cut them out using the guides. I chose this
size so they can be easily organised in those plastic sheets you can buy for
storing collectable cards in.

During my testing I populated each category with 20,000 items and the
program handled this number of items easily (took under a second to add a
new item) so hopefully every item conceived for HoE will be able to be
stored.

Any comments are always welcome.

Frank Janik
FJ@onaustralia.com.au
## EQUIPMENT CARDS INSTALLATION ##

You will need 2 zipped files to install the Equipment Cards program. The contents of these files is as follows:

HoE_EC_1.zip
                        1) Dcom98.exe
                        2) Dcm98cfg.exe
                        3) Mdac_typ.exe
                        4) ReadMe.txt (this file)

HoE_EC_2.zip
                        5) Setup.exe
                        6) Setup.lst
                        7) EquipmentCards.CAB
                        8) ReadMe.txt (this file)

To successfully install the Equipment Cards program follow the following steps:
(Note, if you are running NT4, you don't need steps 'a' or 'b')


a) run 'Dcom98.exe', this is a self extractor and will install itself. You need to reboot after this.
b) run 'Dcm98cfg.exe', again a self extractor, no re-boot required.
c) run 'Mdac_typ.exe', this will run a setup program which will install all the required database components.
d) run 'Setup.exe', this will actually install the Equipment Cards program files, lirbaries and controls.


The actual program has only 2 files 'EquipmentCards.exe' and 'EquipmentCards.mdb'. Both of these are required to be in the same directory for the program to run.


Why??????
After taking Microsofts recommendation and using ADO for the database interface, I found that the library files required to run ADO take up about 9Mb (the files that are installed in steps 'a' to 'c'). Include the libraries and controls required for the actual program and the total package comes in at around 14Mb. Hopefully Microsoft will one day come up with a easy way to install all these files without the need to distribute all these required files.


I hope that after you install everything that is required, you find the Equipment Cards program to be useful.

Frank Janik