Notes about farVIEW

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farVIEW

farVIEW is a Windows program that helps you store and organize information and activities in a simple database. (Let's call it a farBook.) farVIEW lets you share your information with others or with yourself on other computers. It is free to download from this site.

farVIEW presents the information you store in your farBook through two types of windows: one to show the organization of your information, and a second to show the content of your information. The two types of windows together let you manipulate your information easily.

The first type of window, the Contents window, is to farVIEW as the directory tree window is to Windows Explorer. A Contents window is your interface to your farBook objects and their relationships, just as Windows Explorer's directory tree window is your interface to the directories in your file system and their relationships. farBook objects are so similiar to WinHelp topics that I usually call them topics.

You use your mouse and keyboard to add topics to your farBook, and you organize your farBook using drag-and-drop, pop-up menus, and dialog windows as you collect, organize, index, search, and browse your information. For example, you can create a farBook topic by several alternate actions: e.g., you can drag a URL from your web browser; you can drag one or more file names from Windows Explorer; you can press the Insert key, or you can use the Right Mouse Button (RMB) to obtain an topic creation dialog window from the context menu. As you create topics, you can organize them by dragging-and-dropping them with your mouse. You can link them so that they appear in different places in your organization, too.

When you double-click a farBook topic in a Contents window, (or press the Enter key) farVIEW displays the content of the topic in a window appropriate to the type of its content. For example, if the farBook topic contains a URL, farVIEW loads your default web browser to display the web page. If the topic contains the name of an word processing file,such as a Word document, farVIEW loads your word processor to show the file. If the content of the topic is simple text, farVIEW provides a text edit window to display it. You can also use simple forms to display and edit the content. (a farVIEW form is an XML file using a language similar to Mozilla's XUL, but pared down and much simpler) Click here to learn how to create and apply your own farVIEW forms. Click here to learn how to control the way farVIEW displays the contents of topics.

Using a farVIEW URL (eg., far://fvtech.com:8000/farview), you can also associate a topic with a farBook stored on your computer or on another computer sharing your LAN or connected to the internet. Here's how. A topic containing a farVIEW URL is called a farBook link topic. When you expand a farBook link topic, your farVIEW connects to the specified remote farVIEW, and the topic expands with the topics of the remote farBook as its children. A farBook determines who has permission of access, so you can control if the information in the farBook should be available to the general public, to a select set of friends, or just private to you. This means that a farBook can be a collection point for community information, or a private collection point for information to which only you can store and access. More here about security.

While you do not need to know this to use farVIEW very effectively, if you are a scripter or a programmer, the farVIEW engine supports a scripting/programming language, called farSlang, which serves much as javaScript does for a web browser. The farSlang language, itself, is simple to learn. To use farSlang effectively, however, you will need to gain a familiarity with the farVIEW object library. This is more formidable: the library currently contains about 115 accessable objects, which contain approximately 2434 methods. I developed farSlang and the library so that farVIEW can be extended well beyond its current capabilities so its innards are laid bare by the library.

farVIEW has evolved over a number of years from the original DOS/VMS farVIEW that I developed in the late 80s and early 90s.The DOS version, along with its on-line manuals, is freely available for download. It runs in a DOS command window and runs fine on any modern Windows machine. I use it regularly for a variety of activities every day.

farVIEW for Windows is a work in progress, but I have been using it effectively for a couple of years, and have gradually built a farBook for the information I have encountered on a daily basis. In principle, I could use farVIEW to collect the information that I find important throughout my life. You could use it in classes to collect and organize information for later study and reference for tests or for later in your career. It is great for use in the office setting to gather and organize information and materials for your job, and, because you can share farBooks with others over your LAN or the Internet, farVIEW is useful for workgrouping and other collaborations.

I would like to hear from you. You can e-mail me.