Simple Do Its may operate alone to automate tasks, or two or more simple Do Its may be integrated to form a complex Do It.

Complex Do Its might often be developed that are discipline specific, i.e., developed uniquely to automate work for a particular job function or business process at a given organization. The program structure and behavior of a complex Do It may be dependent upon a particular organization's business process and information technology (IT) environment. As a result, many complex Do Its may not be readily reusable from one organization to the next. However, every effort should be made to make simple Do Its as reusable as possible.

Software features of the book-and-disk package include:

• Interactive Design Guide: a sample application that provides access to an online version of the book;
• Visual Design Guide: descriptions, specifications, and online illustrations of Windows design elements;
• Buttons and Cursors: a dynamic link library with standard cursor and toolbar button images.

Additionally, KWS Do It developers may wish to join the Microsoft Developer Network, a membership program that streamlines access to Microsoft development information and technology. Depending on your development needs, two membership levels of the Developer Network are available. Developer Network Level 1 delivers all information needed to develop for Microsoft Windows and Windows NT. At the time of this writing, those who join Level 1 will receive:

• Four quarterly updates of the Microsoft Development Library CD;
• Six bimonthly issues of the Developer Network News technical journal (Jan., Mar., May, Jul., Sep., Nov.);
• A 20 percent discount on Microsoft Press books;
• A $20 one-time credit toward CompuServe® connect charges;
• Invitations to Developer Network special events at conferences;
• A membership kit explaining how to maximize Developer Network benefits.

Developer Network Level 2 includes all Level 1 benefits plus all the operating systems and Windows-related Software Development Kits (SDKs) and Device Development Kits (DDKs) on the Development Platform CD that's published at least once each quarter.

Perhaps the most valuable item listed above is the Developer Library CD. This CD-ROM contains over 1.5 gigabytes of information when decompressed, including over 200 technical articles written exclusively for the Developer Network by Microsoft technical experts, key Microsoft Press books, complete resource kits for Windows, self-study courses, conference papers and presentations, selected journal articles, and more than 1,300 sample applications that demonstrate development techniques using C/C++, Visual Basic, FoxPro, and Access.

As mentioned in the Introduction, Simple Do Its are classified into three general categories: those developed using batch or script file languages, those developed using application macro languages, and those developed using program development languages. Recommended products for developing Do Its in each of these categories are suggested below.

The Visual Basic, Professional Edition, provides a rich environment for creating program user interfaces by assembling prebuilt components in a visual way. It includes over forty controls, half a dozen toolkits, programmatic access to data, a report writer, OLE Automation (an extension of OLE version 2.0), the Microsoft Access® version 1.1 database engine and more. With OLE Automation support, you can use desktop applications such as spreadsheets and wordprocessors as components in Do Its developed with Visual Basic. You can also extend Visual Basic with hundreds of third-party add-on tools, many of which are listed in the catalog BasicPro - The Magazine for BASIC Programmers. (BasicPro - The Magazine for Basic Programmers may be obtained by contacting Fawcette Technical Publications, 299 California Avenue, Ste 120, Palo Alto, CA 94306-1912; Telephone: 415/688-1808.)

The Access database engine provides simultaneous data access for many popular data formats including Access, FoxPro, dBASE, Paradox, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, SYBASE SQL Server, Btrieve and virtually any other format via the vendor neutral open Database Connectivity (ODBC) programming interface. For Do It developers, the current version of Microsoft Access, version 2.0, is an ideal complement to Visual Basic. Microsoft Access can be used to create database-centric Do Its, while Visual Basic can be integrated with Microsoft Access to create complex Do Its that go beyond traditional database solutions. In general, when a program development language is required for Do It development, it is recommended that Do It developers use either Visual Basic 3.0, Professional Edition, or Microsoft Access version 2.0, or an integrated combination of both software packages. Visual Basic comes with a compiler so Do It developers can create stand-alone, executable code and distribute the executables royalty-free. The Microsoft Access Distribution Kit can be purchased separately so that Access code can be compiled and distributed royalty-free as well. See Appendix A for additional information on Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0 and Microsoft Access 2.0.

Note that if you plan to use Access 2.0 with Visual Basic 3.0, Access 2.0 uses a file format for database (.MDB) files that is different from the format used by Microsoft Access versions 1.1 and 1.0. Since Visual Basic 3.0's database engine as shipped is compatible with Access version 1.1, Visual Basic 3.0 cannot, by default, use databases in Access 2.0 format. If you want to share .MDB format databases between Access 2.0 and Visual Basic 3.0 applications, you must either:

• keep the .MDB files in Access 1.1 format, which both Access 2.0 and Visual Basic 3.0 can use, or
• Install the Microsoft Jet Database Engine 2.0 / Visual Basic 3.0 Compatibility Layer (Compatibility Layer).

The Compatibility Layer software enables Visual Basic 3.0 and applications created with Visual Basic 3.0 to use data stored in Microsoft Access 2.0 databases. It is recommended that Do It developers install the Compatibility Layer and use Access 2.0 database format as the standard.

The Compatibility Layer software can be obtained via modem from the Microsoft Download Service Bulletin Board System (BBS) by dialing (206) 936-6735 and downloading the self-extracting, compressed file named COMLYR.EXE, or via the Internet by connecting to Microsoft's Internet host computer using Microsoft's Internet host name ftp.microsoft.com and downloading the file COMLYR.EXE from the remote host directory /Softlib/MSLFILES. If you are unable to retrieve the Compatibility Layer software electronically, you can call Microsoft Customer Service at (800) 426-9400 and request assistance.

When an instance of a Do It is created, such variable parameters should be defined by the user of the Do It. A .INI file can be created for the Do It to save this variable information.

Based on the above discussion, the compressed files shown in the Figure 2 example would contain the files as depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Tree Diagram of Compressed File Contents.

Note that the compressed files trvlord.zip and sdirnam1.zip each contain many files not found in their corresponding directories x:\DOITS\TRVLORD and x:\DOITS\SDIRNAM1 respectively. This is because each .ZIP file contains all files associated with a Do It, including sharable system files and Do It source code files, whereas the TRVLORD and SDIRNAM1 subdirectories each contain only those files required to properly execute the Do It installed in each of those subdirectories.

The dynamic-link library (DLL) files and the Visual Basic custom control (.VBX) files found in trvlord.zip and sdirnam1.zip are files that may be used by many Do Its. These files would normally be installed in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory to permit shared access by Do Its and to avoid unnecessary, duplicate copies of these files on a local or shared hard disk. Instructions to install the .DLL and .VBX files in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory should be given in the user documentation files of each Do It. Other files, such as those with .FRM, .BAS, and .MAK file name extensions, represent Visual Basic source code files for each Do It. Since a Do It's source code is not required for execution of the Do It, the source code shouldn't be saved with the Do It executable file. It's recommended the source code be included in the Do It archive (.ZIP) file in case a user of the Do It wishes to modify for custom use.

In each of the data directories, e.g., D:\XLSFILES, many different subdirectories can be created to save data files that are associated with projects, activities, tasks, or other subject matters. Ideally, these subject matter subdirectories would be consistent from main directory to main directory. An illustration of this concept is shown as Figure 4.

Figure 4. Sample Tree Diagram of Data Directory Structure.

As Figure 4 illustrates, notice that it is not necessary for all main data directories to have the same number of common subdirectories, since it may not be appropriate to have each subject matter associated with each application. However, when it is appropriate to have subdirectories defined in multiple main data directories for the same project or subject matter, these subdirectories should be named the same.

Table 3 further illustrates this method of storing data files created as a result of executing a Do It.

Assume the first Do It in Table 3 named Total Quality Management Report Do It is a Visual Basic application named TQM.EXE that actually prompts the user for certain information and then executes WordPerfect for Windows and generates a report that's a WordPerfect document. In some cases, it might make sense to save this report as an attachment to a task or step within KWS. Alternatively, it might be appropriate to store the report document obtained as a result from running the TQM.EXE Do It in the data directory D:\WPFILES\TQM. Table 3 illustrates the latter scenario.

Assume the second Do It in Table 3 named Master Planning Do It is a Visual Basic application named MASTPLAN.EXE that produces many output files. In this example, suppose the various output files created as a result of executing the MASTPLAN.EXE Do It are saved using a custom file format where the Do It developer chose to use a .MPL file name extension to uniquely identify the files. It would then be appropriate to define a main data directory named D:\MPLFILES, as shown in Table 3, for storing these output files. As for any other main data directory, subdirectories associated with various projects or subject matters could be created under D:\MPLFILES if it would be advantageous to do so for file organization purposes.

When the Microsoft Windows Write application is executed and a *.WRI file is to be opened, the File Open dialog box defaults to the D:\WRIFILES directory with the directory tree displaying all subdirectories of D:\WRIFILES as shown in Figure 6. This makes it very easy to search for other .WRI files since the only place on the hard disk that .WRI files should be stored are within D:\WRIFILES and it's subdirectories.

Figure 6. File Open Dialog Box.

For the single-drive workstation, having all main data directories under the C:\FILES directory helps to facilitate efficient data file backup and file indexing since all data can be backed up and indexed recursively into all subdirectories from C:\FILES.