Sort It Out Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, ----------- July 2013. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * The Future | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Sort It Out for Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, etc. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. Sort It Out is, in a nut shell, a list sorting utility. I maintain lots of lists - lists of games, lists of emulators, lists of names and addresses (of friends), lists of this, and lists of that. And, I like all my lists to be sorted. How can you find things in them if they aren't sorted ? These lists are all kept in Notepad Text files, and I am forever loading up MS WORD, creating a new document, selecting all the text in my Notepad Text list, pasting the list into WORD, selecting the whole list, selectng the "Table" menu, selecting the sort text option, specifying the sort params, doing the sort, copying the text, pasting it back into my original list, and then exiting WORD. A lot of steps and work for a little result. Now, with Sort It Out, this process is reduced down to 3 steps : - select and copy the text in your list to the clipboard. - press the "Sort Clipboard Text" option in Sort It Out. - paste the sorted text back into your list. Simple as that ! The following sort algorithms are available : - Bubble Sort - Exchange Sort - Insertion Sort - Shell Sort - Moose Sort - a very fast sort but with limitations : it must be used for Ascending, case insensitive sorts, where blank lines are removed. There's also a "Do *NOT* Sort" option in the Sort Method dropdown box. This is for when you want to process text from the clipboard (and remove duplicates, trim off white space, etc according to the other settings) but not actually sort the text. And, you can do all of this with or without case sensitivity, and (when sorting) sort in ascending or descending order. There are other options to : - auto copy sorted text back to the clipboard (after the processing), - automatically remove blank lines (during processing), - show sort in progress (which slows things down one hell of a lot - and I wouldn't do it for long lists). At the end of the processing, the time taken (in seconds) and the number of lines processed are displayed in their boxes on screen. Sort It Out will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x (even with Win32 installed) !! The Future : ------------- This is an early release of the program, and several interesting things could be done in the future : - Improve the layout of the screen - loads of things can be done here. - Optimise existing sort algorithms further. - Add in faster Sort Algorithms, such as Heap Sort and Quick Sort. - Add in the ability to sort on various columns of data. - Add in the ability to ignore spaces / tabs at the start of a line. - other changes. Can you suggest any ? Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : -------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0 13-Apr-97 First Public Release. 1.1 15-Jun-97 Save settings automatically on Windows 95 shutdown (Registered Users only). Start Minimised if set in Shortcut / settings (Registered Users only). Save Window Height and Width on exit, and enable Main Window to be resized. Improve application startup - size and position form before user sees it. Add in Menu items for viewing my Shareware Catalog, the Readme file, and the Registration Form. Add in a new "Moose Sort" option - very fast but has limitations - must be used for Ascending, case insensitive sorts, where blank lines are removed. 1.2 11-Jan-98 Fix a long standing but very elusive problem to do with "DateEncode" errors which occured on some machines under some conditions. Once I could replicate the error, it was reasonably straight forward to get a workaround for what was another bug in Delphi. (3,177 lines of code.) 1.3 17-Apr-2001 Add in support for "Big Fonts" and "Other Sized Fonts" - with these Windows resizes the windows automatically - but only sometimes and it doesn't always do it right, so now I make sure my main window is the right size before doing any scaling, etc. i.e. I make it fit the component(s) that extend the furthest right and furthest down the form. See the Start Menu -> Settings -> Control Pannel -> Display -> Settings Tab -> "Advanced" button -> "General" tab for your PC's settings in this area. Bring program up-to-date with my latest code libraries. Add in checkbox option to Remove Duplicate entries. Add in checkbox option to auto-minimise "Sort It Out" following the sort. Add in checkbox option to Trim Tabs / spaces at start / end of lines. Add in an "Exit" button. Fix hanging / locking up of program when clipboard / sort buffer is empty. Make "Sorted Lines" and "Elapsed Secs" edit boxes Read-only. Change the mouse cursor to an hourglass during the sort. Fix program hanging when the clipboard is empty. Add in an "Exit" button. Add in Form and Component Scaling when the program's main window is resized - really Cool !! Add in "Always On Top" functionality - available from the "File" menu. (8,943 lines of code / comments.) 1.3b 20-Nov-2002 Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. (35,177 lines of code / comments.) 1.3f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. 1.4f 3-Dec-2012 Add in the ability to remove leading and trailing spaces, tabs, etc from every line before it is sorted. Add the ability to remove duplicates from the sorted results - something I have needed to do a lot of lately. Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. (67,168 lines of code / comments.) 1.5f 16-Jul-2013 Add in "Do *NOT* Sort" as a option in the Sort Method dropdown box. This is for when you want to process text from the clipboard (and remove duplicates, trim off white space, etc according to the other settings) but not actually sort the text. I have needed to do this a lot lately, so I added the functionality in to this program, Sort It Out. Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. (54,920 lines of code, comments, and blank lines.) If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose ____________________________________________________