Ibidem custom format
Johan Thom
I recently bought a new computer and copied my existing NB 4.5 to the new
computer. Until now, everything seemed to work. Today I tried to generate a
bibliography using a custom format (.FOR) file. When I get to the point
where I have to choose the .FOR file to be used, I get an error message, "No
.FOR files saved." There are, however, at least 15 .FOR files in the NB4
directory. Does anybody have an idea of what the problem may be? The only
serious difference between my new configuration and the previous one that I
can think of, is that the new one uses FAT32 instead of FAT16.
Johan Thom
University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Dr. Enrique Lynch
I have recently posted a similar problem to the List and received a
couple of suggestions. Just tested one, by Pieter Botha which I am
now sharing with you. I am pleased to say it solves the problem
completely. After following Pieter instructions Ibid. now merges
.FOR files normally:
.....................................................................
Dear Enrique Lynch
I noticed that your problem of "No FOR files saved" corresponds with
working on a new machine. Try the following; if it helps I will
appreciate it if you'll let me know.
Make a backup copy of the file NBIBID.HLP.
(this is in the \NB4 directory)
Open NBIBID.HLP and switch to Expanded Mode (S+F8)
Search for the string |se char.|
(note the double space between "se" and "char.")
Delete the full stop after "char" and repeat.
(there should be only two instances).
Save the file, quit and reload NB.
....................................................................
Furthermore, let me thank again J-P Takala for his help.
Regards,
Dr. Enrique Lynch
Departamento de Historia de la Filosofía, Estética y Filosofía de la Cultura
Universidad de Barcelona
Johan Thom
Thanks to Enrique Lynch and Pieter Botha for their help! Pieter's hint did
the trick. How on earth did the period find its way into the help file?
Johan Thom
University of Stellenbosch
Jukka-Pekka Takala
NOW I know why the problem seemed familiar: the "no .FOR files saved"
problem was discussed and a working solution found on this list already
in March 1997. (I did make now some suggestions to Enrique but did not
remember the helpful one.)
Everyone who plans to use a big drive for Ibid(em) datafiles might
encounter the same problem. This is how Tim Moore reported of the
solution and the anatomy of the problem in March 1997:
> Eureka! and thanks. Your information about the meaning of "se char."
> in the help file (i.e. that it was like "se /char./" on the action
> line) enabled me to make appropriate checks. The answer is curious. Our
> bibliographic data files are stored on a hard disk which happens to have
> more than one gigabyte of free space. The result of this is that at the
> bottom of the directory listing on the NB screen, the dot of "char."is
> overwritten by the "1" of at least one gigabyte. Therefore, "char." is
> not found, and we (misleadingly) get the message "no .FOR file saved". I
> have erased the dot from NBIBID.HLP, and it now works properly.
Well, of course there IS another solution: fill your big drive with junk
files so that the free space is reduced to less than one GB :-)
j-p takala
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jukka-Pekka Takala
Johan Thom writes:
> Thanks to Enrique Lynch and Pieter Botha for their help! Pieter's hint did
> the trick. How on earth did the period find its way into the help file?
I assume it was to make sure that the cursor goes to the end of the
directory and does not stop on a filename such as "CHARACTS FOR"
-- and nobody happened to test it on a file with more than 1 GB free
space. Ultimately, the problem derives from the fact that the last line of
NB's directory display is designed to show neatly only less than 100
MB free space.
By the way, deleting the trailing dot from "se char." entails the
possibility that the cursor will land on a filename that contains the
string "CHAR"; so it might be safer to turn it into something like this:
"sea Char". Even more robust would be to search for a long string of
hyphens ("sea /------------/"), but then one would have to modify some
of the following cursor movement commands as well.
j-p takala
Jukka-Pek...@Helsinki.fi
James Ernest
Or add some wild numbers to the search string (WN-WN-space-Char)?
James
>----------
>From: Jukka-Pekka Takala[SMTP:jta...@CC.HELSINKI.FI]
>Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 1998 12:37 AM
>To: Multiple recipients of list NOTABENE
>Subject: Re: Ibidem custom format