ORGANIZING A PHONE BOOK WITH SUBSETS 95LX 100LX

SUBSET FEATURE ON THE HP 100LX

Suppose you're going on a trip to California and want a list of all your contacts there. Open PHONE and press (F6) to display the Subset menu. Press (F2) to Define the Subset you want to create. You are presented with the "Define Subset" screen.

Phone's Define Subset Screen: Graphic

 Notice that the screen presented looks the same as the data screen for an individual item. Use (<Tab>) to move the cursor to the desired field and enter the selection criteria. For this example, you can tab to the State field and enter =CA. (Equal sign means the field must contain CA and nothing else in the field.) Press (F10) after you've entered your selection criteria and you're asked to name the selection you've just defined. Give it a name like California contacts and press (ENTER) to return to the "View Subset" screen. Make sure California contacts is highlighted and press (ENTER) one more time to display a list of your California contacts. If you want a subset containing California and Washington contacts, you'd enter =CA,=WA in the State field. (The comma between =CA and =WA means either this one "or" that one.)

For more on using multiple criteria in a subset definition, see page 17-16 and section D in the HP 100LX User's Guide.

"ONLY" FEATURE CREATES SUBSETS ON THE HP 95LX

Creating subsets of the 95LX Phone Book database is a little more difficult because the Only search lists records with the specified characters found in any field. You have to plan ahead when you're entering information. For example, you can put all phone area codes in brackets. You can also put unique keywords (PROSPECT, CLIENT, VENDOR, etc.) into your data that will identify specific subsets of your database. Then you can do Only searches on those keywords.

You can create subsets of your 95LX Phone Book using the Only (F6) feature. Let's say you want to create a subset of your Phone Book that contained names of individuals in California. You've entered all you're addresses consistently (e.g. 105 West Broadway, Redondo Beach, CA 93456). Note that the State is a two letter abbreviation followed by an empty space. From the main PHONE Index screen, press (F6) (Only), type in CA (with a space after CA) and press (ENTER). You'll get a list of all your California addresses. (We had to specify the blank space after CA so the search wouldn't list entries with the words "Calvin", "Calcutta", or "Captain" in them.)

Rich Hall

Editor, The HP Palmtop Paper