WS/KAMAS:  The WordStar - KAMAS Affair

by Dick Ezzard

Introduction 

     The new version of KAMAS (release 1.2) has been slimmed down 
and made more compatible with WordStar. It is therefore much more 
useful to me and I believe I will be working with KAMAS more and 
more now. I am now able to use WordStar to take notes on a 
general topic over a period of time, and then use KAMAS to 
structure-edit such notes by putting them in a logical order for 
presentation or study. 

     This article is about how to expedite the movement of text 
material back and forth between WordStar and KAMAS. Such 
operations are necessary if one wants to take advantage of the 
respective strengths of both programs. KAMAS is good for 
rearranging files of text, not so good on text entry, editing, 
output formatting and printing. WordStar does those jobs well but 
is a bear on rearrangement. Together KAMAS and WordStar provide a 
complete set of tools for the text manipulator.  Although 
WordStar and KAMAS are not yet married, they now seem to be 
stepping out together.  

     The rest of this article pre-supposes a working knowledge of 
both KAMAS and WordStar. The operations are described in general 
terms and you will have to translate those operations into actual 
command keystrokes yourself. This is not a "how to run KAMAS 
article" but rather a how to do something with KAMAS after you 
know how to run it article. 

Note Entry 

     First enter your notes in "manuscript" or "journal" files 
using WordStar. Enter notes in any convenient order, as ideas 
occur to you, or as you come across relevant material while 
reading or researching. You may format notes as you enter them 
or, if more convenient, go back and format notes later. My 
"manuscript" files have minimum formatting since they are 
designed for editing, not for output. 

     A good format for WordStar notes: Set margins to wrap at a 
convenient screen width. 80 columns crams more context on the 
screen, but may be difficult to read. I use 65 which looks fine 
and is often a good width for printing to paper at a later stage. 

     The vertical format is predicated on the notion that a note 
should be like a paragraph, the expression of a single idea. 
Separate your one-idea notes by two strikes of the <RETURN> key 
at the end of each note. This puts a blank line between notes, so 
that each note has a top and bottom edge for handling as a 
separate building brick in some larger edifice. 

     Put descriptive titles on your notes. This can be done as 
you enter during original entry, or at a later time. Sometimes it 
is expeditious to enter stuff in one massive block, typing as 
fast as you can. Then later you go back and break out the 
individual notes and add titles. 

     A title is conveniently entered as a WordStar double dot 
comment line (a line which begins with two periods) on a line 
directly above the note itself. For KAMAS a title should include 
a short unique classifying key and optionally, an explanatory 
subtitle which is indicative of what the note is about. Adopt the 
Kamas convention of separating the key and the subtitle with the 
backslash \ character. 

     Although KAMAS literature states that a too-long key or 
subtitle will be automatically truncated, during my operations I 
have found it necessary to take care to keep keys under 31 
characters in length and to keep subtitles under 63 characters. 
Otherwise KAMAS aborts during the process of importing the file. 

     Your notes should now look like this: A double dot line with 
a key and a subtitle separated by a backslash, followed by a 
paragraph-like note which starts on the very next line after the 
title and ends with two carriage returns, so that a blank line 
separates the end of one note from the double dot header line of 
the next note. Followed by another note. And so forth. 

     By-the-way, this format is a good format for the keeping of 
notes even if you are not going to use KAMAS as your main 
rearrange tool. The blank line between notes expedites the block 
marking of notes within WordStar, since you can then mark the 
beginning and end of notes using just vertical motions of the 
cursor. (When the cursor encounters the blank line it snaps to 
the leftmost column automatically). Once a note is marked as a 
block there are several techniques you can use to throw it to 
various locations in a file. 

Transition to KAMAS

     However, KAMAS is a very good tool for rearrangement of a 
text file which has notes headed by keys and titles. And most of 
my notes need rearrangement from time to time, since the original 
order of entry was seldom the most interesting order for 
presentation. And the original order of entry has never yet been 
the most logical order for remembering as an organized body of 
knowledge. KAMAS can structure and organize my notes. 
     
     To prepare a file for export to KAMAS you use three special 
dot commands. They are ..IN (insert next), ..ID (insert down), 
and finally ..GU (go up). The simplest way to prepare a file is 
to use the ID command on the top three or four notes to establish 
several levels in your logical hierarchy. Then just use IN for 
the rest of the notes. When you get into KAMAS it is a simple 
matter to just promote and demote notes to their correct logical 
level. 

     Since your notes are all preceded by a double dot header 
line, just add those special commands to the header lines. Use a 
WordStar Find and Replace to find ^N.. and replace it with 
^N..ID<sp>, for the three or four top notes. Then do find ^N.., 
replace with ^N..IN<sp> for 99 or 999 notes (pick a number bigger 
than you have notes). Your notes now have titles and KAMAS dot 
commands so they can be exported to a KAMAS file. 

     After your existing notes are configured, you can enter a 
list of supertitles, main headings which will have no individual 
note attached, but which will be a higher order heading under 
which you will want to group several notes. For example, if you 
have notes on roses, peonies, and snapdragons you may wish to 
make a heading called "Flowers." Enter your list of main headings 
anywhere in your WordStar file, configuring each header as a 
double dot IN line. (..IN Flowers, for example.) You can group 
your notes under these main headings after you get everything 
into a KAMAS file. If you don't have any main headers in mind 
right now, don't worry, you can always add them after you get to 
the reorganization stage in KAMAS. 

On the KAMAS Side

     Exit WordStar and run KAMAS. Open a KAMAS topic large enough 
to hold your notes. This should be at least three times the size 
of your raw text file. (If the text file was 20k, open a 60k 
KAMAS topic.) Use the new KAMAS FINPUT utility and bring the 
formatted WordStar note file into your new empty KAMAS topic at 
the top level (give the TOPIC name at the Branch prompt). 

     Then use the outline editing facilities of KAMAS to massage 
and re-order your notes by moving the titles around. 

     Depending on how many levels you descended, your note file 
will now appear as a list of headings, probably most on one level 
of indentation. Use your KAMAS commands to promote, demote, move 
and shuffle the headers. Expand and collapse your outline as 
desired for manipulation. Of course your notes are dragged around 
with their headers during this structure editing. However, unless 
it is absolutely necessary, you will do well to avoid editing the 
notes themselves (called "leafs" in KAMAS parlance). Save note 
editing for WordStar. Do Outline Editing in KAMAS. 

     When you are ready to send the now-structured and arranged 
notes back to WordStar for polishing and formatting, select the 
KAMAS Outfile Branch command to do it. Yes, KAMAS has several 
alternative commands which will export a file to CP/M and 
WordStar. But each export method has its own output format, 
differing on such things as the number of blank lines between 
major headings and subheadings, headers and their notes, etc. 
Experimentation has shown that for purposes of restoring the file 
to a nice WordStar-editable configuration, the KAMAS OB command 
from within the topic outline, with the cursor at the top of the 
topic, is the best solution. Do it. 

Back in WordStar

     When you leave KAMAS and again edit the file with WordStar, 
you will find some changes have taken place. All carriage return 
line endings will be "hard" as far as WordStar is concerned. 
There will be two blank lines between notes and between major 
headings. There will be one blank line between a note and its own 
header. The double dots designating headers have disappeared and 
so have the backslashes which separated keys from subtitles in 
headers. Perhaps the file is usable in its present configuration. 
If so, just edit it for format and output and be done with it. 

     If you want to restore the file to its previous (prior to 
KAMAS) condition, use the public domain utility ENSOFT.COM to 
make the notes themselves reformable. Then edit the file with 
WordStar's D mode and find and replace ^N^N with a single ^N. Do 
this throughout the file and you will end up with all major 
headers separated by single blank lines, and notes once again 
attached to their noteheaders. This single Find and Replace 
wouldn't work to restore the spacing if you selected one of 
KAMAS's other output modes. You could get there, but it will take 
more editing. 

     To restore all the headers to their double dot comment line 
configuration, just do find and replace ^N^N, replace with ^N^N.. 
That's two line endings, two dots. Voila, your WordStar 
manuscript file is back in shape, ready for re-transport to KAMAS 
and another re-organization if you add the appropriate KAMAS dot 
commands. 

     For printing or electronic presentation, I usually leave my 
manuscript file alone, open a file with the extension PRN, and 
read the manuscript into it. Then I gussie up this PRN copy with 
whatever special formatting, printer control characters, dot 
commands, hyphenation, etc, seems to be required for this 
particular occasion of presentation.  If I don't want all those 
little double dot headers (which were convenient aids to 
organization, but may be clutter to a reader), I strip 'em out by 
printing the file to a PRN disk file.  

     At some point I may have too many versions of a file.  There 
will be the KAMAS topic, and one or more dolled up PRN versions 
for outputting to the printer or via modem to a typesetter, or 
whatever.  Plus the minimum format, signposted manuscript file.  
When the time comes to cull the redundant files I always decide 
in favor of my personal manuscript working copy.  The manuscript 
is still simple, standard, eminently editable, and easily 
transported back to KAMAS should the need arise.  Or copied for 
fixing up to print in some special way.  

     It turns out that KAMAS is a great partner for WordStar to 
visit once in a while to get files reorganized.  Maybe marriage 
is not in the offing, but the relationship is getting serious.  

     END OF WORDSTAR/KAMAS AFFAIR ARTICLE