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For those who wish to do so, a great deal of your work in DONATION can be done without ever using the mouse. In many cases, once you learn how to do this, it is much faster than using the mouse.

 

Many keyboard shortcuts available in the program are obvious, because they are displayed alongside the menu items or on the text of buttons on the main window. Some of them are:

 

Key

Action

F1

Help Contents and Index

Shift+F1

Context-sensitive help on the currently active section of the main window

F2

Edit the mostly empty new donation displayed on the main window

F3

Add a new donor on the main window

F10

Save the current donor or donation you are editing

ESC

Cancel changes on the current donor or donation you are editing

Ctrl+F

Bring up a window to find a donor by any part of their name or their member / envelope number

 

Other keyboard shortcuts are standard shortcuts that work in most Windows programs:

 

Key

Action

Tab

Move from field to field in a form, e.g. between fields when editing a donor or a donation

Shift+Tab

Move backwards between fields in a form

Enter

"Clicks" the default button of a form, usually called Save, OK, etc. You can see which button is the default button because it has a darker border than the other buttons. Also saves the current donor or donation you are editing, like F10.

ESC

"Clicks" the "cancel" button of a form, usually called Cancel, Close etc.

 

Entering Donation Dates

 

You can type donation dates in directly, using the short date format set in the Windows Control Panel's Regional and Language Options. But you can also click on the calendar button to the right of the date, which pops up a calendar that you can use. Details on keystrokes you can use in the calendar are in Using the Popup Calendar to Enter Dates.

 

Special keys you can use to change the date in a date field itself (not the popup calendar) are:

 

•T, for Today, sets it to today's date
•+ increases it by one day
•- (minus/dash) decreases it by one day
•M, for Month, goes to the start of the current month, or if you are already on the start of a month, to the start of the previous month
•H, for montH, goes to the end of the current month, or if you are already on the end of a month, to the end of the next month
•Y, for Year, goes to the start of the current year, or if you are already on the start of a year, to the start of the previous year
•R, for yeaR, goes to the end of the current year, or if you are already on the end of a year, to the end of the next year

 

For all of these, it doesn't matter if you use the capital or small letter. And for + and -, it doesn't matter if you use the keys on the normal keyboard area, or the numeric keypad (if your keyboard has one), and whether or not they are shifted. (So for instance since in most keyboards + is the shifted = key, you can press =, without shifting, and it will still work to increase the date by one day.)

 

Another shortcut you can use is that you can omit the year when you are typing in a date, and it will assume it is for the current calendar year. So for instance if your date format is MM/DD/YYYY, and you want to enter January 31, you can type in just 1/31, and Tab or click out of the field, and it will add the year portion.

 

Entering Categories and Cheque # / Paid By

 

When you are entering drop-down fields in which you can only select values that are on the drop-down list, such as the Donation Category or Donor Category 1 or Category 2 fields, you can also use the keyboard. Just press the first letter of the category that you want to select, and it will appear. If there are multiple categories that start with the same letter, press that letter repeatedly, and it will cycle through the ones that start with that letter. You can also use the up and down arrow keys to move between the entries on the list.

 

For the Donation Cheque # / Paid By field, which also allows you to type in values (e.g. cheque numbers), the keyboard technique is slightly different. Type in a letter or letters that are the initial part of the value you want to select, e.g. "M" for MasterCard or "Mo" for Money Order - use enough to make it distinct. As you type, the first match from the drop-down list that starts with what you have typed will appear. When you see the desired value, just go on to the next field, or Save your changes.

 

Selecting Donors from the Donor List

 

For selecting a donor from the Donor List on the main window, you can search by last name or by member / envelope number (if you use them) easily. When the focus is in the Donor List (which is most of the time when you aren't editing a donor or donation), just start typing the last name, and it will immediately go to the donor whose name starts with what you have typed. What you are typing appears below the Donor List, beside the text "Find Name / #:".

 

For searching by member / envelope numbers, just type the number and it will go to the donor with that number. Note: If you have a donor with (say) member / envelope number 1 and another with number 10, then when you type the 1, it will go to the donor with number 1. When you type the 0 (making the displayed number 10) it will then move to the donor with number 10. (N.B. Versions of DONATION prior to version 3.00 had a weakness, where typing an initial part of a number could go to any donor whose number started with what you had typed so far, so for instance just typing 1 could have gone to the donor with number 10. That is no longer a problem.)

 

You can also move up and down the Donor List with the up and down arrow keys and PgUp / PgDn.

 

Using Underlined Letters in Menus and Buttons

 

If you see an underlined letter in a main menu option (such as File) or a button (such as Save), that means that you can activate that menu or button by holding down Alt and pressing the letter. E.g. Alt+F for File, Alt+S for Save.

 

In drop-down menu options, such as the options on the File menu, when there is an underlined letter, just press that letter when the menu has been displayed and the option will be selected. So, for instance to select One Date Batch Entry from the File menu, press Alt+F for File, then O for One Date Batch Entry. (It doesn't have to be a capital "O".)

 

If you are using Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 or 8, the default setting may be that you cannot see these underlined letters in menus or buttons unless you press and hold the Alt key. So, one option is to first press Alt so that you can see the underlined letters, then you can use the letter. (They work whether you can see them or not, however.)

 

In Windows XP, to switch to the setting where underlined letters are always visible, first right-click in any area of your Desktop that is empty, and pick Properties from the popup menu. On the Display Properties dialog that comes up, switch to the Appearance tab. Click the "Effects..." button. In the dialog that comes up, uncheck "Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key". Click OK twice to save your change.

 

In Windows Vista (at least the version I was able to test this on), go to the Start menu, pick Control Panel, then select the Ease of Access Center. From there, click on "Make the keyboard easier to use". From there, check the checkbox beside "Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys". Then click Save. Then you can close the Control Panel window.