This is the second public release of Softfile 3 for Windows.

1. Editing a page
   To edit a page, click the green button. The button will turn red and stay depressed. Click it again when you are finished editing the page.
   
   There are menu alternatives to the edit button:
   
   Edit > Here and Edit > Done.
   
   You must edit a page in order to change the title or the rest of the text, or to create new links.
   
   The button will be gray when you cannot change the current page. You cannot change Web pages, local files, or protected Softfile pages.
   
   In order to edit a Web page or a local file, you can convert it to a Softfile page using the menu choice:
   
   File > Save As Softfile Page.
   
   
2. Creating a link
   To create a link, first display the page you wish to link to. Click the Target button.
   
   Then go to the page where you want to add the link. Click the green Edit button to edit the page. Select the words where the link should be. Click the Link button (to the right of the Target button). Finally, click the red Edit button again to finish editing the page.
   
   The keyboard alternatives are: Ctrl+T to set the target, Ctrl+E to create the link.
   
   
3. The Softfile database
   To back up the database, back up the file soft.sdb. All the other files can be reconstructed from that file if necessary.
   
   In this version of Softfile 3, the program and the database must be in the same folder. Also, the database name must be soft.sdb.
   
   
4. Reminder dates
   To set a reminder date, choose Page > Set Reminder Date from the menu. A "date picker" control is now used to let you select a date from a calendar.
   
   When you choose View > Reminders, you will see a list of the pages whose reminder date is on or before today.
   
   The list of reminders is created when you run the program remind.exe from outside of Softfile, or you can use the command File > Update Reminders. If you turn on your computer every day, you can put a shortcut to remind.exe in your Startup group. If you leave your computer on, you can use the Windows task scheduler to run it each morning.
   
   In this version, Softfile checks the reminder list when it starts up. If you haven't updated the reminders today, Softfile will run remind.exe for you. This may cause a delay. You will avoid this delay if you update the reminders automatically.
   
   
5. Creating tables
   To create a table, choose Insert > Table from the menu. The initial cell content chooses whether to put a label (A1, B1, etc.) or a blank space (the HTML non-break space) in each cell. Either way, you will probably want to delete that content when you add your own information to the cell. (A table cannot be created properly without putting something in each cell.)
   
   To add or delete rows or columns in an existing table, choose Format > Table from the menu. If the page has more than one table, put the cursor in the table you wish to change before you use the command, so Softfile knows which table to change.
   
   
6. Encrypting pages
   A Softfile page can be password-protected. With the page displayed, choose Page > Encrypt from the menu. You will be prompted to enter a password twice. The "password" can be a single word or several words.
   
   Once you have encrypted the page, you will be asked to enter the password each time you wish to view the page. If you enter the wrong password, the page will appear as seemingly random characters.
   
   The title of an encrypted page is not encrypted. Because the words of the title are indexed, you can do a word search to find the page. The title of the page will appear on the search results page. You only need the password to view the page itself.
   
   The words on an encrypted page are not indexed, so you cannot search for them.
   
   How secure is it? It is unlikely that anyone but a cryptographer would be able to read your encrypted page unless they knew (or could guess) the password. However, there are two ways in which the information on the page might remain on your hard disk, unencrypted, even after the page is encrypted.
   
   First, when you encrypt a page initially, the Softfile database will still contain the deleted, unencrypted text. Choose File > Compact Database to remove the deleted text from the database. Since the old database is saved as soft.bak when you compact the database, the unencrypted text is still there. Choose File > Compact Database again to get rid of the unencrypted text completely.
   
   Second, the word index may contain words from the encrypted page. Every word on a Softfile page is indexed. When you encrypt a page, the word index is updated to remove references to that page. However, the words themselves are not deleted from the word index. That could reveal information about the page if the words themselves are important. For example, if the page contains an account number or a personal identification number (PIN), that number will appear in the word index. To completely remove words that appeared on an encrypted page from the word index, use the menu command File > Rebuild Word Index.
   
   Note that these two ways in which your text might be discovered only apply to text that was entered before the page was encrypted. If you encrypt a blank page, then enter the text, the contents will be secure from the start.
   
   
7. Adobe Reader
   If the Adobe Reader is set to display PDF files in the browser window (which is an option in Adobe Reader), this setting will apply to Softfile, too.
   
   When Softfile is displaying a PDF file, choosing File > Save As Softfile Page will create a Softfile page with the Adobe Reader embedded in the page.
   
   You may prefer to set Adobe Reader so it does not display PDF files in the browser window. To do this, double-click any PDF file on your local hard disk. Choose Edit > Preferences from the Adobe Reader menu. Click Internet or Options from the left column. On the right, in the frame Web Browser Options, uncheck Display PDF in Browser. Click OK.

1. Some minor problems were found after the release of Softfile V3.04. They are fixed in V3.05, which is available as a free update. To update, choose File > Update in Softfile.
   
   
2. Occasionally you may see this error message:

   Timed out waiting for page to be ready

   It may occur when Softfile attempts to display a page that loads very slowly.
   
   
3. We recommend that you install the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Adobe Reader. Softfile Version 3.04 was tested with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Adobe Reader 6.0.
   
   Even if you do not use Internet Explorer as your Web browser, Softfile shares components with Internet Explorer, so you should install the latest version for the best reliability and security.