|
 |
Frequently Asked Questions |
 |
|
We've have received a lot of great feedback about Wacky-Base.
I also get quite a few frequently asked questions (FAQ)
and this FAQ should cover most of your questions.
There is quite a bit of info in the help menus,
there is a help menu on most screens. |
 |
The Main Wacky-Base screen:
Most of the Wacky Packages stickers are built into Wacky-Base (make sure to download the add-on packs).
You can navigate between fields with the 'Tab' button on your keyboard.
Some series had a few different backings to the stickers such as tan or white. Series 1 & 2 also had Ludlow backings and these are pretty rare. Each card is listed seperately with different backings (if the card has different backings).
If you want to track other Wacky Package series that are not in the database, just hit the 'New' icon and fill in the info.
If the Wacky series you want to enter is not listed in the drop down series box, just click on edit at the bottom of the list. This will bring up a list box and you can add your series at the bottom. Click the end of the last word and hit enter, then fill in your series name and click OK. Your new series is ready to use. This will work for backing and year. This way you can keep track of other Wacky and Non-Wacky items that may not be cards, such as Wacky T-Shirts, Patches, & Wacky art. If you add a Non-Wacky sticker you don't have to select a backing. It is up to you.
The book value for each card is already listed. There will be update pricing in the future since Book Values will change over time. If you feel a price is too low, you can always change the book value for any card.
Keep an eye on eBay, www.wacky-packs.com www.wackypackages.org and for the latest book value's. If you find for example that your series 1 Bandaches Red Ludlow is going through the roof, just change the book value.
To add a card that you own, first search for the card you have then click on the add new card button and your card will be on the list. You can then add card grading, price paid, & purchase date. You can also select if you want to sell this card or if you have sold this card.
Grading is subjective to the user. I have included Tom Moore's (www.wacky-packs.com) Grader to help you grade your cards. Just click on the 'Grade' button and use the card grader to grade your card. When you hit the back button after grading a card it will ask you if you want to save the grade to the card. Once you save the grade, the graded value will change based on the grade of the card. You can override the grade by clicking on grading and select the grade for this card. The grade criteria from the card grader will show up in the grade notes field.
There are check boxes labeled set and puzzle. The set check box is to designate whether this record is a whole set. If for example you enter '2004 Series 1 Set' as the name, just click on 'Set'. This was setup so people don't have to enter quantity 1 for each card when they have the set, they can just click on 'Set'. Series 1-16 are already setup with their 'Set' record. I used the 'Set' button so the sets wouldn't interfere with the 'Price Guide by Series' report. If you check off the 'Set' button for a set it will show up as one of the cards for the series in this report.
The other check box is labeled puzzle. This is exactly the same reason as the 'Set' check box. It will not show up as a card in the series on the price guide report. Also you can keep track of your puzzle set (they are already setup for series 1-16) or you could create your own records for individual puzzle pieces from each series by making a duplicate record and renaming the puzzle. |
 |
The puzzle pieces were never numbered, but some people have their own numbering system, so you could scan in each puzzle piece and number them 1-9. You could then name each puzzle piece as such 'Series 2 Puzzle Piece 3' and number it 3. If you need a few to complete the puzzle check the 'want' check box so it will show up on your 'want list report'. Also make sure to select the series for this new puzzle piece. Another good practice is if you are adding other items such as wrappers, checklists, & misc. Just check the puzzle check box. It will not effect the card in any way on the reports, but it will keep your 'price guide by series' clean since this report will omit any puzzle and sets that are checked. Think of Puzzle as misc. item.
All the pictures for most series have been imputed into Wacky-Base. If you don't like the picture or want to scan in only your collections you can click on the 'Insert Picture' button and import your card. You can also click on the picture to enlarge the picture. If you just removed or added a picture or clicked on either of the buttons, clicking on the picture to enlarge may not work and that is because it thinks you are still working with the picture. You can just click on any other field on the screen or hit the 'Tab' button on your keyboard. Once inside the enlarge picture screen you can use the navigation buttons on the right to flip between cards. If you only want to see the cards you own, click on the 'show only my wacky's' icon and then you can flip between cards you own. If you want to go back to viewing all the cards, click on show all records. Hit back when finished.

The navigation buttons on the right side will allow you to flip between records. If you want to go to a specific record just click the 'Select #' button and type in the record number. First is first record in the database and last is the last record in the database. All the records are sorted so they will be in order by series to keep things clean. The label on the bottom will either say unique or duplicate. This will tell you if this card is a duplicate so you can decide if you want to delete it. The duplicate checker is setup so you can tell if a record is a duplicate. This will help if you think you have 2 of the same cards as different records. You cannot delete unique records. This is set to keep the integrity of the database. If you create a duplicate and change the backing it will change to unique. If you need to delete the record later you can change the backing to match a common card and then it will change to duplicate and allow you to delete the record.
You can also keep track of notes for any card, such as 'this card is rare' or 'I bought this from John Doe'. It is up to you. These notes will also carry over to the reports.
The 'Card Rating' box allows you to rate your card on how you like it. 4 is the best. You can also change or add to the ratings by choosing edit from the drop down list. I don't recommend this, but you can add or change any of these ratings. One note if you want to use an '*' as a star it will mess up the report and you can't do a search for '*' since '*' to this database works as a wildcard for searching. This means if you were searching for a name such as Joe Bazooka, you could search for Joe* and it will find all Joe's in the database. More on this in the find menu section.
|
 |
Find Record Mode:
This screen is just that. A way to find any Wacky's in your database. Important - This will be your main card lookup screen, use this to find any wacky's. The main screen is used to add new cards, the find screen is to lookup cards by name, series, year, want, sell, set, puzzle, & sold. Once you go into find mode all the fields will be blank, they are waiting for your search criteria. If you want to find all 'Series 3', just click on the series field and select 'Series 3' then hit the 'Enter' key. Now you can use the navigation buttons on the right to flip through all of 'Series 3'. If you want to do another search you can click 'Cancel Find' and hit the 'Find' button again and all the fields will go blank.
If you are searching for all 'Series 1' with 'Tan' backing. Click 'Series 1' and 'Tan' Backing and hit ENTER.
If you want to search for a name of a card but don't know the whole name you can type in any of the letters, such as 'set' will bring up all the names that have the word 'set' in it. Just hit the 'Enter' key after you type in 'set'.
If you want to see only the cards you own, just click on the 'own' checkbox. Do not use the individual card data checkboxes such as trade or sold. Use the checkboxes on top.
If you want to search for all cards you want, just click on the 'want' check box and hit enter.
If you want to search for cards you have sold you can click the 'sold' checkbox and/or you can search by dates such as:

>1/1/2004' or <5/1/2003.
> means greater than and < means less than.
You can even search by your card ratings. If you want to see all your 4 star cards, just click on '4' in the drop down list box and hit the 'Enter' key.
Remember to only do a find when all the fields are blank, this way you know you are in 'Find Mode'. If you are not sure, hit the 'Find' button on top. Also if you change anything on any of the records it will be permanent, there is no save button.
Find is also used to find a card and make changes to it. |
|
Reports:
There are tabs for the type of report you are looking for. Click on any of the tabs and then refine your report by clicking on any of the checkboxes. Then click on view report.
Once you pull up a report you will have a report navigator. This navigator can be moved around the screen just by clicking on the left mouse button on the top blue border and holding down the mouse button and moving the mouse.
The report navigator allows you to move between pages with the << < > >> keys. If your report is long you can click on the page number and type in a page.
To scroll through a report use the up and down arrows on the far right of the navigator.
You can select whether to print the report or just click cancel.
The reports that have a 'smaller' by them will produce a much smaller print for your printer. To select those reports just click on the 'smaller' button next to the report.
On the main reports menu there is a button that is called 'Wacky Price Guide', this will take you to the price guide reports for Series 1-16/Die-Cuts. You can look at any price guide by selecting the series and the backing. This is a great tool when searching through eBay auctions to get a quick snapshot of a set.
The 'Wacky Sets List' goes through your database looking for all the 'sets' check boxes you have marked and will give you a complete list.
A few others have asked if I plan on having an upload to a PDA such as a Pocket PC or a Palm Pilot. This is something I am working on now. The problem I have run into is keeping the cost down. Since this is a database you would need some type of database program on your PDA. I don't want to re-invent the wheel when it comes to PDA database's and all the PDA database programs cost more than Wacky-Base. I will keep working on this project and see what I can come up with.
Another question was in regards to having Wacky-Base at home and one at the office. Is there an easy way to auto sync. The simple answer is it is not built into Wacky-Base for various reasons, one is data integrity. The easiest way to accomplish this is to purchase (2) Wacky-Base's (since each one is married to your PC) and copy the wacky-base 1.usr or wacky-base deluxe.usr file from your program files/wacky-base folder from home to work or visa versa. You can send this by email, burn this to CD-Rom, use a memory stick, or zip disk and copy it to the other computer. If you change the data at work, just do the same procedure so you can have the same data in both places. It works great and is very easy to do. You shouldn't try to sync using the backup and restore since it may give you double records. |
 |
| Card Care: Screwdowns are nice, but be warned, if your card is slightly too large or irregularly shaped by the slightest, you card can over lap the plastic holder and the edges can be damaged, place the card into the holder and observe that none of the corners or sides are overlapping. |
 |
Questions and Answers |
 |
|
| Before updating your version of Wacky-Base make sure to read UPDATE PROCEDURE. |
 |
Question: When prices change will you have an update to change market value prices for commons? Yes
Question: I can't seem to search for the card I am looking for. I bring up Wacky-Base and I have to hit the next button several times to find the card. What is wrong with the navigation?
Absolutly nothing. To search for any card you need to click on FIND, this will bring up your search engine. This is where you will spend all of your research and card entry time. The main Wacky-Base screen is really for adding new cards. From the FIND screen you can search by any criteria such as search by series or name.
If for instance you are searching by series click on the series you want to view and hit the enter key. Now you can hit the navigation buttons on the right side to flip through cards for that series.
You can also do multiple searches such as 'Series' and 'Backing'; just click on the series you want to search and then click on the backing and it will find all cards in your database that matches the series and backing. If for example you want to find all the cards you have from series 2 just click on 'series 2' and then check the 'own' checkbox and then hit the 'ENTER' key. It couldn't be simpler.
The easiest way to enter cards is through find cards. This way you can select your series and backing of your cards and hit enter. Then you can just flip through that series and enter your cards.
Question: I have imported my trade list from another person. How can I make the list bigger or open it in Excel.
You can just click on the image of the Excel sheet and it will take you to an enlarge screen. You can then either double click on the Excel sheet to make changes or right click on the Excel sheet to open in Excel. Then you can view and make changes along with printing the report. |
 |
Question: I keep getting this nagging 'do you want to save' message, how can I make this go away?
There is an unlock check box in the upper right hand corner that you can check so that when you make a change to any of the fields you will not get the save message. This is independent for each Wacky Package sticker so you can select the ones you want to unlock.
By default all fields are locked, but when you hit the new or duplicate button the new record will be unlocked. The field lockdown is for each field on the screen, so if you have a record locked and make 5 field changes it will ask you 5 times for each field you changed if you want to save the changes.
If you don't want this just click the unlock check box.
Question: I just printed an HTML report and an Excel report but I don't know were they went.
They are in your 'my reports' folder. This folder is in your Wacky-Base program folder. You can either click on start/my programs/wacky-base deluxe/my reports or go to the install folder of Wacky-Base and look for the 'my reports' folder.
If you have already purchased one copy of Wacky-Base and would like another copy for another computer, please email us at support@wacky-base.com and you can pay the difference between the single and double user license.
WOW that was quite a list. I hope you enjoy Wacky-Base as much as I enjoyed designing it. Wacky Packages was one of my all time favorite hobbies growing up and I am so glad they have returned.
Please send me any type of feedback. Wacky people have Wacky thoughts.
|
 |

| As always we welcome your input and suggestions! |
|
|