The Varta Guide - By TomTom

The Varta Guide
Tutorial
The Varta Guide has a straightforward, intuitive interface. As such, the fastest way to show you what it can do is by example. We will therefor show you how you would go about finding a suitable hotel in Berlin, and then a good vegetarian restaurant near that hotel.
1. Looking for a hotel in Berlin
Pull down the "hot list" in the top left corner and select Berlin. You are instantly presented with a list of Berlin restaurants and hotels. They are sorted by district (starting with the "city center"), and within each district they are sorted by quality - first the hotels, then the restaurants.
There are many choices, so let's be a bit more demanding: as it is very hot this time of year, let's make sure the hotel rooms have air-conditioning. Furthermore, a room with video-on-demand and a modem connection would be nice. And let's go for at least three stars.
Press the "find" button at the bottom of the screen.
A search dialog will pop up. Press RESET to clear any previous search criteria, then mark "Hotels" and "In current selection", and set "Varta stars" to "3 or more":
Next, press the "properties" tab at the bottom. You will now be presented with dozens of options, facilities and amenities. Scroll down to the section "hotel rooms", and checkmark "modem/fax connection", "video/pay-TV" and "Air-conditioning".
Then press "OK". Congratulations, you have just reduced the selection to some 12 hotels - 9 in the city center, and a few in other districts.
Let's click on "four seasons", the highest quality hotel that matches your criteria, and view all the information available about it. You can click on any item to get more information.
Or, if you prefer, use the menu option "Tools:Options..." and enable "icon descriptions" to always show the facilities and amenities in textual format:
Let's assume the "Four Seasons" hotel is to your liking (if your device is capable of going on-line, click on the web site address to make a reservation!). So now it is time to find a nice restaurant in the neighborhood.
First note that the "four seasons" has a restaurant in-house, called "Seasons".
Click on this link to see what "Seasons" has to offer:
Well, it does offer vegetarian cuisine, and they do accept MasterCard... but as it is very hot, it would be nice if you could eat out on the terrace.
2. Finding a restaurant near your hotel.
Go back to the "four seasons" entry (e.g. by pressing the "see also" link at the bottom of the "Seasons" entry) and press the "find" button. Press RESET and ask the guide to look for "restaurants", "near Four Seasons", offering "Vegetarian cuisine",
and on the "properties" tab, checkmark Terrace (under "Facilities") and Mastercard (under "Payment"). Then press "OK".
You are now presented with a list of matching restaurants, ordered by distance to the "Four Seasons". The closest (easily within walking distance) is "Le Grand Restaurant". Simply click on it to view the details, check our the prices, and get the address, telephone number or web site link.
3. Personalizing the Varta Guide
Now that you have got the general idea, it just remains for us to summarize some other useful capabilities of the Varta Guide. We heartily recommend that you select "Options..." from the "Tools menu" and take a few minutes to personalize your Varta Guide.
Showing or hiding details
The first options tab, called "General" offers options to show or hide certain details. For instance, if you don't drive, you might as well disable any "Parking" information from being displayed.
Miles, Kilometers and "search nearby" criteria
The third options tab, "distances", allows you to select either kilometers or miles as your preferred unit for distances. You can also restrict the search for hotels and restaurants "near" a certain location. For example, some people dislike being presented with search results that are more than 10 miles away.
Favourite currency
In the fourth options tab, "currencies", you can specify your favourite currency. All prices in the Varta Guide will be converted to and displayed in the currency you specify here. A number of currencies and exchange rates have been provided, but if the currency you prefer is not in the list, or if the name or exchange rate has changed, simply enter the correct name and exchange rate on the second and third lines.
Search defaults
The second options tab offers two distinct ways of controlling the "properties" tab of the "find dialog". There are two lists, one for when you search hotels, and one for when you search restaurants. You can change the status by tapping on a criterium to one of the following:

| Always set this criterium. When you press RESET in the search dialog, this criterium will be checkmarked rather than cleared. It is useful for criteria that you always (or almost always) want to include in your searches. For example: checkmark the credit cards you own, so your searches will never result in hotels or restaurants that do not accept them;
| Always clear this criterium. When you press RESET in the search dialog, this criterium will be cleared.
| Never set or even ask me about this criterium. Not only will this criterium be cleared, it will not even be shown in the list. As a result, your search dialog will become shorter and more to the point. There may be quite a few criteria that you have no intention of setting in the forseeable future since they do not relate to you - whether it is "dogs allowed" or "Visa card accepted", "Baby sitter available" or "handicapped-person facilities" - unless such criteria have a direct, personal meaning for you, you may wish to disable them here.

Adding personal notes
The menu option "Tools:Note..." allows you to attach personal notes to the currently highlighted hotels or restaurants. The same option can be used to edit or clear the note as well.
Exporting address information to your Contacts database.
If you tap-and-hold any word or symbol of hotel or restaurant information, a context menu will pop up. The option "Contacts" allows you to export the address information of the current entry to your Contacts database.
Finding locations near GPS co-ordinates
The menu option "Tools:Find Near Co-ordinates..." allows you to enter a longitude and lattitude, and look for hotels and restaurants in order of distance from that location.
The co-ordinates initially shown in this dialog are the co-ordinates of the hotel or restaurant that is currently highlighted.

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