Copyright: This file © Bernard Hill 26/01/97


 2TRUEDoghouseyesyesyesdhyesyes26/01/97


Table of Contents

The program - Displaying your reminders

Today format

other format

The program - editing your reminders

month

Quarter

Intervals

Table of Contents

What Data is stored?Registration

Startup group

Date formats


Removing Groups
Delete a group by minimising it, make sure it is highlighted, and press Del on the keyboard. Alternatively delete all the icons in the group, and with the title bar highlighted, press Del.


Initialisation File
The doghouse initialisation file (DOGHOUSE.INI) contains all the reminders and other settings. It is held in the Windows directory (usually C:\WINDOWS).


Removing Icons
Removing Icons: just single-click the icon and press Del on the keyboard


Uninstalling Doghouse

Uninstalling Doghouse is easy. It is just a matter of removing files and icons:

1	Remove the icon from your desktop. You may have icons in the Doghouse Group and/or Startup group

2	Remove the Doghouse Group

3	Delete the files in the Doghouse directory

4	Delete the Doghouse initialisation file.

No other files (such as "DLL"s) were installed when you loaded Doghouse onto your system.


short date format
The short date format is defined at Control Panel | International and is typically 13/8/97 (UK) or 8/13/97 (US). You can alter the separator (/) or the number of digits in the year (1997 vs 97) at this point, or the presence of leading zeroes (13/08/97) etc. However, changes in the Control Panel will change date formats in all your Windows programs.


long date formats
Removing Icons

Removing Groups

Initialisation File

The long date format is defined at Control Panel | International and is typically 13 Aug 97 or Wednesday, August 13th, 1997  You can alter the number of digits in the year (1997 vs 97) or whether the day is shown and how (Wed or Wednesday), how the month is shown (08 or 8 or Aug or August). However, changes in the Control Panel will change some date formats in all your Windows programs.


Date formats

The date formats which Doghouse uses are those which you have defined for your Windows setup, available under Control Panel | International or Control Panel | Regional for Windows 95.

For entry of dates in the editing screen, the format is the "short date format". Today's date is shown for you like this for reference as "Example date input format" in the cream panel.

The "long date format" is used for the heading on the main panel just above the message box.

Should you wish to have the day of the week showing at this point then change the "long date format" in Control Panel | International.

(By the way it's a good idea to use four-figure dates, eg "1997" not "97" in your date formats to get ready for the year 2000).


Startup group
The startup group is the box of icons on your Windows desktop which is labelled Startup. It contains icons of programs which will be run whenever Windows starts. This is a good place to put Doghouse. For the first few runs of Doghouse, it will offer to place itself in the Startup group, but if you want to do this later you can do it for yourself:

Make sure that your Doghouse icon (the Kennel without the arrow) is visible on screen and drag it across to the Startup group. When you release the mouse it will be saved in your startup group.


Registration

The registration price of this product is £12 UK. You can register by the following methods:

UK cheque for £12

Eurocheque for £12

Sending your credit card number and expiry date. You will be debited £12 or the equivalent in your own currency.

On compuserve, by typing GO SWREG,. $19 will be added to your next compuserve bill.

Send your card number to:

Braeburn Software

Hawthorn Bank

Scott's Place

SELKIRK

Scotland TD7 4DP

Tel (UK) 01750 721854

(Overseas) +44 1750 721854

Email: bhill@bcs.org.uk

Compuserve: braeburn

It is not recommended that credit card numbers be sent by open Internet, but Compuserve should be fine.

When you have your number, enter the name you sent to Braeburn Software and the Registration ID into the boxes and press OK. You will be able to use these same names and numbers in future releases of Doghouse.


Getting Started

First of all you need some data in your system, otherwise you will have "No messages today" whenever you run Doghouse!

Simply click the Edit button and at the green screen, type in your record:

Date of first anniversary

Interval to next anniversary (yearly, quarterly, monthly etc)

Number of days in advance you wish to be reminded

Your reminder message.

Then click Save and either Exit or add more with New

You will see your new message(s) on the display screen provided they are within the "advance warning" range.

It's that simple!


Table of Contents
DogHouse - Table of Contents

Getting Started

The program - Displaying your reminders

The program - Editing your reminders

What Data is stored?

Date formats

Registration

Uninstalling the program


Today format

The today format is the font in which today's messages are defined.

It can be changed with the Options | Font | Today title and today text.

The default colour is red.


other format

The "Other format" is the font in which messages which are not for today are displayed.


month
A monthly anniversary occurs one month after the last. If this would give an impossible day, then the nearest possible previous is used.

Example:

First date = 31 March

Interval = Monthly

Next date = 30 April

Next again date = 31 May

etc


Quarter
A quarterly anniversary occurs 3 months after the last. If this would give an impossible day, then the nearest possible previous is used.

Example:

First date = 31 August

Interval = Quarterly

Next date = 30 November

Next again date = 28 February (or 29th in a leap year)

Next again date = 31 May

etc


Help file produced by  HELLLP! v2.5 , a product of Guy Software, on 26/01/97 for Unregistered User.

The above table of contents will be automatically completed and will also provide an excellent cross-reference for context strings and topic titles.  You may leave it as your main table of contents for your help file, or you may create your own and cause it to be displayed instead by using the I button on the toolbar.  This page will not be displayed as a topic.  It is given a context string of _._ and a HelpContextID property of 32517, but these are not presented for jump selection.

HINT:  If you do not wish some of your topics to appear in the table of contents as displayed to your users (you may want them ONLY as PopUps), move the lines with their titles and contexts to below this point.  If you do this remember to move the whole line, not part.  As an alternative, you may wish to set up your own table of contents, see Help under The Structure of a Help File.

  Do not delete any codes in the area above the Table of Contents title, they are used internally by HELLLP!


The program - Displaying your reminders

When the program starts, in searches through your reminders as follows:

For each anniversary:

It calculates the next anniversary date after today's date

If this is today, then displays the reminder in the "today" format

Otherwise, the program finds out if today is in the "advance warning" for this anniversary, and

It it is, it displays it in the "other" format.

The program can be made to run every time you start Windows: Make sure the program is in your Startup Group on your Windows desktop.

Or you can have it run just once in each day. This is arranged with the "Options | Show once a day only" command.

Once running, the program has four active buttons:

EDIT takes you to the database editing screen.

EXIT halts the program

The LEFT and RIGHT arrows let you see tomorrow or yesterday's messages.

Warning! If you have the "show once a day only" option then you can only edit your files once a day! If this is so, then use the icon which is installed in your Doghouse group as the EDITING ICON.

(For the technically minded, this runs DH.EXE with a parameter "EDIT", ie "DH EDIT", thereby bypassing the once-a-day-only check).


The program - editing your reminders

You can have up to 100 reminders in your database. These can be added to, deleted or amended, depending which of the buttons you press.

You cannot change the reminder until you press the EDIT button, and then you can access the frequency, the message, the advance warning period and the start date.

Once editing you can ABORT or SAVE.

You can scroll throught the reminders with the NEXT and PREVIOUS buttons: they are kept in order of start date.

When you close the Edit screen with EXIT you will see any reminders you have programmed showing provided the date is within the advance date. You can scroll the date forward with the RIGHT button to see your reminder become active if you wish.


Reminders

You can have up to 100 anniversaries in your database. Each anniversary consists of

1	The date of the first time it occurs

2	The interval between occurrences (day, week, 4-week, month, quarter, year, Once only)

3	The number of days in advance that you wish to be reminded

4	The reminder message itself.

Example:

First date - 1 May 1997

Interval - Quarterly

Number of days in advance - 10

Message - "Direct debit by telephone company"

These correspond directly to the items on the edit screen, but the edit screen also has an entry for the next anniversary so that you can check this is what you want.

Anniversaries are only classed as equal if they have exactly the same dates, intervals, etc. If you have duplicate reminders in your database then you should delete them manually yourself.

The data is held in first-time order and is accessed this way on the edit screen.

The data is all held in the file DOGHOUSE.INI in your \WINDOWS directory. If this file is deleted you will lose all your reminders.


Intervals

Intervals are defined as:

Daily - the anniversary will occur every day - and so of course will the reminder.

Weekly - anniversary occurs every 7 days.

4-weekly - anniversary occurs every 28 days

Monthly - anniversary occurs one calendar month after the last.

Quarterly - anniversary occurs 3 calendar months after the last

Yearly - anniversary occurs 12 calendar months after the last.

Once only - no further anniversaries.