Notes are as easy as your desktop or wall calendar. In the year view, you can click on a day and a note edit field showing the date and any existing note will be displayed. If the note view flag (small flag icon in the upper right corner of the window) is turned up, no edit field will be created, you will only hear a beep. This edit field is the standard method of editing/entering notes in the year view. Once you have edited or entered a note, clicking on any other part of the window (including the tools) updates and enters the note.
On the month view you have two options. Clicking on the small flag tool in the upper right corner of the window toggles the note being displayed on the actual day or in the large edit field. If the large edit field is toggled off, click on a day and an edit field is displayed within the selected day. If a note exists, the edit field will contain the note. If the note is larger than will fit in the current day display, the edit field scroll bars will be activated to allow you to scroll to the location desired. The note will be displayed in the font, size and style you selected previously.
The up/down left/right arrow keys can be used to change the location of the cursor as well as the mouse. The Edit Menu options Cut, Copy, Paste, and Clear can be used on the note field. Notes are limited to 240 characters.
REMEMBER! Any action outside of the edit field, such as clicking on a button, clicking another day or sizing the window will close the edit field and save the changes.
Notes and icons can be moved from one day to another by clicking and dragging the mouse. If an icon is associated with the day, it is also moved to the new location. Select a day with an existing note and/or icon and while holding down the mouse drag it to the desired day. When you reach the desired day to move to, release the mouse and the note and/or icon will be moved. If a note or icon exists on the day you are moving to, an alert will allow you to cancel the move or continue and replace the existing note and/or icon.
If you are moving the notes or icons on the year view the note field will be displayed. If you change your mind and do not wish to move the note click outside the day rectangles and then use the same method to move the note back to the original location.
Alarms:
Alarms are activities that occur at a specific time during the day that you want to be reminded of. You can set up to 10 alarms per day! Alarms are set by including a time preceded by the caret (^) character such as ^8:30 AM Doctors appointment. The alarm can occur anywhere within the daily note. The alarm that is displayed includes all text that follows the time up to the next carriage return. Use carriage returns to separate individual alarms. You must use the caret, and you must include AM or PM (am and pm are also allowed).
If you have selected the Speak Notes option the note will be read and displayed at the correct time. If you have not selected this option the note will be displayed with an alarm and dialog box only. The following example shows a properly formatted note with two alarms where the alarm is not the first part of the note. Again... take special note of the carets and the carriage returns separating the alarms.
Meeting with Bob and the
main committee at 12:00
^3:00 PM Remember to
pick up bread on the way
home.
^5:00 PM This is the second
note and it is time to go home.
If My Calendar is in the foreground, an alert box will be displayed with the bold portion of the note shown above. If My Calendar is in the background the Macintosh Notification Manager will be used which creates a notification window and displays the note in front of all other applications and windows. The window remains visible until the button on the window is clicked or until the next alarm (if one exists) needs to be displayed.
Alarms are automatically updated using any method of note entry including import and repeating notes. Your new alarms will be updated and displayed at the proper time.
For the alarm function to work, My Calendar must be open either in the foreground or the background. I future version will include an extension to show alarms without using the application if enough users request the feature.
Repeating Notes:
If you have chosen the date option you must select the dates to include. If you select a date that does not exist such as the 31st of the month for every month, the bad dates will be ignored and the remaining notes included.
You can enter notes for the current year or select a range of years from 1904 to 2039. Great for entering birthdays and other annual events.
Read the enclosed Read Me! holidays Simple text document for many holiday dates.
With either option you must select at least one month to use the repeating feature. Note length must be more than one character and less than 240. You can use the Check Conflicts button to see if any notes you are about to add will conflict with an existing note. When checking conflicts notes are not added. If you select the Add Notes button My Calendar will also check for conflicts with existing notes. Notes will be added until a conflict occurs then you will have the option of replacing the existing note, canceling the operation (the notes up to the conflict will be added) or leaving the existing note and continuing the operation.
Adding icons with repeating notes:
You can add a color icon or a black and white icon to the notes you are adding to the calendars. In the bottom left corner of the window are two buttons and the current icon display rectangle. Click on the Select Icon button to display the Icon Selector window. Click on any color or black and white icon to be used. The display rectangle will reflect your choice. To use the selected icon when adding notes, click on the Use this icon check box and then add the notes in the manner indicated above. Each note you add will also contain the desired icon to display with the note.
Importing Notes:
Select Import Notes from the File menu. From the Import Notes window you can select the character that delimits the date from the note and if you want to append all notes or check for existing notes and replace any that exist. Notes must be text files and in the following format:
(Date)(delimiter)(Note) i.e. 4/27/1995-Note or 4/27/1995,Note
Banners:
To create a banner you must be viewing the monthly calendar. Hold down the Command key and click and drag to create a banner. A banner must be less than or equal to seven days. Banners must also be within one week. To create a banner that is more than one week long, create two banners with the start day of the second banner being one day after the finish day of the previous banner. While holding down the mouse you will see a filled rectangle indicating the banner you are creating. When you release the mouse a dialog box will ask for the banner text. Leaving the edit field blank or clicking on the Cancel button will not create a banner. Banner notes must be less than 240 characters but the calendar size and space available will limit notes that can be displayed to fewer characters.
To delete a banner, just click on the banner while viewing the monthly calendar. Hit the Delete key and the banner will be removed and the calendar updated. Remember that a banner that continues beyond one week is really two banners and each must be deleted.
Dragging notes from the contacts window:
You can add or append any of the contact fields to the calendar notes. To add or append the notes both the contacts window and the calendar window must be open. Bring the contacts window to the front by clicking in the window. While holding down the Option key, click on any one of fields (including the note field) and while holding down the mouse, drag the field to the calendar window. You will notice that while you drag the cursor will change to a grasping hand and a rectangle the size of the selected field will be drawn.
Continue to drag the selected field over the desired day on the calendar window. As you pass over the daily rectangles they will invert to show you the current selection. When you have positioned the mouse over the desired day, release the button. The calendar window will be brought to the front, the edit field for the day (or the large edit field depending on your current setup) will be created. The text for the field you are dragging will be appended to any existing text for that day.
Note! If you have selected the note field (which can contain up to 250 characters) and are adding a lot of text to an existing note, only the first 250 characters will be saved! Before closing the edit field, make any changes you desire to the text and then click outside the edit field to update the new note.
Daily view:
Click on the fourth tool from the left to display the Daily View window. This window displays the notes for four consecutive days. Across the top of the window are 14 buttons that allows you to select a month or to move to the next and previous years. On the right side of the window are 17 buttons that allow you to select the first day to be displayed and two buttons that allow you to move forward or backward one day at a time.
You may enter any text (up to 240 characters) for each note. To update the note you must click on the 竏 button just to the left of the date field. If you click on any other button, the note will not be updated. Although you can change the style and size of the text in these fields, text style information is not stored with the notes. If this window is open while you add notes in other windows (such as the calendar window), the fields in this window will be updated when you activate the window.
Printing Daily Notes:
You can open the Print Daily window by clicking on the Print button in the Daily View window or by holding down the Command key while clicking on the Daily View tool on the main calendar window.
Before you print the notes in this format you need to create a page with the desired number of notes and the desired size. My Calendar only prints one page of notes per sheet of paper regardless of the Page Size you have set in the edit fields.
Enter the size of the desired page (in inches) into the edit fields at the top of the window. My Calendar saves this page size when you close the window. Next enter the size of the desired margins (in inches) into the next set of fields labeled t(top), l(left), b(bottom), r(right).
Next you must enter the date of the first note you want printed into the Start Date edit fields. Next enter the date of the last note you want printed into the Finish Date edit fields. My Calendar will check to see if you have entered a finish date that is later than the start date.
You may select to print 1-7 days per page. Select one of the options from the available radio buttons. The amount of space per note is determined by the size of the page you have designed and the number of days per page you have chosen. The font, size and style used to print the notes is the font you selected for printing notes in the Font Selection window.
Click on the Update button to update the display as you make changes into the above noted edit fields. The display will show a representation of the page size, the margins and the position and number of date fields.
When you print the notes, a crop mark will be plotted at the lower right corner of the page to allow you to trim the page to your final size. This mark also lets you adjust the margins to adjust to your individual printers paper handling margins.
With the option to print 1-7 days per page and the ability to design the page and margins you can print many types of sheets many of which will fit the popular day-timer type binder/systems available.
