Megaware 1/Megaware Volume 1.iso/bus-apps/amp-notc/read.me

Text File | 1991-05-21 | 16KB | 378 lines

                        Ample Notice V 2.04
                      Revised May 21, 1991
             (c) Copyright 1987 - 1991 by Mark Harris
                       All rights reserved.

The main programs on this disk are:

AN.EXE      - the appointments calendar program,
ALARM.COM   - the pop-up alarm clock,
OUTSIDE.COM - an evelope addresser which takes addresses from
              screen or file.

To get started using AN and ALARM first make a backup copy of this
disk, then print the AN manual.  The manual has about 30 pages and
can be printed in its entirety by entering
  PRINTMAN AN.DOC
To skip the first 4 pages and print the rest of the manual, type
  PRINTMAN AN.DOC 4
To view the manual on the screen use the /S option; e.g.
  PRINTMAN/S AN.DOC 2

The documentation for OUTSIDE is in the file OUTSIDE.DOC.  You can
print or view this file in a similar way:
  PRINTMAN OUTSIDE.DOC
  PRINTMAN/S OUTSIDE.DOC

Ample Notice installation is described in AN.DOC.  The basic idea
is to put the Ample Notice disk in the default drive, then type
ANSETUP.  If you are updating an earlier version of Ample Notice,
see AN13TO20.DOC.  You can use PRINTMAN as with the other DOC
files described above.

If you are not a registered user of Ample Notice, we encourage
your registration.  Granny's Old-Fashioned Software is a member
organization of the Association of Shareware Professionals and
endorses its high standards for Shareware distribution and
support.  If you obtained Ample Notice from a disk catalog or
bulletin board, Granny's does not receive a cent from the amount
you paid.  We rely on your registrations to keep going - please
see details below.

If you are a registered user of a previous version of Ample Notice
you may obtain the new printed manual for $3 (foreign: $5) from
Granny's.  Changes from version 1.31 include:

  The primary screen has been improved and now shows the
  appointments list, a calendar window, a date/time field and an
  edit window simultaneously.

  Appointments can be as long as you like and can be edited in a
  scrollable window rather than a single line.

  Appointments can be edited directly in the appointments screen
  rather than requiring a separate file-edit mode.

  Appointments and notes can be marked as done.

  Categories have been extended: any grouping of owners or
  subjects can be viewed/printed.


  Still more flexible date patterns are supported.

  Printouts have been improved; any number of columns is
  can be used, and IBM graphics characters are supported.

  European date format is supported.

  Printer control sequences can now be as long as you like.

These changes and many more are described in the manual (printed
or disk version).

--------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW FEATURES.

Added 11/10/90: put the line
  !G
in CONFIG.CAL to truncate entries in the appointments window after
the first carriage return.  The full entry will still be visible
in the edit window, but you'll see just the first line on the left
half of the screen.

Added 11/17/90: syntax for adding an appointment at a given
interval after a date.  For example,
  11/17/90 > 14 xyz
adds the appointment 'xyz' 14 days after 11/17/90  (i.e. 12/1/90).
This saves having to count days on a calendar.

Added 11/20/90: a 'no print' option.  Put '\P' (without the
quotes) at the start of a note or appointment to suppress the
entry in printouts.  The entry will continue to show on the
screen.  For example,
  !Mon Put out trash
is reasonable for viewing on the screen, but doesn't produce very
dignified printouts.
  \P !Mon Put out trash
is more appropriate.
Also added: <Ctrl RightArrow> and <Ctrl LeftArrow> now double for
<Ctrl F> and <Ctrl A> in moving word right and left.

Added 11/21/90: put the line
  !Y
in CONFIG.CAL to have notes sorted alphabetically regardless of
category rather than the default of category first, alphabetical
order second.  Note: this is a reversal of the meaning of '!Y'
given in a 11/7/90 modification of the program (most people will
use the default).

Category headings are shown for notes using the 'high priority'
color (which can be changed with ANINST).  Appointments are sorted
by time rather than category, so no category headings are shown;
if you want to see each appointment's category, use the 'Display
category codes' option from the <Alt S> menu.

Using <Alt S> to select categories in the Appointments Screen can
be a bother, so a new option has been added.  Press the '+' or '-'
keys to achieve the same effect as checking or unchecking the
  All (overrides other selections)
line in the Notes category list.


Added 12/13/90: In the appointments screen, pressing <Ctrl I> is
equivalent to pressing 'I' <Alt D>; this single keypress now lets
you insert a new appointment with the highlighted date inserted.

VERSION 2.03

Added 12/15/90: <Shift Enter> can now be used in place of F10 for
accepting edited entries.

The file AN.EXE has been dramatically reduced in size with the
LZEXE (Fabrice Bellard) utility.  This remarkable program can
compress many of your COM and EXE programs so that they are
decompressed as they are executed.  On floppy disk and slower hard
drive systems you should notice a marked improvement in loading
time.

Added 12/18/90: Put '!Z' in CONFIG.CAL to suppress the display of
category header lines in the appointments screen.  You can still
show the category codes as part of each categorized entry with the
!H option.

Added 12/19/90: The \~ switch in an appointment will move it to
the nearest weekday if it falls on the weekend.  For example
12/29/90 is a Saturday, but
  \~12/29 xxxx
will show the appointment (holiday?) to Friday.  As always,
switches can be combined and entered in any order; e.g.
  \s1/1/91\~!3d xxxx
will display every third day starting 1/1/91, except that Saturday
appointments will be moved to Friday and Sunday appointments to
Monday.

Added 2/1/91: You can now have ages automatically printed with
birthdays.  Here's an example:
  \b5/25/82 David's birthday (  ).
A typical listing will now show:
  Saturday  May 25, 1991
    David's Birthday ( 9).
The date following '\b' is the birth (or anniversary) date, and
the parentheses reserve room for the age to be printed.  Be sure
to leave space for all digits; for example,
  \b7/4/1776 US Independence (xxx).
leaves three spaces for the number of years since the US
Declaration of Independence.  The x's will be replaces with a
number when the entry is saved in your notes file, but the proper
numerical value will show on the appointments screen for all
future years.  The parentheses can occur anywhere in your entry;
e.g.
  \b3/11/84 Emily's (  ) birthday.

Added 2/23/91: Put !J in CONFIG.CAL if you want to return to your
previous screen colors when you exit Ample Notice.

Added 3/1/91: Put !U in CONFIG.CAL if you want to be given a
second chance if you press <Esc> when editing an appointment.
Normally any editing you have done (on a single appointment) will
be abandoned when you press <Esc>.


MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS.

If you have a laser printer (HP compatible) and enjoy REALLY
compressing your appointments, we have a font that will let you
print 25 characters per inch; with it, you can pack 176 lines by
200 columns onto a page.  If you would like to obtain this font
and the directions for using it, please send your request with $3
to Granny.

At any time when you're prompted to enter the name of a file in
Ample Notice, you can enter a directory name or wild card
specification instead to bring up a window of file names.  For
example, in response to the prompt
  Load:
if you enter
  \*.CAL
you'll see a list of appropriate files.  You can then type the
name of the file you want to load.

If you have selected an Epson-compatible printer during AN
installation and your printouts show jagged borders, it is because
your printer does not support italics.  You can make calendar
headings underlined instead of italicized by putting the following
lines in your CONFIG.CAL file:
  #X1 27,45,1
  #Y1 27,45,0
  #X2 27,45,1
  #Y2 27,45,0
  #X3 27,45,1
  #Y3 27,45,0
  #X4 27,45,1
  #Y4 27,45,0
If you want bold headings instead, use
  #X1 27,69
  #Y1 27,70
  ...
and so on.  Bold may not work with compressed print.


One user reported difficulty reading the screen on an LCD laptop
with the default colors in AN.  He fixed the problem by putting
the following line in CONFIG.CAL:
#C 0,15,7,15,7,8,1,2,0,2,7,0,1,15,7,14,8,1,0,7,0,1,2,7,9
Also note that on a laptop you may have to change the state of the
NumLock key for the cursor keys to work properly in AN. While you
can use the AN editor to modify files other than NOTES, don't try
to edit non-ASCII files (containing characters such as <ESC>).

Ample Notice can handle as many appointments per day as you like,
and each appointment can be arbitrarily long subject to the
following constraint:  when you print out the appointment list, no
single appointment should be too big to fit in a single column.
If you get the message

  Appointment won't fit in column - use wider/longer column.

then you should try a mode (normal, compressed, tiny or custom)
which has larger columns.  If no such mode is available, you can
edit your CONFIG.CAL file to reduce the number of columns in a
printout, thus making each column wider.  (See Section 8 of the

manual.)  Another fix is to split an extremely long appointment
into two or more appointments on the same day.  Note that there is
no problem with viewing very long appointments on the screen - the
restriction applies only to printouts.

If your computer shows the wrong time on the alarm clock but the
correct time when you type TIME at the DOS prompt then you should
try running the utility TIMER (a public domain program by David
Macchiarolo and Jim Seley) or FIXCLOCK before running ALARM
(preferably in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file).  In particular, AT&T 6300
users should run the sequence
  TIMER
  ALARM
  FIXCLOCK

------------------------------------------------------------------

USING AMPLE NOTICE ON A NETWORK

When AN is run the program uses the appointments file specified in
CONFIG.CAL or (if not so specified) in the directory in which
AN.EXE was found.  This means that if AN.EXE is on a network
drive, all users will access the same NOTES file by default.
While multi-user access to a single NOTES file may be supported in
the future, it is not recommended in the current version of Ample
Notice.  However, network users can still maintain individual and
group files of appointments; following are a few suggestions.

If you want to access your private notes file, there are two
approaches.
  AN -F C:\NOTES
will use the default CONFIG.CAL file, but will use the
appointments file C:\NOTES.  This means you'll share color
preferences and other options with other network users, but you'll
load your own appointments file.  The command
  AN -C C:\CONFIG.CAL
will load Ample Notice using the preferences in your private
CONFIG.CAL file (assuming that this is located in the directory
C:\).  Your CONFIG.CAL file can in turn specify the appointments
files; e.g., the lines
  $A C:\ARCHIVE.CAL
  $C C:\NOTES
in CONFIG.CAL determine your archive and appointments files.  You
may want to create a one-line batch file containing such a command
so that you don't have to remember the syntax.

What about viewing several users' appointments at once?  Ample
Notice lets you import and export appointments to and from other
files.  If several users want to share appointments listings for
scheduling meetings, each user can export pertinent appointments
to a file with an agreed-upon name (e.g. JUDY.CAL on the network
drive).  A manager scheduling a meeting can include these files in
a single NOTES file.  The menu for file import and export is
viewed by pressing 'F' once to enter the File View, and 'F' a
second time for File Operations.

More sophisticated network options may be added in the future.  If
you have suggestions for the ways in which files should be shared
on a network, please let Granny know.


------------------------------------------------------------------

Ample Notice is Shareware.  You can order the current Ample Notice
disk from Granny's Old-Fashioned Software for $10 or a registered
package for $30.  Registration provides the following benefits:

1. A current version of the Ample Notice disk.
2. A printed manual.
3. A mail-in card for a future version of Ample Notice.
4. Telephone support for your technical questions.
5. A reasonable likelihood that features you request will be added
   to the package if such features are deemed practical and of
   sufficiently general interest.
6. Inexpensive future updates after your free update.  You can
   order new disks for $5, new manuals for $3.  (These prices
   may change.)

Registrations keep us in business - please consider this option.
To register, phone (with MC or VISA) [phone] or mail
payment to:

          Granny's Old-Fashioned Software
          Rt 4, Box 216
          Boone, NC 28607

North Carolina residents please add 5%; foreign orders add $3.
Foreign: MC, VISA or U.S. funds drawn on U.S. bank, please.

              _______
         ____|__     |               (tm)
      --|       |    |-------------------
        |   ____|__  |  Association of
        |  |       |_|  Shareware
        |__|   o   |    Professionals
      -----|   |   |---------------------
           |___|___|    MEMBER

------------------------------------------------------------------
SITE LICENSING

     For five or more users at a single site the following
licensing arrangements are available:

  Registration only: $15/user for first five, $10 each additional.
  Manual and disk: add $5.

For example, if you want to register 20 users and need only 4
disk/manual packages the amount would be 5 x $15 + 15 x $10 +
4 x $5 = $245.

For large sites licensing costs are lower; call us to negotiate.


     Also available from Granny's is LQ, a program for the IBM PC
and compatible computers which will allow you to produce high-
quality text in a variety of fonts and modes on 9-pin dot matrix
printers.  LQ can be 'locked' into memory to function
inconspicuously with your favorite word processor or other
program.  The program includes a print spooler which can be set to
any length from 1 - 400K characters.  The spooler has been
customized to work with LQ's long graphics sequences very
efficiently (using about 1/40 the space required by a conventional
spooler); you can continue using your computer for other tasks
while documents print in the background.

     LQ is available from Granny's Old-Fashioned Software at $35
for the registered package or $10 for the distribution disk.
North Carolina residents please add 5%, foreign orders $3.
Foreign: MC, VISA or U.S. funds drawn on U.S. bank, please.

Granny's reserves the right to change the above prices in the
future.