An occasion file is a Mac document that contains up to 2000 occasion definitions. Occasions you create are stored in the file which you specify in the pop-up menu at the top of the Occasion window.
You must have at least one occasion file, but feel free to create as many as you want. Use one for family events such as birthdays, anniversaries and such and another for business meetings and deadlines, however you want to organize it. I recommend that you not add your own occasions to the sample holiday and birthday files provided with the package. If you accidentally replace them when you install an update, your occasions will be lost. Create separate files for your stuff.
the Active Occasion File list
Remember? needs to know which occasion files it should use to create what's happening windows and pop-up alerts. It does this by maintaining an active occasion file list. Only the files on this list matter. You view and change the active list using menu: File • Occasion Files
 
(1) the Active Occasion File list
These are the names of the occasion files used for what's happening windows and pop-up alerts. Click on a name to select it. Hold down the shift key while clicking to select multiple files, or the command key to toggle a selection.
Hold down the option key then click on the name of an unlocked file and it becomes the default file for all new occasions (it is displayed in bold in the list.)
Files on a shared network volume appear in italics .
(2) Information Area
Select one file in the list to see useful information:
The location of the occasion file. The path to the file starts with the name of the volume and lists the name of enclosing folders with a colon (:) between each.
The Locked box is checked if the occasion file is locked to prevent changes.
If the Auto-Delete box is checked, expired one-time occasions in this file are deleted when "Remember?" starts up. Uncheck this box if you want to keep the old occasions after they have passed. (Not available if the file is locked or if pref: General • Delete expired is turned off.)
(3) Buttons
<Add…>
Click this to add an existing occasion file to the active list. Select it using the standard 'open' dialog then click <Open> to add it. It is probably a good idea to keep all your occasion files in one folder to simplify backups.
<New…>
Click this to create a new, empty occasion file and add it to the list. Use the standard 'save' dialog to select a folder and enter the name of the new file, then click <Save> to create and add it to the list.
<Remove>
The selected files are removed from the list.
<Browse>
Open a Browse window (discussed below) for each selected file and close the Occasion Files dialog. A Browse window lists all the occasions in a file similar to the way folder list the files they contain in the Finder.
<Save>
Changes to the active list, both additions and deletions, are not saved permanently until you press this button. If you don't save your changes you will be asked once more if you want them saved when you quit the application. The unsaved changes are discarded if you choose not to save them. This allows you to temporarily add a file to copy occasions from it without the need to explicitly remove it before you quit.
Click <Done> to close the Occasion Files dialog.
Exporting Occasions
Select one or more files in the Occasion Files list then click the <Export...> button to create a SimpleText text file for each containing its occasion definitions. They can be read by any word processor.
<4> is Persistent or empty if the occasion is not persistent
<5> is the Occasion Type
<6> is the description
[TAB] is a tab character
[RETURN] is a return character to mark the end of the line.
Unused fields are left empty. Exported what's happening windows use the same format. The proverbial "expert" user can change the format using ResEdit on the appropriate STR# list item (if you don't know what that means, you don't want to fool with it.)
NOTE: Exported text file may not preserve the 'persists since' date and will not preserve future Completed dates.
Importing Occasions
Click the <Import...> button, select a text file, then click <Open> to convert it to a list of occasions. The number of occasions found is reported and you can save them as a new occasion file added to the active list. Click the <Save> button to keep the new file in your active list.
In addition to files exported by "Remember?", you can also import text files created by other reminder packages or that you entered by hand. Each line of the file is examined for items that look like they could be an occasion definition, everything else is assumed to be the description. Lines with no apparent date information are ignored. You will definitely want to open a Browse window for the converted file so you can weed out nonsensical entries.
Opening Files from the Finder
Double click on an occasion file in a Finder folder window and Remember? displays its Browse window and adds it to the active list exactly as if you used the <Add…> button.
the Browse Window
Browse windows are the equivalent of the Finder's folder windows. They display the contents of an occasion file which, oddly enough, are occasions:
 
(1) Title Bar
The name of each column: When contains the date pattern and start times, What is the descriptions and Type gives the occasion types.
Click and drag a title left or right to change the spacing between columns or rearrange the column order.
Click on a title without dragging it to sort the list by the contents of that column. What is the fastest because it uses the natural order of the occasions. When lists repeating occasions first, then one-time occasions all sorted by date.
(2) Occasion List
A line for each occasion in the file. Click on one to select it. Hold down shift while clicking to select more than one, or the command key to toggle a selection. Double click on a description to open an Occasion window for it.
The total number of occasion in the file is shown at the bottom.
Menu Commands
File • Print Occasions
Print all or just the currently selected occasions. There is an entire Preference set devoted to the parameters for printing a browse window.
Edit • Copy
Copy the selected occasions to the clipboard in both standard occasion and text format.
Edit • Cut
Copy the selected occasions to the clipboard in both standard occasion and text format then delete the occasions from the file.
Edit • Paste
Paste in a list of occasions copied or cut from a browse window. You can also paste in a block of text to import it as occasions.
Edit • Select All
Select every occasion in the list.
Occasion • Edit
Open an Occasion window for each selected occasion.
Occasion • Delete or Edit • Clear
Delete the selected occasions.
Occasion • Change Type to
Change the type of all the selected occasions to the one chosen from this sub-menu.
Mass Movement of Occasions
I provide occasion files containing large collections of celebrity birthdays, special events and holidays. Rather than clutter up your lists with all of them, you can grab just those that you find interesting using this procedure:
Step 1 - Select menu: File • Occasion Files, click on the file where you want to put the occasions. You can create a new one if you like, but be sure to click <Save> if you want it to stay in the active list after you quit. Click the <Browse> button to open a browse window for the destination file.
Step 2 - Double click on the icon for the source occasion file and a browse window opens automatically. Wander through it and command-click on each occasion you want. When you are done you should have a scattered list of selected occasions. Choose menu: Edit • Copy to put them all in the clipboard. Close the browse window.
Step 3 - Click on the destination browse window then select menu: Edit • Paste. The occasions should appear in the list.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each source file until you are done.
Step 4 - Select menu: File • Quit to exit the application. DO NOT SAVE THE CHANGES TO THE ACTIVE FILE LIST OR THE ORIGINAL SOURCE FILES WILL BE INSTALLED IN THE ACTIVE LIST. No big deal if you do this, just select menu: File • Occasion Files and remove the files you don't want on the list.
Misplaced Occasion Files
The location of each active file is saved in the Remember's Settings file. If you move an active file to a different folder or volume or rename it you will see the message 'Cannot find Occasion file "BLAH", do you know where it is?' the next time you access Remember?. Click <Yes> if you can show the new location of the file or <No> if you deleted it or know that it is no longer available.
But what if you didn't touch the occasion files, what happened? If you re-install the system software or restore your hard drive from backups, you get the same result. Don't panic, just point out the location of each file as requested and everything will be back to normal.
Shared Occasion File Limitations
This package was written specifically for individual users, however it does allow limited sharing of occasion files across a network. But there are many limitations so you really have to be careful.
- A pop-up alert added to a shared file will not appear on other users' machines if there are no other alerts before it and the other users do not access Remember? or start up their machine before the alert time.
- Limited support for automatic update of what's happening windows is provided. Roughly once each minute non-local files are checked for changes. Also, remote changes to occasion files on your machine are not currently detected. The result might be that clicking on an occasion in a window selects the wrong occasion. The list itself might also be drawn incorrectly in some cases. Re-selecting a window's date range or re-selecting the window set updates the window contents.
- Simultaneous changes to an occasion file by two or more users might result in duplicate or even lost occasions. You should be warned when this might happen, but it is still unreliable.
Some of the above issues will be addressed in the next release, but it will probably never work perfectly because of the extensive changes required. That is not really the focus of this package.
