home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Software of the Month Club 1995 December
/
SOFM_Dec1995.bin
/
pc
/
os2
/
birthday
/
birthday.inf
(
.txt
)
< prev
next >
Wrap
OS/2 Help File
|
1995-10-31
|
18KB
|
302 lines
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. Credits ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. About the birthday notifier ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
The birthday notifier
Welcome to the birthday notifier program. In order not to forget those
anniversaries ever again this program helps you to remember them in time. The
program shows you today's and tomorrow's anniversaries of your friends and
relatives.
Why today and tomorrow? The today mode remembers you to give a call on the day
itself. The tomorrow mode allows you to mail a postcard just in time.
Supposed usage
The birthday program is intended to be used in the start-up folder. This will
give you an overview of all current birthday's on system start-up.
Using the program
Select one of the following options to learn more about how to use the program.
o Starting the program / command line options
o Exiting the program
o Switching between Today/Tomorrow
o Getting on-line help
o Scrolling through the list of names
o Starting the program displaying tomorrow
o Writing a calendar data file
o Limitations
o Credits
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. Starting the program / command line options ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Starting the program
You can start the program from a command line or from a program object. In
order to get the on-line help, make sure that the file birthday.hlp is either
in the current directory or in any directory specified by the 'HELP' variable
in your 'config.sys' file.
The program uses a calendar file to read the birthday information from. The
default calendar file used is birthday.dat. This file must be in the current
directory. To override this file you can specify one or more calendar files on
the command line.
Command syntax
birthday [-t] [calendar_files...]
-t start the program displaying tomorrow's birthday's
calendar_files... one or more calendar files to read birthday information
from. If no file is specified, the file birthday.dat from the
current directory is read.
Examples
birthday
birthday -t
birthday f:\data\friends.dat
See also
o About the birthday notifier
o Writing a calendar data file
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4. Exiting the program ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Exiting the program
To exit the program click on the "Ok" button.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Ok button ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Ok button
Click on the "Ok" button to exit the program .
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5. Switching between Today/Tomorrow ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Switching between Today/Tomorrow
To have the program display tomorrow's anniversaries when displaying today's
anniversaries click on the "Tomorrow" button.
To change the program (back) to displaying today's anniversaries click on the
same button, which will say "Today" now.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Today/tomorrow button ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Today/tomorrow button
This button changes between displaying today's and tomorrow's birthday's. Click
on the 'Today' button to display today's anniversaries. Click on the 'Tomorrow'
button to display tomorrow's anniversaries.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6. Getting product information ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Getting product information
To get product information click on the "About" button.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> About button ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
About button
Click on the "About" button to get product information.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7. Getting on-line help ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Getting on-line help
To get general help about this program and its usage, click on the "Help"
button.
To get help about a specific button, press the F1 key when the button is
highlighted. To highlight a button you can use the TAB key and the arrow keys.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Help button ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Help button
Click on the "Help" button to get general help about this program and its
usage.
To get help about a specific button, press the F1 key when the button is
highlighted. To highlight a button you can use the TAB key and the arrow keys.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 8. Scrolling names ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Scrolling names
When there are more anniversaries on a day than will fit in the window, i.e. 5,
scroll buttons appear to enable you to scroll through the names.
To scroll down the list of names, click on the button with the downwards
directed arrow.
To scroll up the list again, click on the button with the upwards directed
arrow.
The names will be listed in the same order as encountered in the calendar data
file(s).
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Scroll up button ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Scroll up button
Click on the scroll up button to scroll up the list of anniversaries. The
scroll buttons only appear when there are more anniversaries to display than
will fit in the window, i.e. 5.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ <hidden> Scroll down button ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Scroll down button
Click on the scroll down button to scroll down the list of anniversaries. The
scroll buttons only appear when there are more anniversaries to display than
will fit in the window, i.e. 5.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9. Product information ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Product information
The product information window shows the copyright notices and credits to the
programmer.
To close the product information click on the "Ok" button.
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 10. Starting the program displaying tomorrow ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Starting the program displaying tomorrow
Normally when the program is started it begins displaying today's
anniversaries. To let the program start with displaying tomorrow's
anniversaries you must start the program with the command line option "-t" as
follows.
birthday -t
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 11. Writing a calendar data file ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Writing a calendar data file
The anniversaries that are displayed by the program are taken from a calendar
data file. By default they are taken from the file birthday.dat. Calendar files
are plain ASCII files. To add, change or remove names from a calendar file you
must edit it using a normal text editor (e.g. e.exe).
To add a new birthday to the calendar file you must place the information on a
single line in the file. First type the day number then the month number and
then the persons name (or any text you want). E.g.
6 12 Sint Nicolaas
declares the birthday of Sint Nicolaas at the sixth of December (this was
actually the day he died).
Each birthday must be placed on a single line. It is not necessary to sort the
birthday's by date. If there are more birthday's on a particular day the names
will be listed in the same order as encountered in the calendar data file(s).
Note: Names must be limited to 255 characters.[enote]
See also
o About the birthday notifier
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 12. Limitations ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Limitations
The program has some limitations (read the programmer was to lazy to fix them).
Finding the data file
The program is not smart in finding the default calendar data file. It must
be in the current working directory when starting the program. Otherwise
the file must be specified as program argument. No errors are reported if
any calendar data file can not be found or opened or is not in the
appropriate format.
Limited name length
Names in calendar files must be limited to 255 characters. Note however
that names of about 25 or 30 characters is the maximum that you will see
printed on the screen.
Program start-up
There is no option to stop the program from starting if there are no
birthday's to report.