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1991-02-09
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╒══════════════╕
│ ToDo │
╘══════════════╛
ToDo is a Task oriented Personal Time Management Tool.
ToDo is also system for recording hours worked on a daily basis. It
also lets you track tasks as a Project Management program would. It
can also remind you of upcoming dates each time you reboot your
computer and will remember important names, addresses, phone numbers
and other personal information for you. You can also keep a diary in
ToDo. It will even dial your phone numbers for you, and keep a log of
calls.
ToDo has been designed specifically for Consultants (of any type),
Programmers or anybody that has a need to record hours worked on
one or more projects.
It's quite simple to use. This document only describes the general
concept of the program. Specific operating instructions are
available in the program through the use of Help Screens obtained at
any time by pressing function key <F1>.
To get the most out of ToDo, experiment with ALL of its options. To
learn about ToDo's features, use the "ToDo Road Map", accessible by
pressing <Ctrl><F1> from the ToDo Main Menu.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒════════════════════╕
│ What is ToDo? │
╘════════════════════╛
ToDo has 3 modes of operation:
PROGRAM In 'PROGRAM' mode, ToDo has facilities for
entering:
* Task Information
* Daily Hours Worked (by Task)
* Expense Information
* Diary Information
* Special Dates
* Important Numbers (password protected)
* Client Information (or Project Names)
* Names, Addresses and Phone Numbers
It will supply you with many reports (screen or
printer) of the information you entered today,
a month ago or even years ago. It has lots of
other options as well.
BATCH ToDo has two BATCH modes:
* ToDo will remind you of tasks that are due,
upcoming 'special' dates (i.e., Meetings,
Birthdays, etc.) and daily hours that you
forgot to enter.
* You can get BATCH HELP by entering:
TODO /HELP
from the DOS Command Line.
DIALING ToDo will Dial phone numbers from your Names,
Address and Phone list from the DOS command
line.
(See the section below entitled "Invoking ToDo" for Command
Line Options)
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒══════════════════╕
│ Quick Setup │
╘══════════════════╛
Add the following to your AUTOEXEC.BAT (ToDo probably did the first
line for you!):
Prototype Example
──────────────────────────── ───────────────────────────────
SET ToDo=[d:][path] SET ToDo=C:\ToDo
ToDo [cmd line opt's-see below] C:\ToDo\ToDo /CHECK /S /T /H
Add the following to your CONFIG.SYS (You MUST be running DOS 3.3 or
higher!):
FILES=31
(ToDo Requires a minimum of 30 files, but DOS prefers an odd number!)
The default date format is mm/dd/yy, however, if you prefer the
British format of dd/mm/yy, you can choose the "CONFIGURATION" option
from the UTILITY MENU. On this screen you can change the ToDoDate
default from mm/dd/yy to the British format: dd/mm/yy.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒═══════════════════╕
│ You Supply... │
╘═══════════════════╛
As stated above, you supply the following types of information to ToDo:
Client Info You must FIRST enter at least one Client. This is
accomplished through the "Client Maintenance" option
on the Main Menu. You can enter a Client Name and
Billing Rate (Dollars per Hour). If you don't have
a need to enter Client Names, you can also use this
to enter Project Names.
NOTE: The first 3 characters of the Client Name is
used as a "key", therefore, ToDo won't let you duplicate
these first 3 letters.
Once Client(s) are entered, Tasks can be entered.
Task Info You can enter one or more Tasks with the following
information:
* Task Name (required)
* Estimated Hours to Complete the Task (optional)
* Estimated Completion Date (optional)
* Priority (required)
* Client (required)
* Short Name (required)
* A Link to another Task (optional)
and when a task is complete, you can also indicate
that to ToDo.
Todo will produce a ToDo report (with several
options) to help organize your day, as well as
several other useful reports.
You can also enter Notes about a task that will
appear on your ToDo List.
You can indicate to ToDo that a task won't start
until another is completed. In other words, one is
dependent on the other. The effect of creating
a dependency is that the Time Line Chart (Report
Menu) and the Average Hours Report (Task
Maintenance) will reflect a different start date.
Daily Hours Worked -
The heart of ToDo is the daily input of
hours worked. Each day, you enter the
hours you worked on each task. ToDo keeps
track of how many hours you've worked on
each task, and will produce reports and
statistics by task and/or time period.
Expense Info At the same time you're entering hours worked, you
can enter one or more expenses for each day. ToDo
will track these and produce an Expense Report
whenever desired. Additionally, expenses can be
included on many other reports if desired.
Diary Info At the same time you're entering hours worked, you
can enter diary information for each day.
Special Dates You can enter Special Dates, such as Birthdays,
Anniversaries, Meetings, Travel Dates, etc. ToDo
will accept both recurring (i.e., Birthdays, etc.)
and nonrecurring (i.e., Meetings, etc.) dates. You
tell ToDo how much in advance you want to be
reminded, and ToDo can be placed in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file to remind you when necessary.
You can also LINK a Special Date to a Task. By
this, the Special Date will be listed with any
notes that you have on the ToDo List.
Names, Addresses and Phone Numbers
This information is independent of the other items
listed above and may or may not be entered. If you
wish, names, address information and phone numbers
may be entered for your friends, business
acquaintances, etc. ToDo will print both reports and
labels from this information.
Holidays If you tell ToDo about upcoming holidays, ToDo will
ignore these days if you want in its date calculations.
There are two types of Holidays that you can enter:
1 Holidays you have off
2 Holidays you have to work
ToDo will also display these days as holidays when
you print a calendar.
ToDo produces many reports with many options. You can use some or
all of its options. One of ToDo's features is that ALL date reporting
is based on a 5 day business work week. When ToDo calculates the number
of days between 2 dates, it doesn't count weekends.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒════════════════════╕
│ INVOKING ToDo │
╘════════════════════╛
ToDo Command Line Options are:
/HELP - Help Screen for Command Line Options
/MONO - Force Monochrome
/CLOCK- Display the digital clock without running ToDo
/D - Enter ToDo Date (w/o Changing System Date)
/CHECK- Check with at least 1 of the following options:
/S - Check for upcoming Special Dates
/T - Check for Tasks Due Today
/Hnn - Check for Hours not entered (for nn days)
/DIAL - Dial a phone number from the ToDo Phone Data Base,
followed by the Name to dial, which can be enclosed
in Quotes. You will be given the choice of each of
the 2 phone numbers that you can enter from within
ToDo.
For Example:
ToDo /dial "John Doe Sr" John Doe
ToDo /dial John Any name starting w/John
ToDo /dial John Doe John Doe
/R - If something happens to corrupt ToDo's index files,
you may not be able to get back into ToDo without an
error. If this happens, you can use this option
on the DOS command line to force ToDo to
re-index its files before doing anything else.
NOTE: This option MUST be the ONLY option on the
command line for this to function.
for example:
ToDo
Command Line Mode Description
─────────────────────── ─────── ─────────────────────────────────────
ToDo PROGRAM Start ToDo with no options
ToDo /MONO PROGRAM Force monochrome
ToDo /MONO /D PROGRAM Force Monochrome and a New Date
ToDo /CLOCK PROGRAM Display Digital Clock
ToDo /R PROGRAM Force a Re-Index
ToDo /CHECK /T /S BATCH Check for due tasks/special dates
ToDo /CHECK /S /H20 BATCH Check for due special dates and Hours
not entered for the past 20 days.
ToDo /dial John Doe DIALING Search for "John Doe" to dial
ToDo /dial John DIALING Search for "John" to dial
ToDo /dial "John Doe Sr" DIALING Search for "John Doe Sr" to dial
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒═══════════════════╕
│ Main Menu ... │
╘═══════════════════╛
The Main Menu offers several choices:
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒▒╒══════════════════════════════╕
▒▒│Daily: │
▒▒│ Enter Hours/Expenses/Diary│
▒▒│ What's Due Today │
▒▒│ │
▒▒│Maintenance: │
▒▒│ Tasks │
▒▒│ Special Dates │
▒▒│ Clients │
▒▒│ Names/Address/Phone │
▒▒│ Holidays │
▒▒│ Important Numbers │
▒▒│ │
▒▒│Other Menus: │
▒▒│ Reports │
▒▒│ Utilities │
╘══════════════════════════════╛
Enter Hours/Expenses/Diary
- This option allows you to enter hours
worked by DAY by TASK. You select the
day, and then enter hours worked for each
task. New Tasks can be entered, and existing
Tasks can be deleted though this option. You
may also enter individual expenses incurred
on that day, as well as diary entries.
Task Maintenance
- This option allows you to modify tasks,
Estimated Hours, Estimated Completion date,
Priority or Actual Completion Date. You
also have the following options:
* See Tasks due today
* See a Briefing of a tasks statistics
* Print a Report of all tasks
* Add Notes to tasks
* etc., etc.
Special Dates - Special Dates are dates that you would like
ToDo to remind you of. They can be Birth-
days, meetings - or anything. This option
allows you to enter these dates along with
other information so ToDo can remind you.
Client Maintenance
- This option allows you to add/modify and delete
Clients. Each task must be assigned to one client.
The clients you enter with this option will be
displayed each time you enter a new task.
You can also enter an Hourly Billing rate which
will be used on the "Billing Report".
Names/Address/Phone
- You can add Name, address and phone information
for friends, business acquaintances, etc. ToDo
will print a report or mailing labels for you, or
it can Dial phone numbers from the list or from
the DOS command line.
Holidays - You can enter whatever holidays you wish into
the Holiday Maintenance Screen. There are 2
types of Holidays:
1 Holidays you have off
2 Holidays you have to work
If you indicate that a holiday is a day you DON'T
work, ToDo will ignore this day in all of its
date calculations, including the Date Calculator.
All of the Holidays will appear on the
printed Calendar if you wish.
Important Numbers
- You can record 'important numbers' in ToDo. This
can be used for credit card numbers, insurance
policy numbers, etc. Because of the confidential
nature of these numbers, ToDo encrypts them on disk,
so that if somebody looks at your files, they won't
be able to read any of the numbers.
When you choose it for the first time you will be
asked for a password. Don't forget your password!
If you do, you will loose all of the information
previously entered in 'Important Numbers'!
Report Menu - The following Reports can be printed/dis-
played from this option:
* ToDo List
* Hours by Day
* Hours by Task
* Hours by Week
* Completed & Active Tasks (w/statistics)
* Time Line Chart
* Expense Report
* Billing Report
* Print a Calendar
Utility Menu - The Utility Menu has options to move tasks
from a 'Current' status to an 'Archive'
status and back again. It also has options
to select a printer for output, to Change
the date, Restore from a Backup, etc.
Additional options allow you to PERMANENTLY
delete Tasks and Expenses. You can also
TRANSFER hours from one task to another from
here, etc., etc.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒═════════════════════════╕
│ Generic Function Keys │
╘═════════════════════════╛
Function Keys Available ANYTIME:
<F1> Context Sensitive Help
<Alt> <F1> Generic System Help
<Ctrl> <F1> List of ToDo Functions
<F10> Calendar
<Alt> <F10> Clock
<Shift><F10> Calculator (Math & Date)
<Ctrl> <F10> If you're using an EGA or VGA monitor to change
colors (there are 2 color options).
Other Function Keys (when available):
<F5> Print a Report
<Ctrl><F5> Print Mailing Labels
<F3> Search
<Alt> N Search Again (Next)
Plus other Function keys are available on specific screens.
Check the bottom screen line for specific keys available on each
screen.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒═════════════════════════╕
│ The ToDo ARCHIVES │
╘═════════════════════════╛
Tasks in ToDo have three general status categories:
* Current
* Archived
* Purged
Current The Current status is the normal status. You can
enter hours worked for a Current Task and Hours and
Date estimates can be changed for Current tasks.
You can indicate that a Current task has been
completed, etc.
Archived When a task has been completed, and you no longer
want to see the task when performing task
maintenance or entering hours worked, the task can
be Archived. When you Archive a task, you no
longer see the task when using ToDo, but if needed,
ToDo still can use information for an Archived task
for a report, etc. ToDo allows you to restore
Archived tasks back to a Current Status, if
necessary.
Purged After a while, you may want to totally eliminate
all record of a task's existence. ToDo lets you
PURGE tasks from the Archive. Once purged, nothing
will get it back!
Expenses, Special Dates and Phone Numbers all
accumulate "History" data and can also be purged.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒═══════════════════╕
│ About Dates... │
╘═══════════════════╛
ToDo accepts dates in the format mm/dd/yy. When calculating the
number of days between 2 Task Dates, ToDo ignores weekend days. The
assumption is that you don't work weekends. ToDo will also ignore
any dates that are Holidays that you don't work, based on what's been
entered on the Holiday Maintenance screen.
You can change the default U.S. date format of mm/dd/yy to the British
format of dd/mm/yy from the Configuration Screen (from the Utility Menu).
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒════════════════════════╕
│ About Postal Codes │
╘════════════════════════╛
ToDo lets you enter the Postal Code in any one of 3 formats:
FORMAT EXAMPLE
------------- ------------
U.S. 012345-6789
Canadian or A1B 2C3
Free Format ABCDEFGHIJ or 0123456789, etc.
The default format can be selected from the SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
option on the UTILITY menu, or you can use Function Key F4 to change
this format for any address entered.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒══════════════════════════════════════════════╕
│ Hardware/Software Requirements for ToDo │
╘══════════════════════════════════════════════╛
Hardware: ToDo requires an IBM-PC or Compatible with 640K RAM
and a hard disk. (Minimum Available RAM should be
424K or greater - but more is recommended.)
ToDo makes the assumption that your printer can print
IBM-PC Extended ASCII characters. If it can't, answer
NO to the Extended ASCII question on the System
Configuration Screen.
Any type monitor can be used with ToDo, but if you have
either an EGA or VGA, there are two default color sets
available. To switch between them, you can press
<Ctrl> <F10>
almost anytime. After pressing this key combination, the
colors will be switched on the NEXT screen, and the new
colors will be saved for each subsequent session.
Software: DOS 3.3 is REQUIRED for ToDo. Additionally, ToDo
requires a minimum of 30 DOS file handles to function
properly. You will need the statement:
FILES=31
in your CONFIG.SYS file (DOS likes odd numbers!).
Additionally, you also need to have the following
statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file so ToDo knows where
its files are:
SET ToDo=[d:][path]
This tells ToDo where it can find its files.
The [path] should be the path for the ToDo data files.
For example:
SET ToDo=C:\todo
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒══════════════════════╕
│ REQUIRED FILES │
╘══════════════════════╛
The following files are required for ToDo:
AHOURS DBF Archived Hours Worked Data Base
ATASKS DBF Archived Task Data Base
CLIENTS DBF Client Data Base
COLORS DBF Standard Color Definitions
CONTROL DBF Internal Data Base used by ToDo
EXPENSES DBF Expenses Data Base
FONTS DBF Printer Fonts Definition
HOLIDAY DBF Holiday Data Base (not required initially)
HOURS DBF Hours Worked Data Base
HOWTO DBF ToDo Road Map Data Base (not required initially)
IMPORTAN DBF Important Numbers (encrypted)
Palette EXE Stand alone program to Change EGA/VGA palette
PHONEHIS DBF Phone Call History Data Base
NOTES DBF Task Notes Data Base
NOTES2 DBF Name and Address Comments
NOTES3 DBF Diary
Rpt EXE ToDo Program #3
Rpt OVL ToDo Overlay #3
SPECHIST DBF Special Dates Archive
SPECIAL DBF Special Dates Data Base
SYSHELP DBF System Help Data Base (not required initially)
TASKS DBF Task Data Base
TEMP RPT Screen Report File (not required initially)
TD EXE ToDo Program #2
TD OVL ToDo Overlay #2
ToDo EXE The ToDo Startup Program
ToDo HLP ToDo System Help File
ToDo MEM Internal Storage File (not required initially)
TODO PAL Palette Color Changes (required for PALETTE.EXE)
ToDo2 MEM Internal Storage File (not required initially)
ToDoERRS DBF Error History (not required initially)
ToDoNA DBF Names and Phone Numbers
TODONA2 DBF Addresses
ToDoREST EXE Restore Program for ToDo Backup (ToDo.BU)
Util EXE ToDo Program #4
Util OVL ToDo Overlay #4
Plus ToDo will create its own indexes for the above files.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒═══════════════════════╕
│ Backing Up │
╘═══════════════════════╛
As with ALL programs, you should back up the ToDo program files on a
regular basis (I backup up once a day). When you exit ToDo, you will
be given the opportunity to Back Up the ToDo Data files (the corres-
ponding RESTORE program can be accessed from the Utility Menu). ToDo
will back up all of the necessary files to a single file on whatever
drive you choose. ------
This backup is limited to a single drive. For example, if backing up
to a 360K - 5 1/4" floppy, your backup will be limited to 360K of
data. In ToDo's world, this is a LOT of information, and it is
unlikely that you will ever need more than this. But.....if you do,
you can use any commercial (on non-commercial) backup product you
choose. The only files you will need to back up can be categorized
as follows:
*.DBF
*.MEM
If for some reason, you can't get into ToDo, because of a problem
with the databases, you can use the stand alone program:
ToDoREST.EXE
to restore ToDo databases. You should run this program from the ToDo
directory, and it requires one parameter: the location of the ToDo
backup file (ToDo.BU). For example, if the ToDo.BU file is on drive
B: in the root directory, you would enter:
ToDoREST B:\
When starting up ToDo after manually restoring these files, you
should always use the /R option from the command line
(i.e., ToDo /R). This will cause ToDo to regenerate all of its
index files. This WON'T be necessary if you use ToDo's Backup and
Restore function (from the Utility Menu).
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒═══════════════════════╕
│ Other Information │
╘═══════════════════════╛
ToDo is written in the dBase Language, compiled using the Clipper
compiler, along with a few "C" & assembler programs thrown in for
good measure!
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒═══════════════════════════════════════╕
│ Copyrights, and other necessities │
╘═══════════════════════════════════════╛
This software is distributed to you on an "as is" basis without
warrantee of any kind. PriceWise and Bert Sirkin make no warranty of
any kind, express or implied, including without limitation, any
warrantees of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular
purpose. Neither PriceWise or Bert Sirkin shall not be liable for
any damages, whether direct, indirect, special or consequential
arising from a failure of any function within the above mentioned
program to operate in the manner desired by the user. In no event
will PriceWise or Bert Sirkin be responsible for any damage,
including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or
consequential damages arising out of use of the programs contained on
the above mentioned disk(s).
whew!
(c) Copyright 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 PriceWise (Bert Sirkin)
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
╒══════════════╕
│ Help!! │
╘══════════════╛
If you have any suggestions or ideas for improving ToDo, or find any
Bugs (ugh!), please let us know!
Thanks!
Bert Sirkin (PriceWise)
P.O. Box 370542
West Hartford, CT 06137
(203) 232-2515