Manual Menu

Item Time & Alarm

Overview

About The Fields

Date & Time Fields

Trying Out Alarms

Alarm Alerts

The Alarm Browser

Item Secrets

This chapter introduces you to the Time fields and Alarms available with List Pad items.

Overview

In the previous chapter you learned about the various price-related fields that are available with List Pad items, how to use those fields, and how to use the special features available with those fields.

In this chapter you will learn about the Time & Alarm fields and features available with each List Pad item you create. These fields can be used for something as simple as recording a date and time associated with an item, such as a creation time or due date, to complex alarms and reminders with powerful notification and repeating options.

In this chapter you will go over the following:

Let's get started by doing the following:

  1. Open the list To Do List in the Sample Files folder of the List Pad 1.2 f folder.
  2. Open the item Buy Lisa's BDay Present.
  3. Click on the Time & Alarm tab.

About The Fields

Each item has both a Date and a Time field for recording a specific time for the item. This time could be anything. A copyright date. A due date. A significant date in history. A significant date in the future. Like all of List Pad's item fields, you can either use or ignore these fields, and their meaning depends on the list you create.

In addition, there are 7 additional fields/menus available for specifying if, when, and how you should be notified of the item time.

Date & Time Fields

These are the fields used to actually record the specific date and time. List Pad displays and interprets dates and times based on the settings in the Date & Time control panel. You should enter dates and times in the format you specify in this control panel, otherwise errors can occur. For instance, if you specify a DD/MM/YY short date format in the Date & Time control panel, and then enter February 1st as MM/DD/YY (i.e. 02/01/98) List Pad will interpret the date as January 2nd. In the Item Editor dates are displayed in the long format (i.e. month and day names) to help avoid confusion. You don't have to enter them in long format, but do enter them in the short format specified in your control panel.

Alarm On?

This check box specifies whether or not List Pad should alert you, i.e. whether or not there is an alarm for the item. If it is not checked you will not be notified when the item Time has expired. Note that the list the item is in must be open for List Pad to check its alarms. You may want to add lists with alarms to the Startup Files application preference so that they will open automatically whenever List Pad is launched (see chapter 09 Special Features).

Repeat

This popup menu gives you the following 8 repeating options.

Advanced Notification

This field allows you to specify how far in advance List Pad should alert you. It consists of a text field where you can enter the amount of time (i.e. 4) and a popup menu where you specify the "magnitude" of the number you enter (i.e. minutes, hours, days). For instance, to have List Pad notify you of a birthday on the 22nd 7 days in advance, you would enter 7 and select Days.

Notify With

These three items let you specify how List Pad should notify you. If you would like to see a dialog, check the Dialog? box. If you would like List Pad to beep, enter the number of beeps in the Beeps field. Enter 0 for no beeps. And if you would like a message in the alert dialog, enter the message in the text field below those two fields. You can style the text in this field.

Trying Out Alarms

  1. Close the item you are currently looking at.
  2. Open the Buy Cake - Al's Party item.
  3. Click on the Time & Alarm tab.

You'll notice that this particular item doesn't have a time or an alarm associated with it. You are going to fix that.

Your co-worker Al needs a birthday cake, and you've been assigned to get it for his office party. (If you work at home or your office doesn't have parties, I apologize. Pretend instead that this is a very sneaky way for you to get cake for yourself without any computer spies figuring it out.) But you forgot to enter the date and time of the party and set an alarm to notify you to get it a day early. (You could get it a week early, cause you don't like Al that much. But you'll be eating the cake to, so you don't want it to be stale.)

  1. Click in the Date field, delete the existing date (0/0/0), and enter today's date. You can delete the existing date by backspacing over it or by selecting Select All... from the Edit menu and then hitting the delete key once.
  2. Click in the Time field. Now click the label above the Time field. The current time should be entered immediately. You can do the same with the Date field.
  3. Turn the alarm on by checking the Alarm On? check box.
  4. This won't be a repeating alarm, so leave that popup menu on Do Not Repeat. But, you do need to be notified in advance. Click in the Notify field, delete the current text (0) and enter 1. Now select Days from the popup menu next to the field.
  5. Check the Dialog? check box. Enter 2 in the Beeps field. Now enter a message for yourself in the field below these two. Don't forget Al's chocolate cake would be a good message.
  6. Click the Save button or select Save Item (command-8) from the Item menu.
  7. Close the item.

Alarm Alerts

In a few moments, perhaps before you can even close the item, an alarm notification window will pop up.

Of course the date and time will be different from that listed above (unless you're in a chronoton-induced time warp and are using List Pad before its release...in which case, find a Star Trek fan to help you out - mention the Omega directive). But it should be exactly 1 day prior to the date and time you entered. Since that would be your current date and time, this alarm actually was supposed to go off yesterday!

This is the dialog box you see when List Pad notifies you of an alarm. Unless List Pad is in the background when the alarm occurs. Then you will see a standard Mac OS message dialog.

The List Pad dialog gives you four buttons. Their actions are described below.

Go ahead and click the Leave button.

Having clicked that button you suddenly realized that your office pal Michelle has already purchased a cake for you and will give it to you in the parking lot. You don't need this alarm any more!

The Alarm Browser

You could just delete the item containing the alarm, but then you wouldn't get to explore the Alarm Browser. The Alarm Browser is a List Pad window which shows all currently "ringing" alarms in all the currently open lists. It also allows you to Edit, Snooze, and Silence those alarms.

Select Alarm Browser (command-3) from the Windows menu.

You can open this window at any time to see the alarms which have occurred in the currently open List Pad lists. Remember, the list containing the item with the alarm must be open for List Pad to know about the alarm.

Using this window is easy. Simply select the alarm you wish to work on and then click the appropriate button to either silence, snooze, or edit the alarm. The three buttons perform the same actions as their counterparts above.

Item Secrets

Congratulations! You now know just about everything there is to know about List Pad items.

There are a couple other commands you should know about under the Item menu, however. They are described below:

That's it! Now you will probably want to take a break before continuing on to the next chapter as it's all about the List Browser and is a bit long.