MASTER OF CEREMONIES FOR PSION SERIES 3 (beta25Oct92) ======================================= ============= By: John Hind. (Compuserve 70374,756) INTRODUCTION ============ Master of Ceremonies is an application for the PSION Series 3 Pocket Computer to assist people who have to control any structured event such as a conference, meeting, tutorial, television programme etc. It can also be used by individual presenters to keep their talk to time and act as an electronic cue card. Basic Concepts ============== Master of Ceremonies manages shedules composed of a number of time slots. The slots occur in a continuous sequence from the start of the schedule to the end and each slot has a duration associated with it. The duration of the schedule is the sum of the durations of the slots. The schedules are stored in database files with each record representing a slot. In addition to the duration, each slot has up to two lines of descriptive text associated with it. Prior to the event, you plan the schedule by entering the slots. These can be edited and moved about until a satisfactory event has been planned. The system keeps track of the overall duration of the event (or you can set a start time and the system will track the end time, or set an end time and the system will track the required start time). At the start of the event, you start the schedule running. As each slot is completed, you record this by hitting the spacebar. The screen shows the current slot, the next slot and a countdown timer of remaining time to the next slot change. The screen also shows the variation from the plan and the estimated finish time. Optional audible warnings can be enabled. Maximum flexibility is maintained at all times. Even when the schedule is running, you can freely examine all parts of it and edit and re- arrange the slots that are still in the future. This programme was forged in the white heat of the seminar circuit! A system which cannot cope when schedules go seriously pathological would be worse than useless! Limitations =========== Master of Ceremonies does all timing to an accuracy of +/- 0.5 minutes and displays times to a resolution of one minute. Each schedule may have up to 100 slots defined and the total duration of the schedule cannot exceed 24 hours. A previous version, codename "Cinderella's Coach", could not cope with schedules including midnight. That didn't seem a problem at first, since, in my experience, things usually get a bit unstructured at that time of night anyway! However I fixed it since I found it made late night testing impossible! The application is now certified for use by astronomers and over-organised night clubs. There are also some limitations caused by the "write once" nature of Series-3 storage. In the file, the order of the slots is preserved by giving them non-contiguous sequence numbers with space left for later additions. If you add too many slots in the middle of the file, this scheme can become congested when there are fewer than 100 slots. In this case, a message "too many slots" will appear. This can be worked round by copying the file from within MOC, either using the "Save as" command or the "New schedule" command with "Use template" set to "Yes". The copy routine does everything that OPL "Compress" does, but also reassigns the sequence numbers. INSTALLATION ============ This version of MOC is provided as PC files only, so you will need a PC and a PSION 3-LINK with associated MCLINK software. Connect up and download the files "Frame.opo" and "Moc.opa" to the \APP\ directory on the internal, A or B drives. Make a new directory \MOC\ on the drive of your choice and download the file "Example.moc" to this directory. Select PSION-I (install application) and select the "Moc.opa" file. The Master Of Ceremonies icon will appear. TUTORIAL ======== Lesson 1: Familiarisation. ========================== If you have not already installed Master of Ceremonies on your S3, follow the instructions under INSTALLATION carefully. The Master of Ceremonies icon should appear when you press the System button on the S3 - it's a stylised representation of a conference room. You may need to move from side to side using the left and right arrow keys to bring the icon into view. Under the icon should be one file - Example. Highlight this file and press [Enter]. After a short delay, the Master of Ceremonies main screen will appear. The screen is divided into four areas. The top left area shows time in minutes for the current slot. Because the schedule is not presently running, the planned duration of the current slot is shown (because the current slot is a dummy start marker, the duration is 0). Below the "MINS:" area is a full width area showing the current slot (presently the dummy [ START ] slot). Below that again is a similar area showing the next slot (currently the first real slot in the schedule). To the right of the "MINS:" area is an information panel showing the time interval occupied by the entire schedule and by the current slot. The figures labelled "Est:" and "Var:" will be explained later. Experiment with using the up and down arrow keys and the [PgUp] and [PgDn] keys to change the current slot and explore the schedule. Notice how the "MINS:" area and the interval for the current slot change to reflect the values for the slot in the "CUR:" area. Lesson 2: Running the Schedule. =============================== Before running the schedule for the first time, you might like to turn the "bells and whistles" on. Press the [Menu] key and use the arrows to bring up the "Set sound" option on the "Special" menu. This brings up the "Set sound options" dialogue box. Change all three options to ON using the arrow keys (leave the "Minutes Before" setting at 2). Press [Enter] to return to the main screen. Make sure that the [ START ] dummy item is current (use the [PgUp] key if it is not). Press the [Enter] key. The schedule is now running, signalled by the three top areas acquiring a shadow. Notice that the schedule and slot now show real times and reflect the time when you started the run. If you wait a bit, you will see that the MINS: area is now a countdown timer continuously updated to show the number of minutes remaining for the current slot. The arrow keys still work as before, allowing you to look forward and backward in the schedule while it is still running. You can tell you're not on the running slot, or viewing a countdown timer because the shadows round these areas have gone, but the shadow remains on the information panel to remind you that the schedule is still running. You can press [Enter] as a shortcut back to the running slot. If you leave the schedule running, you will get a beep at 2 minutes (as set above by the "Advanced warning" Option), two beeps at 0 minutes (the "Time up" warning) and thereafter as the countdown goes negative, one beep every minute (the "Overtime" warning). When a slot goes into overtime, the "Var:" and "Est:" figures start to change also. You've probably worked out that these show the estimated finishing time for the schedule and the number of minutes behind or ahead of time. When you actually move things on to the next slot, press the spacebar. The "NXT:" item becomes "CUR:" and, if you're ahead of time, the "Var:" number decreases and the estimated finish time moves forward. You can either continue pressing the spacebar until the end of the schedule is reached or press PSION-Z to terminate the run prematurely. Lesson 3: Creating Your Own Schedule ==================================== Create a blank new schedule by pressing the [MENU] key and taking the "New schedule" option from the "File" menu. Enter a file name and leave the rest of the dialogue as it is (the use of templates will be explained in the next lesson). This brings up an empty schedule. You can plan a schedule based either on "relative time" (durations) or, if you know when you plan to start or finish, based on "absolute time" (clock time). The default is "relative", but you can change it at any time (as long as the schedule is not running) using the "Time Editor" dialogue activated by PSION-T or from the "Special" menu. For this example, set an absolute start time of 10:00. To enter your first slot, take the "Change"/"Enter slot" option or the shortcut PSION-E. It is a good idea to give your schedule a heading first. To do this, enter '0' in the MINS: line and type the heading text in "LINE 1:" and "LINE 2". Repeat the above procedure to enter the first real slot, except this time enter a duration. This can be done by entering either an end time or a number of minutes duration. Enter several more slots and headings in the same way. You can use the clipboard to speed up the entry process and to correct mistakes: To copy the current slot onto the clipboard, press PSION-C. This slot can then be duplicated by moving to the new location and pressing PSION-I. A slot can be moved by first deleting it onto the clipboard using the [Delete] key and then re-inserting it using PSION-I at the new location. The above operations can be effected over a number of consecutive slots by first highlighting them. To do this, hold down the [SHIFT] key and extend the selection using the up or down arrow keys. The extent of the selection may now be checked using the (unshifted) arrow keys, but ensure that one of the highlighted slots is current before pressing [Delete] or PSION-C (otherwise the operation will be on the current slot only). To change the text or duration of a slot, use PSION-U ("Change"/"Update"). To add a new slot at any location move the slot above the new slot into the "CUR:" window and use PSION-E ("Change"/"Enter slot"). To close MOC and save your schedule, use PSION-X ("Special"/"Exit") The options on the "Search" menu facilitate moving through the schedule. "Find" and "Find next" are used to find text in the slot headings in the same way as with a normal Psion Database. PSION-W ("Search"/"Find time") brings up a dialogue to let you enter a time. When you press [Enter], the slot at that time is made current. Lesson 4: Re-scheduling on the fly ================================== If an event is to be run more than once, it is probably best to use a copy of the schedule rather than the original. This will enable the the event to be re-scheduled on the fly without changing the original. The template feature on the Create New Schedule dialogue facilitates this. Start MOC with the file you intend to use as the template, then bring up the "File"/"New schedule" dialogue, enter a filename for the schedule run and change the "Use template" selection to "Yes". A new file, identical to the template, is created and opened, leaving the original, template file unchanged. If you start the schedule running and step on several slots, you can experiment with rescheduling. All the editing commands used in creating the schedule work when the schedule is running but ONLY ON FUTURE ITEMS. You cannot change slots already completed or the currently running slot. If you stop the schedule and want to restart again, just press [ENTER] with the slot you wish to start at highlighted. Lesson 5: Housekeeping ====================== Schedule files are ordinary ODB files and can be maintained and manipulated using the ordinary Series-3 facilities. Care has been taken with the design to make these files work effectively from Flash Memory. When copying MOC files you should use the file handling features of the MOC program itself. This is because database compression and also some reorganisation unique to MOC files is done when files are copied within the program. To make a copy of a schedule, first open the schedule and then take the "File"/"Save as" option (PSION-A). You can enter a new filename and specify any local or remote drive. If the specified drive does not already have one, a "\MOC\" directory will be created so that the new file appears under the MOC icon whichever drive it is on. END OF DOCUMENT ===============