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Amigaguide Document
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1996-04-07
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28KB
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520 lines
@DATABASE "Default"
@NODE "Main" "Main"
@TOC "MAIN"
Table of Contents
@{"Introduction" LINK "Introduction"} - All the formalities and my address.
@{"System Requirements" LINK "Requirements"} - What you need to run this.
@{"Why Remind" LINK "Why"} - Why bother with this program.
@{"Installation" LINK "Install"} - How to install Remind on your Amiga.
@{"No Clock" LINK "No clock"} - What to do if your Amiga has no built in clock.
@{"Startup Window" LINK "Startup"} - What the startup window is for.
@{"Todays Messages" LINK "Today messages"} - Individual messages for today
@{"Main window" LINK "Main window"} - Describes the main window.
@{"Adding a message" LINK "Add"} - How to add a message.
@{"Delete a message" LINK "Delete"} - How to delete a message.
@{"Amend a message" LINK "Amend"} - How to amend a message.
@{"Preferences" LINK "Prefs"} - What each means.
@{"Quit" LINK "Quit"} - What quitting does.
@{"Finished / Hide" LINK "Finish"} - What finish does.
@{"Tooltypes" LINK "Tools"} - Known tooltypes for Remind
@{"Known bugs" LINK "Bugs"} - Hopefully none!
@{"Things to do" LINK "Todo"} - If I ever get the time
@{"Acknowledgements" LINK "Ack"} - Who to thank.
@{"History" LINK "History"} - See whats new.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Introduction" "Introduction"
@TOC "MAIN"
Remind
A useful commodity program so you don't forget important dates.
Richard Ambridge 1994
My e-mail address is : ram@borg.dircon.co.uk
Copyright Richard Ambridge 1994.
This program may be freely distributed as long as
the whole archive file remains complete, blah blah.
At the moment, this program is Emailware, that is, it cannot be sold for
any amount of cash, other that that required for adminstation and copying
fees. If you wish to send me any money, gold, A4000's, 1GB hard drives,
just send them to the address below, but what I do ask is that you send
me some e-mail saying you are using the program, if you don't have email
a postcard will do!
Magazines, if you wish to put this program on your coverdisk then please
notify me that you are doing so, and we can discuss a small fee, say a years
subscription to your magazine!
If you find this program useful, or you have any bug reports or suggestions,
please feel free to write to me.
My postal address is:
Richard Ambridge
23 Fieldway Crescent,
Northwood,
Cowes,
Isle of Wight.
England
PO31 8AJ
Even if you have nothing to say, post me an e-mail message to say that you
are using the program, just for curiosity.
If you send me e-mail I shall add you to my e-mailing list and notify you
when a new version of Remind is released.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Requirements" "System Requirements"
@TOC "MAIN"
System Requirements
This program should work on any Amiga with OS 2.0 or above. However I have
not been able to test it on a machine with OS 2.0, and I would appriciate any
telling me if it does work. It has been tested on a couple of A1200's running
OS 3.0.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Why" "Why?"
@TOC "MAIN"
Why Remind?
Why not!
Calender programs are plentiful for the Amiga, you can always find another
program sitting on a board which tells you what you are doing today. However
I feel none of the programs I have tried actually are useful and easy to
read.
The good thing about remind is that it contains all the information in one
window, including what you need to do today, what you need to do within
several days, and what you have to do for the rest of the year. The user
interface has been remarked on by several people for its clarity.
Its compact, completely configurable (well nearly), and its free.
Completely and utterly free, all I ask is that you send me some e-mail to
say that you are using the program. See @{"Introduction" LINK "Introduction"} for the address.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Install" "Installation procedure"
@TOC "MAIN"
How to install Remind
This is probably the bit you were interested in.
It is incredibly simple.
1. Drag the Remind icon into the WBStartup draw on your workbench
partition/disk.
2. That's it
Double click on the icon to run it, or reboot your system.
The program will create two files.
ENVARC:remind.prefs and
s:remind.data
The s:remind.data file can be renamed if you so wish, see @{"prefs" LINK "Prefs"} section.
When Remind starts up, how it behaves depends on the preference settings.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "No clock" "Systems with no built in clock"
@TOC "MAIN"
Systems with no built in clock
If the 'freeze remind until clock set' flag is set in the @{"preferences" LINK "Prefs"}, a
window will appear indicating that remind is frozen.
At this point the system clock should be set using the Time program in the
prefs drawer, or something similar. When the date has been set, click on the
'Ready' button to continue.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Startup" "The Startup window"
@TOC "MAIN"
The Startup Window
If the value set for the 'Timer for startup' in the @{"preferences" LINK "Prefs"} is greater
than 0 then a small startup window will appear. This indicates that remind
has been installed and also shows the current hotkey.
When the startup window is active the program is doing no work, and the
data file has not yet been loaded. This is to allow other programs in the
WBStartup draw to load, preventing disk thrashing.
After the timer has expired then if
The @{"preferences" LINK "Prefs"} has 'always' type set for startup
or
The @{"preferences" LINK "Prefs"} has 'once' type set and the program has not been
used today,
then the main window will be opened,
otherwise the startup window will disappear and the program will hide.
Note, if the hotkey is pressed during the startup timer then the main
window will open immediately irrespective of the startup type.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Today messages" "Today messages"
@TOC "MAIN"
Today messages
If the preferences has the "Show messages for today" flag set then if this
is the first time the program has been run today for each of the messages
waiting for today a small window will appear displaying the message.
If there are further messages today, clicking the "Next" gadget will display
the next message, until all messages have been displayed.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Main window" "The Main Window"
@TOC "MAIN"
The Main window
The main window is as following.
_________________________________________________________________________
|O|_______________________________________________________________________|
| |
| ___________________________________________________________________ _ |
| | | | |
| | Expired messages | | |
| |___________________________________________________________________|_| |
| ___________________________________________________________________ _ |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | Todays messages | | |
| | | | |
| |___________________________________________________________________|_| |
| ___________________________________________________________________ _ |
| | | | |
| | Messages within a set period | | |
| |___________________________________________________________________|_| |
| ___________________________________________________________________ _ |
| | | | |
| | Other future messages | | |
| |___________________________________________________________________|_| |
| |
| _______ _________ ________ _______ _______ _________ |
| | || || || | | || | |
| | Add || Delete || Amend || Prefs | | Quit || Finished| |
| |_______||_________||________||_______| |_______||_________| |
|________________________________________________________________________V|
The top list contains all messages which have passed their date,
i.e. expired.
The next list contains all messages for today.
The third list contains all messages within the period set in the
@{"preference" LINK "Prefs"} field 'Within period'. For example if today is 7th June and
the within period is set to 7 then the third list contains all messages
for the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th of June.
The final list contains all other message in the future.
The window can be sized by draging the size gadget on the bottom right of
the window. The window cannot be sized smaller that the default size (because
all the gadgets fall off the end) but it can be as large as your screen.
To save the position and size of your window, first size and move it to the
required place and then click on @{"Prefs" LINK "Prefs"} and save the prefs.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Add" "Adding a new message"
@TOC "MAIN"
Adding a new message
Clicked on the 'Add' button, or selecting Add from the menu, or typing 'a'
or 'ramiga-a' will open up the Add window for adding a new message.
How to add a message.
1. Using the string gadget labelled 'Text' insert the message which you wish
to be displayed.
2. Select the type of message you require.
Once - The message will after expiring move into the Previous
(top list) and will stay there until it become as old as
the value set in the @{"Preference" LINK "Prefs"} History size field, and
then it is removed.
Persistant - The message will be created at the day specified, but when
that date expires it will stay in the Today list until it
is 'Deleted'.
Weekly - Once the message expires it is reissued a week later
Monthly - Once the message expires it is reissued 1 month later
Annually - Once the message expires it is reissued 1 year later
Birthday - This message behaves the same as annually and in effect is
exactly the same as an Annual message. Selecting Birthday
enters in the Prenote box the value set in the @{"preferences" LINK "Prefs"}
for pre-note added days.
Relative - This message occurs on a set DAY in the month. Selecting this
type swaps the input method to the Relative selectors.
See step 3 for selecting the Relative day.
This day occurs monthly on the same day of the week.
So if you are say paid on the 1st Tuesday of every month then
this is the type of message to use.
3. For non-Relative messages select the date you wish the message to occur
on.
Use the sliders to select the day/month,
or press
d - To increase day by one (note if you are on 30th June and you press
'd' you will go to 1st July etc.)
D - To decrease the day by one.
m - To increase the month by one.
M - To decrease the month by one.
Selecting the 'Today' button will reset the date to today.
Selecting one of the 'Plus' button will add a set amount to the current
date, e.g. Selecting '1 Month' to 15th June will result in the 15th July
being displayed at the bottom left of the window.
For Relative types of message the "Week Number" slider is used to select
the week of the month the message will occur on, e.g. 1st week, 2nd week,...
Not every month has the same amount of weeks in it, so a "Last" box is added.
Clicking on the last box will find the last day in every month.
The Week day slider selects the day of the week for the message to occur
on, e.g. Sunday, Monday, ...
4. All messages can have what is called a "Prenote" added to them.
This is done by entering a value in the "Pre-note days" box.
This value indicates how many days before the message is due another
message should be issued to act as a reminder.
For example, if a message is set up as follows:
Text : Go on holiday
Date : 25th July 1994
Type : Once
Then the pre-note days box may have the value 7 entered in it, then on the
18th July 1994 a message "On 25th July: Go on holiday" will appear
reminding you that the holiday is approaching and you should have obtained
your passports by that time for example.
5. Each message can have with it an associated time. Click in the "Time" box
will enable the hour and minute gadgets. Enter the time which the message
should occur, the time is either entered in 24hour format or AM/PM format,
see @{"Preferences" LINK "Prefs"} for details.
If AM/PM format is being used then the time has to be entered and the
cycle gadget selected as AM or PM.
When this time is reached Remind activates a simple window displaying the
time and the message.
6. A message can have associated with it a command to execute. Click on the
execute command box to enable the command gadget, and enter the command
you wish to execute for this message. See @{"Command Execution" LINK "Command"}.
7. Select either "Accept" or "Cancel" to accept or reject the message.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Command" "Command execution"
@TOC "MAIN"
Command Execution
Any message can have associated with it a command string.
This string is added to the message when you @{"create" LINK "Add"} or @{"amend" LINK "Amend"} and message.
This feature can only accept simple one line commands, exactly the same
as selecting "Execute Command" from the Workbench menu.
The command is executed with the following.
run <NIL: >NIL: <command>
where <command> is the command you entered.
The command is executed in one of two places.
1. If the message has a time associated with it, the command will be
executed at the same time the message window appears on the screen.
2. If the message has no time associated with it, the command will be
executed the first time Remind is used on the date of the message.
When a command is executed a window may or may not appear with the message
depending if the "Window" flag was set next to the execute flag. This
allows commands to be executed at a set time but with no interaction with
Remind required.
This part of Remind was suggested to me (thanks Peter), but if anyone is
not happy in the method used for executing the command or when the command
is executed, please @{"e-mail" LINK "Introduction"} and tell me your solution.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Delete" "Delete a message"
@TOC "MAIN"
Delete
Any message can be selected by simply clicking on the message. If you wish
to delete the message simply click on 'Delete' or type 'd' or select
'Delete' from the menu. The message is then deleted.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Amend" "Amend a message"
@TOC "MAIN"
Amend
Any message can be selected by simply clicking on the message. If you wish
to amend the message simple click on 'Amend' or type 'm' or select "Amend"
from the menu. A message can also be amended by double clicking on the actual
message.
The amend window will appear which has the same functionality as the Add
window. Edit the message and date etc. and accept the message to replace it.
Clicking @{"'Cancel'" LINK "Main window"} or 'Close window' will ignore all your changes and close
the Amend window.
In previous versions of Remind once a message of type "Persistant" has been
dealt with the user would either delete it, or amend its type to be Once.
This was a bit inconvenient as you lose the record of the message or amending
has to occur.
Now the persistant message can be changed by holding down shift and double
clicking on the message. This moves the message to the "previous" window
and it will act as a once type message.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Prefs" "Setting the preferences"
@TOC "MAIN"
Preferences
The preferences give you more control on how the program behaves.
Clicking on the 'Prefs' gadget will open the preference window.
Freeze remind until clock set:
As described @{"earlier" LINK "No clock"}, when Remind starts if the
'Freeze remind until clock set' flag is set (i.e. a tick is present in the
little box) then when remind starts up it will waiting until you tell it to
continue. This allows you to set the system clock before the program
initialises.
Show messages for today:
As described @{"earlier" LINK "Today messages"}, when Remind starts if this flag is set and there are
any messages for today then a small window will appear at startup displaying
the message.
24hour clock:
The type of clock format for the program can be selected to be either
24 hour format, (00:00 -> 23:59) or AM/PM format (12:00AM -> 11:59PM).
If this flag has a tick in it then all clocks act on a 24hour basis.
Changing this flag will not alter currently displayed time formats on the
screen, however any further time functions will adopt the new format and
next time the program is run all time formats will change.
Within period (days):
The amount of days which are displayed separately in the Third list window
is determined by the value set in the Within Period field.
For example if today is 7th June and the within period is set to 7 then
the third list contains all messages for the,
8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th of June.
Length of history (days):
This field determines how long expired messages are kept in the
Previous list.
Timer for startup (secs):
This sets the amount of seconds the @{"Startup window" LINK "Startup"} is displayed at the
beginning. Setting this value to 0 turns off the startup window.
Pre-note added (days):
This sets how many days before a 'Birthday' type message the Pre-note is
set to. See the Add section for more detail.
On startup:
The behaviour of the main window can be determined by selecting one of the
three:
Always,
Never,
Once.
Always - indicates that after the Startup window has closed the main window
will be opened.
Never - indicates that the main window will never be opened and so the
only method for opening it would be via the hotkey
Once - The first time the program is used each day will result in the
window being opened.
Initial Window:
The position of the @{"Startup" LINK "Startup"} / @{"Waiting" LINK "No clock"} window can be set using the
'Initial Window' button. This opens up a small window which can be dragged to
the required opening position. Click on the close gadget to select the
position.
Data file name:
The path and name of the data file can be set here. So if you are unhappy
that the program writes to your s: directory you could change it to something
more to your liking!
Remind window size:
Please note, when the preferences are saved the current position and size
of the main window is saved with them.
Once the preferences have been set click on Save to write and use them, or
click on Cancel (or close the window) to ignore anything you have done.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Quit" "Does anyone read the window title?"
@TOC "MAIN"
Quit
This button completely shuts Remind down, removing it from memory.
If the database has changed then you will be asked if you wish to save the
changes.
NOTE: Each new day the program is used has to be stored, so when the
program is used for the first time on one day and you select quit then you
will be ask to save the database so the program will know that it has been
used today, even if you didn't change anything.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Finish" "Im bored of writing these"
@TOC "MAIN"
Finished / Hide
This saves the database to disk and closes down the window. The program
remains in memory and can be activated by pressing the Hotkey.
The current hotkey can be read by selecting 'About' from the Menu.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Tools" "Ive got a new job"
@TOC "MAIN"
TOOLTYPES
Remind currently only knows of 2 tooltypes.
HOTKEY - Defining the hotkey to use
e.g. HOTKEY=shift f8
CX_PRIORITY - The priority level in the commodities
NOTE: The DONOTWAIT tooltype has to be included so Workbench will not wait
for a return when remind is run from WBStartup draw.
- If anyone could tell me how to remove this then it would be appreciated.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Bugs" "Anyone know any good jokes. Email them to me."
@TOC "MAIN"
Known bugs :)
PLEASE NOTE.
When reporting bugs to me (please do) a little information makes my life
easier. Things like..
> When I enter a note of type "blurr" and then click accept and then quit
> and when the requester appears I select "save" my computer blows up.
Indicating a step by step approach to how the bug occurrs.
Also information (especially if it is a display problem) such as
Screen mode: e.g. PAL/NTSC ? Hi-res laced, Low-res, Super hi-res ?
Screen size: Default width/height or e.g, width=1500 ?
Default font: topaz 9, Gothic 54, etc?
Default screen font: ....
Help me to help you.
---------
Currently no bugs reported for this version... :-P
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Todo" "Things to do"
@TOC "MAIN"
Things to do
- Add locale support. When I get the 3.0 include files.
- Make the size of each of the 4 main listviews user definable.
- Being able to append notes to notes. So extra information can be added
to the note. This involves some form of simple editor to be written
and I don't feel up to that at the moment.
- Allow own screen to be used.
- Open main window X times ??
- User define font.
- Weekly(monthly) review
- Copy gadget
- Prefs, Save always on exit
- Highlight key presses on buttons
I don't know how to do this with Gadtools, if anyone could tell me...
@ENDNODE
@NODE "Ack" "Thanks people"
@TOC "MAIN"
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jan van den Baard for creating GadtoolsBox,
and thanks to Jane for initially prompting me into writing this,
and thanks to Ellis for beating me at GF2 so many times.
@ENDNODE
@NODE "History" "Bug fixes and enhancements"
@TOC "MAIN"
History
; Version 1.0 - 28th May 1994
; Initial prototype. Badly coded and eventually discarded
; Version 1.1 - 10th June 1994
; Redesigned project.
; Split main window into seperate windows
; Version 1.11- 27th June 1994
; - The year number gadget in "Add New Note" always returned 0, I assumed
; the Code field of the message from Gadtools returned the value of the
; number gadget, I was wrong, so was my program. (opps, never tested
; that one)
; - Added the Amend function.
; - Added comfirm quit from Double run of Commodity
; Version 1.2 - 5th July 1994
; - Prenotes can now be added to all types of notes.
; - Amend function was re-written making it now code efficient and
; also can be activated by double clicking on a note
; - Prenotes are now "attached" to the parent note, so when the parent
; note is amended/deleted so are the prenotes.
; - New note type "Relative" added. (See documents)
; - Some memory was not being returned to the system for some "Previous"
; notes. Now fixed.
; - A previous note is now not created when a prenote expires.
; - A space was added in the prenote between the date and the note text!
; - A lot of code was re-written to be more efficient and cleaner! If you
; could see the source code it is now much clearer, (less headaches for
; me)
; - Changing the period for the Within list made all deleted messages
; reappear. Now fixed.
; - The Freeze window until ready part never worked. Strange, it used to.
; - Any of the prefs options could be set to a negative number. This used
; to cause a lot of problems. Now fixed.
; - If the prefs filename was set to blank then the prefs would be loaded
; incorrectly the next time, and the data file would go walk about.
; Version 1.3 - 15th July 1994
; - Added font adaptability.
; - Included a size gadget. (Not as simple as it seems!)
; - The window size is now saved with a preference save.
; - Added a time feature. Each message can now be time stamped.
; - Messages for today can be displayed individually on startup.
; Version 1.31 - 20th July 1994
; - Changing the type of the note in Create/Amend used to erase Prenote
; value currently stored. Now it doesn't.
; - The Create/Amend window has been rearranged.
; - Added the execute command option for a message.
; Version 1.32 - 26th July 1994
; - Using NTSC Hi-res laced screens with certain system fonts gave
; some trouble and Remind couldn't create the gadgets in the window.
; This has now been fixed.
; - In some resolutions the Create note screen had some gadgets touching.
; These have been slightly moved.
; - The time format can be selected as 24hour or am/pm
; - The messages are now ordered in time of day as well as date.
; - Linked with utility.library for slightly smaller and faster code
; - External commands now executed with dos.library/Execute() for better
; compatability.
; Version 1.4 - 15th August 1994
; - The minimum size of the window has been reduced. So now the
; main window can become smaller.
; - Yet more problems with Resize and Fonts solved.
; - Midnight was being shown as 12:00PM!
; - Todays date and time have been added to the main window.
; - Added date and time to todays messages.
; - Added option to ignore all messages for today on startup.
; - Midnight support has now been added. If Remind is running and
; midnight occurrs the display is changed and the current database
; is saved indicating use of Remind for the next day. The
; implementation is a bit rough and improvement suggestions would
; be appriciated.
; - The timer routines have been rewritten, the old versions have caused
; crashing on my system.
; - The slider values for the day/month sliders in Add/Amend note now
; have the slider values displayed for easy reference.
; - Persistant notes can now be "Finished" by shift+double click on the
; Version 1.41 - 19th September 1994
; - The relative week number couldn't be amended.
; Now fixed.
; - Messages with commands can now disable the window
; which opens with the message.
; - Save always on exit option added to preferences.
@ENDNODE
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