Calendar Creator does just that, it makes calendars with events that you enter. Various formats can be displayed and printed; one or two days; one, two, or six weeks; one or 12 months. A “wide” format allows the user to select the number of months to be displayed horizontally across several pages. I don’t believe that this program was intended for on-line use. To be useful the calendars need to be printed.
***ILLUSTRATIONS: Four Calendar Formats
***ILLUSTRATIONS: Wide Calendar Format
Using Calendar Creator…
When you start a new document, a dialog box appears from which you can select a calendar or event type. If a calendar is selected, it is then displayed on the screen in the selected format. The format can be changed at any time.
***ILLUSTRATION: New Doc Dialog
If an event list is selected, you are presented with a dialog box to begin making event entries.
***ILLUSTRATION: Event Names
The same dialog box is used for adding and editing events when “Add Event” or “Modify Event” is selected from the menu. You can also double click on any event in the calendar or event list. Double clicking on a date in the calendar display brings up the dialog box to add an event for that date.
For events that occur on various dates, you click on the desired days of the small calendars in the dialog box. They can be scrolled to the year 2001.
Recurring events, like birthdays or monthly SMUG meetings, are entered by clicking the “Recurs…” button which brings up another dialog box for specifying frequency and the span of time.
***ILLUSTRATION: Recurs…
Calendar Creator saves event lists and calendars as separate files. Several event lists can be created for each calendar. For example, you could have holidays, birthdays, and appointments lists, each as separate files all for the same calendar. You can select any of these to be displayed and printed. The menu command, “Save All,” links all open event lists to the open calendar. The next time you open the calendar file, all of the linked events will open automatically.
The on-line Help deserves mention. Calendar Creator comes with a HyperCard help stack that apparently is “viewed” (like HyperDA) when you select “Help” under the Apple menu. Its use of combined graphics and text is very effective (a good thing—there is no manual!). A “Read Me” text document on the disk contains limited instructions. I had no need to test the company’s tech support procedures.
How Calendar Creator compares…
I am a registered user of CE Software’s Calendar Maker which has a similar purpose and features. It can only make monthly calendars, and the amount of information and events that can be entered for each date is much more limited than Calendar Creator. Icons and pictures can be put into Calendar Maker calendars to add some interest through personal or seasonal graphic themes.
Although Calendar Creator can’t import graphics, it has much greater presentation or format flexibility. Entering event information and controlling recurring events are easier to manage. I would rate Calendar Creator a much better choice.
Calendar Creator follows the Mac interface. Installation is simple—just drag and double click the program or document icon.
A Wish List
I wish someone would develop a program that fully integrates various features from several programs of this type…
• Automatic on-line reminders: Smart Alarms and Remember? (a shareware DA) have this feature.
• Start up display of a simple calendar with a listing of upcoming events. Remember? does this.
• Simple information entry: Calendar Creator or Remember?
• Format flexibility: Calendar Creator
• Some import capability for graphics: Calendar Maker
Addition features which would be desirable:
• The ability to import and export lists created in a database or word processor, including rotating information, e.g. rotating chairpersons for recurring meetings.
• Adjustable margins or page sizes so printed calendars can fit in my 1/2 letter-size daily planner (the “cut and try” method of using the percentage reduction function of Apple printer drivers is painful).
Maybe CE Software’s new Amazing Events does many of these things.
Who would benefit from using Calendar Creator? Anybody that has a busy schedule, forgets birthdays, anniversaries, appointments, etc., double-books his or her time, and uses a Macintosh.
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