NewtCal will create a month-view calendar for any year using the Date contents of your Newton. Entries in the NewtCal calendar be viewed on your computer screen and the month-views can be printed with each entry easily readable. The calendar created by NewtCal is an Excel workbook with each month on a separate worksheet. You can print any number of months or the entire year on any printer that you use with your computer. NewtCal requires the Newton Connection Kit 2.0 and Excel 5.0 with Visual Basic installed. NewtCal is presently written for a Mac, but I will be happy to work with someone to create a DOS/Windows version if there is demand.
Contents of this package:
NewtCal - Read me
NewtCal
Calendar Template
1995 Calendar
1996 Calendar
Genesis:
I love my Newton. However, the screen is too small to realistically see a week at a time and it is worthless for month views. I need to quickly look weeks and months in advance to schedule meetings. The Newton is too slow for this. I also need to share my calendar with my secretary. Printing week views was a solution, but I could not print directly on any of the printers I had a home - only at the one in my office at work. So, I wrote NewtCal to create a calendar view of all Dates entries on my newton.
How to create a new calendar:
This package comes with a blank 1995 Calendar and a blank 1996 Calendar. If you need a new blank calendar, open the file "Calendar Template", enter the correct year in the January worksheet (only!), then save the file using a name in the required format of "year Calendar" (e.g. 1996 Calendar). You must use this format for NewtCal to work correctly.
How to get Newton dates into the NewtCal calendar:
1) Synchronize your Newton with your Mac using the Newton Connection Kit (NCK).
2) Now you need to export Date Book into an Excel-readable file. First, select "Date Book" in the Synchronization window. (Make sure you select the right window if you back up your Newton and your a storage card.) Under the File menu pull down to the Export function and select “Excel 4.0 (Date Book)". Name the file "Dates (Excel)" (without quotes) and store it in the same folder as NewtCal and the yearly calendar (e.g. NewtCal ƒ). The file must be named "Dates (Excel)" and must be in same folder as the NewtCal file and the yearly calendar(s) for NewtCal to work correctly.
3) Launch the NewtCal. It will automatically open Excel and start the processing. When prompted, enter the starting date and the last date you want to have processed into your yearly calendar. The progress of the process will be shown in the message box at the bottom of the screen. If errors are found in the "Dates (Excel)" file, you will be informed when the processing is complete. These errors are ignored by NewtCal and not put into the yearly calendar. You can correct them on your Newton and then repeat from Step 1.
4) Save the calendar if you are satisfied with the results.
What NewCal does:
NewtCal moves meetings and day notes from a database exported from the Newton Connection Kit and places them into a month-view calendar. To view the entries on your screen, you will need to either increase the size to 100% or select the entry and read it in the entry block. When the calendar is printed each entry is clearly readable. The calendar is set up as an Excel workbook with each worksheet devoted to a full month.
NewtCal will find meetings with missing dates or missing meeting names. These will be highlighted in the "Dates (Excel)" file while the data is being processed and a message will inform you if there are errors. After you correct the errors on your Newton you can repeat the synchronization, export, and calendar creation steps again. There is no need to save changes in the "Dates (Excel)" file.
NewtCal will clear any unused space in the NewtCal calendar within the timeframe you specified for updating. If you enter any information directly into the Excel worksheet, it will be erased during the next NewtCal update unless the entry is also in the Newton. Only Newton entries will be preserved in the NewtCal calendar. Entries outside of the start and end date limits are not changed, modified, or cleared during an update.
What NewCal does not do:
NewtCal will not put To-Do items into your calendar. NewtCal will not put moved repeating meetings into the moved time slot on the NewtCal calendar unless the frequency is also changed - see below.
A word about repeating meetings:
If you move a repeating meeting from one day to another without changing the frequency, the moved item will not show up correctly on your NewtCal calendar. Sorry, but that is a Newton thing of which I can do nothing about. The Newton exports the repeating day as one entry in the database and assumes that all of the repeating meetings are exactly as you set them initially at the frequency you initially entered. Only the frequency is exported by the Newton Connection Kit, not each individual meeting. Moved repeating meetings are not exported in a changed state unless you also manually change the frequency by opening up the date window.
For example, I have a repeating meeting every Tuesday at 10:00. Next week I need to move the meeting to Wednesday, but all subsequent meetings will remain on Tuesday. If I just drag that week's meeting from Tuesday to Wednesday, the Newton still thinks (correctly) that all of the repeating meetings are still on Tuesday. It does not put the meeting that was moved to Wednesday into the database that is exported from the NCK because it is a repeated meeting, not a one time event. Consequently, it will show up on your calendar ON TUESDAY because it is not changed in the exported entry.
To move a single occurrence of a repeating meeting, create a NEW meeting and delete the ONE rescheduled meeting by opening the meeting window and select "Delete". Answer at the prompt to delete this meeting only and leave subsequent meetings the same (e.g. create a new meeting on Wednesday and delete the single occurrence of the meeting on Tuesday). This way the meeting will be correctly stored in the database and will be correctly put into your NewtCal calendar.
To move all occurrences of a repeating meeting to another day, drag the meeting to the new day and change the frequency in the meeting window.
Speed:
To minimize the time it takes to update a calendar here are a few suggestions:
Only update the time segment that needs to be updated (e.g. a month). For example, updating a full year is unnecessary if only dates in the next month have changed. NewtCal updates only dates specified by you - entires outside of the time segment you specify are not touched and therefore do not require much processing time.
Purge your Newton of old dates. The less outdated information NewtCal has to process, the faster it can get to processing future information.
Give Excel at least 4MB of memory if you can (Select Excel and use the Get Info command to change it).
FreeWare!
NewtCal is eMail-ware. Since I am on temporary assignment (2-3 years) in Switzerland, collecting shareware fees is a pain. Besides, this is my way of thanking those many authors who have provided so many FreeWare Newton (and Mac) packages.
To register, please send me your e-mail and snail-mail address with any comments you may have. I will notify you of any updates via e-mail.
Legal stuff:
Newton, Connection Kit and Apple are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Excel is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. NewtCal is a trademark of the author.
You can’t sell NewtCal, but you can charge a nominal fee for connect time or media (not to exceed $5). You are free to include it in any shareware/freeware collection or bundle it with a commercial product, but please let me know.
In using this software, you understand and agree that this software is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. The author does not make any warranties, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to this software.
In no event shall the author be liable for any consequential, incidental, or special damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of critical data, loss of profits, interruption of business and the like) arising out of the use or inability to use this software.
Acknowledgment:
I would like to thank Gene Komar who created the original Calendar for Excel 4.0 in 1993 which I subsequently tweaked and put into an Excel workbook.
How To Contact Me:
Norm D'Allura
1 Ch. du Champ-Barbon
1290 Versoix
Geneva Switzerland
NormD@eWorld.com (checked a few times a week - preferred)
CIS: 71160,451 (checked once a week)
dallurnj@euois2.dnet.dupont.com (checked hourly during workdays)
