Software of the Month Club 1996 December

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INTEGRA COMPUTING, 910 Cobb Place Manor Dr., Marietta, GA 30066 TickleX 7.0 Name __________________________________________________________ Firm Name __________________________________ Phone ________________ Address __________________________________________________________ City _________________ State ___ Zip _______ County ________ # Professionals _____ # Employees ____ Type of Business ________________ I first heard of Integra Computing from ___________________________________ Send unregistered** copies of the following programs at $10 ea: __MT-Tracker (scheduling power of TickleX, plus a client database) $_____ __RAMdesk (pop-up network E-mail, phonebook, infobase, calculator) $_____ __ReSearch (research organizer with ASCII file document scan) $_____ __BillPower (time-, expense-, & income-tracking, plus client billing)$_____ Send registered** copies of the following: TickleX for use on ___ (number) non-connected workstations $_____ ___ (number) networked workstations $_____ $60 for each of first 5 wkstations; $50 for each of wkstations 6-10; $40 for each of wkstations 11-20; $35 for each of wkstations 21-50; $30 for each of wkstations 51-100; $25 each thereafter. ___ copies of MT-Tracker at $90 $_____ ___ copies of RAMdesk at $50 ea (only $25 with TickleX) $_____ ___ copies of ReSearch at $90 ea $_____ ___ copies of BillPower Plus at $150 ea $_____ +++ Add an extra $60 for each hour of phone support* you wish to buy $_____ To have programs supplied on 3.5" media, enclose $5 extra PER PROGRAM $_____ If you don't live in the U.S., Canada, or Mexico, please add $10 more $_____ TOTAL ORDER $_____ ___% U.S. Sales (or Value Added) Tax, if any $_____ ___% Sales Tax for ___________ county, if you're a GA resident $_____ Please enclose CHECK or MONEY ORDER in US dollars -- GRAND TOTAL $_____ Prices are subject to change without notice. PLEASE CALL TO CONFIRM PRICING. Credit card orders and purchase orders which are not accompanied by payment will not be accepted. A check or money order must show on its face the name & address of a US bank that will accept it. I agree to the terms of the License, Disclaimer, and Agreement found below. _______________________________________ _________________ SIGNATURE DATE * Telephone support will be provided if you pre-purchase it with this order form. Such support must be used within a year. When you need assistance, you may reach Integra Computing (404-426-5735) most weekdays from 4:30pm to 6:30pm, Eastern Time. Because so much time is required to respond to mailed correspondence, letters requesting assistance may not be answered. For help, call -- don't write. But please don't even call unless you've pre-purchased support with this order form; if you call without having prepaid for support, each call will cost you a minimum of $15, plus $1.50 per minute. ** Unregistered software is programmed to remind you to register. Please note that no credit will be given at the time of registration for the cost of an unregistered copy. -- LICENSE: BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, RAMdesk, and their documentation are copyrighted in 1985 to 1994 by R.A. Kelly. You may use any program on as many computers as you like, as long as it is never installed with a SERIAL NUMBER (provided to you when you register as a user) on more than one compu- ter at a time and as long as you do not alter the program in any way. You may distribute any of these programs to potential new users, provided that you never divulge your SERIAL NUMBER to anyone, that you charge no fee for the program, and that you do not bundle it with (or use it as an incentive to purchase or lease) any other product or service, without the written con- sent of R.A. Kelly. All rights not expressly granted above are reserved in R.A. Kelly. -- DISCLAIMER: BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, and RAMdesk may contain design and programming flaws. Before using ANY software on a regular basis, try estimating the potential harm that could result from your reliance upon it. Please don't use any of these programs unless you're willing to assume the associated risks, such as billing and report inaccuracies and data loss. BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, RAMDESK, AND THEIR INSTRUCTIONS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE). NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE PROVIDED BY INTEGRA, ITS DEALERS, DISTRIBUTORS, AGENTS, OR EMPLOYEES SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY OF ANY KIND RE- GARDING BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, OR RAMDESK, AND YOU MAY NOT RELY UPON SUCH INFORMATION OR ADVICE. USE OF BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POP- FORM, RESEARCH, OR RAMDESK IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. NEITHER INTEGRA NOR ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE CREATION, PRODUCTION, OR DELIVERY OF BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, OR RAMDESK SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAM- AGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, AND LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION) ARISING FROM THE USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) BILLPOWER, TICKLEX, POPFORM, RESEARCH, OR RAMDESK, EVEN THOUGH INTEGRA MAY BE ADVISED THAT SUCH DAMAGES ARE POSSIBLE. -- AGREEMENT: As used in this Agreement, the terms "BillPower" ,"TickleX", "PopForm", "ReSearch", and "RAMdesk", if not followed by a series or version designa- tion, mean any version or series of BillPower, BillPower Plus, TickleX, Pop- Form, ReSearch, or RAMdesk provided to you now or in the future. Your attempt to use BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, or RAMdesk constitutes your acceptance of the terms set forth in the foregoing LICENSE and DISCLAIMER (which are incorporated into this Agreement). Your attempt to use BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, or RAMdesk also constitutes your agreement that if you bring any legal action relating to BillPower, TickleX, PopForm, ReSearch, or RAMdesk, 1) your sole remedy for the damages for which any defendant is found liable (including direct, indirect, inci- dental and consequential damages) will be the recovery of whatever you paid to register as a user of the program, and 2) you will pay all defendants' attorneys fees and other legal costs if you do not prevail on all claims made in your pleadings. The terms of this Agreement are governed by Georgia law. If any of this Agreement's terms shall be held invalid to any extent, the remainder of this Agreement shall be unaffected by such invalidity. THE ABOVE PARAGRAPHS CONSTITUTE THE ENTIRE AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND INTEGRA. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN COMMUNICATION, INFORMATION, OR ADVICE FROM ANY SOURCE MAY ALTER THE AGREEMENT AS SET FORTH ABOVE. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR OF LIA- BILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO SOME OF THE ABOVE EX- CLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. YOU MAY HAVE OTHER RIGHTS WHICH MAY VARY FROM STATE TO STATE. PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER TABLE OF CONTENTS PRELIMINARIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 SETTING UP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Common Customization Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Batch File Customization (European notation, etc.) . . . . . . . 4 USING THE PROGRAM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Main Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Alternative Main Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Information Shown on Main Menu's Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 5 Moving Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Screen Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Making a Schedule Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Blinking Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Clones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 A Note about Reminders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Editing/Examining Individual Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Editing a Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Frequently Scheduled (Recurring) Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Earliest and latest dates of occurrence . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Events separated by a certain number of days . . . . . . . . . 15 Events that occur every second or third month . . . . . . . . 15 Holidays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Avoiding Weekends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Attaching a Note to a Recurring Event . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Associating Recurring Events with Projects . . . . . . . . . . 16 To-Do List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Six-Month View (and calendar calculator) . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Weekly View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Omitting Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Tagging Events for Omission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Actually Omitting Events, Plans and Projects . . . . . . . . . 21 Hunting for Entries and Preparing Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Printed calendars (weekly, monthly, yearly) . . . . . . . . . 25 Finding Free Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Re-Scheduling Several Events Quickly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Morning Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 UTILITIES (BACKUP, RESTORE, PRINTER DRIVERS, ETC). . . . . . . . . . 28 LOG MODULE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 POP-UP USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 NETWORK USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 USE WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 EMPLOYEE/DEPARTMENT GROUPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 AUTOMATED EXECUTION (MACROS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 PROFESSIONAL SCHEDULER INSTRUCTIONS NOTE: If you're using an unregistered copy of the prog- ram, it will begin to beep at you in several weeks, reminding you that it's time to register. Don't worry -- no data will be destroyed, and you'll always be able to use the program, despite the fact that you delay registering. >PRELIMINARIES TickleX is an advanced tickler, calendar, and to-do list that can also be used to log your hours worked, expenses, and income. It's unique in that it integrates these facilities with the ability to han- dle simple "project management" tasks, such as docket control. The program operates on an IBM-compatible PC. It requires about 480 Kilo- bytes of memory when being accessed, but only 7 Kilobytes when waiting in the background as a memory-resident (or "pop-up") application. It can handle up to 12000 Appointments and can display up to 200 events per day. >-- Entering the program You should access any of the TickleX Professional Schedulers by entering "TX xxx", where xxx are your initials (e.g., if your initials are "ABC", enter "TX ABC"). This causes the TX.BAT file to execute. Don't rename the TX.BAT file. With only one exception, TickleX must ALWAYS be entered through a batch file called TX.BAT. If you want to access TickleX through an automated menu program, you may do so, as long as the menu program calls TX.BAT. The exception to the rule that TickleX must be entered through TX.BAT comes into play if you wish to use the program as a "pop-up" and want it to be loaded automatically whenever you turn on your com- puter. See the POP-UP USE section. >-- On-Line Help Help is available at the touch of the F1 key. >-- Pausing/Aborting When you find the computer in the middle of some lengthy proce- dure, such as printing a report, and you want to pause, press the space bar. Doing so will cause the process to stop until you press the space bar again. This use of the space bar will not work in all of the program's operational modes, but it will in most. Pressing the space bar may take a few seconds to have an effect, so be patient. If, instead of wishing that the computer pause in the middle of a procedure, you prefer to abort that procedure altogether, press ESC (the Escape key). As with the space bar, this key may not work in all parts of the program, and it may take a few seconds to act. >-- Message Lines The last line or two on the display screen will nearly always have a message for you. The message will often contain either in- structions or an error message. Instructions will frequently advise you to press control char- acters. A control character is represented graphically as a letter preceded by an up caret (e.g., ^A or ^H). If you are instructed to press a control character, you must hold the Ctrl key down, while sim- ultaneously pressing the appropriate letter key. For example, to press ^T, hold down the Ctrl key and tap the "T" key. Do not actually press the up caret key; the up caret is used merely as a graphic rep- resentation of the control key. >-- Event Types An APPOINTMENT is an event scheduled for a particular time and day. A lunch date, for instance, would be entered as an Appointment. A DEADLINE is an event for which your firm is responsible. It's char- acter is such that failing to meet it may get you into trouble (a "to- do", for instance, is in reality a Deadline). A MISCELLANEOUS event, on the other hand, is something which you expect to take place, but for which you aren't responsible. For instance, if another office is supposed to answer a complaint by 20 August, you would enter that ev- ent under the Miscellaneous category. If YOUR office is supposed to answer a complaint by 20 August, you would enter it as a Deadline. If the Deadline is absolutely crucial, it should be entered as a GOTCHA (which is a super Deadline). An EXERCISE is a test or a period of training. You might prefer to use this category for scheduling an employee's work or some other major category of event. The TRIP and VACATION categories are self-explanatory. Multi-day events, such as Vacations and Trips, need be entered only once, for the date on which the event begins (e.g., the beginning date of your vacation). Whenever you need to change something about that recorded event, you need edit only one record, the one entered for the event's beginning date. Yet, despite the fact that only one entry is actually kept in the data base, your daily schedule for each day of the multi- day event will reflect that event. It's necessary that you recognize the importance of Deadlines (including Gotchas). If you occasionally enter an Appointment as a Miscellaneous event, or a Trip as an Exercise, there won't be any ser- ious ramifications. But a Deadline should always be entered as such (or as a Gotcha). You see, only Deadlines and Gotchas are deemed im- portant enough by TickleX to be brought forward when they're past due. In this way, TickleX will continue reminding you of a Deadline, even after it's been passed, until you check it off. If something really should be entered as a Deadline, and you instead enter it as an Appointment or Miscellaneous event, TickleX won't keep hounding you to take care of it after it's scheduled date passes. In other words, that item will be dropped from your "to-do" list after the scheduled date. In most cases this won't cause any problems, but there may be times when you'll wish you had entered something as a Deadline, so that you'll keep being reminded of it until it's done. A REMINDER is an entry reminding you that an Appointment, Dead- line, etc., will occur at some time in the future. A Reminder must be set at least one day prior to the event of which you wish to be re- minded. For instance, you might wish to be reminded on Monday that you have an important meeting on Tuesday. Or, you might want to be reminded that a report is due in a couple of weeks (the actual due date would be entered as a Deadline, and a Reminder could be set a couple of weeks prior to the due date). Each Appointment, Deadline, etc., may have up to ten Reminders linked to it. This linking, a TickleX exclusive, is handled automat- ically. Linking Reminders to the tasks to which they refer is advan- tageous when you need to change the original task. When such a change is made, all the linked Reminders are automatically changed appropri- ately. Assume, for instance, that you originally scheduled an Ap- pointment for 1 September, and made a Reminder for 25 August (remin- ding you of the 1 September Appointment). If you subsequently changed the 1 September Appointment to 31 August, TickleX would also automatically change the 25 August Reminder so that it reflected the Appointment's new date (31 August). The date of the Reminder, itself, would also be changed to 24 August, in order to maintain the 1-week interval between Appointment and Reminder that had originally been established. A PLAN is a special file that lists the expected tasks for a pro- ject with which you are involved. This listing contains the anticipa- ted time interval between each task. When you enter or change a date in the Plan, TickleX will automatically change the dates for all related tasks accordingly. Plans are useful in planning complicated projects, such as lawsuits or exercises involving plentiful milestones. By the way, GOTCHAs, EXERCISEs, and MISCELLANEOUS event types may be renamed (see the Common Customization Options section below). >SETTING UP TickleX should be placed into a ManageX directory on your compu- ter. If you've gone through the automated install routine, that's already been handled for you. You should also copy the BACKUP and RESTORE programs from your computer's DOS diskette to the ManageX directory (or, alternatively, make sure that they're in your computer's directory "path"). >-- Common Customization Options When you first begin using TickleX, you will have to answer a number of CUSTOMIZING questions. If you make any mistakes in filling in the blanks, don't worry; you may always come back to this series of questions later if you press "U" at the Main Menu and then "C" at the Utilities menu. A short discussion of each customization option can be obtained in the Quick Help screen, accessible by pressing the F1 key. >-- Batch File Customization (European notation, etc) There are also a few things you can customize at the batch file level. In the TX.BAT file, there is a line that starts with the word, "TICKLEX". This line may contain parameters which instruct the prog- ram to make certain assumptions. To use European date notation (e.g., "24.5.93", instead of "24 May 93"), the 11th parameter should be "x", and the 12th should be "EURODATE". Example: "TICKLEX x x x x x x x x x x x EURODATE" To show calendars of the European type (Monday to Sunday), instead of American (Sunday to Saturday), the 12th parameter should contain the character string, "CAL". Examples: "TICKLEX x x x x x x x x x x x EURODATECAL" "TICKLEX x x x x x x x x x x x EUROCAL" >USING THE PROGRAM THE MAIN MENU >-- Alternative Main Menus To switch among the Main Menu alternatives, press the TAB key. Whichever Main Menu is last used before you exit the program will be the menu to which TickleX will default the next time you load it. One of the Main Menus displays the types of events scheduled for each day. Each day's box on the calendar contains up to eleven a's, D's, etc. Each of these characters represents an Appointment, Dead- line, etc., that falls on that date. The more characters you see in a day's box, the more things have been scheduled for that day. To save space, however, no more than one Reminder (reminding you of an actual event sometime in the future) will be shown in each day's box. Another Main Menu displays the blocks of time that have been scheduled for each day. Each day's box contains from zero to twenty- four rectangles, arranged in two rows of up to twelve rectangles each. Each rectangle represents one-half hour that's already been scheduled for that day. The top row shows which half-hour blocks have been scheduled between 7:00 AM and 1:00 PM. The bottom row represents 1:00 to 7:00 PM. You will also note that there is a vertical line marking each hour (on the half-hour) from 7:30 AM to 6:30 PM. This calendar will quickly give you a very rough idea of how much time has been scheduled for each day of the month. A third Main Menu will show BOTH event types AND time scheduled (7:00AM to 5:00PM) for each day. Now, there's one last Main Menu that's very popular. It splits the screen in half, displaying a calendar on the left and up to seven- teen abbreviated event descriptions on the right. Each day's box in the calendar will be blank if there's nothing scheduled that day. If, on the other hand, there's at least one event whose ending time is later than its beginning time, the box will display a rough horizontal bar chart illustrating the times during which that day's events take place. If no time has actually been blocked off during that day, but there IS some non-time-blocked activity, the box will contain a single dot. >-- Information Shown on Main Menu's Calendar By default, each Main Menu will show events scheduled for ALL your employees. If you wish to see only one particular employee's schedule, press the F3 key. Then, tell TickleX which employee you want shown on the calendar. If you want ALL employees to be dis- played, just press ENT when TickleX asks you for one. An alternate way to change the employee being shown on the calen- dar is to simply press the number key corresponding to that employee's ID number. For example, pressing "1" results in employee 1's being shown on the calendar. Pressing "0" tells TickleX to show ALL em- ployees on the calendar. Of course, this scheme works only for em- ployees 1 to 9, so if you want to see an employee from 10 to 200, you'll have to use the F3 key. Pressing the F7 key will allow you to select a specific PROJECT (as opposed to an employee) whose events you wish to see, to the ex- clusion of all others. >-- Moving Around You can move from day to day with the arrow keys. When you land upon a day for which you'd like to see more detail, press the ENT key. When you do, the calendar will be replaced by a screen that fully des- cribes each of that single day's events. To zoom back to the calen- dar, just press the ENT key again. Whether you're looking at the large calendar or an individual day's events, the arrow keys work identically: left arrow: go back 1 day; right arrow: go forward 1 day; up arrow: go back 1 week; down arrow: go forward 1 week; PgUp: go back 1 month; PgDn: go forward 1 month. The TAB key also works in the daily view to toggle between alter- nate views of the day: -- three spell out the beginning and ending times for each event: 1: without a small calendar in the upper right corner; 2: with a small calendar in the upper right; 3: with a small calendar and each event's full notes; -- two fill in blocks representing the events' times: 1: without a small calendar in the upper right corner; 2: with a small calendar in the upper right; Pressing "W" while in either the monthly or daily view will take you to a weekly view of the data. Here, the TAB key will also allow you to alternate among different on-screen views of the week (there's also a Weekly Calendar printout available in the Hunt routine). When finished with the weekly view, press ESC or ENT to return to the screen from which you entered it. ESC will take you back to the day you were viewing before entering the weekly view. ENT will move you to the day you last highlighted while in the weekly view. >-- Screen Printing If you ever need to print a screen's worth of data, you may press the Shift-PrtScr key combination, which works just as it does with most other programs. If you're in the Daily, Weekly, or Monthly view, however, you'll have more flexibility if you press Ctrl-PrtScr, instead of Shift- PrtScr. Doing so will present you with a couple of options. >MAKING A SCHEDULE ENTRY When you choose the Make option, you will be asked to spec- ify the sort of event you are about to enter. Most are discussed in the PRELIMINARIES section. If you choose to enter a new Plan, you will be taken through the straightforward sequence discussed in "Editing a Plan", below. Event "Clones" are also discussed below. When you are asked to enter the date, a small calendar may ap- pear on the screen. You have the option of either: 1) entering the date at the prompt; or 2) using the cursor movement keys to locate the desired date on the calendar and then pressing ENT. The PgUp and PgDn keys will change the month displayed on the calendar. If you don't know the date you need to enter, but do know that it is a certain number of days before or after a given date, enter the given date, followed by a plus or minus sign, followed in turn by the number of days you wish to add or subtract. If, for instance, you need to enter the date that is 120 days after 2 OCT 95, you should enter "2 OCT 95 +120" (or "2 OCT 95 +120W", if you want to count only work days). TickleX will automatically figure the correct date for you. If you need to move forward or backward a given number of months (instead of days), just highlight the appropriate date on the calendar and press the PgUp or PgDn keys appropriately. One of the items to be filled in is the employee affected by the event. If you wish to schedule more than one employee, each should be separated from the next by a comma (e.g., "ABC,DEF,GHI,JKL" will tell TickleX that you wish to schedule identical events for each of four employees -- ABC, DEF, GHI, and JKL). NOTE: If you don't need to fill in an item, just skip it by pressing the ENT key. Never feel compelled to make an entry for an item that you don't think is important. If, for in- stance, the beginning time is not important, don't fill in that item. The only items that TickleX absolutely requires are a date and an event/description. There are three "Time" items, one for each of the beginning and ending times, and one for an alarm. If you enter a time that has al- ready been "blocked off" for the day, TickleX will remind you of a possible conflict and afford you the opportunity to change the entry if you need to. NOTE: TickleX assumes that an event with no ending time (or an ending time identical to the beginning time) is not inten ded to be "blocked off". Hence, you may schedule multiple Deadlines for 11:00 (no ending time), without TickleX's reminding you of possible conflicts. If, however, you have an Appointment scheduled from 11:00 to 12:00, subsequent attempts to enter anything during that period will trig- ger TickleX's time block protection response. The "Priority" item may appear if this event is a Deadline or a Gotcha (assuming you've customized the program to ask for priorities - - see the SETTING UP section). Here, fill in the priority level you wish to assign to the event. You may use any number from 0 to 9 or any letter from A to Z. The lower the number or letter, the higher the priority (e.g., 0 is a higher priority than 1, 9 is higher than A, and A is higher than B,). The item called "Project" contemplates an alphanumeric entry up to twelve characters long. You need not enter anything, but you may wish to, since this item may help you to search through the data base quickly to find only those events involving a specific project. If you enter something, you may use the same scheme your office has always used to identify each project. For instance, the project for John Smith might be called "8801-JS-1" or "Smith, J", or "SMITJO", or anything else. By the way, pressing F1 here will result in a display of the list of projects entered into the program in the past. NOTE: If the time, project, or event of the record you're presently entering is the same as the corresponding item in the preceding record just entered, you can save some time by just entering "S". Whenever "S" is entered for a time, project, or event, TickleX will pick up that item's text from the record you've just finished entering. After you enter the "EVENT/DESCRIPTION" item, you will be affor- ded the opportunity to add several lines of notes or remarks. >-- Blinking Events If an event is so important that you want it to blink whenever it's displayed on the Main Menu, press ^B (Ctrl-B) at the end of the EVENT/DESCRIPTION item. When you do, stylized "B" will appear. >-- Clones A Clone is an almost exact copy of an event. Let's suppose you have an event already entered into the program and you want to make a copy of it for another day or another employee. To do so, select "Clone" when asked for the type of event at the bottom of the screen. The cloning process is very straightforward. First, you'll be asked which date contains the item to be cloned. Then you'll be shown a list of the items already entered for that date. When you select one of them, that item will be "cloned", and you'll be allowed to edit the new copy, so that you can change its date, employee, or anything else. When you save the new copy by pressing F10 or F6, you will have successfully made a change or two to your newly "cloned" event. >-- A Note about Reminders Reminders are created most conveniently at the time you origin- ally enter the event to which they refer. TickleX will automatically prompt you to create such Reminders after each Appointment, Deadline, etc., has been input. But Reminders may also be entered subsequent to your entry of an Appointment, Deadline, etc. To do so, press "R" when asked to specify an event type at the bottom of the screen. You will next be asked the date of the event for which you need a Reminder. Then, TickleX will show you the record number of each primary event scheduled for that date. You will be expected to use the arrow keys to highlight the specific event of which you wish to be reminded (or, if you prefer, you may simply enter its record number). Then, TickleX will flash that record to the screen and ask you to enter the date for which you wish this new Reminder to be set. >EDITING/EXAMINING INDIVIDUAL ITEMS When you press "E" at the Main Menu, you'll enter the Edit/Exam- ine routine. Once TickleX knows the date in which you're interested, you'll be shown a list of everything scheduled for that date. You will then be asked to select the specific event you wish to edit or examine. If you don't see the one you're looking for, you've probably specified the wrong date. Use the arrow keys to change the date and display a different set of events. When you finally find the event you want to edit, highlight it and press ENT (or enter its record num- ber). The selected record will then appear on the screen, and you may modify it as you wish. Press F10 or F6 when you're done. If the record just changed is referenced by any Reminders, they will be automatically updated to reflect the changes you made. Then, if needed, you'll be shown each of its Reminders, so that you can confirm the changes automatically rendered by TickleX. >EDITING A PLAN When you choose to work with a Plan, you'll be shown a listing of all Plans presently on the hard disk. Then, you'll be asked to choose one of them. Before we go any further, however, let's discuss exactly what a plan is and how it's set up. A Plan is a file that may be used to chart the course that a pro- ject is expected to follow. Each Plan may be set up individually or it may be based upon a Template. You may establish a separate Tem- plate for each general category of project handled by your firm. A real estate project, for instance, might use a "REALTY" Template. NOTE: Remember, a Plan is a sequence of events for a specific project. A Template, on the other hand, is a gen- eralized sequence of events for a class of project. Once the "REALTY" template is established, for instance, it may be used as the basis for an actual project involving real es- tate. Plan and Template files may be created with the TextEditor (press ^E, or Ctrl-E, at the Main Menu). Each contains a listing of the tasks that usually take place in the type of project to be tracked. Each line in the file consists of a task description, an abbreviation for that task, the type of task (e.g., Deadline or Appointment), and perhaps a brief note about that task. Also included is the interval (expressed in days) that is expected between that task and the preced- ing one. If an item is completely unrelated to the preceding one, the interval item should be left blank. The notes item may also be left blank if you wish, but every line in the file MUST have both an abbre- viation and a description. A Template or Plan file may have NO empty lines. TickleX comes with a sample Template file called "SAMPLE". Take a look at it with the TextEditor. Note, as you view it, that no actual dates are filled in. Never fill in Plan/Template dates with the TextEditor. Enter dates ONLY in the Plan routine (by pressing "P" at the Main Menu); BRIEF EXAMPLE OF A TEMPLATE: ABB -------DESCRIPTION------- INT TYP DATE ---NOTES------------- INJ Injury - CMP File complaint D ANS Expect answer 30 D CCL Counterclaim 30 D ND1 SL Stat Of Limitations runs 24 D MNH INJ\ SLN Note: Now it's too late 24 N MNH INJ\ The first line reflects the injury. Remember, this is just a Template, not a Plan for an actual project. Therefore, no date infor- mation is filled in. The next line is for the filing of the com- plaint. It has no interval item because the date on which it is to take place is not necessarily related to the date of the injury. The third line reflects that an answer is expected 30 days after the com- plaint is filed. Were it not for "ND1" in the notes section, the fourth line would tell you that a counterclaim is expected 30 days after the answer. "ND1", however, modifies the interval to the NEXT MONDAY following 30 days after the answer. "ND" means "NextDay", and "1" indicates the first day of the work week, Monday. If the notation had been "ND4", the interval would be the NEXT THURSDAY following 30 days after the answer. If you'd like to find a weekday prior to the 30th day, as opposed to a weekday after the 30th day, use "PD" (for PriorDay) in place of "ND". For example, to find the Sunday preceding the 30th day, the notation would be "PD7" (Sunday is the 7th day of the week), whle the preceding Wednesday would be "PD3". The fifth line indicates that the statute of limitations will expire 24 months after the injury takes place. The "INJ\" in the notes item ties the SL interval to the first line, which begins with "INJ". Were in not for the "INJ\" notation, the fifth line's interval would be assumed to be tied to the immediately preceding line (the "CCL" line). The "MNH" in the notes indicates that the interval is in MONTHS, rather than days. Were it not for the "MNH", the fifth line's interval would be assumed to be 24 days after the injury. The sixth line is a note for the fifth line. Its type is 'N', and it must use the remarks section to refer to the same event from which the 5th line's interval is calculated. NOTE: By default, the program assumes that the interval includes all days. But if the interval should include only workdays (that is, non-weekends and non-holidays), place "WDO" into the notes item on the line containing that inter- val. When you set up a Plan for a project, it will initially consist of an exact copy of the Template from which it was copied (assuming you didn't write an original Plan "from scratch" in the TextEditor (press ^E, or Ctrl-E) . No dates will actually be filled in. Exten- sive changes to the body (but not the dates) of the Plan must be made in the TextEditor. If you want to fill in some Plan dates, press "P" at the Main Menu. You'll be shown a listing of all Plans presently on the hard disk. Then, you'll be asked to choose one of them. If you wish to create a new one, enter a name for it. TickleX will remind you that it doesn't exist and show you a listing of the Templates from which the new plan can be copied. If an appropriate template exists, type in it's name, and it'll be copied verbatim into the new Plan you've chosen to set up. If an appropriate Template does NOT yet exist, you'll have to press ESC and go to the TextEditor to create a new Tem- plate (or the actual plan you want to set up) "from scratch". Assuming that a Plan has been created, filling in the dates is a simple matter. Select a task to edit by using the arrow keys to high- light that task (or optionally, just entering the task's abbrevia- tion). Each time you select a task, you'll be taken through a series of prompts (date, time, etc.). Anytime you don't need to fill in a par- ticular item, just press ENT to move on to the next. After TickleX has accepted all the information for a task, it will search the plan for subsequent tasks whose intervals are related to the date of the task just entered. As it encounters a subsequent related task, its date will be automatically assigned, and you'll be given the opportunity to enter any other information you wish. When you're finished making changes to the Plan, press the ESC key to return to the Main Menu. NOTE: Note that TickleX moves through the Plan from begin- ning to end; it cannot be forced to go backward. But if you ever need to calculate earlier dates from later ones, TickleX will still accommodate you. When you're asked to enter a date for the earlier task, simply highlight the date of the LATER task on the little pop-up calendar; then type "-XX" (where XX is the number of days you wish to subtract from the later date). >FREQUENTLY SCHEDULED (RECURRING) EVENTS In addition to scheduling events item by item, TickleX has the ability to automatically log events that take place on a regular basis. For instance, if you have a staff meeting every Tuesday at 12:00, you need not go to the trouble of setting each and every such event. To tell TickleX the events of which you would like to be reminded regularly, press ^E (Ctrl-E) at the Main Menu. You'll be transferred to the TextEditor, where you can set up a file containing your regular events. When the TextEditor's menu appears, select "(R)ecurring Events". This will take you into the RECUR.LBF file, where you may enter up to 200 lines, each containing one event. NOTE: Note that you may use the tab key to align the cursor at the correct spot on each line to make an entry. Note also that, while editing this file, you may erase a line, but you cannot eliminate the blank line that results from the erasure. You may, however, fill in the blank line with new information. Finally, note that you must NEVER edit the recurring events file (or any other file accompany- ing this program) with an external editor or word processor. The first item on each line is the Event's description. Enter up to 37 characters. The next item is the Month in which the event regularly occurs. Enter the month as a number (1=JAN, 2=FEB, etc.). If the event occurs EVERY month or if this item is not applicable, leave it blank. Then comes the day of the month. If this item is not applicable, leave it blank. Use "32" to designate the LAST day of the month, regardless of how long the month is. The last WORK day will be dis- cussed below. The time of day items are next. If not applicable, leave these items blank. Time should be entered without colons. If the time you're entering is not within the standard working day (7AM-7PM), ap- pend an "A" or a "P" to the time ("930" and "930A" both mean 9:30AM, whereas "930P" means 9:30PM). You can avoid possible AM-PM confusion if you use 24-hour time (9:30PM = 2130), as in the example below. The time of day is followed by the type of event. Enter "M" for Miscellaneous, "D" for Deadline, "A" for Appointment, etc. Center your entry below the "Y" of "TYP". The employee, if any, to whom this event applies should be en- tered next. Start the entry under the "E" in "EMP". The next several items correspond to the days of the week, Sunday through Saturday. These items are used if the regular event you are entering occurs on a specific day of the week, rather than on a speci- fic date in the month. If the event always occurs on a Wednesday, for example, you would make an entry directly below the "W". The entry you make should be a number between 0 and 6. If the event always falls on the first Monday of the month, enter a "1" beneath the "M". If it falls on the third Friday, enter a "3" below "F". If it occurs EVERY Wednesday, enter a "0" under the "W". If an event occurs on the second and fourth Mondays, you should enter two separate lines identi- cal in every way, except that one should list a "2" below the "M", while the second should list a "4" below the "M". Remember, a "0" indicates an occurrence on the SAME day EVERY week. A "6" indicates an occurrence on the LAST specified weekday of the month. A "7" under any of the specified days indicates the month's very last WORK day. Take a look at the following example: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S Julie's Birthday 1 17 M Staff Meeting 0900 1000 M 0 Bowling Club Meeting 1900 2000 M ABC 1 Bowling Club Meeting 1900 2000 M ABC 3 @1900 Rotary Club Meeting 15 1930 2100 M XYZ !! MEMORIAL DAY !! 5 M 6 month-end meeting 0730 0800 7 The first line reminds you of Julie's birthday on 17 January. The second indicates a staff meeting that takes place every Tuesday from 9:00 to 10:00 AM. The third and fourth lines remind employee ABC that the Bowling Club meets at 7:00PM every first Thursday and third Tuesday of the month (don't combine these entries, trying to have one line handle both a Tuesday and a Thursday). The fifth line is a Re- minder for the Rotary Club meeting scheduled for the 15th of each month from 7:30 to 9:00 PM, with an alarm set for 7:00 ("@xxxx" at the beginning of an event description tells ProSked that you want an alarm at time xxxx). The next-to-last line notes that Memorial Day falls on the last Monday in the fifth month (May). That line also demonstrates that the LAST specified weekday in a month -- which may be either the fourth or fifth such weekday -- is denoted by a "6" un- der the appropriate day, not by a "4" or a "5". The last line speci- fies the very last WORK day (Monday to Friday) of the month. The "7" placed under the "F" indicates, not the last FRIDAY, but the last WORK day ("6" would mean the last Friday, but "7" means the last work day). To indicate the first WORK day of the month, place an "8" under the "M". Scheduling a month's first Wednesday or fourth Friday is a snap, as described above. But what if you want to schedule something on the first Tuesday FOLLOWING the third Thursday of the month? Here, you need to do something tricky. Fill in the line as if you were sched- uling the third Thursday: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S First Tues after third Thurs M 3 Now, you need a way to tell TickleX to find the fifth day after that third Thurdsay (Tuesday follows Thursday by five days). To do so, put the 5 beneath the DA item: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S First Tues after third Thurs 5 M 3 >-- Earliest and latest dates of occurrence If you wish the recurring event to appear no earlier than a certain date and no later than another, you should begin the event description with a parenthetical sequence containing those dates. The dates MUST be in this format: "MMDDYY-MMDDYY" (unless you've custom- ized the program to accept the military/european DDMMYY-DDMMYY for- mat). Each date must be exactly SIX digits, there must be a dash bet- ween the two dates, and all this must be placed between an open and a close parenthesis. For example, to schedule a 2:30-3:30 class every Monday between 1 Sep 95 and 25 Nov 95, the line would read: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S (090195-112595)Class 230 330 M 0 >-- Events separated by a certain number of days What if you have an event that happens every 14 or 21 days, not necessarily every second or third week of the month? The answer is simple, though not obvious. To enter an event that happens only once every __ days, place the number of days under the first S (Sunday). Then, you'll have to give TickleX a beginning date from which it can figure each subsequent event's date. Enter the beginning date's month and day under the MO and DAY items, and enter the last single digit of its year JUST BEFORE the MO item. For example, to schedule something every 14 days, including January 15, 1994, the line should read: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S meeting every other week 41 15 0730 0800 14 If such a regularly scheduled event is to span two or more days during each occurrence, you would have aligned the "14" under M, T, W, T, F, or S (for a 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, or 7-day duration). For example, to schedule a three-day event every 28 days, including February 1, 1993, the line should read: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S 3-day meeting (each 28 days) 32 1 0730 0800 28 Note that TickleX will accept recurring items of this nature only if the beginning date you enter is 1 to 5 years before the CURRENT date. >-- Events that occur every second or third month What if you want to skip months? To make a recurring event hap- pen every second, third, fourth or sixth month, you must make sure that the month column is filled with a month of the year during which the event will take place. Then, you'll need to fill in column 64 (which has no heading) with the number of months to be skipped between recurrences of the event. >-- Holidays Holidays are special types of recurring events. When you enter one into the file, you should begin its description with an explan- ation point. Doing so will allow the program to recognize the event as a holiday. Hence, when you attempt to schedule an event for that day, you will be reminded that it is a holiday and asked whether you really wish to proceed with the entry. If you wish to also be re- minded of some other special event (such as your anniversary) whenever you try scheduling an event for that date, you should enter it as a holiday (with a leading explanation point). >-- Avoiding Weekends If an event is set for a particular day of the month, but you don't want it to ever fall on a weekend, put "50" under the first "S" near the right of the line. Example: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S !! INDEPENDENCE DAY !! 7 4 M 50 In this example, if 4 July falls on a Saturday, Independence Day will actually appear on Friday, 3 July. If it falls on a Sunday, it will appear on Monday, 5 July. >-- Attaching a Note to a Recurring Event If you need to attach a note to a recurring event, enter it on the line just following the event to which it refers. The note should have all the same parameters as the event, except that the type will be "N" (for "note"). In the following example, the second line will be considered a note for the first line: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S Bowling Club Meeting 1900 2000 A 1 1 Meet at the Alley at 1815 1900 2000 N 1 1 >-- Associating Recurring Events with Projects If you wish to associate a recurring event with a project, place the project name or number between two pound signs in the event des- cription. For example, to a associate a bowling club meeting with the project "FUN", the recurring event might be entered as follows: -FREQUENT OR RECURRING EVENT- MO DA TIME- TIME TYP EMP S M T W T F S Bowling Club Meeting #FUN# 1900 2000 A 1 1 >TO-DO LIST TickleX was designed to do away with separate "to-do" lists, so that ALL pertinent information will be shown to you in a SINGLE con- solidated report. You see, TickleX automatically moves all past-due Deadlines, Gotchas and Reminders to today's schedule. After all, a to-do list is merely an itemization of things that need to be done -- in other words, Deadlines (or Gotchas or Reminders). You want to con- tinue being reminded of these events until you "check them off". In moving past-due Deadlines to the current date, TickleX keeps remin- ding you to take care of them. Whenever you look at today's list of events, you'll see EVERYTHING that needs to be done, including things originally scheduled for today, as well as Deadlines, Gotchas and Re- minders from the past that haven't been checked off yet. ALL DEADLINES/GOTCHAS/REMINDERS THAT APPEAR ON TODAY'S SCHEDULE ARE, IN EFFECT, YOUR TO-DO LIST. A single report, therefore, contains both your schedule and the equivalent of a to-do list. Few, if any other programs offer this simplicity. Anytime you want to add something immediately to your "to-do" list, simply enter a Deadline for TODAY. That Deadline will pop up tomorrow and the next day, and the next ... until you tell TickleX to tag it for omission. To-do's have never been handled more easily! >ALARMS If you can afford to devote 35K of memory to a memory-resident alarm program, then you might want to try PC-BEEP, which accompanies TickleX. PC-BEEP automatically picks up alarms entered into TickleX's calendar, whether set for today or for any date in the future. When the time for each alarm is reached, the computer's speaker will beep, and the event set for that time will appear in a window. The window will stay on the screen until you press the appropriate key, at which point you will be returned to whatever you were doing before the alarm sounded. Pressing any of keys 1 to 9 will cause the alarm to sound again in 1 to 9 minutes. The A, B, C & D keys will tell PC-BEEP to snooze for 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. E, F, G, or H are for 2, 3, 4, or 5 hours. If you press the space bar, you'll be asked to enter a new alarm time manually, while the ESC key will cause the alarm not to sound again at all. If PC-BEEP is already in memory when you load TickleX's calendar at the beginning of each day, all your alarms (up to twenty) for that day will be passed automatically from TickleX's calendar to PC-BEEP. These alarms will correspond to the new day's entries that were scheduled days or weeks (even months or years) ago. To find out how to schedule an alarm for a Recurring Event, please see the "Frequently Scheduled or Recurring Events" section above. Basically, all that's involved is beginning the event's des- cription with "@xxxx", where xxxx is the alarm time, expressed in 24- hr fashion (example: "@0930 Office Meeting") . >-- Loading PC-BEEP To use PC-BEEP, make sure that it is located in the same direc- tory where the other TickleX program files are found (the ManageX dir- ectory). To make sure that PC-BEEP is loaded before the TICKLEX.EXE file, you'll need to modify your TX.BAT file. Find the line that be- gins with "TICKLEX" and insert a line just above it that says "PC- BEEP", followed by exactly the same sequence of parameters as are found on the "TICKLEX" line. Then save the file. Thereafter, when- ever you enter "TX xxx" (where xxx are your initials) at the DOS prompt, PC-BEEP will be loaded just before TICKLEX.EXE. PC-BEEP takes up about 35K of memory, but if you can afford an- other 7K, you can also place the main program (TICKLEX.EXE), itself, into memory. Please see the POP-UP USE section for details. >-- Customizing PC-BEEP Accompanying TickleX is a file called RAMDESK.CFG. This file contains several lines, each of which may be used to customize PC-BEEP. If a line is enclosed within curly brackets, it will have no effect. As shipped, all lines begin with curly brackets, so the file as a whole will not affect PC-BEEP until you alter it. To designate the primary colors used by PC-BEEP, just find the "FOREGROUND" and "BACKGROUND" lines and add the color codes you desire: 0 Black 1 Blue 2 Green 3 Cyan 4 Red 5 Magenta 6 Brown 7 Light Gray Be sure that the curly brackets are removed if you want these lines to be effective. The pitch of the alarm may be set by the "BEEP-FREQ" line. Fill in the desired frequency (in hertz) after the equals sign on this line. Note that some computer's can't reproduce very high or very low pitches. Therefore, you might want to keep within the 100-5000 range. The number of beeps emitted by your computer's speaker whenever an alarm sounds is determined by the "RINGS" line. If you enter "0" after the equals sign, the alarm won't sound at all; "1" to "8" will result in a corresponding number of beeps; if enter "9", the alarm will continue to sound until you press a key. If you'd like the alarm to go off on the hour, just remove the brackets from the "CHIME-HOUR" line. No equals sign is needed. To remind you, instead, of each passing half hour, remove the brackets from the "CHIME-HOUR-HALF" line. If you want PC-BEEP to display time in 24-hour fashion, remove the brackets on the "24-HOUR" line. DO NOT CHANGE ANY OF THE RAMDESK.CFG LINES, EXCEPT THOSE DISCUSSED ABOVE. >SIX-MONTH VIEW (and calendar calculator) This option will allow you to see calendars for any six-month period up to the year 2060. Simply press "S" at the Main Menu. The current month will appear at the top-center of the screen. If you wish another month to be centered at the top, enter at the prompt any date during that month. This option is particularly useful if you would like to see the day of the week on which a particular date falls or if you need to know the number of days between two dates. To find the day of the week for a date that falls 55 days after 12 Dec 95, enter "12 DEC 95 +55"). The desired date will be displayed highlighted in the small calendar at the top center of the screen. To find the number of days between two dates, enter the first date, then a dash, then the second date (e.g., "1 Jan 95 - 12 Mar 96"). Note that you may accomplish much the same thing by using the Interval Calculator ("I" at the Main Menu). To return to the Main Menu, press either ESC or ENT. If you press ESC, you will return to the exact point at which you left the Main Menu. If, however, you press ENT, the date highlighted on the Main Menu will be the last date you used while you were in this Six- Month view routine. >WEEKLY VIEW Press "W" at the Main Menu to reach this module. The week that appears will be the one containing the date that was highlighted at the Main Menu (or the one whose daily detail you had been viewing). You may change the week being shown by pressing the up or down arrows, and you may move among individual days by pressing the left and right arrows. Unless you press the ESC key, whatever date is highlighted when you leave this module will be the one that is highlighted when you return to the Main Menu (or the one to whose daily detail you re- turn at the daily view). There are actually three weekly views, between which you may tog- gle by pressing the TAB key. The first view vertically breaks down each day into half hour segments for the employee whose monthly or daily calendar you had just been viewing. If there's time blocked off during any given half-hour, the first ten characters in the event's description will appear in that half-hour's block under the approp- riate date. The second view gives you a rough idea what time is scheduled for each employee in the firm for each day of the week. This view might be useful for quickly seeing how busy your firm's employees are during a given week or for finding a date on which certain employees are all free for an hour or two. The third view will list the events for each day from Monday to Friday, in priority order. This view will give you a quick idea of what's coming up during that week. To change the displayed employee, use the F3 key, just as you would at the monthly or daily view. If you wish to return to today's date, use the HOME key. >OMITTING EVENTS Removing an event from TickleX's data base generally involves two steps: tagging the event for omission, and then actually removing it and all other events so tagged. The reason for requiring a pre- liminary tagging step to make it less likely that you'll accidentally remove an event by inadvertently hitting the wrong key. You see, you'll always have the option of "untagging" an event previously tagged before the actual Omission (event-removing) routine is run. >-- Tagging Events for Omission An event is most easily tagged (or "untagged") for omission by pressing "T" at the Main Menu. It may also be tagged/untagged by pressing ^T (Ctrl-T) while examining it in the Edit routine. When "T" is pressed at the Main Menu, you'll be shown a list of all events scheduled for the highlighted day. Just use the arrow keys to highlight the event to be tagged and press ENT. As you press ENT, "tag" (the omission tag indicator) will appear on that line at the left margin. If you were to press ENT again, "tag" would disappear and be replaced by a letter representing the type of event shown on that line. Hence, ENT is the switch that tags and "untags" an event for omission. If an event is tagged for omission, it will not be shown in any report. It'll still be in the database, taking up space -- just in case you ever want to "untag" it, but you won't actually see it unless you enter this Tag/Untag routine or the Edit routine. If you ever wish to "untag" an event already tagged, you'll need to go to the date for which it was set and press "T" to enter the Tag/Untag routine or "E" to enter the Edit routine. When you do so, all events for that day, including those tagged for omission (but not actually omitted -- see next section), will be shown to you. >-- Actually Omitting Events, Plans, and Projects In order to keep the main TickleX data file from growing too large, you should periodically Omit old entries. Each month, for in- stance, you should select the Omit option. This routine allows you to omit scheduled/logged events, Plans, or Projects that are no longer of any use. After pressing "O" at the Main Menu, you'll be asked whether you want to omit "Schedule/Log Items", "Templates/Plans", or one or two other types. If you press "S" (for "Schedule/LogItems" events), you'll receive more instruction on the screen before you proceed. You will be asked the date before which you wish all entries to be omitted. All events (other than Deadlines not yet met) falling before that date will be omitted, WHETHER OR NOT they have been tagged for omission. Also omitted will be those events which fall after that date and which are tagged for omission. If you choose to omit a Template or Plan, follow the instructions at the bottom of the screen. Basically, you may enter the name of the plan to omit, or you may press ^L (Ctrl-L), highlight the plan name, and press ENT. If you choose to omit Projects, you'll be shown a list of your projects. After you select one for omission, you'll be asked whether you want to tag for omission all events linked to that project. After all, do you really need to keep those events in your data base if the project to which they refer is no longer there? If you choose to tag them for omission, remember, they'll only be TAGGED, not actually omitted. To actually eliminate them, you'll need to visit this Omit routine again (and choose "Schedule/LogItems" for omission). >HUNTING FOR ENTRIES and PREPARING REPORTS If you press "H" while in the Main Menu, you will be taken to a Hunt Gates display. Here, you are to select the gates you want to apply to the search through the calendar file. The Hunt Gates allow passage of only those records which contain information consistent with the Hunt Gate parameters you select. For example, if you wanted to find all the events that involve a certain employee, you would place the appropriate ID at gate C. To find all events between cer- tain dates, place the beginning date at gate D and the ending date at gate E. You may search for specific events by filling in gate B, while filling in gate A will result in a report listing only those events that apply to a specific Project. The more gates you fill in, the more discriminating the hunt through the records will be. If you leave the gates in their default conditions, ALL of today's events involving ALL employees and ALL projects will be reported. Hunts for projects and events may be made on the basis of partial entries. For instance, if you wished to find all events involving the "Smith-1" and "Smith-2" project, you would need to enter only "Smith" at gate A. All events tied to projects containing the character string, "Smith", would be shown to you. Included among the events reported might also those involving the "J. Smith" and "Blacksmith" projects. Following the above example, you could also have chosen to search for projects containing "ith". If you had done so, in addition to all the projects mentioned above, you might also have come across the "Ithica" and "Lithe Forms" projects. NOTE: Suppose you elect to enter "SMITH" at the Project gate. If there were more than one project contain that se- quence of characters, they would all pass through that gate. Hence, SMITH, SMITH-J, BLACKSMITHJ, etc., would all be sel- ected by TickleX for the hunt report. If, however, you wan- ted only SMITH to pass through the gates (to the exclusion of SMITH-J and BLACKSMITH), you would have to tell TickleX. You would do this by ending your "SMITH" entry with ^E (for "Exact match"), instead of the usual ENT. If a Project gate is set up for an exact match, a note will appear to the right, saying, "* exact *". If no such note is displayed, then ALL projects whose designations contain matches for the entered character sequence will pass through the gate. If the "* exact *" note is shown, then only the project that exactly matches that character sequence will be reported. Remember, any gate that is left blank will be considered to be open, allowing ANY record to pass through. In other words, each record will be deemed to meet that gate's criterion, and, assuming that all the other gates' criteria are also met, will be displayed during the hunt. To you don't want Deadlines reported to you, make gate F "NO" by pressing the F key. If you press the F key again, you'll change it back to "YES". The same principle applies to Appointments, Reminders, etc. (gates G to L). To change the report destination from screen to printer or disk file, press P. To send the report to an alternate printer port, press the number corresponding to that port. To send it out COM port 1, press ^A (Ctrl-A); ^B (Ctrl-B) will send the report to COM port 2. Pressing ^P (Ctrl-P), instead of P, will allow you to change the des- tination disk file name. The METHOD by which TickleX conducts its hunt depends upon how you have set Gate M, which toggles among "Quick Hunt" and "Chronolog- ical Hunt". Normally, you will want a chronological hunt, so that the reported events appear in the correct order. However, if you're look- ing through a large range of dates, you may find that a chronological hunt is too slow for you. If you want to speed things up, press the M key to select a Quick Hunt. If Quick Hunt is in operation, TickleX will NOT put things into chronological order, but it will find what you're looking for quickly. This feature is particularly valuable if you're looking for a Deadline sometime in the distant future, but you aren't sure of even the year that it was scheduled. To do so, simply select a Quick Hunt, and be sure to fill in the other Hunt Gates op- tions as well as you can (to narrow the search, keeping too many un- wanted events from appearing on the screen). NOTE: Frequent/Recurring dates will not appear during Quick Hunts. Not including them saves time and space on items of which you probably don't need reminding. The TYPE OF HUNT produced depends upon how you have set Gate N, which toggles among several choices. A "Continuous Hunt" quickly goes through the data base and reports what it finds. It may go so fast that you can't follow it (unless you press the space bar to pause). An alternative is the "Day-By-Day" hunt which steps through the data base on day at a time, automatically pausing after each day's activi- ties are reported. Pressing the down arrow will cause the next day's events to print. The up arrow causes the prior day's activities to print again. The "Day-By-Day and Employee-By-Employee" hunt is like the "Day-By-Day" hunt, except that it breaks the hunt down even fur- ther, reporting a single employee's events for a day, and then paus- ing until you press the up or down arrow. A "Priority Order" report will place each day's events into priority order, lowest number first (the priority number will be listed on a Standard report at the left margin, right after the event type). The "Project-by-Project" report (not available if you also have BillPower) will report one project's events, then the next's, and so on. A final type of hunt is "Event- by-Event", and it will be selected automatically by TickleX if you have chosen either a "Full-Screen Edit" (discussed below) report or a "Quick Hunt". The TYPE OF REPORT produced depends upon how you have set Gate O. Though a few of the reports will be discussed below, the best way to see what each offers is to actually print it for inspection. Once the Hunting process begins, you will be shown the data for each record conforming to the Hunt gates you have established. If you have chosen to display a "Standard" report (gate O), data for each conforming record will appear on a single line. The program will then automatically search for the next conforming record, display it, then look for the next one, and so on. You may make the program pause in its searching by pressing the space bar. Pressing ESC will abort the hunting process. If you have chosen the "Full-Screen" report (gate O), the data shown for each conforming record will appear on a screen identical to that used in the Edit routine. Only one conforming file's data will be displayed on the screen at one time. Unlike the Standard report rou- tine, this one will not search for the next conforming file unless you press F10 or F6 to indicate that you wish to move on. If you want to abort the Hunt routine, press ESC instead of F10 or F6. If, while in the Hunt routine's Full-Screen summaries display, you see some information that should be changed, you may edit it as if you were in the Edit routine. There will be a few limitations on your ability to edit directly from the Hunt routine, but don't worry about them; TickleX will call your attention to them only if you attempt to violate them. If you have chosen a "Time Scheduled" report (gate O), each line will contain a date and a series of D's, A's, etc. Each letter cor- responds to a 15-minute block of time during which an event is sched- uled. Here's an example: Date 7...8...9...10..11..12..1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8 FRI 3 FEB 89 ....AA....AA........EEEE..AAAAAAA.................... TUE 7 FEB 89 ........AAAA........AAAA..........EE................. WED 8 FEB 89 ..................................................... THU 9 FEB 89 ....................AAAA............................. Here, you can see that there are things scheduled on 3 February in the 8:00-8:14 and the 8:15-8:29 blocks. 9:30 to 9:59 also has something scheduled, as do 12:00-12:59 and 1:30-3:14. Note that the dates be- tween 4-6 Feb are not listed. Skipping dates occurs when those dates contain no scheduled events that meet the parameters specified by Hunt Gates A-G (filled in before the hunt began). Note also that, though 8 February is listed, nothing appears on its line. A date's line will be blank if there is SOMETHING scheduled for that date, but nothing that requires blocking off time. A Deadline that has no beginning or end- ing times is an example of an event that would not cause a D to appear on the line. NOTE: TickleX assumes that an event with no ending time is not intended to be "blocked off". Hence, you might have sev- eral Deadlines scheduled for 11:00 (no ending time), without TickleX's recognizing that those events should be blocked off. Only if an ending time is later than a beginning time will TickleX block off time for that event, and only in that case will the "Time Scheduled" report display an A, D, etc., for that event. The last thing printed on a "Time Scheduled" report will be an employee-by-employee breakdown of the total hours hours scheduled. The only time blocks included in this breakdown will be those that were included in the preceding report. If you have set your Hunt Gates to be extremely selective, the breakdown totals will probably be small. This breakdown may be useful to find how many hours you've scheduled someone to work over a given span of days or weeks. If you consistently schedule work (and ONLY work) as an Exercise and you set the Hunt Gates to include only Exercises, the breakdown summary will tell you how many hours have been scheduled for only Exercises (which, in this case, substitute for "work scheduled"). >-- Printed calendars (weekly, monthly, yearly) Each of these reports consists of a calendar printed on a sheet of paper. In order for the calendars to be properly prepared, you must make sure that lines 1 to 6 of the PRNTINIT file have been cus- tomized for your specific printer. If PRNTINIT hasn't been custom- ized, these "Printed Calendar" options may not even appear. To edit the PRNTINIT file, use the TextEditor (press ^E at the Main Menu). That file, itself, contains instructions on how it is to be filled in. The calendar prepared with this option will look like a standard paper calendar. The minimum period for which a weekly or monthly cal- endar will be printed is one week. Each day's block will be filled in with whatever events are stored in the data base for that date. Just before a monthly calendar begins printing, you'll have to specify how wide and how long each day's block is to be. It's recom- mended that you stick with the defaults that appear, but you may change them if you wish. In order to conserve space for as many events as possible on a monthly calendar, you may wish to limit the space devoted to each event to one line. To do so, you'll be able to tell the program to truncate each event at the end of one line. If you wish to print the entire event, even if it takes more than one line to do so, you'll need to specify either word wrap or character wrap. Character wrap will split a word falling at the end of a line, while word wrap will move that entire word down to the next line (and, in the process, waste a little space). >FINDING FREE TIME If you need to schedule something that requires a certain amount of time, but you don't know when your busy schedule will allow it, press "F" at the Main Menu. You'll see a screen that shows your free time for the next three weeks. If you press "F" again, TickleX will conduct a search for your free time. First, you'll be asked to specify how many contiguous hours (e.g., 2, .5, 5.25) you need to accomplish the task. Then, tell TickleX who's schedule you want it to search, and give the program the earliest and latest dates you want to consider for the accomplishment of the task. TickleX will then search through those dates for the amount of free time you've specified. When it finds some time, you'll be shown that day's schedule and told which time frame meets your needs. If that time block isn't satisfactory, press ENT to find the next available period. When you find a period that you want to use, press the "M" key to Make a new event record. By default, this routine will search each day between 8:30 AM and 5:30 PM. If your working hours are significantly different, you can customize the program to use them instead. See the SETTING UP section for a discussion of Workday Begin and End Times. By the way, the Weekly Views offer another, perhaps more visual means of quickly finding free time. See the "Weekly View" section above. NOTE: TickleX assumes that an event with no ending time is not intended to be "blocked off". For instance, if you have an Appointment scheduled for 11:00, but without an ending time, TickleX would consider that event to occur at only a brief instant in time at 11:00. Since that event would not actually occupy any time, TickleX would not recognize it as something that would break a span of free time. >RE-SCHEDULING SEVERAL EVENTS QUICKLY If you want to move several events currently scheduled for the Main Menu's highlighted date to a new date, you should press "R" at the TickleX Schedule Main Menu to enter the "re-scheduling" routine. When you do, it will be assumed that you wish to move events FROM the highlighted date, and you'll be asked to select another date TO which that days events are to be moved. Then, a listing of all the events currently scheduled for the "FROM" date will be shown, and you'll be expected to identify the first event to be moved. Simply use the cursor control keys to move to that event and press ENT. The selected event will be quickly rescheduled for the "TO" date. Then, you'll be expected to identify the next event to be moved. Repeat this identification process until you've moved all the desired events. To abort the process and return to the Main Menu, press ESC. >STOPWATCH If you would like to user TickleX's stopwatch to time an activ- ity, press the "\" key at the Main Menu. When you do, the stopwatch will begin displaying elapsed time near the top right corner of the screen. Pressing "\" again will cause the timer to stop. At this point, you may press: 1) ESC to cease timing the activity; 2) "C" to cause the timing to continue as if it had never been interrupted; or 3) "S" to temporarily suspend the timing until you press the "\" key again to resume the timing. When you invoke it by pressing "\", the stopwatch will continue timing, no matter what you do within TickleX, until you press "\" a second time at the Main Menu. In fact, if you have TickleX loaded as a memory-resident program, the timing will continue while you're wor- king within other software. >MORNING STARTUP When you first start up the program each day, TickleX will search for old events to bring forward. All Deadlines, Gotchas, and Reminders from past dates which have not already been tagged for omis- sion will be brought forward so that they will not be lost during an Omission routine. If you like, you may force TickleX to ask you to confirm what to do with each old Deadline/Gotcha/Reminder before moving it forward to today. To do so, you need to place the character sequence "DDD" into the second parameter on the "TICKLEX" line in the TX.BAT file. See "Batch File Customization" near the beginning of this documentation. >UTILITIES (BACKUP, RESTORE, PRINTER DRIVERS, ETC) Pressing "U" at the Main Menu will take you to the UTILITIES mod- ule. Here, you may backup your data to diskettes, restore such backed-up data, or visit the printer driver routine to tell TickleX what type of printer you have. If you press "B", TickleX will automatically execute DOS's BACKUP program that came with your computer, assuming that a copy of it is in the ManageX directory. If you want to use another backup program, create a file called BACKUP.DAT (in the ManageX directory) that contains on single line the DOS command by which that other program is executed. If you press "R", TickleX will automatically execute DOS's RESTORE program that came with your computer, assuming that a copy of it is in the ManageX directory. If you want to use another restore program, create a file called RESTORE.DAT (in the ManageX directory) that contains on single line the DOS command by which that other program is executed. If you press "P", TickleX's printer driver program will be exe- cuted. With it, you may specify a printer similar to the one you use. If you press "C", you'll be taken to the customization routine, where you may specify employee initials, screen colors, lines to print per page, laser printer, 24-hour time, etc. "E" will take you to the TextEditor, so that you may edit various text files, such as the ones containing Recurring Events, Income- Expense Categories, Groups, etc. "O" will take you through the program's routine to omit items from the data base. Scheduled and logged items, projects, and plans may be omitted here. "I" will cause the Schedule and Log databases to be re-indexed. This is a drastic measure that should be used ONLY as a last resort if your database becomes corrupted. Because this routine may drastically alter the database if there are many problems, you should attempt res- toring from backup diskettes before you try re-indexing. >LOG MODULE All the preceding discussions have basically concerned using TickleX as a scheduler. But it's also capable logging things that have actually taken place, as opposed to things that have been merely scheduled. It can be used to log services performed, income, and ex- penses. Remember, TickleX is primarily a scheduler. The logging func- tions are designed for the user who simply wants a convenient place to register his income, expenses, and the hours he's worked on various projects. Though its reporting ability is quite flexible, it's not designed to produce client reports or bills. If you need those re- ports, you should use a program specifically designed for billing and/or bookkeeping, such as BillPower. You may move to TickleX's LOG module by pressing ^L (Ctrl-L) when the Schedule Main Menu is displayed (^S will take you back to the SCHEDULE module). If you're in the LOG module, you won't be dealing with Appointments, Deadlines, etc. Instead, your choices will be Ser- vices, Disbursements, and Receipts. Most everything else, though, is the same in both the SCHEDULE and LOG modules. A Service is work performed, a Disbursement is an expense (money you've spent), and a Receipt is income you've received. If you wish to keep accurate records of the hours worked on each of your projects, you should be conscientious in entering a Service whenever you spend time on one of them. The same goes for tracking income and expenses attributable to each project. When you enter a Receipt or Disbursement, one of the items you can fill in is the category into which the income or expense falls. If you enter a category whenever you input a Receipt or Disbursement, TickleX will be able to produce an accurate report, by category, of all your income and expenses over any period of time. By the way, pressing F1 here will result in a display of the income/expense cate- gories. TickleX keeps a list of your income-expense categories in a file called INCEXPNS.DAT, which can be accessed with the TextEditor by pressing ^E at the Main Menu. This file is provided in sample form with the TickleX program, and you'll have to modify it to suit your own needs. The file may hold up to 200 lines, each line containing a 1-to 3- digit category number and a 1-to 25-character category des- cription. As you modify the file, make sure that the numbers and des- criptions you enter line up exactly with the headings at the top of the screen. Note that there may be no blank lines in the file, and that every line must contain both a number and a description. When you're entering a Receipt or Disbursement, the program won't let you enter a category number that is not described in the INCEXPNS.DAT file. If you can't remember the number of the category you need to fill in, just place the cursor beneath the "Cat" item and press the F1 key. You'll be shown the contents of the INCEXPNS.DAT file. Remember, F1 gives you help anywhere within the TickleX pro- gram. When you want a report on the total disbursements, receipts, and hours worked on any or all of your projects, just conduct a Hunt. At the end of each chronological "Standard" report, these totals will appear. If, for instance, you want a year-to-date listing, by cate- gory, of all your income and expenses, set Hunt gates D and E appro- priately and begin the hunt. TickleX is capable of holding 12000 disbursement, receipt, and service entries (in addition to the 12000 appointments, deadlines, etc., that it can hold). When this capacity is reached, you'll have to go through the Omit routine to eliminate old entries (as well as current ones that you may have tagged for omission), thus freeing space for new entries. >-- Using the Service Stopwatch If, while entering a new service, you want TickleX to automatic- ally keep time for you, press the "\" key to begin the Service Stop- watch. When the stopwatch is first invoked, the Begin Time will automatically be entered for you. Pressing "\" again will stop the timer and cause the End Time to be entered for you. If you wish, you may leave the Service record before pressing "\" a second time. To do so, just press F10 or F6. When you want to complete the record, simply press "M" to make a new record and then "S" (for "Service"). Instead of creating a new Service record, TickleX will cause the incomplete one to reappear. When it does, press "\" to cause the End Time to be filled in. Then, make any other changes you wish, and press F10 or F6 to save it in its completed form. Note that this feature is useful only if TickleX has been loaded as a memory-resident program. >-- Zipping Completed Events to the Log (or BillPower) Many people like to use their calendars not only as schedulers of future events, but also as permanent records of things that they've done. When these people want to know what they did on a particular past date, they might go to their calendar and look up the events they had scheduled for that date. These will tend to assume that what they had scheduled for that date is what they actually did. In many cases, though, that's an erroneous assumption. That's one reason that TickleX maintains separate data bases for its SCHEDULE and LOG. However, if you're one who generally does what he is scheduled to do, you may find it useful to quickly zip scheduled items to TickleX's LOG. That will save you the time that would otherwise be spent entering a LOG item that is essentially identical to a SCHEDULE item. If you press "Z" at the Main Menu, you'll be given the opportun- ity to select the date whose scheduled events you wish to zip to the LOG. The only dates that TickleX will accept are: today and earlier. Then you will review each item scheduled for the selected date and tell TickleX whether it has been completed. If you tell TickleX that the item has been completed, the item will be copied to the LOG (and then tagged for omission here in the SCHEDULE). Items previously tagged for omission will not be displayed for you during this proce- dure. Nor will either Frequent/Recurring events or multi-day events. If you are also using BillPower, the data will be transferred to a file named "ZIP.ASC", instead of to the TickleX LOG. The contents of this file can then be brought into BillPower by simply pressing "Z" at BillPower's Main Menu. If you want them to be brought into Bill- Power automatically whenever you load the program, place "ITX" into the second parameter on the "billpowr" line in the BP.BAT file. >POP-UP USE You may find it convenient to have TickleX available at all times. Let's say that you're using your word processor and suddenly need to look at your calendar or schedule an appointment. Normally, you'd have to save your document, exit the word processor, and then load TickleX. Then, when you're done with TickleX, you have to exit it, load your word processor, find your document and continue with what you were doing before accessing TickleX. Wouldn't it be convenient if you could just press a couple of keys to call up TickleX, even when you're in the middle of using your word processor? Well, you can, as long as you follow the instructions contained in this section. TickleX must first be loaded into memory, where it will linger in the background until you press a "hot-key" combination to call it to the screen. When you do so, whatever the computer was just doing will be suspended and placed into the background, while TickleX is brought to the screen. When you've taken care of your TickleX busi- ness, press the ESC key. Doing so will force TickleX back into the background (where it will lurk until you press the hot-key again), while your prior work will pop back into the foreground (onto the screen). To prime TickleX for pop-up (memory-resident) service, simply enter "TX xxx MR" (where xxx are your initials), instead of just "TX xxx", at the DOS prompt. If that doesn't work, you'll need to copy the TX.BAT to a file called TXMR.BAT and modify the new file. TX.BAT should be used for standard use, while TXMR.BAT will be used for invoking TickleX as a pop-up. Now, find the line in TXMR.BAT that starts with "TICKLEX". The tenth parameter following "TICKLEX" should be "MR". If you need to "pad" the line with any other para- meters, make each of them an "x". Examples: TICKLEX x x x x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x MR 1 TICKLEX x x x x x x x x x MR Each example shows the use of dummy "x" parameters. If TickleX is loaded in this fashion, it will automatically abort and display a message that informs you of the hot-key combina- tion needed to call it to the foreground. By default, the hot-key is ALT-S. But you may change the hot-key by adding to the 10th parameter a different combination, using the "MR-X-$YYZZ" format. The "X" in this format is the key you wish to use in combination with the ALT or CTRL key. "YY" should be "08" if you plan to use the ALT-key, or "04" if you prefer a CTRL-key combination. "ZZ" is the scan code for the letter you've designated with "X". Selected scan codes follow: KEY SCAN KEY SCAN KEY SCAN KEY SCAN KEY SCAN Q 10 W 11 E 12 R 13 T 14 Y 15 U 16 I 17 O 18 P 19 A 1E S 1F D 20 F 21 G 22 H 23 J 24 K 25 L 26 Z 2C X 2D C 2E V 2F B 30 N 31 For example, to designate ALT-C as the hot-key combination, the tenth parameter would be "MR-C-$082E", while CTRL-V would be selected by using "MR-V-$042F". If you'd like TickleX's pop-up alarm (PC-BEEP) to be loaded into memory also, you should add a line to the TX.BAT (or TXMR.BAT) file just before the "TICKLEX" line. See the ALARMS section. Normally, TickleX requires about 480 Kilobytes of RAM. When it's just waiting in the background, however, all it consumes is about 7 Kilobytes (or 45K if you're also using PC-BEEP), leaving most of your computer's memory for use by other programs. >-- Loading Pop-Up TickleX Automatically The exception to the rule that the program must be entered through TX.BAT (or TXMR.BAT) comes into play if you want pop-up TickleX to be loaded automatically whenever you turn on your computer. If you'd like pop-up TickleX to be loaded during your computer's start-up routine, simply add the following lines at a convenient place near the end of your root directory's AUTOEXEC.BAT file: cd\MANAGEX PC-BEEP x x x x x x x x x TICKLEX x x x x x x x x x MR These lines should be placed before any instructions involved in cal- ling up a menu or disk management program. Of course, the "x" para- meters following TICKLEX and PC-BEEP in the above example may, if desired, be altered as described elsewhere in this documentation. And, if you don't need a TickleX's alarm, get rid of the PC-BEEP line. >NETWORK USE When invoked for use on a LAN, TickleX utilizes file locking to prevent two or more users from simultaneously altering the same record in the data base. -- Some Preliminaries... If your LAN defaults to the assumption that you want it to auto- matically lock files for you, you may have problems with TickleX. TickleX, not your LAN, must decide when to lock which files. Make sure that your LAN is configured to give ALL users complete access to ALL files in the server's ManageX directory. Make sure that ALL prog- ram and data files are "sharable" (e.g., immediately after installing the program onto a Novell workstation, enter "FLAG *.* S" at the DOS prompt in the directory containing TickleX, and do the same in the server directory that will contain TickleX's data). And make sure that all workstations have FULL rights in all directories pertaining to TickleX. Also make sure that each workstation's CONFIG.SYS file contains a line that says, "FILES=60". The fact that your server may have such a line in it's CONFIG.SYS file may do your workstations no good whatso- ever. -- Using Only a Single Copy of TickleX on the Network To load a single copy of the program onto the net, run the normal install routine (e.g., "INSTALL A: X:", where X is your server's drive designation). This routine will automatically load the program into a ManageX directory on the server. Unless you want to use only one copy of the TX.BAT file on the network (see the "Use of a Single Batch File on the Server" section below), each workstation must have a dedicated directory, either on its own hard disk or on the server, from which it will run TickleX. This dedicated directory must be located directly off the disk's root directory and must contain a TX.BAT file, customized especially for that workstation. Start with the TX.BAT file provided with TickleX. Insert two extra lines near the top of the TX.BAT file, just below the line that contains "CLS". These extra lines should cause the workstation to log into the server directory where TickleX's prog- ram and data files will be maintained. Assume, for instance, that the server's hard disk is referred to as drive "F" and that TickleX is in- stalled into the ManageX directory on that drive. In this case, the lines to insert into the workstation's TX.BAT file would be: F: CD\MANAGEX NOTE: No directory/path name used with TickleX may exceed 14 characters in length. Also, add a few lines at the very bottom of the TX.BAT file that will cause the computer to log back into the workstation's "home" directory when you exit TickleX. Examples: Example 1 Example 2 --------- --------- F: C: CD\AWB CD\MANAGEX CLS CLS -- TX.BAT's "TICKLEX" line Now, each workstation's TX.BAT file must also reflect its OWN user's ID and that of the program's MAIN user (that is, the person chiefly responsible for maintaining the data base). Additionally, it must reflect both its OWN drive/directory and the SERVER drive/direc- tory where TickleX is maintained. Read on. Find the line in the TX.BAT file that begins with "TICKLEX". After the word "TICKLEX", you need to add several parameters, each separated by a space. The first four may already have been set (see the SETTING UP section), but if they're not, just substitute an "x" for each one. Example: TICKLEX x x x x The fifth parameter should be a 1- to 3-letter ID of the MAIN user (the one chiefly responsible for TickleX). The sixth parameter should be a 1- to 3-letter ID for this SPECIFIC workstation's user. For example, if Jane Jones is the program's main user, the fifth para- meter following "TICKLEX" in each workstation's TX.BAT file might be "JJ". If the user of a specific workstation is Allen W. Bosley, that workstation's TX.BAT file might specify "AB" at the sixth parameter. IMPORTANT: Make absolutely sure that each workstation's TX.BAT file contains the SAME fifth parameter (since the MAIN user is the same for all workstations). Also ensure that no two stations have the same sixth parameter (since each indiv- idual station is DIFFERENT). If you violate either rule, you run the risk of losing data, despite the fact the program may appear to be operating properly. Once you set up each work- station's TX.BAT file, you might want to write-protect it, to prevent it's being changed by a user. The seventh parameter tells TickleX which of the server dir- ectories will hold its common data base, accessible by all users. If, for instance, a given workstation refers to that directory as F:\MANAGEX, the seventh parameter should be "F:\MANAGEX". The eighth parameter following "TICKLEX" should be the drive and directory from which the workstation will be running TickleX. This is that workstation's "home" directory. Parameters nine and ten may be x's if need be, but the eleventh parameter must be "1". This tells TickleX that there's just one copy of the program on the network (see the next section if you decide to run a separate copy of the program on each workstation). Here are two examples that tie it all together: PARAMETERS --> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Example 1: TICKLEX x x x x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX C:\TX x x 1 Example 2: TICKLEX x x x x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX C:\TX x MR 1 Each of these examples tells TickleX that this workstation's "home" directory is C:\TX. It also specifies F:\MANAGEX as the server direc- tory containing TickleX and its data. JJ is the main user, and AWB is the local workstation's user. The second example's tenth parameter is "MR", informing TickleX to load itself as a memory-resident program (see the POP-UP USE section), while the first example's tenth para- meter is "x", which is a null parameter that tells TickleX nothing. NOTE: Each morning, TickleX will automatically bring forward past Deadlines and Gotchas that haven't been tagged for omission. When installed for use on a network, however, a user's Deadlines/Gotchas will be brought forward only when THAT SPECIFIC USER (or the one who entered the Deadlines and Gotchas into the program) first loads TickleX at the begin- ning of the day. If you'd prefer that the FIRST user to load the program each morning be responsible for bringing forward EVERYONE's Deadlines/Gotchas, add "#" to the fifth parameter (e.g., "TICKLEX x x x x JJ# AWB ..."). To have the MAIN user (who may not necessarily be the first user) bring for- ward everyone's Deadlines/Gotchas each morning, substitute "*" for "#" (e.g., TICKLEX x x x x JJ* AWB ..."). The "generic" TX.BAT file that comes with TickleX has %1 at the sixth parameter. If you substitute the workstation user's initials at that parameter, you must also search the entire TX.BAT file for all places where %1 exits and substitute the same initials (e.g., if AWB is substituted for %1 at the sixth parameter, the line that says "util%1" becomes "utilAWB"). Further, if you ever subsequently change the initials at the sixth parameter, you must search the file for the old initials and substitute the new initials in their places. -- Using a Separate Copy of TickleX on each Workstation (instead of using a single copy located on the server) Screen colors, printer, and other Customization items will be identical for all workstations that access a common copy of the prog- ram on the server. Those workstations that require different customi- zations should have separate copies of the program installed in their "home" directories. Another reason to load a separate copy of the program onto one or more workstations is that you may have a slow net- work that makes loading the program from the server seem to take forever. Of course, the data must still be located centrally on the server, but the program, itself, may be placed separately onto each workstation. To load a separate copy of the program onto each workstation, run the normal install routine (e.g., "INSTALL A: X:", where X is that workstation's hard disk designation). This routine will automatically load the program into a ManageX directory on the workstation. Each workstation's ManageX directory must have a TX.BAT file, customized especially for that workstation. Start with the TX.BAT file provided with TickleX. Insert an extra line near the top of the TX.BAT file, just below the line that reads, "cls". This extra line should cause the work- station to look to the server directory where TickleX will maintain the common data files that all users will access. Assume, for ins- tance, that the server's hard disk is referred to as drive "F" and that TickleX's data files will be located in the ManageX directory on that drive. In this case, the line to insert into the workstation's TX.BAT file would be: CD F:\MANAGEX Now, modify the TX.BAT file's "TICKLEX" line exactly as des- cribed in the above section entitled "TX.BAT's TICKLEX Line". But DO NOT include an eleventh parameter of "1". Instead, either eliminate the eleventh parameter or substitute an "x" for the "1". NOTE: If you elect to use a separate copy of the program for each workstation, you must manually copy the BLANK*.*, MANUAL.*, MESSAGES, and HELP files to the server directory where you intend keep the data. Also copy RECUR.* files to that directory, since common copies of these files need to be accessed by everyone using the program. -- Other Customizations to the TX.BAT file The TX.BAT file may also contain references to other programs, such as PC-BEEP. You should make sure that each reference is followed by parameters identical to those that follow "TICKLEX". Example: PC-BEEP x x x x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x x 1 TICKLEX x x x x JJ AWB F:\MANAGEX F:\AWB x x 1 Also find every occurrence of "util%1" in the TX.BAT file and substitute the local user's initials for "%1" (e.g., change "util%1" to "utilJJ" if JJ is the local user). After you've customized each workstation's TX.BAT file, you'll find that the program works much as it does as single-user software. The main differences are that: 1) TickleX will occasionally delay a user's entering something, as it waits for another user to finish some process that could potentially change the data base; 2) only the main (primary user's) workstation will be able to perform certain functions (such as Editing with the TextEditor and Omitting); and 3) changes to the data base made on one workstation may not be recognized by another workstation until its user goes through some major process (such as conducting a Hunt or Editing a record). >-- Passwords If you want TickleX to demand a password whenever anyone tries to access it, customize it accordingly in the Utilities module's Customize routine. To reach the appropriate customizing screen, press the "S" key when you're asked, "Is TickleX now customized to your satisfaction?" If LAN-based TickleX is set up for password protection, the first person ever to enter the program must be the main user identified by the fifth parameter. That user must go to the Utilities module, select the Customization option, and enter the initials of all the TickleX users on the network. A user whose initials have not been entered into the Customization routine's list won't be allowed in. -- Use of a Single Batch File on the Server If you're using a single copy of the program on the network, and you'd like to maintain only one TX.BAT file for the whole office (as opposed to a separate one for each workstation), place that TX.BAT file into the server's ManageX directory. Start with the basic TX.BAT file supplied with TickleX. Modify its "TICKLEX" line as described above in the section entitled, "TX.BAT's TICKLEX Line", but make sure that the sixth parameter is "%1". Also be sure to place disk/directory changing instructions near the top and bottom of the batch file, as discussed above in the "Using Only a Single Copy..." section above. NOTE: Some networks are configured in a manner that makes it difficult to use a single TX.BAT on the server. If you have difficulty, abandon trying to use a single TX.BAT file. >USE WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS If you wish to use TickleX with Microsoft Windows, you will need to run Windows in its 386 mode ("WIN /3" at the DOS prompt). You will also need to customize a PIF file. Before you do ANYTHING in Windows, however, make sure that you have TickleX running successfully at the DOS level. Use the PIF editor within Windows to set up TX.PIF. Keep all the default settings, except as follows: Program Filename TX.BAT Window Title TickleX Optional Parameters (your initials, as recognized by TickleX) Start-up Directory (example: C:\MANAGEX) KB Required 520, if you need the alarm (otherwise 480) KB Desired 520, if you need the alarm (otherwise 480) Display Usage "Full Screen" item should be selected Execution "Background" item should be selected (but only if you need the alarm) Background Priority 1 Retain Video Memory select this item (if you need the alarm) Allow Fast Paste DE-select this item Application Shortcut Press ALT-T here if you wish to be able to Key access TickleX with this key combination Now, you need to edit your WIN.INI file. Find the line that be- gins with "load=" and add "TX.PIF" to that line (e.g., "load=TX.PIF"). That will cause TickleX to be loaded automatically when you run Win- dows, so that all you need to do is to press ALT-T to access it. NOTE: Some Windows installations seem to ignore the WIN.INI file's "load=" line. If yours is one of these, you may have to manually modify the STARTUP group, so that it includes TX.PIF among the files loaded when Windows is started. NOTE: If you're using TickleX to sound alarms, always make a habit of checking into TickleX IMMEDIATELY after you load Windows. Doing so will cause the alarms to be set for this session with Windows. Next, you need to alter your TX.BAT file. Look at the line that begins with "TICKLEX". Since you'll be accessing TickleX through Windows, not as a memory-resident program in its own right, the tenth parameter should be "x", not "mr". Now, you may wish to prevent an exit from TickleX by pressing the ESC key. If so, the second para- meter should contain the character string, "NX" (for "no exit"). And if you wish to use the alarm (PC-BEEP.EXE) you should make sure that the TX.BAT file contains a line that begins with "PC-BEEP" and con- tains the same listing of parameters found on the line that begins with "TICKLEX". The PC-BEEP line should be just above the TICKLEX line. Windows is a very complicated (even "squirrely") environment. So you may have to do a lot of "tweeking" to make everything work. >EMPLOYEE/DEPARTMENT GROUPS Employees may be grouped together for mass schedulings. As you know, TickleX will track up to 200 employees. It will also track 20 groups, each of which may consist of up to 15 employees. Whenever you schedule a group, you will effectively be scheduling each of it's con- stituent employees. Whenever you hunt through the data base for a group's activities, you will, in effect, be hunting for the activities of that group's members. Anywhere that TickleX requests an employee, you may substitute a group. One reason for having some of your employees included in a group is that you may wish to find a period when everyone in that group is free for a meeting. Doing a "Scheduled Time" hunt/report for that group will reveal all the time already scheduled for all group mem- bers. Just fill in Hunt Gate C with the abbreviation for the group in which you're interested, set the beginning and ending dates, and begin the hunt. The gaps in the scheduled time shown on the report will be the periods during which everyone in the group is free. Groups should be listed in a file called GROUP.DAT, which TickleX scans whenever you enter the program. You may create this file in the TextEditor by pressing ^E (Ctrl-E) at the Main Menu. Then press "G" at the TextEditor menu. To set up a group, enter a unique 1- to 3-character abbreviation under the "ABB" heading. Then hit the tab key to align the cursor for the entry of that group's constituent employees. As you're entering the employees, separate each by a slash, "/". Note that a group may not contain another group. Example: ABB --- CONSTITUENT DEPARTMENTS/EMPLOYEES --- gp1 stb/gm/lta/prs gp2 stb/mkr gp3 tup/dst/prs gp4 dst/stb/gm gp5 gm/gp1 WRONG! -- gp1 is, itself, a group >AUTOMATED EXECUTION (MACROS) You may have certain regularly performed routines that you wish TickleX could perform automatically. That's what TickleX's AutoExe- cute function is designed to do. Whenever you invoke the function by pressing the "A" key (or F8), you'll be presented with a list of mac- ros (autoexecute sequences). To choose one, simply highlight it by using the up or down arrows. The program will then execute the se- quence of keystrokes specified by the macro, just as if you had pressed the keys yourself. The first time you invoke the AutoExecute function, there will be no macros, since you will not have yet created any. To add a macro to the list, just select "NEW". You will be afforded the opportunity to assign the macro a name to help you identify it in the future, as well as the sequence of keystrokes that you want executed whenever that macro is selected in the future. The sequence may be up to 50 char- acters long. If you wish to place a date into the AutoExecute sequence, remem- ber that TickleX accepts "-7" as exactly one week ago, and "+1" as tomorrow. TickleX also considers an entry of "1" to mean the first day of whatever month is currently displayed, while "30" means the thirtieth day. There are several special characters that you can place into the sequence to perform certain functions: ~ = ENT (or Enter) ! = ESC > = F10 : = ALT-P ; = ALT-F | = ALT-I ` = Ctrl-R @ = ALT-O _ (underline) will cause the AutoExecute function to pause for a keyboard entry (one keystroke per underline). Once you have several macros, you may access them in the normal way (by pressing the "A" key or F8), or you may execute them quickly by pressing ALT-F1 for the first macro in the list, ALT-F2 for the se- cond, and so on, through ALT-F10 for the tenth.