home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Cream of the Crop 21
/
Cream of the Crop 21 (Terry Blount) (October 1996).iso
/
database
/
dates608.zip
/
DATES.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-08-31
|
24KB
|
557 lines
DATES.DOC 1 Revised: 08-28-96
This program keeps track of birthdays, anniversaries, upcoming events, etc
giving you advance warning so you can send out cards, leave town, etc. Features
of this program:
* Initially defaults to showing all events happening within 14 days.
* You can set up multiple date files, each with their own day threshold;
for example, one file for birthdays, another for business meetings, etc.
* You can establish a different threshold on an event-by-event basis if
desired.
* This program can be included in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to provide notices
every time you turn on your PC.
* You can specify dates like the "last Thursday" or the "first Monday" of
a given month.
* Month-long dates can be entered (e.g. "10/XX/XX Customer Service Month").
* Recurring dates that happen each month on the same date (e.g. "XX/14/XX
Mortgage due") can be used.
* Weekly reminders for events that happen the same weekday every week can
be used.
* Dates can be in the United States format (/DATE=mm/dd/yy) or in most other
formats (e.g. /DATE=dd-mm-yy).
* Months can be entered as sequential months (1 for January, 2 for February,
etc) or else entered as the months themselves (JAN, FEB, etc).
* Dates don't have to be padded (9/6/94, 09/06/94, and SEP/06/1994 are all
accepted).
* Dates in the future can be processed or ignored at your preference.
* The program will show you the weekday, age, and/or days until the event
if desired.
* Comment lines can be displayed if desired (e.g. "Events relating to work:").
* The program can automatically pause when done or after a set number of
lines if desired.
* Entries can be sorted before display based on their "date difference" (the
number of days before the event occurs) or in their original order.
* Decimal codes (like CR/LF) can be embedded in the display file if desired,
allowing you to change colors with in the display line or split the line
into several lines for display.
The dates input file:
The dates file is a simple ASCII text file, created and maintained with any
text editor. Each record should begin with a date (typically in mm/dd/yy
format) followed by a description of the event. For example:
05/05/93 Lucy Baines
Blank lines or any line which begins with a colon (":") or semi-colon (";")
are ignored by the program. Lines which begin with an asterisk ("*") are
printed verbatim (minus the asterisk); add spacing after the asterisk if you
want the lines to be indented upon display. Note: Comments will be ignored
if /SORT is specified.
DATES.DOC 2 Revised: 08-28-96
The format for the date:
For the date portion of the record, you have some flexibility. By default,
the program expects dates to be in a mm/dd/yy format. So August 5, 1993 is
"08/05/93". Even with the "mm/dd/yy" format, however, four-digit years can
be entered if desired (e.g. "06/05/2005").
You can change the sequence of the numbers by using the "/DATE=format" option.
For example, you can specify "/DATE=dd-mm-yy" if you want.
Typically, most date formats will use one of the delimiters "-", ".", or "/"
between all various day, month, and year fields. For example, /DATE=dd.mm.yy
instead of /DATE=dd.mm/dd. If this is done, your input fields can entered in
a very flexible manner. The routine will parse the date field based on the
delimiters and accept fields with or without padding, years with or without
the century, and alphabetic months instead of just numeric ones. For example,
using /DATE=dd.mm.yy, all of the following September 5, 1994 events are the
same:
05.09.94 Big event
5.9.94 Same event
5.sep.1994 Still the same thing
05.september.1994 And yet again the same event
Relative weekdays:
If you want, you can specify a day of the month based on a relative weekday
within the month. For example, in the United States, Thanksgiving falls on
the last Thursday in November and Father's Day is the third Sunday in June.
If it's a relative weekday from the beginning of the month, DATES allows you
to enter these in the "day" field by using "nww" where "n" indicates the
sequence of the weekday (if you leave it off, it's presumed to be the first)
and "ww" is the first two letters of the day. If it's a relative weekday from
the end of the month, use "Lnww" ("n" defaults to 1).
The weekdays themselves are entered as "SU", "MO", "TU", "WE", "TH", "FR",
and "SA".
So, for these two examples, they can be entered in your file as:
11/LTH/XX Thanksgiving
06/3SU/XX Father's Day
DATES.DOC 3 Revised: 08-28-96
Weekly reminders:
The program can be used to display weekly reminders, which happen the same
day every week. This is entered like this:
xx/FR/xx It's Friday!
In this case, the program will show you the first instance of the event no
matter what your /Ddays parameter is. If you want the event to be shown
multiple times based on your /Ddays parameter, enter 5 relative weekday
requests instead:
xx/1FR/xx It's Friday (showing in advance)
xx/2FR/xx It's Friday (showing in advance)
xx/3FR/xx It's Friday (showing in advance)
xx/4FR/xx It's Friday (showing in advance)
xx/5FR/xx It's Friday (showing in advance)
Dummy month, day, year parameters:
The month, day, and year portions can be "xx" if desired. (Obviously, they
can't be all provided as such.)
If a day is "xx", you will be given the notice for the entire month and for 15
days before the start of the month. For dates which vary from year to year
and which can't be done using something like "LTH" or "2MO" (primarily Easter)
you can either use the "xx" option for the day or revise the file every year.
If a month is "XX", the date is presumed to recur each month. For example,
"XX/10/XX Mortgage due" or "XX/3TH/XX Monthly Alanon meeting".
Which dates will show up (the /Ddays parameter):
There's a default age threshold which determines what entries in your dates
file(s) will show up. (Using multiple dates files--each with their own date
threshhold--is documented below.) By default, any event coming due in the next
14 days will show up when the program is run.
Dates with explicitly coded years which are in the future will, by default,
not show up. If you'd like to add the next five years of specific dates for
the family reunion in Hoboken, you can do so and only the next one will
potentially show up. This can be overridden using the "/-FUTURE" parameter.
Additionally, you can specify age thresholds on an event-by-event basis by
beginning the relevant descriptions with "/Ddays" (e.g. "11/01/95 /D60 BIG
meeting!"). Specific age thresholds like this are not overridden by the
"/Ddays" parameter specified from the command line. There are other
parameters which can be imbedded in the input file; see the "Other
event-by-event parameters" section below.
DATES.DOC 4 Revised: 08-28-96
How the dates are actually displayed:
As far as the actual display of the information is concerned, each event is
typically presented as just "date event", where any relative day references
like "4TH" get resolved before the date is shown. For example, presume it's
May 25 in 1994, /D14 is in effect, and your input file has the following three
lines:
05/28/30 Mr.Fury
05/LMO/xx Memorial Day
05/31/57 Bruce Guthrie
The initial display settings are /DATE /-DAY /-AGE /-CTDOWN. This presents
the information as:
05/28/30 Mr.Fury
05/30/xx Memorial Day
05/31/57 Bruce Guthrie
See the syntax descriptions for what each of these settin