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Ample Notice Appointments calendar/alarm clock by Mark Harris Granny's Old-Fashioned Software (tm) Rt 4, Box 216 Boone, NC 28607 (704) 264-6906 October, 1990 Version 2.0 (c) Copyright 1990 by Mark Harris All Rights Reserved. The unmodified Ample Notice distribution diskette, containing a copy of this manual, may be freely copied and shared subject to the conditions described in Section 11. This document may not be copied in printed form. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. A quick tour 3 3. Installation 6 4. The ALARM program 7 5. The NOTES file 9 6. The appointments screen 15 7. The file screen 19 8. CONFIG.CAL 22 9. Command line options 26 10. Tips for effective use 27 11. About Shareware 28 1. Introduction Ample Notice is a calendar and alarm clock package that can help organize your life. You enter appointments and notes into a standard text file in any of a variety of natural formats, and each day you view a calendar of commitments taken from this file. Appointments which include a time can automatically set a 'pop-up alarm clock' which notifies you at a given advance interval (re- gardless of what you are doing on your computer). Printouts can be obtained in various print styles so that you can keep track of your appointments away from your computer; you can print very compressed listings for your wallet or purse. Different categories of appointments can be tracked for preparation of group meetings or for summaries of specific activities. Outdated appointments are archived for use in preparation of taxes, reports, etc. The appointments file can be edited from within Ample Notice, or by using any other text editor. By using a 'background' editor such as SideKick (tm), you can update this file in the middle of other computing tasks. Even without such additional software, the resident alarm clock will let you view today's appointments while executing other programs. Ample Notice is very easy to use but its flexibility ensures that you won't outgrow it as your use becomes more extensive. For example, you can add straightforward entries such as 3/5/91 9:00 Meet with Bill or Nov 3, 1991 Report due. But you can also enter cyclical appointments such as July 18 Elizabeth's birthday (once a year date) !Monday 3:00 Piano lesson (weekly appointment) \s6/26/91 !2d 1:00 ADR committee (every other day starting 6/26/91) \s6/26/91 !3w 1:00 ADR committee (every third week starting 6/26/91) \s1/10/91 !3m Quarterly report due. (every third month starting 1/10/91) \s6/26/91 \e7/20/91 !2d 1:00 ADR committee (every other day starting 6/26/91 and ending 7/20/91) !Jun3Sun Fathers Day (third Sunday in June each year) !?3Mon Rotary Club (third Monday of every month) Another category of entries is 'notes'; starting a line with '*' will place that entry in an initial display of reminders that are not attached to a specific date (obligations that don't go away until you do them). Notes can be grouped into separate categories, but for the moment we'll just consider general reminders. INTRODUCTION 1 To illustrate, suppose that the file (called NOTES by default) contains the lines * Buy wedding present for Fred * Mow lawn !Wednesday 11:00 David's piano lesson 7/17 Granny's birthday July 10 State tax due 7/10/90 10:00 Dentist July 20, 1990 Fred Smith 2:00 11 Jul 1990 4:00 ADI meeting * Take car in for recall work !Mon,Wed,Fri 12:00 workout at gym and if your computer's system date is 7/5/90 then typing 'AN' will produce the following display: Notes Thursday July 5, 1990 2:58 p.m. Buy wedding present for Fred ┌──────────────────────────────┐ Mow lawn │ September, 1990 │ Take car in for recall work │ │ Tuesday July 10, 1990 │ SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT │ 10:00 Dentist ╞══════════════════════════════╡ State tax due │ 1 │ Wednesday July 11, 1990 │ 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 │ 4:00 ADI meeting │ 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 │ Tuesday July 17, 1990 │ 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 │ Granny's birthday │ 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 │ Monday September 24, 1990 │ 30 │ 12:00 workout at gym └──────────────────────────────┘ Wednesday September 26, 1990 ┌──────────────────────────────┐ 11:00 David's piano lesson │Buy wedding present for Fred │ 12:00 workout at gym │ │ Friday September 28, 1990 │ │ 12:00 workout at gym │ │ Monday October 1, 1990 │ │ 12:00 workout at gym │ │ Wednesday October 3, 1990 │ │ 11:00 David's piano lesson │ │ 12:00 workout at gym │ │ └──────────────────────────────┘ Alarm Check Del Edit File Help Ins Next Print Search View Write <Alt S> <Esc> This example just scratches the surface of the options available for specifying ranges and categories of appointments. However, the natural syntax demonstrated in this example can be quite effective for describing a variety of applications. Ample Notice has many additional features for maintaining the appointments file and for using the alarm clock. We recommend that you take the 'Quick Tour' of the program described in Section 2 before reading the hard-core reference sections which follow. Before you proceed here are a couple of important announce- ments: INTRODUCTION 2 The Ample Notice package will be updated from time to time and a description of the changes will be maintained in a file called READ.ME. You should view this file as soon as possible, either by typing GO (to see the contents a page at a time on the screen) or by typing COPY READ.ME PRN (to copy the file to the printer). Ample Notice is Shareware and you are vigorously encouraged to register; the registration cost is only $30 and carries appreciable benefits. Site licensing is also available. Please read Section 11 for details. 2. A quick tour Ample Notice is easier to use than to describe; in this section we'll take an on-line tour through the program's features. To get started, get your computer up and running, then place a copy of the Ample Notice disk (you have backed up the original, haven't you?) in drive A. (Section 3 has instructions for installing the package on a hard drive or 'bootable' floppy, but for now just use the Ample Notice disk.) If your system date and time have not been set, set them now by using DOS's DATE and TIME commands. We'll begin with a brief look at the alarm clock. The first step is to load ALARM.COM as a resident program. If the <Alt> <Left Shift> key combination is not used by another resident program in your system, just type ALARM. If this combin- ation is already used, type ALARM -? to see a list of codes for the various pairs of shift keys; for example, ALARM -K 3 will make <Left Shift> <Right Shift> do the job. Bring up the control win- dow by pressing the key combination; you should see something like this: ╔ Space,UDRL,<Esc> ╗ ║ ║ ║ Now: 7:53 a.m. ║ ║ ║ (U,D,R,L represent the ║ Alarm: OFF ║ up, down, right and ║ ║ left arrow keys) ║ 12:00 p.m. ║ ║ ║ ╚══════════════════╝ Six keys are recognized by ALARM: Space - toggles alarm off/on Up arrow - advances alarm time by one hour Down " - rolls back alarm time one hour Right " - advances alarm time by one minute Left " - rolls back alarm time by one minute <Esc> - closes window Change the alarm time to two minutes past the current (system) time indicated by 'Now' in the window, then press the space bar to turn on the alarm and press <Esc> to close the window. The alarm will go off at the appointed time regardless of other computer activities, but rest assured that no interference will occur. For QUICK TOUR 3 example, you can be formatting a disk when the alarm sounds with no ill effects. While we're waiting for the alarm to sound let's continue our tour. Load the Ample Notice program AN.EXE by entering AN at the DOS prompt; the appointments file NOTES will be loaded by default. The initial screen (the 'appointments screen') will be divided into five areas; most of the left half of the screen is devoted to the notes/appointments listing, with a cursor bar highlighting one of the entries. A window at the lower right shows an expanded version of the entry under the cursor bar; this window can be used for editing the appointment and scrolls to let the entry grow to arbitrary size. The upper right shows a monthly calendar and tracks the date of the highlighted appointment at the left. Above this calendar window is a single line showing the current date and time. Finally, the bottom line on the screen shows (most of) the current command options. These are: Alarm Check Del Edit File Help Ins Next Print Search View Write <Alt S> <Esc> You can obtain help on any of these functions by pressing the 'H' or F1 key. Try this. (Note that you may have to scroll through the help window to find the appropriate listing.) The cursor keys let you move through your appointments for a year. (This default interval can be changed). Using shifted cursor keys lets you move a day, week, month or year at a time. Take this opportunity to browse for a while. The Print option lets you print appointments for a range of dates in either list or monthly calendar. We won't do any printing now, but let's experiment with the options. Press 'P' to initiate print selection. You'll see a window giving you the choice of 'List' or 'Month' style. Choose the former; you'll see the following defaults: 1. Start date: 9/24/90 2. End date: Page 3. Mode: Normal 4. Include notes: Yes 5. Output device: PRN The first two options let you specify the range of dates for the printout. If you leave the end date as is, Ample Notice will fill a single page with appointments rather than stopping at a specific date; by pressing '2' you can change the word 'Page' to the final date of your choice. Pressing '3' cycles the print mode through four styles: Normal, Compressed, Tiny and Custom. While all four styles can be set up to obtain special effects of your choice (see Section 8), the default meanings of these categories on an Epson- compatible printer are: QUICK TOUR 4 Normal - 10 characters per inch, 66 characters wide by 60 characters high, 2 columns, Compressed - 16.5 cpi, 124 x 60, 3 columns, Tiny - 16.5 cpi, 124 x 120, 3 columns, Custom - 16.5 cpi, 90 x 80, 2 columns. The last option produces a listing which is about the size of a dollar bill when folded in half - convenient for adding your schedule to your wallet. Other choices available in the current print window let you include or suppress notes in your printout and give you the option of redirecting the printout to a file for additional processing by other programs. Similar options are available for the 'Month'- style listings. For now, just press <Esc> to back out of the print menu. While on the subject of the <Esc> key, here is a rule of thumb for accepting or rejecting entries in Ample Notice: <Esc> generally lets you back out of a selection gracefully without making any changes. The <F10> key is used for proceeding with an entry. Wherever possible, <Enter> can also be used for selecting an option. For example, when entering single-line information, such as the name of a file to be loaded, either <F10> or <Enter> will work. When editing a multi-line appointment, <Enter> may be required as a character in the entry (to separate lines), so only the <F10> key will work in this instance. When options are numbered, entering the appropriate number selects an option (as with the print menu above). Pressing <Enter> selects the first option in this case. Now try adding an appointment of your own. Press 'I' for insert, then enter your birthday. For example, 7/17 My birthday Terminate the entry with <F10>. Now browse through the appointment listing until you locate this new entry. To further exercise the resident alarm clock, let's enter one more appointment. Press 'I' and describe an appointment which starts (say) 15 minutes from now. For example, assuming that it is now 3:00 p.m. on September 24, 1990, you could type 9/24/90 3:15 pm This is a test. (As a shortcut, you can press <Alt D> to insert today's date.) Again, press <F10> to accept the entry. To see how the alarm works with your appointments, press 'A'. You'll see: 1. Show current alarms, 2. Set new alarms, 3. Set alarms on exit: Yes Normally just exiting Ample Notice will automatically set today's alarms, but we'll force the issue before quitting. Press '2' to set alarms. You'll see a list of all alarms sets; in this case there is only the one which you just entered. There are two ways to confirm later that alarms have been set as desired. You can press '1' to show both the appointment and the alarm time - there QUICK TOUR 5 is a default advance warning of 5 minutes, and you can change this to another value. (See Section 5.) In this instance you would see: Alarm Appointment 3:10 p.m. 3:15 pm This is a test. As an alternative, press <Alt> <Left Shift> to bring up the resident alarm program. What you see now you can also view after exiting Ample Notice. Besides the alarm window you viewed earlier, you'll also see a second window containing the single line 3:15 pm This is a test. Pressing <Esc> will remove the alarm listing in either case. By now you have set two alarms - one 'manual' which is not attached to an appointment, and a second alarm for the test just described. In the default configuration each alarm will sound for only five seconds, but you can change the duration of the alarm and also allow for an extended (occasional) chirp in case you are not at your computer when the alarm sounds. Most of the time the appointments screen you've just experi- mented with is all you'll need for effective use of Ample Notice. Occasionally, though, you will want to see the underlying notes file from which appointments are selected. In particular, you'll need this view of your data for archiving outdated appointments, merging two or more notes files, sorting a notes file, or adding categories for selection of appointments by owner or subject. Press 'F' to open the 'file screen'. Each appointment is represented by a single line, and a cursor highlights the current entry. Press 'E' to edit one of these entries; you'll open an edit window that lets you use typical word processing commands to modify the appointment. Try altering an entry with some experimentation, but use <Esc> rather than <F10> when you're done so the changes won't take effect. Press <Esc> again to return to the Appointments View, then once more to exit. 3. Installation The simplest way to install Ample Notice is to put the dis- tribution disk in a floppy drive, make that drive the default, then type ANSETUP. You will be prompted to enter some informa- tion; the rest is automatic. Installation will probably proceed with no difficulties. How- ever, you should be aware of the mechanics of the setup program in case you need to modify its effects. The following text describes the installation process; additional comments about installation or updating a previous version can be found in the READ.ME file on the Ample Notice disk. Installing Ample Notice is simply a matter of putting a few files where the program and DOS can find them. If you're instal- ling onto a floppy, you will probably be content to put all files in the root directory; if you have a hard disk, we recommend putting all Ample Notice files in a subdirectory. The instal- lation procedure uses \AN2 as a default for a hard drive; you can QUICK TOUR 6 override this by providing an argument to ANSETUP. For example typing ANSETUP C:\APPTS will put files in the subdirectory APPTS on drive C. The installation program does the following: 1. The files AN.EXE (the program itself), the NOTES file, ALARM.COM (the pop-up alarm clock), ANHELP (a help file) and ANINST.EXE (a program for changing AN's default colors, etc.) are copied to the appropriate disk/subdirectory. 2. The file CONFIG.CAL is created with information describing your printer. (See Section 8 for the function of CONFIG.CAL.) 3. The program will (if you give it the go-ahead) automatically add AN's subdirectory to the PATH command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and will put ALARM in this batch file so that the alarm clock is loaded when you boot your computer. If you feel com- fortable editing batch files it would be advantageous to do this yourself instead so that you can control the exact search order of your PATH and the point at which ALARM is to be loaded. If you want to take control of putting ALARM in AUTOEXEC.BAT be sure to read the following section about options available when loading ALARM. It is important that your system's date and time be set correctly before Ample Notice is run. If your computer has a battery clock this is probably done for you, but if you lack this hardware you will need to include the lines DATE TIME in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file before the line containing ALARM. When DATE and TIME are executed you will be prompted to enter the date and time. There is a nice public domain utility called DDATE which can be used in place of DATE; it remembers the last date used and lets you change it (if necessary) with the cursor keys. Contact Granny's if you would like a copy of this program. After installation, the next time you boot your computer you can view your appointments simply by typing AN at the DOS prompt. You may want to display your calendar automatically when you turn on your computer; if so, just add the line AN to AUTOEXEC.BAT. Ample Notice's default screen colors should be reasonably attractive and functional, but they can be changed. Run ANINST and enter the name and location of your CONFIG.CAL file when prompted. (For hard disk users this will most likely be C:\AN2\CONFIG.CAL.) You can change all of the colors which Ample Notice uses and the changes will be saved in CONFIG.CAL when you're done. 4. The ALARM program ALARM.COM is a small resident pop-up alarm clock. It can be used independently of the appointments calendar AN.EXE, and AN can INSTALLATION 7 function without ALARM. If AN is run when ALARM is resident, today's appointments will set the alarm clock. You can set one additional alarm by popping up ALARM's window and pressing the space bar (as described in Section 2). The ON/OFF status of the window refers to this last alarm; any appointments displayed when the window is brought up will always trigger appropriate alarms. Note that ALARM should be run only once after you boot your computer. If ALARM is in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (recommended) it will be loaded without your intervention; otherwise you will have to type ALARM at the DOS prompt. ALARM can be run with no arguments, but several options can be selected on the command line. The syntax is ALARM [-?] [-K keycode] [-B n] [-D] [-E] [-H] [-L] [-R] [-S] [-V n1 n2 n3 n4] [-Z] where options are indicated in brackets but the brackets themselves are not included. Some of these options are pretty exotic; most people will use at most the K and L options, and these are set automatically during installation if you let ANINST modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Descriptions of each option are given below, with typical examples following the definitions. -? shows a help screen but does not install ALARM. -B sets the beep duration in seconds. For example, ALARM -B 10 sets a 10-second alarm. The default is 5 seconds. -D disables the popup window, but continue to sound alarms as usual. In certain circumstances, popping up the window can disrupt a time-critical operation, such as receiving a file via a serial port. Normally you won't need to worry about such problems. -E reenables the popup window if it has been disabled. -H If ALARM has been loaded in high memory (for example by using Quarterdeck's LOADHI program), ALARM -H will enable ALARM to change previous settings in the resident program. Suppose you had loaded ALARM with the default activation keys <Alt> <Left shift> and you subsequently want to change the keys to <Left shift> <Right shift>. Normally you could enter ALARM -K 3 to make this change, but if ALARM is loaded in high memory, the resident copy won't be found to allow the changes to be recorded. Typing ALARM -H -K 3 will search high memory and the change will take effect. -K sets keys to bring up window; 'keycode' is one of 3 - Right Shift + Left Shift 5 - Right Shift + Ctrl 6 - Left Shift + Ctrl 9 - Right Shift + Alt 10 - Left Shift + Alt (default) 12 - Ctrl + Alt For example, ALARM -K 3 specifies the two shift keys. THE ALARM PROGRAM 8 -L - Long alarm. The alarm stays on until you press the same shift combination which brings up the alarm. After the first five seconds the alarm beeps once every 30 seconds until it is turned off. -R removes ALARM from memory. You should not use this option if other resident programs have been loaded after ALARM. Also note that the 'H' option must be used if ALARM was loaded in high memory: ALARM -H -R. (The order in which the options are typed doesn't matter.) -S shows alarms. If the popup window has been disabled and you want to view alarms without reenabling ALARM, the 'S' option will have the same effect that pressing <Alt> <Left shift> normally would. -V changes screen colors. The numbers n1 - n4 (separated by spaces) correspond to the colors used for the window, the alarm time, the labels and the actual time. Each number is a value 0 - 255 which describes the foreground and background colors. The number is computed by the formula foreground + 16*background where foreground and background are values corresponding to the colors below: 0 black 8 gray 1 blue 9 light blue 2 green 10 light green 3 cyan 11 light cyan 4 red 12 light red 5 magenta 13 light magenta 6 brown 14 yellow 7 white 15 bright white The background color is restricted in value to 0 - 7. Example: ALARM -V 4 7 14 1 sets foreground colors red, white, yellow and blue, all against a black background. To set a brown background (ugh!), add 16*6 to each of these colors: ALARM -V 20 23 30 17 -Z suppresses video 'snow' on older CGA systems. You can combine options in any order; for example ALARM -Z -K 3 will load ALARM, suppress snow and set the key combination to Right Shift + Left Shift. ALARM -L -V 4 7 14 1 chooses the long alarm and changes screen colors. ALARM -? shows help screen, ALARM -K 6 changes activation to <Left shift> <Ctrl>, ALARM -B 20 -K6 changes beep duration to 20 seconds and activation to <Left shift> <Ctrl>, ALARM -R removes ALARM from memory. THE ALARM PROGRAM 9 5. The NOTES file The file in which you keep a list of reminders and appointments is called NOTES by default but the name can be changed permanently (see Section 8) or temporarily (on the AN command line or by using the File command in AN's editor). The reason for the name NOTES is that this is also the default used by the popular SideKick (tm) program, so if you use this utility you can add a reminder by pressing <Ctrl> <Alt> regardless of what program you are running. If you use another 'desktop manager' program you can rename the appointments file accordingly. You can edit NOTES with any editor which can read and write standard ASCII files. As an example, WordStar (tm) in the nondocument mode is appropriate, as are SideKick and PC-Write (tm). Using Ample Notice's built-in editor is the preferred way to modify NOTES; the main incentive for using a different editor is if you happen to be using another program when you want to add a reminder. We recommend that you edit a copy of the NOTES file from the Ample Notice disk when you begin using the package rather than starting with an empty file of your own. (The installation program ANSETUP copies this file automatically.) While you will want to delete many of the lines from this file, you will find the standard dates (such as Thanksgiving and Fathers Day) and the comment section (lines starting with ';') worth keeping. The latter section includes examples of AN syntax and will keep manual references to a minimum. Lines in the NOTES file should begin with a date or one of the characters '*', '!', '&' or '\'; other lines are ignored when the appointments screen is displayed. Lines beginning with '*' repre- sent notes - reminders which are not associated with a fixed date. For example if you need to trim your hedges, the date is not critical but the obligation won't go away until you get around to it. The text following '*' will be displayed in a special notes section which can be optionally printed with your appointments. There are two kinds of notes: 1. If the '*' is followed by one or more spaces, the following text represents the note. 2. If the '*' is followed immediately by from one to four letters, then these letters are used as a category code for the following text. For example, the note *car Bring in for 30000-mile checkup. will put the note 'Bring in for 30000-mile checkup.' in the category 'car'. Categories should be declared with special entries which associate codes of up to four characters with longer descriptions; for example \C car=Automotive records By grouping notes or appointments into such categories, you can use Ample Notice as an elementary data base program: you can pull out notes and/or appointments meeting one or more conditions. Categories can indicate owners instead of THE NOTES FILE 10 activities, so you can list all appointments owned by (say) Bill, Judy and Sam; this allows scheduling of meetings for groups of people. Categories are described in more detail later in this section. One-time appointments begin with a date. If a time immediately follows the date then the time will be used in sorting the file and for setting the alarm clock. Several date and time formats are recognized; e.g. 10/2/91 2 p.m. Call Bob October 2, 1991 2:00 Call Bob 2 October 91 1400 Call Bob European date formats are also allowed (day/month/year); see Section 8 for the appropriate modification to CONFIG.CAL. If the a.m./p.m. indicator is omitted then the time is assumed to be a.m. if it is from 8:00 to 11:59, otherwise it is interpreted as p.m. (The periods in a.m./p.m. are not required, and case doesn't matter.) If the year is omitted then the 'appointment' becomes an anniversary and is displayed or printed whenever the month and day are in the range specified. For example, May 25 David's birthday will show up every year. In any context in which a month is expected, the wild card '?' can be used to match any month. For example, ?/10 Mortgage payment due will show an appointment on the tenth day of each month. The last day of a month can be indicated by using a value greater than 31. For example, ?/32 xyz puts the appointment 'xyz' at the end of each month. Ranges of dates can be entered with a minimum of fuss. 7/3/90+3 Atlanta conference will put the commitment 'Atlanta conference' with the date 7/3/90 and the three days which follow (for a total of four days). 6/10/91-7 anniversary will put the reminder 'anniversary' under the date 6/10/91; in addition, the reminder will be placed in the notes category if the current date is one of the seven days preceding 6/10/91. This is a 'forward nag' appointment; backward nagging is described below as one of the '\' options. Each appointment entry can be as long as you like. When entering an appointment in Ample Notice, word wrapping will be performed to keep the entry visible in the current window, but wrapping will take effect at different positions in printouts with of different widths. You can enter a 'hard carriage return' in an appointment by pressing <Enter>; on the screen the return will be represented with a left arrow symbol, and in the notes file a new line starting with '&' will be added. For example, if you enter This is a test.<Enter> This is only a test. THE NOTES FILE 11 the entry will be recorded as two lines in the file: This is a test. &This is only a test. The end of the entry will show on the screen as a solid triangle symbol. The '!' character is used to start lines describing appoint- ments with cycles more complex than simple anniversaries. There are three ways in which '!' can be used. The first is for weekly reminders: !Wed 3:00 Piano lesson (Piano lesson every Wednesday at 3:00) !Mon,Wed,Fri 4:00 meet Jim at Gym (4:00 appointment three times every week) The second syntax is useful for dates such as Fathers day and Thanksgiving which fall on a specific day of the week: !Jun3Sun Fathers Day (third Sunday in June each year) !?3Mon Rotary Club (third Monday of every month) !May5Mon Memorial Day (last Monday in May) The number '5' has a special significance in this context - it indicates the last such day in a month. If there are only four Mondays in May, then the fourth will be triggered. You can add or subtract a number of days to a date in this format using '>' and '<'; for example !Nov1Mon>1 Election Day indicates one day past the first Monday in November (which is US Election Day). !Nov1Mon<1 would be the day preceding the first Monday in November. Another '!' category is every nth day, week or year. Since it doesn't make any sense to talk about every-other-day appointments without giving a starting day, the starting date is given after '\s'. In addition, an ending date may be specified following '\e'; if no ending date is given, then the cycle continues indef- initely. Here are some examples: \s6/26/91 !2d 1:00 ADR committee (every other day starting 6/26/91) \s6/26/91 !3w 1:00 ADR committee (every third week starting 6/26/91) \s1/10/91 !3m Quarterly report due. (every third month starting 1/10/91) \s6/26/91\e7/20/91 !2d 1:00 ADR committee (every other day starting 6/26/91 and ending 7/20/91) While the syntax looks intimidating, it's really fairly simple. The appointment is preceded by !, a number, then one of the letters d,w,m. The number is the cycle length - for example, 3 means every third whatever - and the letter indicates day, week or month. Before the '!' comes the starting date and an optional THE NOTES FILE 12 ending date. One pattern requires no starting date: !1d 10:00 take medication shows every day at 10:00. Note that you can use either the '!Wed' or '!1w' syntax to indicate weekly appointments. You can precede notes or appointments with a variety of options starting with the '\' character. You might want to skip this listing on first reading of the Ample Notice manual, since you will probably use the program for a while before desiring these more advanced features. \C - Define category. Both notes and appointments can be grouped into categories, and any subset of categories can be viewed in the appointments screen. The basic syntax is \C code=heading where code can be from 1 to 4 characters, and heading is a longer, more descriptive name. For example: \C BJ=Bob Jones might be used to indicate that a note or appointment starting marked with BJ belongs to Bob Jones. The category can be a subject rather than a person; e.g. \C FT=Federal income tax The descriptions (Bob Jones, Federal income tax) will appear on a pop-up window on the appointments screen when categories are to be selected; see Section 6. Unique colors can be assigned to categories. The definition \C BJ,2=Bob Jones will make all BJ notes and appointments green (color 2) against the default background; the definition \C BJ,2,7=Bob Jones specifies green against a white background (color 7). The possible color values are described in Section 4. Once a category has been defined, subsequent appointments can be attached to the category using the \* option. For example, \*BJ 11/10/90 Vacation shows that Bob Jones is on vacation on 11/10/90. For notes a shorthand is available: *BJ pay mortgage is equivalent to \*BJ * pay mortgage There should be no space in the string '*BJ'. \D - Date on which appointment is marked as 'done'. For example, the appointment ?/10 Pay mortgage. indicates that you should pay your mortgage on (or by) the 10th of each month. The modification \D 10/10/90 ?/10 Pay mortgage. has the same meaning but will show the instance 10/10/90 with a check mark next to it. When you press 'C' (for check) in the appointments window, the '\D date' is automatically added to the appointment currently highlighted. Repetitions are allowed; e.g. THE NOTES FILE 13 \D 10/10/90 \D 11/10/90 ?/10 Pay mortgage. shows two payments having been made. For a 'one-shot' appointment or note, the '>' character can be used instead: >11/10/90 bring car in. marks the entry as completed. \E - Ending date for cyclical appointments. Follow '\E' with a date in month/day/year format (or day/month/year if the European option has been set in CONFIG.CAL). \I - If you precede a note or appointment with \I (the 'I' stands for important), the line will be highlighted when listed. You can prioritize highlighting using \1 (same meaning as \I), \2, \3 and \4. For example, \I *This is an important note \2 *This is also important, but looks different The associated video attributes can be changed by modifying CONFIG.CAL or by running the ANINST program - see Section 3. \N - Marks a one-shot appointment as a 'nag' entry; the appointment becomes a note (always visible) after the date has passed. For example \N 2/1/90 Change oil will show as a regular appointment until after 2/1/90 - the \N prefix will have no effect. After this date, the effect is exactly the same as if the line was entered as * Change oil \S - Starting date for cyclical appointments. Follow '\S' with a date in month/day/year format. \U - Notes beginning with \U (for 'unimportant') will be dis- played only once a week. The default display day is Monday, but this can be changed (see Section 8). For example \u* This is an unimportant note. will cause the text following the '*' to be shown as a note once a week. This option helps you avoid cluttering the screen with notes which serve more to distract than to remind. If daily notes are compact - a third of the screen or so - they will be more effective. You can also use the categories described above to keep from viewing too many reminders at once. \X - Date on which appointment is marked as excluded. (This option is similar to '\D'.) For example, \X 10/5/90 !Fri 5:00 meeting. sets an appointment for every Friday except 10/5/90. Pressing 'D' (for delete) in the appointments window inserts '\X date' automatically. For one-shot appointments, the '~' character provides a shorthand: ~10/5/90 abc indicates a one-time appointment which is being deleted. The next time the file is updated, this line will be removed THE NOTES FILE 14 altogether. However, cyclic appointments with some dates excluded are not deleted. \(warning_time) - You can specify the advance warning to be used by ALARM for an appointment if you wish to override the default of 5 minutes (or a different default which you specify in CONFIG.CAL - see Section 8). For example, \(15) 1/1/91 9:00 am xxx will set the alarm clock for 8:45 a.m. You can combine more than one '\' option on a line, in any order. Just remember that all such options must precede the rest of the note or appointment. Lines which do not fit into the categories described above are ignored by Ample Notice when generating the appointments display (but are put in alphabetical order when the Sort option is used). You can record information to be viewed in the editor but not in the appointments display by preceding lines with a symbol such as ';' - see Section 10 for details. By default there is a 2000-line limitation on the number of lines that can be included in the NOTES file. This can be changed in CONFIG.CAL, but you are likely to run out of memory at around 7000 lines. 6. The appointments screen The appointments screen is the default environment when you execute AN.EXE. The available options concern moving around the appointments list, editing appointments, setting alarms, specifying categories for the listing, printing a range of appointments, and marking appointments as complete. Following is a description of each option: The cursor keys scroll through the appointments list. Pressing <Shift> along with the cursor keys moves through the list by date rather than appointment sequence; for example, if the date September 27, 1990 is highlighted on the monthly calendar and <Shift> <Down Arrow> is pressed, the cursor date jumps to October 4 (one week later). If you have appointments on this date, the appointment cursor will highlight the first one and an expanded view of the appointment in the edit window. If there is no such appointment, you'll see the message 'No appointments for this date' in the edit window. Shifted cursor keys let you move by day, week, month or year. 'A' lets you view or set today's alarms if ALARM.COM is resident. You'll see the submenu 1. Show current alarms, 2. Set new alarms, 3. Set alarms on exit: Yes The third option shows the way in which Ample Notice normally sets alarms. If 'Yes' is displayed (the default), alarms are set THE APPOINTMENTS SCREEN 15 automatically when you exit the program. 'No' means that you'll have to set alarms manually using the second option. Pressing '3' toggles Yes/No. If you want 'No' to be the default you can set up CONFIG.CAL accordingly; see Section 8. Option '1' lets you view the appointments and alarm times currently in effect. If you haven't previously run AN or set the alarms manually, no alarms will be displayed. Note that you can get essentially the same information by popping up the resident alarm with the appropriate shift keys (<Alt> <Right Shift> by default). Option '2' sets today's alarms immediately and shows the new settings. This option should be used only if 'Set alarms on exit' is set to 'No', since otherwise alarms will be reset later. Note that alarms are set by adjusting the times included with today's appointments by advance warnings specified with \() or by using the default advance. For example \(10) 10/15/90 9:00 xxx will set the alarm for 8:50, while 10/15/90 9:00 xxx will take the default advance of 5 minutes (or other value specified in CONFIG.CAL). 'C' checks the appointment at the cursor (or unchecks it if previously checked). Use this option if you want to keep the instance displayed but you want to mark it as having been completed. The way in which 'C' modifies the appointment entry itself is described in Section 5. 'D' (delete) marks the appointment at the cursor with a '~' instead of a check. You can toggle the mark by pressing 'D' again, but the next time you change views (e.g. by editing an appointment) the deletion will become permanent. For cyclic appointments, only the marked instance is removed. The way in which 'D' modifies the appointment entry itself is described in Section 5. 'E' lets you modify the highlighted appointment in the edit window. You'll see end-of-line symbols (left arrows) if you press <Enter>, and a single end-of-entry symbol (triangle). When editing the following functions are available: <Ctrl A> Word left. <Ctrl C> Insert date (point & shoot). The cursor moves to today's date in the calendar window, and you can change this date with the cursor keys. When you have the date you want, <Enter> inserts it the text you're editing. <Ctrl F> Word right. <Ctrl T> Delete word. <Ctrl V> or <Ins> Toggle insert/overwrite mode. <Ctrl Y> Delete line. <Alt D> Insert marked date from calendar window. <Alt T> Insert current time. <Alt B> Insert both date and time. <F1> Help. THE APPOINTMENTS SCREEN 16 <F10> Accept edited entry. <Esc> Restore previous entry. 'F' switches you to the 'file screen', which gives you a view of the appointments file as stored on disk. You'll use this screen to archive outdated appointments, merge two or more notes files, sort a notes file, or add categories for selection of appointments by owner or subject. You can also edit entries somewhat more flexibly than in the appointments screen. The next section describes the file screen in detail. 'H' or <F1> obtains a help window. Use cursor keys to scroll through the window if not all text is visible at once. Note that <F1> can always be used for help, but 'H' can't be used when editing. 'I' lets you insert a new appointment. This is the same as E)dit, except that you are not modifying a previous entry. 'N' finds the next match initiated with the S)earch option. 'P' lets you print a range of appointments in either 'list' or 'month' format. The list format is similar to the appointments screen: appointments are listed sequentially in one or more columns. The month format uses a monthly calendar display to squeeze appointments into calendar cells. While the list format is more compact, the month format is easier to absorb at a glance. Four print styles are available: Normal, Compressed, Tiny and Custom; the default characteristics are described in Section 2. Each style determines the number of columns, whether entire appointments are listed or just the first line, heading attributes, font selection and page dimensions; all of these can be changed in CONFIG.CAL. The submenu for the list option shows: 1. Start date: 9/27/90 2. End date: Page 3. Mode: Normal 4. Include notes: Yes 5. Output device: PRN Pressing '1' lets you change the starting date for the printout. '2' lets you specify one page-full of appointments or an ending date for the listing. Note that the range of dates specified must lie within the range currently being viewed (which defaults to the year following the current date); you can change this viewing range with the 'V' option described below. Pressing '3' cycles through the styles Normal, Compressed, Tiny and Custom. '4' lets you include or exclude notes in your listing. '5' lets you change the output device from the default of PRN (your printer) to another device or a file; for example, entering LPT2 will direct output to a second printer and entering AN.OUT will send the output to the file AN.OUT. This file can be subsequently printed: COPY/B AN.OUT PRN or it can be edited for use in other programs. THE APPOINTMENTS SCREEN 17 The month option is similar: 1. Start month: September, 1990 2. End month: Page 3. Mode: Compressed 4. Output device: PRN One difference is that print modes supporting widths of less than 92 characters are not available, since dividing a smaller width into 7 day-of-the-week columns leaves insufficient space. Pressing '3' cycles through the print modes which are valid for the month format. The installation program ANSETUP lets you specify 9-pin Epson, 24- pin Epson, HP LaserJet, or 'dumb' printers; there is a high probability that your printer is compatible with one of the first three and will be exploited well. However, if your printer is significantly different or if you want to tweak the default settings you can modify CONFIG.CAL to obtain the effects of your choice; see Section 8. 'S' is used to search for text in the appointments listing. You'll be prompted to enter a string, and the next instance (if found) will be highlighted. 'N' can be used for matching subsequent occurrences. 'V' lets you change the starting date for the appointments listing. At any given time, you can view only a year's worth of appointments and by default this year starts with today's date. If you want to scan further in the future or past (or obtain corresponding printouts) use 'V' to bring the appropriate dates into range. 'W' writes the file to disk. You'll be given a chance to do this if you try to exit without having saved changes, but pressing 'W' will give you peace of mind if you have edited several appointments and you worry about power failures or other computer gremlins. Whenever you save a file, the previous version is first renamed with the extension BAK; for example, saving NOTES will create NOTES.BAK if a previous NOTES file existed. This safeguards you against clobbering a file when your fingers act more quickly than your head. <Alt S> lets you select a subset of appointments. The submenu shows: 1. Select note categories, 2. Select appointment categories, 3. Select all appointments matching string. The third option lets you specify a string which all displayed notes and appointments must match. If you want to forgo the more formal selection by category, this is a handy way to create specialized listings. To subsequently restore the complete appointments listing, choose '3' and press <Esc>. The next two options let you specify the categories (defined with '\C' - see the previous section) in which notes and/or appointments must THE APPOINTMENTS SCREEN 18 fall. Lets suppose that you had defined three categories: \C BS=Bob Smith \C FJ=Fred Jones \C AW=Alice Wilson Then pressing '1' would bring up the menu: Display category codes All (overrides other selections) √ Default (no explicit category) Alice Wilson Bob Smith Fred Jones To select (or unselect) a category or option, move the cursor to the corresponding line and press the space bar. By default only the third row will be checked, but you can change the default status of the first two lines in CONFIG.CAL. Selecting 'Display category codes' will result in codes being shown along with notes/appointments; e.g. the note *AW purchase airline tickets will include 'AW'. The remaining options concern which categories are to be displayed. 'Default' means only entries with no category specified. 'All' means all entries regardless of categories; if this is checked then other category selections are ignored. If 'All' is not selected, the three remaining categories may be selected as desired. There may be more categories than will fit in the window; if so, use the cursor keys to scroll through the list. <Esc> is used to exit Ample Notice. By default you'll be asked to confirm your intention; if you don't want this extra precaution you can say so in CONFIG.CAL. Regardless of the setting of the 'Are you sure?' flag in CONFIG.CAL, you will be given the chance to save the file if it has changed since the last save. 7. The File Screen Pressing 'F' from the appointments screen takes you to the file screen, where you can get down to serious file maintenance when you have to. Besides providing several new features not available in the appointments screen, the file screen provides a faster way to enter appointments if you have several to record. You'll see the first line of each appointment entry including all the codes that AN uses to determine date patterns and categories. The command menu at the bottom of the screen shows: Copy Del Ed File Help Ins Klone Mark Next Search Undel Write eXit + - <Alt S> <Esc> Each file command option is described below. The cursor keys change the highlighted appointment entry (the 'cursor' entry). 'C' makes a copy of the cursor entry. THE APPOINTMENTS SCREEN 19 'D' deletes the cursor entry. 'E' lets you edit the cursor entry just as in the appointments view. 'F' brings up the following menu of file options: 1. Append marked appointments to file, 2. Copy marked appointments to file (overwrites file!), 3. Append another file to current file, 4. Load a new file. The first two options operate on appointments marked with 'M' or '+' (described below). If you don't cull out obsolete appointments periodically then loading, parsing and saving the file will take longer than is necessary. The idea is to mark outdated appointments, completed notes and such, then to append these entries to a separate 'archive' file (which defaults to ARCHIVE.CAL); this file can be very handy for reviewing past activities for tax deductions, annual reports and so on. Normally you will use option '1' for adding more appointments to an existing archive file, but option '2' lets you create a new file (overwriting an existing file of the same name). An application for the copy option is to create a notes file for a coworker by marking and copying only the appointments which concern him. The archive file itself can be loaded into AN, and if you change the 'view date' you can prepare printed reports of past activities. If ARCHIVE.CAL becomes unduly large, you can split your outdated appointments into separate files. For example, you can enter REN ARCHIVE.CAL ARCHIVE.90 at the end of 1990. The next time you archive your appointments a new ARCHIVE.CAL will be created automatically. In this way you'll have a file for each year's activities. For either of the first two options, you will be prompted with Delete marked lines and save modified notes file? You will normally delete lines that have been copied to ARCHIVE.CAL since your objective is to reduce the size of your notes file. You can suppress this prompt and perform the deletion automatically for the first option with an appropriate entry in CONFIG.CAL. Whenever Ample Notice saves a file, the previous version is saved with the 'BAK' suffix. The third option lets you include a separate file along with the file you're currently viewing. Suppose a friend creates a notes file of his committments which might concern you (perhaps by using option 2); you can append this file to your own and view all both sets of appointments at once. Option 4 lets you change the file being viewed. You can switch to a different notes file, or load any standard ASCII file for viewing or editing. One use for this option is to edit CONFIG.CAL or AUTOEXEC.BAT. You can also specify the file to be loaded in the AN command line; see Section 9 for details. If you load a non-appointments file, you can exit with the 'X' option when THE FILE SCREEN 20 you're done to stop AN from trying to interpret each line as an appointment. 'H' or <F1> obtains a help summary. 'I' is used to insert a new entry rather than to edit an existing one. 'K' lets you 'clone' the cursor entry with a change of date. While Ample Notice supports many date patterns there will be cases in which it is impossible to summarize a collection of appointments in a single entry. Suppose that you are on a committee which plans meetings on 10/8/90, 11/12/90 and 1/21/91; you will have to make three separate entries to record these appointments. 'K' provides a shortcut: start by typing the first appointment, e.g. 10/8/90 ABC committee meets in Charlotte (and press <F10> to accept the entry). Now press 'K' to popup a calendar from which you can select a date to replace 10/8/90. Use the cursor keys to highlight the date of your choice (e.g. 11/12/90), then press <Enter>; you'll see a copy of the first appointment with the new date substituted. You can continue for as many copies as you like. 'M' brings up the following submenu: 1. Mark outdated appointments, 2. Mark matched string, 3. Clear marks. Pressing '1' highlights all outdated appointments. These are typically marked in preparation for writing the appointments to ARCHIVE.CAL using the 'F' option described above. You can mark additional appointments using '2' (matching a given string) or '+' (described below). Marking is cumulative: previously marked entries stay marked. The third option clears all marks. Individual marks can be cleared with the '-' key (again, described below). 'N' moves the cursor to the next match of the search string specified with 'S'. 'S' initiates a search for a string. You are prompted to enter the string, and the cursor moves to the next match. 'U' undeletes the last entry deleted with the 'D' option. Deletions are stacked, and you can undelete as many entries as you like. 'U' only works within a given file screen session - once you exit the program or return to the appointments screen the deletions are lost. 'W' writes the file being edited, providing the same function as 'W' in the appointments screen. The original file will be saved with the 'BAK' extension. You will have a chance to save the file under a new name if desired. 'X' lets you exit the program directly without returning to appointments screen. You will prompted if the file has changed THE FILE SCREEN 21 without being saved, and you'll have the opportunity to save the modified version. '+' marks the cursor entry for subsequent action using the 'F' option. Similarly, '-' unmarks a previously marked appointment. <Alt S> brings up a menu that lets you sort the file by date or by category. Appointments are grouped by type; for example, one- shot appointments precede cyclic appointments. Date, time and categories are used in sorting, and all else being equal alphabetical order breaks ties. The default notes file on the Ample Notice disk illustrates one way of forcing a given order on a sequence of lines which represent information not intended for the appointments screen. If the lines start: ;01 .... ;02 .... and so on, the leading ';' will guarantee that the entries are not interpreted as notes or appointments, and the sequence 01, 02, etc. will stay sorted in the order given. Sorting the notes file is not necessary for AN's creation of the appointments screen, but it makes the file more pleasant to work with in the file screen. <Esc> exits the file screen and returns you to the appointments screen. 8. CONFIG.CAL When Ample Notice begins execution it looks first for a file called CONFIG.CAL (or other file explicitly given on the command line) which contains data describing your preference for screen colors, printer formats, file names, etc. The configuration file may be identified on the command line (see the following section) to handle multiple users or different sets of preferences. If the command line does not specify a configuration file, Ample Notice looks first in the directory containing AN.EXE (probably \AN2); if it doesn't find CONFIG.CAL there then the DOS PATH is searched. If no configuration file is found then default values are used; for many users these defaults will be appropriate. If you wish to create or modify a configuration file you may use any ASCII editor, including that in Ample Notice. To use the AN editor you can start with something like AN -E -C \AN2\CONFIG.CAL which will load AN and immediately start editing the file \AN2\CONFIG.CAL. The file will consist of lines of the form !<letter> <true/false option> %<letter> <number> $<letter> <string> #<letter> <number sequence> (where the angle brackets themselves are not typed). There can be several instances of each type and the lines can be in any order. Here's a short example: CONFIG.CAL 22 %D 100 !F $A c:\outdated !E #P2 27,69 These lines have the following meanings: %D 100 - view only 100 days from starting date rather than default of 365, !F - suppress advertisement which otherwise graces your screen twice a month, $A c:\outdated - use the file 'c:\outdated' as the archive file instead of the default ARCHIVE.CAL, !E - use European date format, #P2 27,69 - when using the second print style (compressed), precede each page with the control codes <27> <69>. Following is a list of CONFIG.CAL options. (Note: from time to time new options and syntax will be added. The READ.ME file will describe these additions.) ! Options. A - All categories are displayed in the appointments screen by default. Otherwise, only appointments not in any explicit category are first shown. Regardless of the setting of this option, categories can be selected using <Alt S>. B - Don't set the alarm automatically on exit. If this choice is specified alarms must be set manually with the 'A' option in the appointments screen. C - Don't clear the screen when exiting AN. E - Interpret dates in European format (day/month/year). F - ('Fast') By default AN shows an advertisement on the 1st and 15th of each month encouraging the user to register the program. A '!F' in CONFIG.CAL guarantees that you won't be bothered by such commercial interruptions in the future. We just want to make sure that you know that the program is Shareware, not public domain - see Section 11 for details. H - Show category codes in notes and appointments. This option can also be specified when AN is run in the selection (<Alt S>) menu. I - By default, AN assumes that your printer supports IBM graphics characters and will use them for borders and other special symbols. Placing '!I' in CONFIG.CAL will ensure that standard characters are used instead in case your printer does not have graphics capability. K - Suppress the time-of-day display in the appointments screen. There is a remote possibility that the timer manipulation required for maintaining the time field will interfere with CONFIG.CAL 23 other programs you may have resident, and '!K' lets you remove such conflicts. M - Changes the century base to 2000. Normally, 9/15/91 refers to the year 1991; if '!M' is placed in CONFIG.CAL, the year will be interpreted as 2091. After 2099, contact Granny's for an update of Ample Notice. Q - Don't prompt when exiting AN unless the notes file has been modified and not saved. With '!Q' in CONFIG.CAL, pressing <Esc> will land you back at the DOS prompt quickly. If you pressed <Esc> by mistake, you can always run AN again. R - Normally when you select 'Append marked appointments to file' from the 'F' option in the file screen, you are prompted Delete marked lines and save modified notes file? Most people will use this option for maintaining an archive file (ARCHIVE.CAL) and will always answer in the affirmative. A '!R' will treat the append operation as if you always answer 'yes', so you will save the extra step of answering the question. S - Category definition should precede category references in the notes file, but when you enter the file screen it is convenient to place the cursor below such definitions so that you're ready to enter an appointment. '!S' will scroll the file to skip the display of category definitions when the file screen is first entered. You can still scroll backwards through the file to view or change the category entries. T - Make tomorrow the default starting date for printouts. W - Wait at the end of each page for paper change. X - Don't try to interpret time in military format. For example, the entry 10/20/90 1500 Rosewood Avenue, party. is read by default as an appointment at 1500 hours (3:00 p.m.). A '!X' will prevent this interpretation. % Options. D - Number of days for viewing appointments. The default is a year's worth, and this can be revised downward. For example, !D 100 will span only 100 days of appointments. Reducing the default value will speed up AN a little, and will let you get by with less memory. G - Specifies the default advance time for alarms. If no !G line is included, alarms will be set 5 minutes in advance of appointment times unless an explicit advance is given with \(advance). !G 10 would change the default to 10 minutes. CONFIG.CAL 24 I - Maximum number of lines allowed in the notes file. The default is 2000, but this can be increased to approximately 4000 - 7000 depending on the average length of your appointments and the available memory. Reducing this value will improve AN's speed somewhat and will lower memory requirements. U - Specifies the day of the week on which 'unimportant' appointments (indicated by '\U') are viewed. The values should be in the range 0 (Sunday) to 6 (Saturday). The default is 1 (Monday). $ Options. A - Archive file name. The default is ARCHIVE.CAL in the directory from which AN.EXE is loaded. $A c:\mydir\olddates changes the default to the file specified. C - Specifies the default notes (calendar) file. If not given, the file is taken as NOTES in the directory from which AN.EXE is loaded. H - High memory start location for alarm search. Normally ALARM.COM is loaded in low memory and this option should not be used. If you are using a memory management program such as Quarterdeck's QEMM to put resident programs in high memory, you will have to let AN know where to start looking for ALARM in order to set the day's alarm times. The operand should be the hexadecimal segment address (0 - FFFF) at which to start looking; the search then proceeds upward in memory. You don't have to know the exact location, but make sure you underestimate the address. Example: $H C000. # Options. C - Specifies the colors AN should use on the screen. The default values should be acceptable for most users, and if you want to change these the easiest way is to run the ANINST program (which sets/modifies the #C line for you). However, if you want to tinker with this entry directly, here's how to do it: #C is followed by a list of 25 color numbers for the various screen fields and functions used by AN. Foreground colors can be in the range 0 - 15, while background colors are restricted to 0 - 7. The colors are: 0 black 8 gray 1 blue 9 light blue 2 green 10 light green 3 cyan 11 light cyan 4 red 12 light red 5 magenta 13 light magenta 6 brown 14 yellow 7 white 15 bright white CONFIG.CAL 25 The 25 colors represent: main background, main normal, main highlight, main border, marked background, marked foreground, edit background, edit normal, edit highlight, edit border, calendar background, calendar normal, calendar highlight, calendar border, options background, options normal, options highlight, user color 1 background, user 1 foreground, user 2 background, user 2 foreground, user 3 background, user 3 foreground, user 4 background, user 4 foreground. The ANSETUP installation routine will initialize the D, P, R, X and Y sequences to plausible values; you may want to experiment with changes if you feel comfortable manipulating printer control codes. Your printer manual will most likely have a control code appendix which will help. D - Print mode number (1-4) followed by a list of formatting dimensions and print options. The sequence is: text width, text length, left margin, number of print columns, oneline, minimum box size. The number of columns is used for list style only - month style always uses seven columns. If 'oneline' is 1, each appointment is truncated past the first line in printouts for the corresponding style. Oneline = 0 means the entire appointment will be printed. Minimum box size is the smallest number of lines for each cell in the month-style printouts. AN will always expand boxes to fit appointment lists, but this value lets you set aside possibly empty boxes which you can fill in later by hand. For example: D1 120,60,6,3,0,0 This sets up the dimensions for print mode 1 ('Normal'). P - Print mode number (1-4) followed by a list of decimal control codes to be sent to the printer at the start of each page. For example, P4 15,27,83,0 sets up the fourth printer mode ('Custom') to compressed (15) superscript (<Esc> 'S' 0). R - Print mode number (1-4) followed by a list of decimal control codes to be sent to the printer at the end of each page. This should normally include the form feed character (12). For example, P3 12,27,40 indicates that in the third printer mode ('Tiny') a form feed (12) followed by <Esc> '@' (which resets Epson-compatible printers to the power-up state) terminates each page. X - Print mode number (1-4) followed by a list of decimal control codes to be sent to the printer at the start of each header line (such as the date for a list of appointments). For example, P1 27,52 turns on italics. Y - Print mode number (1-4) followed by a list of decimal control codes to be sent to the printer at the end of each header line. For example: P1 27,53 turns off italics. CONFIG.CAL 26 9. Command line options When you run AN you may specify parameters in the command line which override those in CONFIG.CAL (or the defaults). The syntax is AN [-A] [-C configfilename] [-D #days] [-E] [-F notesfilename] [-I] [-W] (where the options can be given in any order or omitted, and the brackets are not included). For example, AN -D 30 -F C:\MYNOTES will list appointments from the file MYNOTES for 30 days. Following is a description of each option. A - will set the alarm clock (if loaded) automatically without showing the appointments screen. This can be used in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to reduce the number of keystrokes you must enter to set the alarm clock. C - Specifies a configuration file other than CONFIG.CAL. This is especially useful if more than one person uses your system. For example: AN -C FRED.CAL D - Gives the number of days to be listed. The value overrides the default of 365 days or the replacement default in CONFIG.CAL. E - Enter editor directly. AN -E will take you directly into the editor with NOTES loaded, or AN -E -F MYFILE will load MYFILE instead. This is useful for editing ASCII files such as CONFIG.CAL, when you don't want to interpret the file as a list of appointments. F - Specifies an appointments file other than \NOTES. E.g., AN -F C:\BOB.CAL I - Shows information screen at beginning. Use this option to view the AN version number or to see registration information. The information screen is otherwise shown automatically on the 1st and 15th of each month unless a !F is placed in CONFIG.CAL. W - Wait at form feeds. This has the same effect as '!W' in CONFIG.CAL but doesn't make the end-of-page pause permanent. Again, there will almost certainly be additions to this list described in the READ.ME file. 10. Tips for effective use Ample Notice is a flexible product and you will probably devel- op some applications not foreseen by Granny. Here are a few suggestions that will help you exploit the program. Since lines which don't start with '*', '&', '!', '\' or a date are ignored in the appointments listing but maintained in the file you can include information which you don't want to be forced to stare at every day. For example you can start lines with ';' to COMMAND LINE OPTIONS 27 record information that you can view in the editor but which are not shown in the appointments screen. When you sort the file, lines which don't fall into the 'official' categories are alphabetized at the end. For example if you include the lines ;01 This is a reminder ;02 This is another reminder then their order will be maintained since ';01' will precede ';02' when sorted. The original NOTES file supplied with Ample Notice contains several such lines which provide help on appointment syntax. Try to keep your notes (reminders starting with *) to less than a screenful. Note categories are very helpful for breaking reminders into smaller chunks. Likewise the \U option serves to keep information overkill off the screen. Your archive file can be very helpful for business or tax purposes; you can recall exactly when you took a trip or filed a report. However, its best not to go overboard - delete frivolous items before performing the archive operation or you'll have a file full of dates of haircuts and such. If you sort your appointment file before archiving then your archive file will stay sorted, but if you happen to archive unsorted appointments remember that you can always load ARCHIVE.CAL and sort it directly. Until computers get small enough to carry around all the time, provision must be made for time away from the keyboard. Using the 'Custom' print style, you can obtain an appointments listing which will fit neatly into a wallet or purse. This is often preferable to lugging around a bound appointments book, which is not apt to make it to the tennis court or the grocery checkout line. The default printer parameters installed with ANSETUP may not suit your taste - try fiddling with the print options in CONFIG.CAL, or contact Granny's if you have questions about obtaining special effects. Some printer alternatives will be described in the READ.ME file. Take a good look at Section 8. You'll probably want to add at least the !F, Q, R, S and X options to CONFIG.CAL after using AN for a while. For Ample Notice to be most effective it must be used on a regular basis. Put ALARM and AN in an AUTOEXEC.BAT file - on your hard disk if you have one, or on a floppy which you will always use to boot your computer. 11. About Shareware 'Shareware' is a relatively new means of software distribution with several advantages to the consumer. The complete package including this instruction manual is contained on a single diskette which may be freely copied and distributed. Word of mouth provides a more accurate and less expensive way of making a product known than magazine advertisements, and the savings keep Ample Notice's cost down. TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE USE 28 You can obtain the current Ample Notice disk from Granny's Old- Fashioned Software for $10 or a registered package for $30. Registration provides the following benefits: 1. A current version of the Ample Notice disk. 2. A printed manual. 3. A mail-in card for a free update of Ample Notice. 4. Additional updates at $5 each. 5. Telephone support for your technical questions. 6. A reasonable likelihood that features you request will be added to the package if such features are deemed practical and of sufficiently general interest. Shareware does not mean 'public domain'. Distribution is permitted only if the package stays intact; all files should be passed on in unmodified form. Commercial distributors may sell copies of the package subject to the following conditions: 1. The disk shall be modified only by the addition of a small file providing additional help or stating the policies of the distributor. 2. No more than $10 (or foreign equivalent) shall be charged for the disk. 3. The distributor shall attempt to distribute the current version of the package. 4. The disk shall be clearly described as Shareware; the customer should not be given the impression that his purchase is in lieu of registration with Granny's. 5. The right to distribute Ample Notice commercially may be withdrawn by Granny's at any time (unless a specific arrangement is made otherwise). To register, phone (with MC or VISA) (704) 264-6906 or mail pay- ment to: Granny's Old-Fashioned Software Rt 4, Box 216 Boone, NC 28607 North Carolina residents please add 5%, foreign orders add $3 (MC/VISA or check in US funds drawn on US bank). Site licensing is also available; see READ.ME for current rates. Also available from Granny's is LQ, a program for the IBM PC and compatible computers which will allow you to produce high- quality text in a variety of fonts and modes on 9-pin dot matrix printers. LQ can be 'locked' into memory to function inconspicuously with your favorite word processor or other program. The program includes a print spooler which can be set to any length from 1 - 400K characters. The spooler has been customized to work with LQ's long graphics sequences very efficiently (using about 1/40 the space required by a conventional spooler); you can continue using your computer for other tasks while documents print in the background. ABOUT SHAREWARE 29 LQ is available from Granny's Old-Fashioned Software at $35 for the registered package or $10 for the distribution disk. Again, North Carolina residents please add 5%, foreign orders $3. ABOUT SHAREWARE 30