The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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APCAL VERSION 3.20 ____________________ MANUAL Gamma Software COPYRIGHT _____________________________________________________________________ COPYRIGHT _________ Copyright 1990,1991,1992,1993 by Gamma Software. All rights reserved. TRADEMARKS __________ APCAL is a trademark of Gamma Software. IBM PC, PC/XT, PC/AT and PS/2 are registered trademarks of International Business Machines, Inc. Proprinter is a trademark of International Business Machines. Epson FX80 and RX80 are registered trademarks of Epson America, Inc. DISCLAIMER __________ Users of APCAL must accept this disclaimer of warranty: APCAL is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of APCAL. _____________________________________________________________________ i INDEX _____________________________________________________________________ Contents ________ Page Introduction ........................................ 1 Getting Help ...................................... 2 System Requirements ............................... 2 Manual Conventions ................................ 3 Upgrading From A Previous Version ................... 4 New Features In 3.20 ................................ 5 Installation ........................................ 6 Getting Started ..................................... 8 Pull Down Menu ...................................... 16 Executing APCAL ..................................... 20 Month/Appointment Screen ............................ 22 Appointment Editing ................................. 24 Alarms .............................................. 27 Monthly Calendar .................................... 29 Yearly Calendar ..................................... 31 Configuration ....................................... 32 Key Reference ....................................... 48 File Descriptions ................................... 51 Problem Resolution .................................. 52 Index ............................................... 54 Figures _______ Page FIGURE 1 - Split Screen Month/Appointment Display .. 8 FIGURE 2 - Time / Date Configuration Screen ........ 9 FIGURE 3 - Appointment Template Configuration ...... 10 FIGURE 4 - Printer Configuration ................... 11 FIGURE 5 - Holiday Configuration Screen ............ 12 FIGURE 6 - Monthly Calendar Screen ................. 13 FIGURE 7 - Appointment Edit Screen ................. 14 FIGURE 8 - Split Screen Month/Appointment Display .. 22 FIGURE 9 - Appointment Edit Screen ................. 24 FIGURE 10 - Appointment Alarm Menu .................. 26 FIGURE 11 - Regular Alarm Screen .................... 27 FIGURE 12 - Monthly Calendar Screen ................. 29 FIGURE 13 - Yearly Calendar Screen .................. 31 FIGURE 14 - Color Configuration Menu ................ 32 FIGURE 15 - Color Selection Bar ..................... 32 FIGURE 16 - Appointment Template Configuration ...... 33 FIGURE 17 - Printer Configuration ................... 35 FIGURE 18 - Holiday Configuration Screen ............ 38 FIGURE 19 - Start Screen Configuration .............. 40 FIGURE 20 - Alarm Configuration Screen .............. 41 FIGURE 21 - TSR Configuration Screen ................ 43 FIGURE 22 - Time / Date Configuration Screen ........ 45 FIGURE 23 - Auto Save Configuration Screen .......... 47 _____________________________________________________________________ ii INTRODUCTION _____________________________________________________________________ The APCAL program is the first PC based appointment calendar you can actually use. Since the goal of any time management system is to make better use of your time, it does not make sense to have to spend hours learning how to use that system. APCAL is extremely easy to use because it is patterned after things with which you are already familiar. For example, it has a monthly calendar with day blocks, in which you can type notes just like a wall or desk calendar. The appointments are set up just like most appointment books, you simply type in the appointment next to the desired time. APCAL has advantages over conventional, printed, appointment books because you can customize it to suit your needs. You can configure the appointment times to match your schedule. You can use the speed of your computer to search for a certain appointment, rather than scan through your appointment book page by page. You can easily move an appointment to a different time or day. You can set reminders which display, no matter what you are doing on your computer, so you don't forget about an important meeting. Best of all, with APCAL you don't have to buy more pages for your appointment book every year. If you need to take your schedule on the road, you can simply print out a hard copy. Better yet, if you have a portable system, take it with you. The program has a customizable holiday file for setting holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. These are automatically included in the proper calendars. APCAL also contains a unique feature called "boot alarms" which are displayed when you boot up your computer. Great for reminding you of birthdays, anniversaries and other important events. All alarms can be set to occur over a given time period and will keep resounding if you "snooze" them when they are displayed. The program also contains a "quick scan" display which allows you to easily view your appointments for the week or month. This can be used to locate an empty time slot or just to see how busy you are going to be. The quick scan display has 3 monthly calendars on the left, with one day highlighted. The appointment file for the highlighted day is displayed on the right. You can highlight other days, and view their appointment schedule using the arrow keys. If you want to change something in one of your appointment schedules, simply press TAB, make the desired changes and press TAB again to return to the quick scan display. APCAL can be run as a TSR and popped up whenever you desire, no matter what program you are in at the time. It is popped up via a user specified "hot-key." It takes up less than 10k of memory when loaded as a TSR. This can be handy if you are in another program on your computer and someone calls and you need to make a _____________________________________________________________________ 1 INTRODUCTION _____________________________________________________________________ change to your schedule. All you have to do is press the hot-key, make the change, exit APCAL, and you are right back where you left off in the other program. APCAL is fully configurable and contains on-line help. The program also supports international time and date formats, as well as standard and military times. Gamma Software is committed to bringing you quality software at affordable prices. About This Manual _________________ The APCAL program is intended to be as easy to use as possible, but you should take a few minutes to go through the "Getting Started" section of this manual. The sections following "Getting Started" describe the different features available in the program. They can be read in any order, as needed. The "Key Reference" section is designed to be used as a reference once you become familiar with the program. Getting Help ____________ If you have a problem with the APCAL software, first look to the "Problem Resolution" section which contains solutions for the most commonly encountered problems. If you are still having difficulty, then support may be obtained by calling: (303) 490-2928 between the hours of 8am and 5pm Mountain Time, Monday thru Friday. Support may also be obtained by writing to: Gamma Software P.O. Box 8191 Fort Collins, CO 80526 or via CompuServe mail at: 73737,1721 Please describe the problem in sufficient detail so it can be reproduced by us. Support is currently free and unlimited. We do reserve the right to change these policies in the future. _____________________________________________________________________ 2 INTRODUCTION _____________________________________________________________________ System Requirements ___________________ - IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2 or compatible. - 512k ram. - DOS 2.0 or later. - Monochrome or color monitor. - Screen mode is assumed to be 80 columns and 25 lines (greater line modes can be set but only the first 25 lines will be used). - Floppy drive. - Hard disk recommended. Manual Conventions __________________ When two keys need to be pressed simultaneously to perform a given operation they are separated by a plus (+). For example, Shift+Tab means to press the Shift key and hold it down while the Tab key is pressed. The arrow keys are denoted as Right, Left, Up and Down. File names are in all capital letters. There is an implied Enter at the end of most commands (i.e. you must press the Enter key after typing in the command). _____________________________________________________________________ 3 UPGRADING FROM PREVIOUS VERSION _____________________________________________________________________ Upgrading From Version 3.10 To 3.20 ___________________________________ Version 3.20 of APCAL does not recognize appointment, alarm and monthly calendar files from previous versions of the program. If you are upgrading from a version prior to 3.10, first follow the steps in the next section to upgrade your files to 3.10 format. Then follow the steps below to upgrade to version 3.20. The program APUPDAT2.EXE will convert files from version 3.10 to 3.20 format. First, change to the drive and directory containing APCAL, then type the following command. APUPDAT2 The program will list the files it has found and convert them. Upgrading From Versions Prior To 3.10 _____________________________________ Version 3.10 of APCAL no longer requires the APCAL environment variable (as long as you are using DOS 3.0 or higher). If no environment variable is set, then APCAL will use the directory it was run from as the working directory. The program APUPDAT1.EXE will convert files from all versions of APCAL prior to 3.10 to 3.10 format. First, change to the drive and directory containing APCAL, then type the following command. APUPDAT1 The program will list the files it has found and convert them. _____________________________________________________________________ 4 REVISION HISTORY _____________________________________________________________________ New Features In 3.20 ____________________ - APCAL can now be loaded as a TSR and popped up over other programs. - It takes up less than 10k of conventional memory as a TSR. - The hot-key used to pop up the program can be set by the user. - Alarms no longer use a separate alarm handler TSR. - Alarms will now display in graphics mode. - A switch (/m) has been added which forces the program to use the monochrome display mode. This can be useful on certain monochrome systems the program mistakenly identifies as having a color display. - The time and date displays were modified to allow for international formats. - An "Auto Save" feature has been added. When auto save is on, the appointment, monthly calendar and alarm files are automatically saved. - A quick means of moving between the split month/appointment screen and the appointment edit screen has been added. Pressing the TAB key switches between them. This, combined with the auto save feature, makes appointment editing much easier. New Features In 3.10 ____________________ - Several new configuration options have been added. Printer Configuration Holiday Configuration Start Screen Configuration Alarm Configuration - The program now uses a pull-down menu system. - Alarms can be set to go off a specified number of minutes before an appointment and will keep coming back for a specified number of minutes if snoozed. - The reminder screen has been replaced with the alarm screen. - Boot alarms have been added. - A time and date display has been added to the program. - The program now has the ability to temporarily shell to DOS. - The on-line help has been expanded. - The program no longer requires an environment variable. _____________________________________________________________________ 5 INSTALLATION _____________________________________________________________________ FLOPPY DISK INSTALLATION ________________________ No installation is required to run this program from a floppy. Simply type in the proper command to execute the program. For example: A:\APCAL The program should not be run as a TSR if it is executed from a floppy disk. To exit the program, press ALT+X or select "Exit" from the "File" pull-down menu. See the following section, "Pull-Down Menu," for information on how to use this feature. HARD DISK INSTALLATION ______________________ Separate instructions are included which explain how to get the APCAL files into a directory on your hard disk. After copying the files to your hard disk, the setup program should be run. The following paragraphs explain how to run the setup and what it does. The setup program will modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT to contain the proper line to load APCAL as a TSR. This will allow you to set alarms which will pop up when you are in other programs. If you do not want to load APCAL as a TSR, in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, you can skip this section. See the section "Executing APCAL" for information on the different ways APCAL can be run. To run the setup program, change to the drive and directory where APCAL has been loaded. For example, type the following commands. C: CD \APCAL Modify the two lines above to reflect where you loaded APCAL. Then type: APSETUP The setup program first prompts you for the drive from which you boot your computer. The default of "c" is normally correct. If you use another drive then type in the drive letter and press Enter. The program will look in the root directory of the drive specified for the file AUTOEXEC.BAT. _____________________________________________________________________ 6 INSTALLATION _____________________________________________________________________ If the program does not find AUTOEXEC.BAT, it will ask you if you want to create it. Answering no (pressing the n key and then Enter), will cause the program to prompt you for the drive again. Answering, yes (pressing the y key and then Enter), will create an AUTOEXEC.BAT file with the line to load APCAL as a TSR. If the file could not be created then the program will prompt you for the drive again. You can abort the setup process by pressing Esc at the drive prompt. If AUTOEXEC.BAT is found, the program will search for any existing lines which need to be replaced. If it finds any then it displays them, otherwise it displays only the new line to be added. The setup program will then ask whether to make the indicated changes or not. Answering yes, will replace the given line(s) (if any) with the new line. A backup of your AUTOEXEC.BAT is created with the displayed file name. Answering no, will leave your AUTOEXEC.BAT unchanged and you must make the modifications yourself. If the AUTOEXEC.BAT file was successfully updated, the setup program will prompt you to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete. This will reboot your computer and load APCAL as a TSR. Once the computer has rebooted, the program can be activated by pressing ALT+A. This is called the "hot-key." The hot-key can be configured to any key sequence you desire (see the section "TSR Configuration"). The hot-key can be used to pop up the program at any time, even when you are in another program. See the section "Executing APCAL" for other ways of running the program. To exit the program press ALT+X or select "Exit" from the "File" pull-down menu. See the following section for information on how to use the pull-down menu. DOS 2.x NOTE ____________ The APCAL program cannot detect what directory it was run from if you are running under a version of DOS less than 3.0. This means you must set the APCAL environment variable if you are using DOS 2.x. A command similar to the following should be placed in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. set apcal=c:\apcal Replace the text "c:\apcal" with the directory you loaded APCAL into. _____________________________________________________________________ 7 GETTING STARTED _____________________________________________________________________ This section will take you on a brief guided tour of the program. It will highlight the key features of the program and some ways in which it can be used. It will not cover every aspect of the program, but it will give you a feel for what you can do with APCAL. You should already have installed the software and executed the program before starting this section. You should be viewing the following screen. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ File Edit Options Search Program Config. Help(F1) │ │ OCTOBER 1991 TIME │am│A│ ││ │ S M T W T F S│HR:MN│pm│L│ Appointments ││ │ 1 2 3 4 5│─────┴──┼─┼───────────────────────────────││ │ 6 7 8 9 10 11 12│ 7:30 am│ │ ││ │ 13 14 15 16 17 18 19│ 8:00 am│ │ ││ │ 20 21 22 23 24 25 26│ 8:30 am│ │ ││ │ 27 28 29 30 31 │ 9:00 am│ │ ││ │ │ 9:30 am│ │ ││ │ NOVEMBER 1991 │10:00 am│ │ ││ │ S M T W T F S│10:30 am│ │ ││ │ 1 2│11:00 am│ │ ││ │ 3 4 5 6 7 8 9│11:30 am│ │ ││ │ 10 11 12 13 14 15 16│12:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 17 18 19 20 21 22 23│12:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 24 25 26 27 28 29 30│ 1:00 pm│ │ ││ │ │ 1:30 pm│ │ ││ │ DECEMBER 1991 │ 2:00 pm│ │ ││ │ S M T W T F S│ 2:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7│ 3:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 8 9 10 11 12 13 14│ 3:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 15 16 17 18 19 20 21│ 4:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 22 23 24 25 26 27 28│ 4:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 29 30 31 │ 5:00 pm│ │ ││ │ │ 5:30 pm│ │ ││ └─────────────────────┴────────┴─┴───────────────────────────────┴┘ FIGURE 1 - Split Screen Month/Appointment Display The first thing you will do is configure the program to your specifications. The format in which the program displays times and dates can be configured. This allows for different time and date formats used in different countries and also for individual preferences. To bring up the time/date configuration, press Alt+P and then press the I key. This will bring up the time/date configuration menu. _____________________________________________________________________ 8 GETTING STARTED _____________________________________________________________________ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Time / Date Configuration │ │ │ │ TIME PARAMETERS │ │ │ │ Format: 12 Hour │ │ AM Text: am │ │ PM Text: pm │ │ Separator:: │ │ │ │ DATE PARAMETERS │ │ │ │ Order: Month Day Year │ │ Separator:/ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── Time/Date Config. ──┐ │ │ │Edit │ │ │ │Save │ │ │ │Help │ │ │ │Quit │ │ │ └───────────────────────┘ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 2 - Time / Date Configuration Screen Next, press Enter to select "Edit" from the pop-up menu. This will place you in the first field of time/date configuration menu. If you prefer to use 24 hour (military) times instead of a 12 hour clock, then press the space bar. This will to the selection to read "24 Hour." The selection can be toggled back to "12 Hour" by press the space bar again. To move on to the next field, press Tab. The next 2 fields set the text used for AM and PM, respectively, when 12 hour times are displayed. If you have configured 24 hour times you can skip past these 2 fields by pressing Tab twice. If you would prefer to use different text for AM/PM, then you may enter it in the corresponding field. Press Tab to move to the next field. The "Separator" field sets the character used to separate the hours and minutes when times are displayed. You may enter any character in this field. Press Tab when you have set the desired separator character. The next 3 fields set the order in which the day, month and year are displayed in dates. Using the configuration, in the figure above, dates would be displayed as month/day/year (e.g. 1/20/93 for 1JAN93). If you would prefer to display dates as day/month/year (e.g. 20/1/93), then press the space bar to toggle the first field to "Day." Next, press Tab to move to the second field and press _____________________________________________________________________ 9 GETTING STARTED _____________________________________________________________________ the space bar twice. This will toggle the field to "Month." Dates will now display as day/month/year. The next field sets the character which separates the day, month and year when dates are displayed. If you prefer to use a period, for example, then press the period key. Press Tab to process the change. To return to the pop-up menu press Esc. Now, press the S key to save the changes you have made to the configuration. Press Enter when the "File Saved" message box appears and press the Q key to exit this configuration. This will bring you back to the month/ appointment display. The empty appointment screen displayed when you first enter appointments for a given date can also be configured. This allows you to set the appointment times to match your schedule or enter any text you want to appear on all appointment files. To edit the initial appointment screen, press Alt+P and then press the A key. This will bring up the appointment template configuration menu. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Appointment Template Configuration │ │TIME │am│A│ ││ │HR:MN│pm│L│ Appointments ││ ├─────┴──┼─┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────││ │ 7:30 am│ │ ││ │ 8:00 am│ │ ││ │ 8:30 am│ │ ││ │ 9:00 am│ │ ││ │ 9:30 am│ │ ││ │10:00 am│ │ ││ │10:30 am│ │ ││ │11:00 am│ │ ││ │11:30 am│ │ ││ │12:00 pm│ │ ││ │12:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 1:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 1:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 2:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 2:30 pm│ │ ┌─Appt. Template Config─┐ ││ │ 3:00 pm│ │ │ Edit │ ││ │ 3:30 pm│ │ │ Save │ ││ │ 4:00 pm│ │ │ Help │ ││ │ 4:30 pm│ │ │ Quit │ ││ │ 5:00 pm│ │ └───────────────────────┘ ││ │ 5:30 pm│ │ ││ └────────┴─┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴┘ FIGURE 3 - Appointment Template Configuration Press Enter to select "Edit" from the pop-up menu. This will place _____________________________________________________________________ 10 GETTING STARTED _____________________________________________________________________ you in the appointment template. You may type in any text you desire. For example, if you want your first appointment to start at 7:00 am instead of 7:30, then press the right arrow key until the cursor is over the 3 in 7:30. Press the 0 key to overwrite the 3. If you wanted to block out the 12:00 and 12:30 appointments for lunch, then you could press Enter until the cursor is on the 12:00 line. Then press the right arrow key until the cursor is past the "AL" (alarm) field. Then enter "LUNCH" or whatever text you desire. Do the same for the next line. When you have finished editing the appointment template, press Esc to return to the pop-up menu. Press the S key to save the changes. Press Enter when the "Parameters Saved" message box appears. Next, press the Q key to exit. In order to produce printouts in this program, you must configure the printer parameters. To do this, press Alt+P and then press the P key. This will bring up the printer configuration menu. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ EPSON Printer Name: EPSON FX 80 │ │->EPSON FX 80 │ │ EPSON RX 80 Printer Device: PRN │ │ HP Laserjet │ │ IBM PROPRINTER Printer Mode: GRAPHIC │ │ Standard Graphic Printer │ │ Standard Non-graphic Prn Escape Sequence Before Printing:│ │ File (graphic) FILE:apfx.dat │ │ File (non-graphic) │ │ Escape Sequence After Printing: │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌──────────────Key Assignments──────────────┐│ │ │F1 Help F7 Edit Esc2 ││ │ │F2 Select Printer F8 Add ││ │ │F3 Toggle Device F9 Delete ││ │ │F4 Toggle Mode F10 Save Configuration││ │ │F5 Edit Name ESC To Quit ││ │ │F6 Edit Esc1 ││ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────┘│ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 4 - Printer Configuration Use the up and down arrow keys to position the pointer (->) to the left of the printer to which you are connected. If your printer is not listed, then select the "Standard Graphic Printer." Once you have positioned the pointer to the proper printer press F2. This will select the printer and highlight it. The printer device "PRN" is normally correct for most systems. If you know your printer is connected to a different port, then press F3 until the desired device is displayed to the right of "Printer Device." Finally, press F10 to save the printer configuration you have selected. _____________________________________________________________________ 11 GETTING STARTED _____________________________________________________________________ Press Enter when the "Parameters Saved" message box appears and then press Escape to exit this configuration. The last configuration item we will look at is the holiday configuration. This allows you to customize the holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc., which appear in the monthly calendars. To bring up the holiday configuration press Alt+P and then press the H key. ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Holiday Configuration Page 01 of 02 │ │ │ │->New Year's Day │ │ Valentines Day Type: Month/Day Every Year│ │ Presidents Day Name Line 1: New Year's │ │ St. Patrick's Name Line 2: Day │ │ Mother's Day Year: N/A │ │ Memorial Day Month: JANUARY │ │ Father's Day Day: 01 │ │ Independnc Day Day Of Week: N/A │ │ Labor Day Number: N/A │ │ Halloween │ │ Thanksgivn ┌─────Key Assignments────┐│ │ Christmas │F1 Help ││ │ Easter │F2 Edit ││ │ Easter │F3 Add ││ │ Easter │F4 Delete ││ │ Easter │F5 Save ││ │ Easter │PAGE UP Previous Page││ │ Easter │PAGE DOWN Next Page ││ │ Easter │ESC To Quit ││ │ Easter └────────────────────────┘│ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 5 - Holiday Configuration Screen Press the F3 key to add an entry to the list. This will place you in the "Type:" field on the right. This determines how often the holiday occurs and determines what parameters the program will prompt you for in the fields, below. We will enter a birthday. Press the space bar once. This will bring up "Month/Day Every Year" in the field. This means the holiday occurs on a specific month and day every year. It will be placed in the proper monthly calendar every year, automatically. Press Enter to move to the next field. Type in the text you want to appear on the first line of the day block of the monthly calendar. You probably will want to type in the name of the person whose birthday you are about to enter. Press Enter to move on to the next field. If you wish, you can enter some text which will appear on the second line in the day block. For example, you may wish to enter "Birthday." Press Enter when you have entered the text, if any. _____________________________________________________________________ 12 GETTING STARTED _____________________________________________________________________ Next you must enter the month of the birthday. Press the space bar until the correct month appears, then press Enter. The next field sets the day of the birthday. Press the space bar to toggle the selection and press Enter when the proper day is displayed. You have now entered the birthday and control is passed from the parameter menu back to the list on the left. Press the Page Down key to see the entry you just entered. This will bring up page 2 of the list and your entry will be at the bottom. To check the parameters you have entered, press the down arrow key until the pointer (->) is positioned to the left of your entry. The parameters for your entry will be displayed to the right. Finally, press F5 to save the configuration. Press Enter and then Escape to exit this configuration and return to the month/ appointment display. To see the birthday you have just entered, press Ctrl+Right or Ctrl+Left to scroll the monthly calendars to the next or previous month, respectively. For example, if you are currently on the month of May and the birthday you entered is in July, then press Ctrl+Right twice. This will place you in July. Press the F4 key to bring up the monthly calendar. ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ File Edit Options Search Program Config. Help(F1) │ ├───SUN──┬───MON──┬───TUE──┬───WED──┬───THU──┬───FRI──┬───SAT──┤ │ │ │ │ │ │1 │2 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │3 │4 │5 │6 │7 │8 │9 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │10 │11 │12 │13 │14 │15 │16 │ │ │ │Someones│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Birthday│ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │17 │18 │19 │20 │21 │22 │23 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │24 │25 │26 │27 │28 │29 │30 │ │ │ │ │ │Thnksgvn│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │NOVEMBER│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │1991 │ └────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┘ FIGURE 6 - Monthly Calendar Screen _____________________________________________________________________ 13 GETTING STARTED _____________________________________________________________________ The birthday will be displayed in the day block of the day it falls on. You can enter notes directly in the day blocks, as well. Press the Tab key to move to the next day block. Enter any text you desire. To print the calendar, press Alt+F and then press the P key. The calendar will then be printed to the printer you configured, previously. If the graphic line characters did not print correctly, then press Alt+P and then the P key. Use the arrow keys to position the pointer to "Standard Non-graphic Prn" and press F2. Press F10 to save the configuration and press Escape to return to the monthly calendar. Print the calendar again. This time it will print correctly. Press F6 to return to the month/appointment display. Press Ctrl+Home to return to the actual date. To enter an appointment in the appointment schedule, displayed on the right, press Tab. This will bring up the appointment edit screen. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ File Edit Options Search Program Config. Help(F1) │ │TIME │am│A│ ││ │HR:MN│pm│L│ Appointments MONDAY 11- 4-91 ││ ├─────┴──┼─┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────││ │ 7:30 am│ │ ││ │ 8:00 am│ │ ││ │ 8:30 am│ │ ││ │ 9:00 am│ │ ││ │ 9:30 am│ │ ││ │10:00 am│ │ ││ │10:30 am│ │ ││ │11:00 am│ │ ││ │11:30 am│ │ ││ │12:00 pm│ │ ││ │12:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 1:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 1:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 2:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 2:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 3:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 3:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 4:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 4:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 5:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 5:30 pm│ │ ││ └────────┴─┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴┘ FIGURE 7 - Appointment Edit Screen Lets say you have a meeting with the president (your a VIP) at 9 am. Press the down arrow key until the cursor is to the right _____________________________________________________________________ 14 GETTING STARTED _____________________________________________________________________ of the 9 am time. Type in "Meeting with the president." Oh no, the president just called and can't meet with you until 2 pm. No problem, press Alt+M. This will copy the line to a scratch buffer and erase it. Press Enter until the cursor is on the 2 pm line. Now, press Alt+I. This will copy the scratch buffer to the current line. You have just moved the appointment. Press Tab to return to the month/appointment display. Press the left arrow key. This will highlight the previous day and display its appointment schedule. If you want to find a particular appointment and are not sure what date it falls on, then press F7. This will bring up the search prompt on the top line of the display. Type in "president" and press Enter. The program will then locate the next appointment schedule containing the text. It will highlight the date and display the appointment schedule to the right. Now, lets say you have an appointment with the IRS at 8:15 am. Press Tab to bring up the appointment menu. Move the cursor to the 8 am field. Since the appointment is really at 8:15 you need to change the time. Press F9 to toggle the editing of the time fields. Now press the left arrow key until the cursor is over the first zero in the 8:00 am time. Type in "15" and press F9. The time has now been updated and you are at the beginning of the appointment slot. Type in "Meeting with the IRS." You have just updated your schedule for the day. To produce a printout of the schedule press Alt+F and then press the P key. The schedule will then be printed. This concludes our tour of the program. Press Alt+X to exit. There are many more features in the program which you can read about in the following sections. It is best to enter all your holidays, birthdays, etc. before using the program extensively. This is because any holiday entries you enter will only be reflected in calendars you have not saved. In other words, if you have entered text in some of the monthly calendars and then configure a new holiday, it will not be added to the calendars to which you have previously added text. The same is true for the appointment template. Any changes made to the template are not reflected in appointment schedules which have already been saved. _____________________________________________________________________ 15 PULL-DOWN MENU _____________________________________________________________________ PULL-DOWN MENU ______________ The pull-down menu at the top of the screen has several options which can be used throughout the program. To activate this menu press the Alt key. This will highlight the "File" field. The right and left arrow keys can be used to move from one field to another. To pull down the sub-menu for a field, press the Enter key. Pressing one of the bold characters on the top line of the pull-down will move to that field and pull down its sub-menu. If a sub-menu is already pulled down, then the bold characters on the top line are no longer active. The up and down arrow keys are used to move from one sub-menu field to another. Pressing Enter, selects the currently highlighted sub-menu field. Pressing the bold character of one of the sub-menu fields automatically selects it. Pressing Esc, exits the pull-down without making a selection. Once a selection is made or Esc pressed, the appropriate action is taken and control is returned to the main menu below. When a field in the pull-down menu is not currently active, it is displayed in a different color (usually dark grey on most color monitors and totally blacked out on monochrome monitors). Selecting one of these fields does nothing. The following sections describe the main menu fields of the pull down menu. The "Edit" pull down varies depending on which section of the program you are in at the time. This menu is described in the documentation for each section. Some of the pull-down options can be executed directly, without going through the pull-down. These options list the appropriate key(s) (to the right, in parenthesis) to type to execute the command directly. Files _____ The files section of the main pull-down has the following options: Save, Delete, Print, Dos Shell, Go Resident, Unload and Exit. They are described below. Save - saves the currently displayed appointment, monthly calendar or alarm file. The file is saved to the directory set by the APCAL environment variable or, if none was set, to the directory APCAL was run from. Selecting "Save" from the month/appt. screen or the year screen has no effect, since these screens cannot be edited or saved. _____________________________________________________________________ 16 PULL-DOWN MENU _____________________________________________________________________ Delete - deletes the currently displayed appointment, monthly calendar or alarm file. This causes the screen to be reset, removing any changes you have made during this or any previous session. This option has no effect in the month/appt. or year screens. Print - prints the currently displayed appointment schedule or monthly calendar. You must be displaying the desired calendar or appointment schedule before selecting "Print." Selecting "Print" in the month/appt. screen or the year screen has no effect since these screens cannot be printed. Dos Shell - temporarily brings up the DOS command line. You can then enter DOS commands. When you are ready to return to the program, type "exit" and press Enter at the DOS command line. It is important to remember to type "exit" when you are done. The program remains in memory while you have shelled to DOS and will severely limit the memory available to other programs. This option should only be used to temporarily leave the program to issue some DOS commands. If you wish to permanently leave the program, use the "Exit" selection on the "File" menu in APCAL. You cannot shell to DOS if you have loaded APCAL as a TSR. Go Resident - exits the program but leaves it resident in memory so it can be popped up with the indicated hot-key. This option does nothing if the program is already resident. Unload - exits the program and removes it from memory. This option does nothing if the program is not loaded as a TSR. The program will not unload if it is not the last program in memory. This means you cannot load other TSR's after APCAL. You also cannot unload APCAL if you pop it from within another program. You must pop it up from the DOS prompt to unload it. Exit - Leaves the program and returns you to the DOS prompt or the program you were in previously, if the program is being run as a TSR. Pressing Alt+X will also exit the program. Options _______ The options section of the main pull-down has the following selections: Appointments (F2), Alarm (F3), Month Calendar (F4), Year Calendar (F5) and Month/Appt. (F6). They are used to switch between the different screens available in APCAL. Appointments - switches to the appointment edit screen. The appointment file for the currently selected date is displayed. _____________________________________________________________________ 17 PULL-DOWN MENU _____________________________________________________________________ Alarm - switches to the alarm edit screen. The alarms for the currently selected date, if any, are displayed. Month Calendar - switches to the monthly calendar edit screen. The monthly calendar for the currently selected date is displayed. Year Calendar - switches to the yearly calendar display. Month/Appt. - switches to the split screen month/appointment display. See the individual sections for each of these options for more information. Search ______ The search section of the main pull-down has the following options: Forward (F7) and Backward (Shift+F7). This pull-down sub-menu is only active when the split month/appointment display is active. This means you must select "Month/Appt." from the "Options" menu (or press F2) before selecting "Search." The search options are described below. Forward - search for the given text in appointment files after the current date. Backward - search for the given text in appointment files before the current date. The current date is the one highlighted in the monthly calendars on the left in the month/appt. screen. When a search option is selected, the program prompts you for the text to search for on the top line. Enter the desired text and press Enter. You may press Escape to cancel the search. Once the search text has been entered, the program will search the appointment files before/after the current date for the given text. The search is not case sensitive. If an appointment file is found which contains the text, it is displayed to the right and the date corresponding to it is made the current date. The next occurrence of the text string can be found by selecting the search option again and pressing Enter. The search string will default to the previous one entered so you do not have to retype it. _____________________________________________________________________ 18 PULL-DOWN MENU _____________________________________________________________________ Program Config. _______________ The configuration section of the main pull-down has the following options: Color, Appointment Template, Printer, Holidays, Start Screen, Alarm, TSR, Time and Auto Save. They are described below. Color - configures the program colors. Appointment Template - configures the default appointment screen. Printer - configures printer parameters. Holidays - configures the holidays which are automatically built into the monthly calendars when the are first created. Start Screen - configures the first screen to appear when the program is loaded. Alarm - configures the alarm parameters. TSR - configures the parameters associated with running the program as a TSR. Time - configures the time and date display. This allows for different formats used in different countries. Auto Save - allows you to turn the auto save feature on and off. See each of these sections for more information. Help ____ The help section of the main pull-down has the following options: General, Appointment, Alarm, Month Calendar, Year Calendar, Month/ Appt. and Configuration. Each brings up the help information for the indicated topic. Help for a given topic may contain more than one page (screen). To see the next page, highlight the "Next Page" field at the bottom of the screen and press Enter. To go back to a previous page, select the "Previous Page" field. To exit help, select the "End" field. Press Tab and Shift+Tab to move between the selections. _____________________________________________________________________ 19 EXECUTING APCAL _____________________________________________________________________ EXECUTING APCAL _______________ The syntax for the APCAL command is: C:\APCAL\APCAL [/L] [/M] The path "C:\APCAL" must be replaced with the path of the directory into which you loaded APCAL. The switches are optional and mean the following. /L Load the program as a TSR. This is how the program is loaded resident in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file without having to select "Go Resident" from the "File" menu. /M Force the program to use the monochrome display attributes. This is useful for certain systems APCAL mistakenly identifies as having a color display. There are two ways of running APCAL. First of all, it can be run strictly as a foreground program. To run it this way you enter the APCAL command without the "/L" switch. When you wish to leave the program select "Exit" from the "File" menu and the program is completely removed from memory. You can also press ALT+X to exit the program. The second way of running APCAL is as a Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) program. To run it this way, enter the APCAL command with the "/L" switch. The program will load into memory and display the hot-key which must be pressed to bring up the program. When the hot-key is pressed, the program will be activated even if you are in another program. To exit the program, select "Exit" from the "File" menu. This will return you to the DOS prompt or whatever program you were executing when the hot-key was pressed. The APCAL program is not completely removed from memory as it is when "Exit" is selected when APCAL is run as a foreground program. The program can be popped up again via the hot-key as long as it is resident in memory. APCAL can also be loaded resident by executing it WITHOUT the "/L" switch and selecting "Go Resident" from the "File" menu. This option will exit the program but leave it resident in memory. It can be activated by pressing the indicated hot-key. To remove APCAL completely when it is loaded resident, you must select "Unload" from the "File" menu. This will exit the program and remove it completely from memory. This option can be used to unload the program no matter how it was loaded resident. The APCAL program cannot be unloaded if it is not the last program in memory. You will get a message to this effect if it is not the last program in memory and you select "Unload". This means you _____________________________________________________________________ 20 EXECUTING APCAL _____________________________________________________________________ cannot pop up APCAL while in another program and then unload it. You must pop up APCAL from a DOS prompt in order to unload it. It is also very important APCAL be the last TSR you load. This is because it swaps as much of its code and data as possible out of conventional memory and to disk, ems or xms memory when it is not active. Then, when it is re-activated, it swaps out any program after it in memory and swaps back in its own code and data. This can present a problem if one of the programs loaded after it is a TSR servicing hardware or software interrupts (such as a mouse driver or network driver) because the code to service the interrupt will no longer be present. The setup program places the command to load APCAL resident at the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file for this reason. The advantage of running APCAL as a TSR versus a foreground program is the ability to pop APCAL up at any time to see your schedule. Also, alarms you set will pop up in other programs when APCAL is run as a TSR. When you run APCAL as a foreground program, the alarms will only sound if you are in the program at the time the alarm goes off. You also must always execute the program from the DOS command line. You cannot activate it with a hot-key if it is not run as a TSR. The disadvantage of running APCAL as a TSR is it takes up some of your conventional memory leaving less for other programs. For information on how to set the hot-key and the other parameters associated with running the program as a TSR, see the section on TSR configuration. NOTE - XMS version 2.0 or higher is required for XMS swapping. EMS version 3.2 or higher is required for EMS swapping. _____________________________________________________________________ 21 MONTH/APPOINTMENT SCREEN _____________________________________________________________________ The split screen month/appointment display is used to quickly scan through your appointment schedules. It is also used to search for a particular appointment and locate empty time slots. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ File Edit Options Search Program Config. Help(F1) │ │ OCTOBER 1991 TIME │am│A│ ││ │ S M T W T F S│HR:MN│pm│L│ Appointments ││ │ 1 2 3 4 5│─────┴──┼─┼───────────────────────────────││ │ 6 7 8 9 10 11 12│ 7:30 am│ │ ││ │ 13 14 15 16 17 18 19│ 8:00 am│ │ ││ │ 20 21 22 23 24 25 26│ 8:30 am│ │ ││ │ 27 28 29 30 31 │ 9:00 am│ │ ││ │ │ 9:30 am│ │ ││ │ NOVEMBER 1991 │10:00 am│ │ ││ │ S M T W T F S│10:30 am│ │ ││ │ 1 2│11:00 am│ │ ││ │ 3 4 5 6 7 8 9│11:30 am│ │ ││ │ 10 11 12 13 14 15 16│12:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 17 18 19 20 21 22 23│12:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 24 25 26 27 28 29 30│ 1:00 pm│ │ ││ │ │ 1:30 pm│ │ ││ │ DECEMBER 1991 │ 2:00 pm│ │ ││ │ S M T W T F S│ 2:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7│ 3:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 8 9 10 11 12 13 14│ 3:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 15 16 17 18 19 20 21│ 4:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 22 23 24 25 26 27 28│ 4:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 29 30 31 │ 5:00 pm│ │ ││ │ │ 5:30 pm│ │ ││ └─────────────────────┴────────┴─┴───────────────────────────────┴┘ FIGURE 8 - Split Screen Month/Appointment Display This screen displays 3 months on the left with the current month in the middle. The current day is highlighted and the appointment file for that day is displayed on the right. The arrow keys are used to highlight different days in the month. The appointment file for the currently highlighted day is displayed on the right. To scroll the monthly calendars ahead one month, press Ctrl+Right or select the "Next Month" option from the "Edit" pull-down. To scroll the monthly calendars back one month, press Ctrl+Left or select "Previous Month" from the "Edit" pull-down. To return to the actual date, press Ctrl+Home. Pressing F1 brings up the help information on the month/appt. display. To search for a given text string in the appointment files after the current date, press F7. Pressing Shift+F7 causes the program to search backward from the current date. Both will bring up a _____________________________________________________________________ 22 MONTH/APPOINTMENT SCREEN _____________________________________________________________________ menu on the top line of the display where you can enter a search string. Press Enter when you have entered the desired text or press Esc to cancel the search operation. If the specified text is found in an appointment file, then that date is made current and the appointment file is displayed to the right. The search string defaults to the last value. This makes it easy to search for more than one occurrence of the given text. If you want to make a change to the currently displayed appointment file, press TAB. This will bring up the appointment edit screen and allow you to change the appointment schedule. Press TAB again to move back to the month/appointment display. _____________________________________________________________________ 23 APPOINTMENT SCREEN _____________________________________________________________________ The appointment screen is used to create and edit your appointments for the currently selected date. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ File Edit Options Search Program Config. Help(F1) │ │TIME │am│A│ ││ │HR:MN│pm│L│ Appointments MONDAY 11- 4-91 ││ ├─────┴──┼─┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────││ │ 7:30 am│ │ ││ │ 8:00 am│ │ ││ │ 8:30 am│ │ ││ │ 9:00 am│ │ ││ │ 9:30 am│ │ ││ │10:00 am│ │ ││ │10:30 am│ │ ││ │11:00 am│ │ ││ │11:30 am│ │ ││ │12:00 pm│ │ ││ │12:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 1:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 1:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 2:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 2:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 3:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 3:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 4:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 4:30 pm│ │ ││ │ 5:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 5:30 pm│ │ ││ └────────┴─┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴┘ FIGURE 9 - Appointment Edit Screen If an appointment file has been previously saved for this date, then it is displayed. Otherwise, the default appointment template is displayed (see Appointment Template Configuration). Many of the operations described below can be selected from the "Edit" pull-down or by using the key(s) mentioned. Use whatever method you prefer. Use the up, down, right and left arrow keys to position the cursor to the desired time. If no time exactly matches the time of your appointment, then the time fields can be edited. Press the F9 key to toggle editing of the time fields. Press the left arrow key until you are positioned in the time field. Make the desired changes to the time and press F9 again. This will move you out of the time field and back to the start of the area where you can type in your appointment. You cannot move back into the time field with the left arrow key or by pressing Enter in this mode. This prevents you from accidentally overwriting a time field. You can tell which mode you are in by the color of the time fields. If the _____________________________________________________________________ 24 APPOINTMENT SCREEN _____________________________________________________________________ time fields have the same color as the rest of the appointment schedule, they are editable. If they are a different color, they are protected. The F9 key toggles between the two modes. Once you have positioned the cursor next to the desired appointment time, type in any text you desire to describe the appointment. Repeat this procedure until all appointments have been entered. Press ALT+F to bring up the "File" pull-down and select "Save" to save the appointments to a file. If auto save is on, exiting the program or leaving the appointment edit screen will automatically save the file. If auto save is not on, trying to exit this screen without saving changes made to the appointments will bring up the following prompt: "File has not been saved. Exit? Y/N " Press the "Y" key and then Enter if you do not wish to save the changes you have made. Press "N" and Enter if you do wish to save the changes. Then select "Save" from the "File" pull-down. To move an appointment to another time, position the cursor on the line containing the appointment and press ALT+M. This will copy the line to a scratch buffer and erase it. Position the cursor on the line containing the new time for the appointment and press Alt+I. This will overwrite the current line with the text in the scratch buffer. To move an appointment to another time and day, position the cursor on the line containing the appointment and press Alt+M. Then press TAB (you will have to save the file first if auto save is off) to bring up the month/appt. display. Next, highlight the new date for the appointment in the monthly calendars on the left. Press TAB again to edit the appointment file. Position the cursor to the desired time and press Alt+I. The scratch buffer always contains the text from the last Alt+C or Alt+M operation. It may be inserted with Alt+I as many times as desired. The only difference between Alt+C and Alt+M is, Alt+C (copy) does not erase the current line and Alt+M (move) does. To delete all the characters from the current cursor position to the end of the line, press Alt+D. To delete an entire line, press Alt+L. To set or remove an alarm for the appointment at the current cursor position, press Alt+A. This brings up the appointment alarm menu. _____________________________________________________________________ 25 APPOINTMENT SCREEN _____________________________________________________________________ ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │Alarm: OFF │ │Number Of Minutes Before: 10│ │Duration (minutes): 10 │ │ │ │ OK CANCEL │ │ │ │ 0 Appointment Alarms │ │ 0 Regular Alarms │ │10 Alarms Available │ └─────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 10 - Appointment Alarm Menu The first field in the alarm menu toggles the alarm "ON" and "OFF." Press the space bar to toggle between the 2 values. Press Tab to move to the next field and Shift+Tab to move to the previous. The second field in this menu sets the number of minutes before the appointment the alarm will sound. Entering anything other than an integer causes a beep and the field cannot be exited until an integer is entered. The duration field sets the number of minutes the alarm will continue to sound if it is snoozed. It must also be an integer. For example, if the appointment time is 2:00 pm and the "Number Of Minutes Before" field is set to 15 and the "Duration" field is set to 15, then the alarm will sound at 1:45 pm. If "Snooze" is selected when the alarm sounds, the alarm will snooze for the time period set in the alarm configuration. If this value is 5, the alarm will sound again 5 minutes from the time at which snooze was selected. This continues until "End" is selected or the time is later than 2:00 pm which is after the 15 minute duration of the alarm. Pressing Enter on the "OK" field, sets the alarm and exits the alarm menu. Pressing Enter on the "CANCEL" field, exits the alarm menu without setting the alarm. Pressing Esc on any field will also exit without setting the alarm. Appointments with alarms have a check mark in the alarm column. Up to 10 alarms can be set for any day. This includes any alarms set in the regular alarm menu. The alarms will NOT sound until they have been saved. To save the alarms and any other changes made to the appointment file, select "Save" from the "File" pull-down menu. If auto save is on, exiting the program or selecting another option from the "Option" pull-down menu will also save the appointment file and alarms. _____________________________________________________________________ 26 ALARMS _____________________________________________________________________ Alarms ______ There are 2 types of alarms which can be set in this program: Appointment alarms and Regular alarms. The appointment alarms are associated with an appointment and are set in the appointment edit screen (described above). Regular or Boot alarms are set in the alarm edit screen. They can be set for any time range and are not associated with an appointment. The "Alarm" selection on the "Options" pull-down allows the setting of regular and boot alarms. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ File Edit Options Search Program Config. Help(F1) │ │ │ │->ALARM 1 Message │ │ ALARM 2 Message │ │ ALARM 3 Message │ │ ALARM 4 Message │ │ ALARM 5 Message │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ ││Alarm: REG 0 Appointment Alarms ││ ││Start Time: 11:00 am 5 Regular Alarms ││ ││End Time: 11:30 am 5 Alarms Available ││ ││Message: MONDAY 11- 4-91 ││ ││ALARM 1 Message ││ ││ ││ ││ ││ │└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 11 - Regular Alarm Screen The top portion of the regular alarm screen consists of the message text for each alarm set for the current date. The pointer (->), at the left, points to the selected alarm. The parameters associated with this alarm are displayed in the box in the bottom portion of the screen. The up and down arrow keys can be used to select other alarms in the list. The "File" options on the pull-down menu can be used to save and delete the alarm file for the currently selected date. When Alt+A or Alt+M is pressed, the parameter menu at the bottom of the screen is activated. These parameters can then be edited. Alt+A adds a new alarm and Alt+M allows the modification of the parameters for the currently selected alarm. To move to the next field in the alarm parameter menu, press Tab. Press Shift+Tab to move to the previous field. _____________________________________________________________________ 27 ALARMS _____________________________________________________________________ The first field in the alarm parameter menu determines whether the alarm is a REGULAR or BOOT alarm. The space bar toggles between the 2 values. Regular alarms occur for the time interval given in the start and end time fields. Boot alarms occur when the computer is first booted and continue until midnight unless terminated. The start time fields set the time when the alarm will first sound for REGULAR alarms. The hour field must be an integer between 1 and 12 (or 1 and 24 if 24 hour times have been configured). The minute field must be an integer between 0 and 59. Entering anything else causes a beep and the field cannot be exited until a valid integer is entered. The last field on the start time line indicates whether the time is am or pm (this field is absent if 24 hour times are configured). Use the space bar to toggle between the 2 values. The end time sets the end of a REGULAR alarm. The fields have the same restrictions as the start time fields. The start and end time are not set for BOOT alarms. For example, if a regular alarm is set to start at 1:45 pm and end at 2:00 pm, then the alarm will first sound at 1:45 pm. If "Snooze" is selected when the alarm sounds, then the alarm will snooze for the time period set in the alarm configuration. If this value is 5, then the alarm will sound again 5 minutes from the time at which snooze was selected. This continues until "End" is selected or the time is later than 2:00 pm. The message field sets the text which will be displayed when the alarm sounds. Pressing Enter on the "OK" field sets the alarm and exits the alarm parameter menu. Pressing Enter on the "CANCEL" field exits the alarm parameter menu without setting the alarm. Pressing Esc on any field will also exit without setting the alarm. Up to 10 alarms can be set for any day. This includes any alarms set in the appointment menu. The alarms will NOT sound until they have been saved. To save the alarms, select "Save" from the "File" pull-down menu. If auto save is on, then exiting the program or selecting another option from the "Option" pull-down menu will also save the alarms. If auto save is not on then trying to exit this screen without saving changes made to the alarms will bring up the following prompt: "File has not been saved. Exit? Y/N " _____________________________________________________________________ 28 MONTHLY CALENDAR _____________________________________________________________________ Press the "Y" key and then Enter if you do not wish to save the changes you have made. Press "N" and Enter if you do wish to save the changes. Then select "Save" from the "File" pull-down. The monthly calendar screen is used to edit the monthly calendar for the currently selected date. ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ File Edit Options Search Program Config. Help(F1) │ ├───SUN──┬───MON──┬───TUE──┬───WED──┬───THU──┬───FRI──┬───SAT──┤ │ │ │ │ │ │1 │2 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │3 │4 │5 │6 │7 │8 │9 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │10 │11 │12 │13 │14 │15 │16 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │17 │18 │19 │20 │21 │22 │23 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │24 │25 │26 │27 │28 │29 │30 │ │ │ │ │ │Thnksgvn│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │NOVEMBER│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │1991 │ └────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┘ FIGURE 12 - Monthly Calendar Screen If a monthly calendar file has been previously saved for this date, then it is displayed. Otherwise, one is built for the currently selected month, including any holidays configured for the month. Any text you desire can be typed into the day boxes of the calendar. Use the TAB and Shift+Tab keys to move from on day to another. Press Ctrl+Right to move to the next monthly calendar or Ctrl+Left to move to the previous. Ctrl+Home returns to the actual date. These options can also be selected from the "Edit" pull-down. Select "Save" from the "File" pull-down menu to save the monthly calendar to a file. If auto save is on, then exiting the program or exiting the monthly calendar screen will also save the monthly calendar. _____________________________________________________________________ 29 MONTHLY CALENDAR _____________________________________________________________________ If auto save is off, trying to exit this screen without saving changes made to the calendar will bring up the following prompt: "Calendar has not been saved. Exit? Y/N " Press the "Y" key and then Enter if you do not wish to save the changes you have made. Press "N" and Enter if you do wish to save the changes. Then select "Save" from the "File" pull-down. _____________________________________________________________________ 30 YEARLY CALENDAR _____________________________________________________________________ The yearly calendar screen is used to select the current month and year. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ File Edit Options Search Program Config. Help(F1) │ │ JULY 1991 AUGUST 1991 SEPTEMBER 1991│ │ S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S│ │ 1 2 3 4 5 6││ 1 2 3││ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7│ │ 7 8 9 10 11 12 13││ 4 5 6 7 8 9 10││ 8 9 10 11 12 13 14│ │14 15 16 17 18 19 20││11 12 13 14 15 16 17││15 16 17 18 19 20 21│ │21 22 23 24 25 26 27││18 19 20 21 22 23 24││22 23 24 25 26 27 28│ │28 29 30 31 ││25 26 27 28 29 30 31││29 30 │ │ ││ ││ │ │OCTOBER 1991 NOVEMBER 1991 DECEMBER 1991 │ │ S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S│ │ 1 2 3 4 5││ 1 2││ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7│ │ 6 7 8 9 10 11 12││ 3 4 5 6 7 8 9││ 8 9 10 11 12 13 14│ │13 14 15 16 17 18 19││10 11 12 13 14 15 16││15 16 17 18 19 20 21│ │20 21 22 23 24 25 26││17 18 19 20 21 22 23││22 23 24 25 26 27 28│ │27 28 29 30 31 ││24 25 26 27 28 29 30││29 30 31 │ │ ││ ││ │ │JANUARY 1992 FEBRUARY 1992 MARCH 1992 │ │ S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S│ │ 1 2 3 4││ 1││ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7│ │ 5 6 7 8 9 10 11││ 2 3 4 5 6 7 8││ 8 9 10 11 12 13 14│ │12 13 14 15 16 17 18││ 9 10 11 12 13 14 15││15 16 17 18 19 20 21│ │19 20 21 22 23 24 25││16 17 18 19 20 21 22││22 23 24 25 26 27 28│ │26 27 28 29 30 31 ││23 24 25 26 27 28 29││29 30 31 │ └────────────────────┴┴────────────────────┴┴────────────────────┘ FIGURE 13 - Yearly Calendar Screen The yearly calendar screen displays 9 months on the screen at once and allows you to scroll through them using the arrow keys or Tab and Shift+Tab. This screen sets the month and year used when other options are selected. For example, highlighting May 1995 and pressing F4 will bring up the monthly calendar for May 1995. Pressing Ctrl+Home returns to the actual date. _____________________________________________________________________ 31 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ Color Configuration ___________________ This screen allows the configuration of the colors used by the program. ┌──── Color Config. ────┐ │Normal Text │ │Highlighted Text │ │Lowlight Text │ │Pop-up Normal │ │Pop-up Highlighted │ │Save │ │Restore Defaults │ │Help │ │Quit │ └───────────────────────┘ FIGURE 14 - Color Configuration Menu To make a selection from the pop-up menu, highlight it using the up and down arrow keys and press Enter or just type the field's bold character. Selecting any of the options above "Save" will bring up the color selection bar. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Normal Text │ │ v Foreground Color│ │████████████████████████████████████████████████ │ │ * Background Color│ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 15 - Color Selection Bar The down arrow on the "Foreground Color" line points to the currently selected foreground color. Use the left and right arrow keys to change the selection. The diamond on the "Background Color" line marks the currently selected background color. To switch from selecting the foreground to the background color use the up and down arrow keys. The text in the upper left displays what the current selection looks like. Press Enter to accept it. The following options are available on the pop-up menu. Normal Text - Sets the normal text color. The color of the majority of the text in the program. Highlighted Text - Sets the color of highlighted normal text. For example, the color of the current day selected in the split screen month/appt display and the color of the current month selected in the yearly calendar display. _____________________________________________________________________ 32 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ Lowlight Text - Sets the color of lowlight text. For example, the color of the appointment section of the split screen month/appt display and the color of the time fields in the appointment edit screen when they are protected. Pop-up Normal - Sets the color of the pop-up menu. Pop-up Highlighted - Sets the color of the selected field in the pop-up menu. Save - Saves the current color selection to the configuration file. If this is not done, any changes made to the color selection will remain in effect for the current session only. Restore Defaults - Reads the values set in the configuration file and sets the colors to those values. Help - Brings up a help screen. Quit - Exits color configuration and returns to the previous menu. Appointment Template Configuration __________________________________ This screen allows the initial appointment screen to be configured. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Appointment Template Configuration │ │TIME │am│A│ ││ │HR:MN│pm│L│ Appointments ││ ├─────┴──┼─┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────────││ │ 7:30 am│ │ ││ │ 8:00 am│ │ ││ │ 8:30 am│ │ ││ │ 9:00 am│ │ ││ │ 9:30 am│ │ ││ │10:00 am│ │ ││ : : │ 2:00 pm│ │ ││ │ 2:30 pm│ │ ┌─Appt. Template Config─┐ ││ │ 3:00 pm│ │ │ Edit │ ││ │ 3:30 pm│ │ │ Save │ ││ │ 4:00 pm│ │ │ Help │ ││ │ 4:30 pm│ │ │ Quit │ ││ │ 5:00 pm│ │ └───────────────────────┘ ││ │ 5:30 pm│ │ ││ └────────┴─┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴┘ FIGURE 16 - Appointment Template Configuration _____________________________________________________________________ 33 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ This is the initial screen displayed when you select the appointment edit option and no appointment file yet exists for the current date. You may configure the times to match your typical schedule and set any text you always want to appear in a particular appointment slot. For example, you may want to block out the 12:00 to 1:00 pm slots for lunch. You can change the appointment schedule times and appointment slots in the appointment edit menu to allow for daily variations to your schedule. The appointment template is just a starting point for each day. To make a selection from the pop-up menu highlight, it using the up and down arrow keys and press Enter or just type the field's bold character. The following options are available on the pop-up menu. Edit - Allows the editing of the appointment template. Press Esc to end editing and return to the pop-up menu. Most of the available keys in appointment editing are valid here. Save - Saves the appointment template. Help - Brings up a help screen. Quit - Exits the appointment template configuration and returns to the previous menu. Printer Configuration _____________________ This screen allows you to select the printer to which all print operations will send their output. It also allows you to configure new printers and modify the parameters of existing ones. _____________________________________________________________________ 34 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ EPSON Printer Name: EPSON FX 80 │ │->EPSON FX 80 │ │ EPSON RX 80 Printer Device: PRN │ │ HP Laserjet │ │ IBM PROPRINTER Printer Mode: GRAPHIC │ │ Standard Graphic Printer │ │ Standard Non-graphic Prn Escape Sequence Before Printing:│ │ File (graphic) FILE:apfx.dat │ │ File (non-graphic) │ │ Escape Sequence After Printing: │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌──────────────Key Assignments──────────────┐│ │ │F1 Help F7 Edit Esc2 ││ │ │F2 Select Printer F8 Add ││ │ │F3 Toggle Device F9 Delete ││ │ │F4 Toggle Mode F10 Save Configuration││ │ │F5 Edit Name ESC To Quit ││ │ │F6 Edit Esc1 ││ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────┘│ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 17 - Printer Configuration The up and down arrow keys can be used to move the pointer (->) on the left through the list of printers. The parameters for the printer, to the right of the pointer, are displayed in the right portion of the screen. The currently selected printer (the one print output will be sent to) is highlighted. To select another printer, move the pointer (->) to the desired printer and press F2. The program is initially set to the "Standard Graphic Printer." If this does not produce a good printout (e.g. the graphics line characters come out as something other than lines), then select your printer from the list. If your printer is not listed, select the "Standard Non-graphic Printer." The graphic and non-graphic printer modes cause the program to print or not print, respectively, the graphic line characters. The graphic line characters are part of the IBM character set. If your printer is an IBM, or emulates an IBM printer, it will probably print these characters (and you can use the "GRAPHIC" printer mode). If your printer is an EPSON, or a printer which emulates an EPSON, it probably will NOT print these characters. The 2 specialized printer configurations: "EPSON FX 80" and "EPSON RX 80," will create the line characters for these 2 printers only. When the non-graphic print mode is selected, the graphic line characters are converted to normal ASCII characters which will print on any printer. The disadvantage is, these characters do not produce a printout which looks as good as one using the graphic line characters. _____________________________________________________________________ 35 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ It is important to understand for each printer listed on the left there is a separate set of parameters. When the pointer is moved, the parameters for the printer it points to are displayed on the right. Simply moving the pointer does not select another printer. You must move the pointer to the desired printer and press F2 to select it. You can modify the parameters for any of the printers listed or create your own printer configuration. You may need to modify the parameters for your selected printer if output sent to the standard print device "PRN" does not come out on your printer. To do this, move the pointer to the proper printer and press F3. This will toggle through the list of available devices. Select the proper one for your printer. To modify the print mode, press the F4 key to toggle between "GRAPHIC" and "NON-GRAPHIC." You can change the name associated with these print parameters by pressing F5. The escape sequences can also be edited (more on this later). You can add a completely new configuration to the list by pressing F8. The printer configuration currently to the right of the pointer will be copied to the end of the list. You can then move the pointer down to the end and give it a unique name (by pressing F5) and edit the other parameters associated with it. If you want to remove one of the printer configurations from the list, position the pointer beside it and press F9. To save the changes you have made to the printer configuration press F10. Now, just what are escape sequences anyway? Well, escape sequences are special characters the printer recognizes as commands and does not try to print. The are used to put your printer into different modes. For example, to create bold, italic or condensed print. They generally start out with the escape character and then are followed by characters telling the printer what command you are requesting. The parameters associated with the command, if any, come next. The escape character is the signal which alerts the printer a command is to follow. Your printer manual should list the commands available on your printer and the escape sequences to initiate them. This program will send escape sequences before the appointment or calendar is printed and after. These can be used to set your printer to a desired mode before printing and reset it afterwards. These escape sequences are optional. They can be placed in a separate file if there are too many to fit within the field in the parameter menu. If you want to place them in a file, you will need an editor which allows you to create the escape sequences. _____________________________________________________________________ 36 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ As you have probably figured out by now, creating your own printer configuration is not an easy task. APCAL provides this capability so the program is as flexible as possible. It should only be attempted by advanced users. To edit the escape sequence which is sent to the printer before the appointment/calendar is printed, press F6. To edit the one after, press F7. The escape character is usually ASCII character number 27. It can be created by pressing the ALT key and holding it down while the number 27 is typed on the numeric key pad. Other nonstandard ASCII characters can be entered in a similar manner. If you would prefer to enter the escape sequences in a separate file, using your own text editor, simply enter the text "FILE:" in the escape sequence field. This must be followed by the file name. No path should be specified and the file should be placed in the APCAL directory. All the printer configurations contain a form feed in the second escape sequence field. You can remove this by pressing F7 and spacing over the form feed. You can put it back by typing ALT+1+2. Finally, if you try to exit this screen without saving the changes made to the printer configuration, the following prompt will be displayed. "Configuration has not been saved. Exit? Y/N " Press the "Y" key and then Enter if you do not wish to save the changes you have made. Press "N" and Enter if you do wish to save the changes. Then press F10 to save the changes. The following keys can be used in this configuration menu. Up Arrow moves the pointer (->), on the left, up to the next printer configuration. Down Arrow moves the pointer (->), on the left, down to the next printer configuration. F1 brings up a help screen. F8 adds a printer configuration to the end of the list. F9 deletes the printer configuration to the right of the pointer. F10 saves the printer configuration. ESC exits the printer configuration. The following keys are used to change the parameters associated with the configuration to the right of the pointer. F2 selects the printer as the one to which all print output will be sent. F3 toggles the print device. F4 toggles the mode between "GRAPHIC" and "NON-GRAPHIC." _____________________________________________________________________ 37 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ F5 allows the editing of the name associated with this set of print parameters. F6 allows the editing of the first escape sequence. F7 allows the editing of the second escape sequence. Holiday Configuration _____________________ This screen allows you to add, modify and delete the holidays which are automatically placed into the monthly calendars. ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Holiday Configuration Page 01 of 02 │ │ │ │->New Year's Day │ │ Valentines Day Type: Month/Day Every Year│ │ Presidents Day Name Line 1: New Year's │ │ St. Patrick's Name Line 2: Day │ │ Mother's Day Year: N/A │ │ Memorial Day Month: JANUARY │ │ Father's Day Day: 01 │ │ Independnc Day Day Of Week: N/A │ │ Labor Day Number: N/A │ │ Halloween │ │ Thanksgivn ┌─────Key Assignments────┐│ │ Christmas │F1 Help ││ │ Easter │F2 Edit ││ │ Easter │F3 Add ││ │ Easter │F4 Delete ││ │ Easter │F5 Save ││ │ Easter │PAGE UP Previous Page││ │ Easter │PAGE DOWN Next Page ││ │ Easter │ESC To Quit ││ │ Easter └────────────────────────┘│ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 18 - Holiday Configuration Screen The up and down arrow keys can be used to move the pointer (->), on the left, through the list of holidays. The parameters for the one currently pointed to are displayed on the right. The following keys can be used in this configuration menu. Up Arrow moves the pointer (->), on the left, up to the next holiday entry. Down Arrow moves the pointer (->), on the left, down to the next holiday entry. F1 brings up a help screen. F2 allows the editing of the holiday parameters to the right of the pointer. _____________________________________________________________________ 38 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ F3 adds a new holiday at the end of the list. F4 deletes the holiday entry to the right of the pointer. F5 saves the configuration to a file. Page Up brings up the previous page, if any. Page Down brings up the next page, if any. ESC exits the holiday configuration. To modify one of the holiday entries, press the up and down arrow keys until the pointer is positioned to the left of the entry you want to modify. Then press F2. Control is then passed to the parameter menu on the right. The first field sets the type of holiday entry. Press the space bar to toggle through the selections. There are 3 types of holidays which can be set: Month/Day Every Year - these occur on a specific month and day, every year (e.g. December 25 for Christmas). Month And Nth Day Of Week - these occur on a specific day of the week in a month (e.g. 4th Thursday in November for Thanks- giving). Month/Day/Year - these only occur on one specific date (e.g. April 19, 1992 for Easter). To select the holiday type, press Enter. This will move you to the "Name Line 1:" field. Type in the text you want to appear on the first line. This text will appear on the first line of the day block for the date of the holiday. It will be placed in all the monthly calendars containing the holiday. When you have entered the desired text, press Enter. This will move you to the "Name Line 2:" field. Enter the text you want to appear on the second line of the day block. The program prompts you for the year, month, day, day of the week and week number - as appropriate - depending on the holiday type you selected in the first field. For example, only the month and day need be entered for a holiday type of "Month/Day Every Year." The year must be entered as the desired year minus 1900 (e.g. 93 for 1993). Type in the desired year and press Enter. To set the month, press the space bar until the desired month appears, then press Enter. The day field sets the day of the month. Use the space bar to toggle the selection and then press Enter. To set the day of week, press the space bar until the desired day appears, then press Enter. Changes to the holiday configuration will not be reflected in monthly calendars which have already been saved. This information is only used when the calendar is first built. In other words, if you add some text in a calendar and save it, then any holidays you configure at a later date will not be built into that calendar. _____________________________________________________________________ 39 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ Start Screen Configuration __________________________ This screen allows you to select the first screen displayed when the program is loaded. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Appointment │ │ Alarm │ │ Monthly Calendar │ │ Yearly Calendar │ │->Split Screen Month/Appt. ┌───Key Assignments───┐│ │ │F1 Help ││ │ │F2 Select Screen ││ │ │F3 Save Selection ││ │ │ESC To Quit ││ │ └─────────────────────┘│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 19 - Start Screen Configuration The up and down arrow keys can be used to move the pointer (->) on the left through the list of screens. The currently selected screen is highlighted. The following keys can be used in this configuration menu. Up Arrow moves the pointer (->), on the left, up to the next selection. Down Arrow moves the pointer (->), on the left, down to the next selection. F1 brings up a help screen. F2 selects the initial screen. Move the pointer to the desired screen and press F2. This screen will then be highlighted. F3 saves the current selection to the configuration file. ESC exits the start screen configuration. _____________________________________________________________________ 40 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ Alarm Configuration ___________________ This screen allows the configuration of the pop-up alarm. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Alarm Configuration │ │ │ │General Alarm Parameters: │ │ Frequency (20 to 20,000 Hz) Duration (0 to 100 1/10 Sec) │ │ ┌───────────────────────────┌────────────────────────────┐│ │Tone 1:│ 700 │ 1 ││ │Pause: │ │ 1 ││ │Tone 2:│ 650 │ 1 ││ │ └───────────────────────────└────────────────────────────┘│ │Number of Tones: 10 │ │Snooze Duration (1-99 minutes): 5 │ │Color: ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ │ │ ││ │ │ ││ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘│ │ │ │Appointment Alarm Parameters: ┌── Alarm Config. ──┐│ │Default minutes before: 10 │Edit ││ │Default duration: 10 │Play Alarm ││ │ │Save ││ │ │Help ││ │ │Quit ││ │ └───────────────────┘│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 20 - Alarm Configuration Screen To make a selection from the pop-up menu, highlight it using the up and down arrow keys and press Enter or just type the field's bold character. The following options are available on the pop-up menu. Edit - Allows the editing of the alarm parameters. Press Tab to move to the next field in the parameter menu and Shift+Tab to move to the previous field. Press Esc to end editing and return to the pop-up menu. If you move into a field and change it and then press Esc, the changes will be discarded. To process the changes, press Tab and then press Esc. Play Alarm - plays the alarm as it will sound using the current alarm parameters. The alarm sounds for the given duration. It can be terminated before the end by pressing any key. Save - Saves the alarm parameters. Help - Brings up a help screen. Quit - Exits alarm configuration. _____________________________________________________________________ 41 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ The alarm consists of 2 tones with an intervening pause. The frequency values (1st and 4th fields in the parameter menu) can range between 20 to 20000 Hertz. Lower numbers produce a lower pitched sound. The duration of the tones (2nd and 5th fields) and intervening pause (3rd field) are input in tenths of a second. For example, a value of 10 represents 10 tenths of a second, or 1 second. The durations can vary from 0 to 100 (0 to 10 seconds). A value of zero for a tone means the tone will not play. A zero pause produces no pause. From 0 to 99 of the tone 1/pause/tone 2 sequences can be sounded for the alarm. A zero value produces no sound. The snooze duration field sets the number of minutes between when "Snooze" is selected to snooze an alarm and when the alarm will resound. This value can range from 1 to 99 minutes. The color bar sets the color of the pop-up alarm message. Use the left/right arrow keys to change the color selection and the up/down keys to switch between configuring the foreground and background color. The appointment alarm parameters set the initial values displayed in the "Number of minutes before:" and "Duration (minutes):" fields when an appointment alarm is set. Entering an invalid value in a field produces a beep and the field cannot be exited until a valid value is entered. _____________________________________________________________________ 42 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ TSR Configuration _________________ This screen allows the configuration of the TSR parameters. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │TSR Configuration │ │ │ │ │ │Hot-key:ALT+A │ │ │ │Swap order │ │ First:XMS │ │ Second:EMS │ │ Third:DISK │ │ │ │Swap Path:C:\ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── TSR Config. ──┐ │ │ │Edit │ │ │ │Save │ │ │ │Help │ │ │ │Quit │ │ │ └─────────────────┘ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 21 - TSR Configuration Screen To make a selection from the pop-up menu, highlight it using the up and down arrow keys and press Enter or just type the field's bold character. The following options are available on the pop-up menu. Edit - Allows the editing of the TSR parameters. Press Tab to move to the next field in the parameter menu and Shift+Tab to move to the previous field. Press Esc to end editing and return to the pop-up menu. If you move into a field and change it and then press Esc, the changes will be discarded. To process the changes press Tab and then press Esc. Save - Saves the TSR parameters. Help - Brings up a help screen. Quit - Exits the TSR configuration. To set the hot-key, press the key or keys you wish to use as the hot-key, while in the hot-key field. The keys you pressed will then be displayed in the field. When the program is loaded as a TSR it swaps as much of itself as it can out of conventional memory. This is done to reduce the amount of memory it consumes when run as a TSR. The program can _____________________________________________________________________ 43 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ swap to disk, EMS memory or XMS memory. The "Swap order" parameters determine the order in which the program tries to swap. In the screen above, the program would first try to swap to XMS. If insufficient XMS memory is available, it tries to swap to EMS memory. If it cannot swap to EMS, it tries to swap to disk. Press the space bar to toggle the selection. If "NONE" is selected for one of the fields, it is skipped. For example, if the fields are set as follows. First:XMS Second:DISK Third:NONE The program will try to swap to XMS first and then DISK. EMS memory will not be used. The swap path determines where the program will swap to, if the disk is used for swapping. You may enter any path you desire in this field. The program will swap to a file named APCAL001.SWP in the directory specified. NOTE - XMS version 2.0 or higher is required for XMS swapping. EMS version 3.2 or higher is required for EMS swapping. _____________________________________________________________________ 44 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ Time Configuration _________________ This screen allows the configuration of the time and date display. This allows the program to be configured for use in countries with different time and date formats. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Time / Date Configuration │ │ │ │ TIME PARAMETERS │ │ │ │ Format: 12 Hour │ │ AM Text: am │ │ PM Text: pm │ │ Separator:: │ │ │ │ DATE PARAMETERS │ │ │ │ Order: Month Day Year │ │ Separator:/ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── Time/Date Config. ──┐ │ │ │Edit │ │ │ │Save │ │ │ │Help │ │ │ │Quit │ │ │ └───────────────────────┘ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 22 - Time / Date Configuration Screen To make a selection from the pop-up menu, highlight it using the up and down arrow keys and press Enter or just type the field's bold character. The following options are available on the pop-up menu. Edit - Allows the editing of the parameters. Press Tab to move to the next field in the parameter menu and Shift+Tab to move to the previous field. Press Esc to end editing and return to the pop-up menu. If you move into a field and change it and then press Esc, the changes will be discarded. To process the changes, press Tab and then press Esc. Save - Saves the Time/Date parameters. Help - Brings up a help screen. Quit - Exits the Time/Date configuration. Times can be displayed in 12 hour or 24 hour (military) format. Press the space bar in the "Format:" field to toggle between the two. The text used for "AM" and "PM" (when in 12 hour mode) can be set in the next two fields. Simply type in the desired text. The _____________________________________________________________________ 45 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ separator between the hours and minutes can also be set. Type in the desired separator. The time/date clock, in the upper right of the display, is updated as the parameters are changed. This allows you to see the effect of the changes. The order of the day, month and year, in dates, can also be configured. Press the space bar in one of the date order fields to toggle between month, day and year. The day, month and year are displayed in the order you select. For example, in the figure above, the dates will be displayed as "month/day/year". If the following order is selected. Order: Day Month Year The dates will display as "day/month/year". The separator between the day, month and year can also be set. Simply type in the desired separator in the date separator field. The time/date clock, in the upper right of the display, is updated as the parameters are changed. This allows you to see the effect of the changes. IMPORTANT: Changes to the time format will not be reflected in appointment files which have already been saved. _____________________________________________________________________ 46 CONFIGURATION _____________________________________________________________________ Auto Save Configuration _______________________ This screen allows the configuration of the auto save feature. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ Auto Save: On │ │ │ │ Press the space bar to toggle the selection and Enter to select.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ FIGURE 23 - Auto Save Configuration Screen Pressing the space bar will toggle the selection between "On" and "Off." Press Enter to save the setting or press Escape to discard any changes made. When auto save is on, the appointment, alarm and monthly calendar screens are automatically saved whenever you exit the program or switch to another screen. When auto save if off, you will be prompted when you try to exit one of these screens if changes have been made and not saved. You can then either exit without saving them or not exit and then save the changes. _____________________________________________________________________ 47 KEY REFERENCE _____________________________________________________________________ Appointment Editing ___________________ The following keys can be used in the appointment edit screen. Some of these can also be selected from the pull-down menu. Insert toggles insert mode on and off. Delete deletes the character at the current cursor position. Home moves to the beginning of the appointment line. End moves to the end of the appointment line. Backspace moves the cursor left and deletes the character at that position. Enter moves to the beginning of the next line. F1 brings up the help screen. F3 switches to the alarm screen. F4 switches to the monthly calendar screen. F5 switches to the yearly calendar screen. F6,TAB switches to the split screen month/appointment display. F9 is used to toggle editing of the time fields. Alt activates the pull-down menu. Pressing Alt plus one of the bold characters in the top pull-down line activates that pull-down menu. Alt+C copies the current line to a scratch buffer. Alt+M copies the current line to scratch and then erases it. Alt+I overwrites the current line with the contents of the scratch buffer. Alt+D deletes the characters from the cursor position to the end of the line. Alt+L deletes all characters in the current line. Alt+A brings up the alarm parameter menu for the appointment at the current cursor position. Alarms ______ The following keys can be used in the alarm screen. Some of these can also be selected from the pull-down menu. F1 brings up the help screen. F2 switches to the appointment screen. F4 switches to the monthly calendar screen. F5 switches to the yearly calendar screen. F6 switches to the split screen month/appointment display. Alt activates the pull-down menu. Pressing Alt plus one of the bold characters in the top pull-down line activates that pull-down menu. Alt+A adds another alarm. Alt+D deletes the currently selected alarm. Alt+M modifies the currently selected alarm. _____________________________________________________________________ 48 KEY REFERENCE _____________________________________________________________________ Monthly Calendar ________________ The following keys can be used in the calendar edit screen. Some of these can also be selected from the pull-down menu. Insert toggles insert mode on and off. Delete deletes the character at the current cursor position. Home moves to the beginning of the current day block line. End moves to the end of the current day block line. Backspace moves the cursor left and deletes the character at that position. Enter moves to the beginning of the next line in the day block. Tab highlights the next day in the calendar. Shift+Tab highlights the previous day in the calendar. F1 brings up the help screen. F2 switches to the appointment screen. F3 switches to the alarm screen. F5 switches to the yearly calendar screen. F6 switches to the split screen month/appointment display. Alt activates the pull-down menu. Pressing Alt plus one of the bold characters in the top pull-down line activates that pull-down menu. Ctrl+Right brings up the next monthly calendar. Ctrl+Left brings up the previous monthly calendar. Ctrl+Home returns to the actual date. Yearly Calendar _______________ The following keys can be used in the yearly calendar screen. Some of these can also be selected from the pull-down menu. Tab highlights the next monthly calendar. Shift+Tab highlights the previous monthly calendar. F1 brings up the help screen. F2 switches to the appointment screen. F3 switches to the alarm screen. F4 switches to the monthly calendar screen. F6 switches to the split screen month/appointment display. Alt activates the pull-down menu. Pressing Alt plus one of the bold characters in the top pull-down line activates that pull-down menu. Ctrl+Home returns to the actual date. _____________________________________________________________________ 49 KEY REFERENCE _____________________________________________________________________ Month/Appointment Screen ________________________ The following keys can be used in the month/appt screen. Some of these can also be selected from the pull-down menu. arrow keys are used to highlight different days in the calendar. F1 brings up the help screen. F2,TAB switches to the appointment screen. F3 switches to the alarm screen. F4 switches to the monthly calendar screen. F5 switches to the yearly calendar screen. F7 searches for text, in appointment files, after the current date. Shift+F7 searches for text, in appointment files, before the current date. Alt activates the pull-down menu. Pressing Alt plus one of the bold characters in the top pull-down line activates that pull-down menu. Ctrl+Right scrolls the month display one month ahead. Ctrl+Left scrolls the month display one month back. Ctrl+Home returns to current date. _____________________________________________________________________ 50 FILE DESCRIPTIONS _____________________________________________________________________ File Maintenance / Description ______________________________ The following files are created by the program. APCAL.CFG APCAL configuration parameters. This file is created when a new configuration is saved. CALmm.yy is used to save a calendar. CALmm-yy.prn is used when you print a calendar to a file. APPmm-dd.yy is used to save an appointment schedule. APPmm-dd.prn is used when you print an appointment schedule to a file. ALRmm-dd.yy is used to store appointment and regular alarms. APCAL001.SWP Program swap file. This file is created in the directory specified in the TSR configuration if the disk is used to swap the TSR in and out. APCAL002.SWP Screen save file. This file is created only if the disk is used to save the screen when the TSR is swapped in and out. In the file names, above, mm is the month, dd the day and yy the year. This system should contain the following files. APCAL.EXE main program. APAPPT.TPL appointment template. APAPPT24.TPL appointment template used if 24 hour times are configured. APFX.DAT EPSON FX 80 printer configuration. APRX.DAT EPSON RX 80 printer configuration. APSPEC.DAY holiday configuration. APPRN.CFG printer configuration parameters. APCAL.HLP help file. APSETUP.EXE Setup program. _____________________________________________________________________ 51 PROBLEM RESOLUTION _____________________________________________________________________ WHY DON'T THE ALARMS WORK? 1. Make sure you are loading APCAL as a TSR. Alarms will not display when you are in other programs unless APCAL is loaded as a TSR. See the section "Executing APCAL". 2. The alarm was entered but not saved. The alarms are not set until the appointment or alarm file is saved. 3. The DOS time and date must be set properly for the alarm to work. See the TIME and DATE commands in your DOS manual. WHY HAVE MY SAVED APPOINTMENT/CALENDAR FILES DISAPPEARED? WHY IS MY CONFIGURATION CHANGED? 1. Make sure you are executing APCAL from the same directory every time (or setting the APCAL environment variable in DOS 2.x). 2. Make sure the associated files have not been deleted or corrupted (APPmm-dd.yy, CALmm.yy, APCAL.CFG, APSPEC.DAY, APAPPT.TPL, etc.). 3. You have not updated your appointment/calendar files from a previous version. See the section "Upgrading From a Previous Version." WHY DO THE GRAPHICS LINE CHARACTERS PRINT INCORRECTLY? 1. Make sure you have the proper printer configuration set. If your printer is not listed in the configuration, try the "Standard Graphic Printer" option. If the graphic line characters do not print correctly using this configuration, use the "Standard Non-Graphic Printer" option. WHY WON'T THE PROGRAM PRINT? 1. Make sure your printer is on and on line. 2. Make sure the correct device is set in the printer configuration. See the "Printer Configuration" section. 3. You must be in the appointment edit screen or the monthly calendar screen to print. The currently displayed appointment schedule or monthly calendar is printed. You cannot print the month/appt. or year screens. WHY DOES MY COMPUTER LOCK UP WHEN APCAL IS LOADED AS A TSR? 1. APCAL must be the last TSR loaded in your system. If it is not, the computer may lock up. 2. There is a conflict between the APCAL TSR and some other TSR you are loading. Remove one of the TSR's. 3. If you are swapping the program to disk, make sure you have sufficient disk space. 4. If you are swapping to XMS or EMS, make sure enough is available. HOW DO I EXIT THE PROGRAM? 1. Press ALT+X (or possibly ESC, then ALT+X, if you are currently in a sub-menu). _____________________________________________________________________ 52 PROBLEM RESOLUTION _____________________________________________________________________ WHY IS THE CURRENT DAY NOT HIGHLIGHTED ON THE SPLIT MONTH/APPOINTMENT SCREEN ON MY LAPTOP/PORTABLE? WHY DO THINGS SEEM TO BE MISSING OR HARD TO READ ON MY MONOCHROME SYSTEM? 1. Run the program with the "/m" switch to force it to use the monochrome display attributes. See the section "Executing APCAL." WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN I GET THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE: " Unable to unload. Program not last one in memory." 1. You cannot pop up APCAL from within another program and unload it. You must pop it up from a DOS prompt. 2. You have loaded another TSR after APCAL and that TSR must be unloaded before APCAL can be unloaded. _____________________________________________________________________ 53 INDEX _____________________________________________________________________ ----- A ----- alarm 4-6, 16-19, 21, 25-28, 41-42, 47-48, 51-52 ALRmm-dd.yy 51 anniversaries 12 APAPPT.TPL 51 APCAL environment variable 4-5, 7, 16 APFX.DAT 51 APPmm-dd.yy 51 appointment 4-5, 10-11, 14-19, 22-26, 33-34, 40-42, 46-48, 51-52 APPRN.CFG 51 APRX.DAT 51 APSETUP.EXE 51 APSPEC.DAY 51 APUPDAT.EXE 4 AUTOEXEC.BAT 6-7 auto save 5, 19, 25, 28, 47 ----- B ----- birthday 12-15 boot alarms 5, 27-28 ----- C ----- calendar (see monthly or yearly calendar). CALmm.yy 51 .CFG 51 clock 9, 45-46 colors 19, 32-33 command line arguments 20-21 CompuServe 2 configure 5, 8-13, 19, 31-47 Conventions 3 ----- D ----- .DAT 51 date display formats 45-46 DOS 3, 7 DOS Shell 16-17 ----- E ----- EMS 21, 43-44 environment variable 4-5, 7, 16 EPSON 35, 51 escape character 36-37 escape sequences 35-38 .EXE 51 Executing APCAL 20-21 exit from a DOS shell 17 exiting APCAL 17 _____________________________________________________________________ 54 INDEX _____________________________________________________________________ ----- F ----- file descriptions 51 Floppy drive installation 6 frequency of alarms 41-42 FX 80 35, 51 ----- G ----- graphic line characters 34-37, 52 graphics mode 11 ----- H ----- Hertz 41-42 .HLP 51 holiday 5, 12-15, 19, 38-39, 51 ----- I ----- installation 6-7 interrupts 21 ----- K ----- key reference 48-50 ----- L ----- LAPTOP 53 loading APCAL 20-21 ----- M ----- memory 17, 20-21, 43-44, 53 Monochrome 5, 20, 53 monthly calendar 4-5, 12-19, 29-30, 38-40, 49, 51 mouse 21 ----- N ----- network 21 ----- O ----- options 17-18 _____________________________________________________________________ 55 INDEX _____________________________________________________________________ ----- P ----- port 11 portable 53 print 11, 14-17, 19, 34-38, 51-52 .PRN 51 pull-down menu 16-19 ----- R ----- ram 3 reminder 5 Requirements 3 Resident 16-17, 20-21 RX 80 35, 51 ----- S ----- schedule 10, 14-15, 17, 22-26, 33-34, 51 scratch buffer 15, 25, 48 search 15, 18, 22-23, 50 setup 6-7, 21, 51 shell 16-17 snooze 5, 26, 28, 41-42 start screen 5, 19, 40 support 2 swap 21, 43-44, 51 .SWP 44, 51 syntax 20 system requirements 3 ----- T ----- Template 10-11, 15, 19, 24, 33-34, 51 Time display formats 45-46 Tones 41-42 .TPL 51 TSR 5-7, 17, 19-21, 43-44, 51-53 ----- U ----- Unload 16-17, 20-21, 53 updating files 4 ----- X ----- xms 21, 43-44 ----- Y ----- yearly calendar 18, 31, 40, 49 _____________________________________________________________________ 56