Master of Ceremonies (MoC) is an application for controlling events which need to run to a time schedule. An event is first planned and then run. When the schedule is running, MoC prompts with up to two lines of text about the current time slot and the next time slot and displays a count-down timer of minutes left. MoC also shows a continuous forecast of the ending time of the event and, if necessary, you can reschedule the remaining time slots to save the day.
For familiarisation, open the example file by highlighting it on the system screen and press [Enter].
The MoC screen has three wide, stacked windows plus an additional small window in the top left corner.
The middle and bottom windows show the current and next slots. You can increase the size of these windows by changing the status window using Control-Menu. You can change the size of the font used for the second and subsequent lines using Psion-Z and Psion-Shift-Z.
The top window is the status window which is divided into three panes. These show the time interval for the whole schedule, the time interval for the current slot and the status of the current schedule run.
The small window shows the duration of the current slot in minutes, or, in run mode, a count-down timer of minutes remaining for the current slot. This window will be blank if the current slot is a heading.
Commands on the menu can also be accessed using a shortcut key identified on the menu while holding down the PSION key. Use the "Exit" option on the "Special" menu to stop MoC.
MoC maintains a schedule file open at all times. By default, files are stored in M:\MOC and will then appear below the MoC icon on the system screen. If MoC is started without specifying a file, an empty one is created called MOC. The easiest way of loading a file is to highlight it on the system screen and press [Enter]. The current file may also be changed while MoC is active using the "Open schedule" option on the "File" menu.
You can search for the text in items or for the item at a particular time. The commands are on the "Search" menu. Note that the "Find" command does not necessarily find multiple matching items in run order, but "Find" followed by repeated "Find next" will find all items once only.
MoC supports three ways of fixing a schedule in time:
- Relative (the default). When the schedule is not running, times are relative hours and minutes. Whenever the schedule is started, it is assumed to have started on time and times are then actual times.
- Start Time. You can fix a planned start time and then all times are actual times. When the schedule is run, any difference from the planned start time is recorded as an early or late start.
- End Time. You fix a planned end time and MoC calculates the start time. When you add or change slots, the start time moves unless the schedule is already running, which case is the same as for a fixed start time.
To change the time options use the "Set times" option on the "Special" menu. The settings are stored in the schedule file.
MoC has three types of warnings all of which are initially disabled. Warning options are selected from the "Set warnings" option on the "Special" menu.
The "Time-up" warning occurs when the countdown timer reaches zero.
The "Overtime" warning occurs every minute when the countdown timer is negative.
The "Advance" warning occurs a preselected number of minutes before the countdown timer reaches zero.
Audible warnings can be set for any of the warning types and these can be either beeps or sound files recorded using the Recorder application.
Visual warnings can be set for the "Advance" and "Overtime" warnings.
The "Overtime" audible warning can be made to sound continuously. Simply record a sound file of longer than one minute duration (use repeats to save memory). This will be triggered as soon as any "Time-up" warning completes and then retriggered every minute.
Note that sound files must have the extension ".WVE" and be located in the "\WVE\" directory of the internal, A or B drive.
The warning options are saved in the schedule file.
To run a schedule, move to the first item (or the position where you want to start) and press [Enter]. MoC steps over any headings and begins the run at the next slot.
Press the [Space] key when you're ready to move on to the next slot.
Pressing any movement key changes MoC back to view mode, but the schedule is still running and you can switch back to run mode by pressing [Enter]
again. You can tell that the schedule is running by a shadow on the information window and that you are in run mode by a shadow on the minutes window.
When the schedule is running, but in view mode, the current slot and all completed slots have a shadow, indicating that they cannot be changed.
To switch off until the next warning occurs, press the [1] key or take the "Off until" option on the "Special" menu.
To stop a running schedule before the last item, use the "Halt" option on the "Special" menu.
You can create a log file of a schedule run. This will be the same as the original schedule except that the duration of each time slot will be the actual time taken during the run. The log can be used as a record of the event, or as a schedule file for the next time you run the event.
You can create the log at any time prior to starting the run. Take the "Set logging" option on the "Special" menu. You can choose whether or not the headings are copied into the log file.
The log is closed when MoC is exited, another schedule is opened or manually by taking the "Set logging" option again.
You can create a schedule from scratch, or you can create a new schedule using an existing one as a template. If using a template, first start MoC with the template schedule. Otherwise you can use the "New file" option on the system "File" menu to create an empty schedule. The "New schedule" option on the MoC "File" menu can be used to create a new file from within MoC and must be used if a template is required. The template feature is useful if you use the same schedule repeatedly, but are likely to have to make changes "on the day".
To populate a new schedule or add to an existing one use the "Enter" option on the "Change" menu. Enter text on the two lines of the entry window. You can enter a semi-colon in the second line which causes the line to split in two at that point. This split will only occur at the two smaller font settings. Press [Enter] to complete the text entry and bring up the time dialogue. Press [Space] to make a heading, or set a duration or end time and press [Enter]. Press [Esc] when you have entered the last item.
When the schedule is running, you can still add new items after the running slot.
Use the "Update" option on the "Change" menu to change the current time slot or heading. For time slots, you get a chance to change the duration or end time after editing the text.
When the schedule is running, you can still change slots or headings which are in the future.
When changing a schedule, it is often useful to work with more than one item at a time. For example, you may wish to move a heading and all the time slots under the heading to a new location.
First you define the group and then you perform the operation as for a single item. To define the group, move to the first item, hold the shift key down and then move to the last item. The items in the group are highlighted and you can use the (unshifted) movement keys to check the extent of the group. An operation only applies to the group if one of the items in the group is current. When the schedule is running, you can only mark slots in the future. The "Delete", "Copy" and "Save as" commands all work with marked blocks.
Use the "Delete items" option on the "Edit" menu to delete the current item or a marked group. This action is not confirmed, but may be reversed using the "Insert items" option. To move an item or marked group delete, move to a new location and take the "Insert items" option.
An item or group of items can be copied to another location by using the "Copy items" command on the "Edit" menu to copy the items to the clipboard and then moving to the location for the copy and taking the "Insert items" option.
Use the "Save as" option on the "File" menu to save a copy of either the whole schedule or a marked group to another file. The "Type" control in the dialogue specifies a MOC file by default. See PRINTING and TRANSFERRING DATA for more details of the other options.
MoC does not support printing directly. To print, produce a text file, load it into Word and print using Word. This has the advantage of allowing the schedule to be formatted flexibly for printing.
To produce a text file, use the "Save as" option on the "File" menu and change the "Type" control to "WRD". By default, the file goes in the \WRD directory and will appear on the Word file list.
MoC can write and read two types of plain text files. These can be used to transfer items to and from other applications or between two MoC schedules.
To transfer items between two MoC schedules, open the source, select the items to be transferred (otherwise the whole file is exported) and take the "Save as" option from the "File" menu. Select the "TAB" type. Open the destination and position to the item before the insert location. Select the "Merge in" option and pick the file saved above.
You can also use the "CSV" type, but "TAB" is more compact. "CSV" is useful for exchanging date with other application.
See the Technical Notes file for details of the file formats for transferring between applications.
There is a maximum of 98 items per schedule and a schedule cannot be more than 24 Hours in total duration. To overcome either restriction, use more than one schedule file for the event (morning/afternoon; day 1/day 2 etc.).
Because of the way MoC stores schedules for maximum efficiency on Flash SSDs, a schedule may become "congested" if you do a lot of editing.
In particular, if you add a lot of items manually at the same location in the middle of the schedule it will quickly become congested. A better approach is to add the new items at the end of the file, select them as a block, delete them and insert them at the required position.
A schedule can be de-congested by the following process: Take the "New" option on the "File" menu, allocate a new name and set "Use template" to "Yes". After doing a bit more editing, use the procedure again to go back to the original schedule name.
Whenever you copy a schedule file within MoC either by using the "Save as" option or the "New file" option with a template, the new file is sorted, compressed and de-congested for maximum efficiency and minimum size.
(.txt)