What's new in this version

Web layers

This option allows you to connect to any iCal calendar .ICS file on the web as long as its URL address is direct (no redirections). Web layers are refreshed on 60 minutes cycles so if new version of the iCal file is posted you will automatically get all changes. This also means that you can easily do the following. Export calendar data from the program to a .ICS file, put that file on your web site and then connect to it from some other location. To make the connection go to Layers dialog, click Add web layer, enter some name and paste the URL address of the .ICS file. Please note that in order to connect to a web layer Active Desktop Calendar has to use your Internet connection.

What was new in version 6.3

Printing contacts

New feature for printing contacts can either print a single contact with all its details or all contacts in two preformatted templates depending on the chosen view.To print all details for a single contact simply go to Contacts view, right click on a contact you want to print and choose Print contact option from the context menu. On the other hand when you need a printout of all contacts you will use Print All Contacts option from the program's Data menu. By setting a Contacts view style (cards or list) you also set the corresponding printout template.

What was new in version 6.2

Importing contacts

You will find Import Contacts option in the program's Data menu. Supported external data sources for contacts are Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Address Book. There is also a possibility to import/export contacts to an XML file. Main purpose of that option is to make a backup file or transfer contacts to another installation of the program. 

Searching through contacts

Find contact option is added to the Contacts menu or you can simply press Ctrl-F while in Contacts View. The case insensitive search goes through all contact fields looking for text entered in the search box. After finding the first contact you can continue searching with Find Next option also available in the Contacts menu or by pressing F3 on the keyboard.

What was new in version 6.1

Integration with Google calendar

This new feature allows the program to read appointments directly from your private and other public Google Calendars and show them on the desktop together with information from other data layers you have. Google Calendar data are refreshed on 60 minutes cycles. To connect to some Google Calendar go to Layers dialog, click Add Google layer, enter some name and paste ICAL address for that calendar. Please note that in order to connect to your Google Calendar data Active Desktop Calendar has to use your Internet connection.

What was new in version 6.0

Contacts (address book)

This new feature, built-in address book, allows you to maintain detailed information about all your contacts, business and personal alike. To use the address book simply click on Contacts icon in the shortcuts bar on the left side of the program's main workspace window, then click NEW in the contacts navigation toolbar in the top-right corner. Two different views are available for contacts workspace, card view (default) and list view. You can customize the card view through Settings/Contacts dialog.

What was new in version 5.99b

iCal export/import

You can now import and export calendar data in iCal format through .ICS files. Please note that on importing data the program will not recalculate times available in an ICS file if your time zone is not the same as time zone in the ICS file; on exporting your time zone information is not written to exported ICS file. 

What was new in version 5.99a

Automatic age calculation

If you set up a birthday or an anniversary or any other note with yearly recurrence for which you would like to have the age calculated automatically there is an easy way to do that now. Just add a special tag in the note's subject or body text to set the base year and the program will calculate age for you. For example, if you set a note like this: "Mary's birthday (%y1969% years old)", what you will see on your desktop in year 2006 is "Mary's birthday (37 years old)". So, the tag to use for age calculation is %yYYYY% where YYYY represents four digits of the base year.

What was new in version 5.99

Notes view tooltips

When working in Notes View, if you keep a mouse pointer over a note for a short while, a tooltip will pop-up to show you complete subject/text of the note so you don't have to open it just for that. The option is enabled by default. If you want to disable it go to the View menu or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+W.

What was new in version 5.95

Outlook layer options

Two new options give you better control over Outlook layer. One allows you to choose between showing 1, 2, 3 or 4 weeks of appointments from Outlook and the other is there to control data refresh interval with 1, 5 or 15 minutes options. You will find both options on the Settings - Notes/Tasks Options dialog.

Some bugs fixed and Save & New button added to note/alarm dialog

With Save & New button added to dialog for editing note/alarm you can add successive appointments to the calendar easier than before.

What was new in version 5.9

Playing continuous alarm sound

With this option activated the alarm sound will keep playing until you click on some action button in the alarm window. To activate the option right click on the program's date icon in the taskbar, choose Settings, select Alarm Options, enable "Play continuous alarm sound" checkbox and click Apply.

What was new in version 5.8

Desktop orientation change detection for Tablet PCs

If Active Desktop Calendar is installed on a Tablet PC computer it will detect desktop orientation automatically and keep separate Calendar Position and Notes/Tasks Bar Size & Position parameters for portrait and landscape so you only have to set them once. On other computers this indicator is greyed out and orientation information displayed is "Not available".

What was new in version 5.7

World Clock Screen Saver

The screen saver that comes with Active Desktop Calendar is now replaced with new and hopefully more attractive and useful world clock version. This screen saver will show your computer's system time on the main clock and five major world time zones (Los Angeles, New York, London, Dubai and Tokyo) on smaller clocks around it. To try and install the screen saver just go to Settings - Screen Saver dialog in the program.

What was new in version 5.6

Integration with Outlook

This new feature allows the program to read appointments and tasks directly from Outlook and show them on the desktop together with information from other data layers you have. Outlook's data are refreshed on one minute cycles. To enable the option go to Layers dialog and click Add Outlook layer. You will get all tasks and next seven days of appointments from Outlook's default calendar visible both in Active Desktop Calendar and on the desktop.

What was new in version 5.5

Support for dual-monitor systems

The program now detects dual-monitor systems by itself and accommodates its appearance automatically. You only have to position both screens so they are leveled at the top. Any other set up will cause the program's interactive desktop feature to not work correctly.

NOTE: If your dual-monitor system does not work entirely through Windows and relies on video drivers for that functionality, then the program will most likely be confused. In that case you should enable new option in Settings - Calendar Appearance - Dual Monitor to explicitly tell the program that you have a dual-monitor system. This solution should work fine for majority of dual-monitor configurations, but there is no guarantee it will work in all cases.

What was new in version 5.4

Week numbers displayed in Notes View

When Show week numbers option is enabled in Settings / Calendar Marking the program will show week numbers on the left side of a calendar on both the desktop and the Notes View.

Customizing colors in Notes View

Notes View color scheme is now fully customizable. You can change background and foreground colors for all components that form the calendar in Notes View. To access these options just click on a new button in the title bar of the calendar in Notes View.

What was new in version 5.3

Distance from now showed on notes/tasks bar

When this option is enabled date headers on notes/tasks bar on the desktop will show distance between that date and today's date in days giving you better sense of how much time is left until some note/appointment.

Showing today/all dates on notes/tasks bar regardless of note existence

By default, dates without notes/appointments are not displayed on notes/tasks bar on the desktop. With this pair of new options you can tell the program to always show today's date on top of the notes/tasks bar or to show all dates without skipping even when there are no notes/appointments.

What was new in version 5.2

Additional desktop view options for notes/appointments

Four new "Desktop view" options for notes/appointments were added: on its date only, 1-day before, 3-days before or week before. They allow you to control when a note/appointment will start appearing on the desktop by overriding the general setting "Display notes for next XX days". For example, if today is April 19th, general setting is to display notes for next 30 days, you have a note on April 27th and its desktop view is set to 1-day before, then that note will not appear on the desktop until April 26th despite the fact that it falls within next 30 days. This way you can optimize desktop space by postponing appearance of notes/appointments that are not so important to start appearing on the desktop long before their dates.

What was new in version 5.1

Printing monthly calendar

If you want to have your appointments on paper, printed in a monthly view, this new option is the way to go. The month that is printed is the one that is currently displayed in the program's Notes View. Print button on the program's toolbar and Ctrl-P keyboard shortcut are re-assigned to this new option and you can still access the old print notes/tasks as a list option from the Data menu.

What was new in version 5.0

Notes upgraded to real appointments

In a long-anticipated development calendar notes evolved into real appointments with start and end times. That means a number of changes had to be made to the Note/Alarm dialog. For example you will notice that the option for spanning notes is gone. Spanning is now done by setting start and end time to different dates. Such notes are called multi-day notes and appear on each date in the interval. There are also all-day notes and appointment notes.

Subject field added to notes

Subject is a new field that you can use with notes and alarms. If you are upgrading from an older version of the program all existing notes will be without subject. That however will not affect their desktop view because when there is no subject for a note the program automatically takes its body text for desktop view.

12h/24h time format option

Those of you who did not like working with the international 24h time format in the program, now have the chance to switch to 12h AM/PM format. The option is available on Settings - General dialog.

What was new in version 4.8

Printing done tasks

When printing the list of tasks you can now decide if you also want to print tasks that are marked as done. If the option is enabled those tasks will be included and printed out with strikethrough effect just like they are displayed on the desktop.

What was new in version 4.7

Mark dates in the past

By default, when Mark Dates With Notes option is enabled, the program marks only such dates in the future plus today. You can now tell the program to mark past dates as well.

Show extra dates in text calendar

This option allows you to enable additional dates to fill free space in text calendars before the first and after the last date. The option is not available for icon calendars.

What was new in version 4.6

Support for JPG wallpapers

Active Desktop Calendar now works both with .BMP and .JPG wallpaper pictures on all versions of Windows.

What was new in version 4.5

Modified snooze option for alarms

When an alarm dialog shows up and you snooze it by entering new snooze time the program will now remember that new time and offer it as default for that note when its snoozed alarm dialog shows up again.

What was new in version 4.4

Desktop note text size

If some of your notes have long text they will take a lot of space on the desktop and could prevent other notes from being displayed. This new option allows you to limit the number of characters for notes displayed on the desktop so the available space is used efficiently.

What was new in version 4.3

Locked Computer (Windows 2000/XP only)

When this option is enabled Active Desktop Calendar will automatically remove data from the desktop when you lock the computer and bring them back when you unlock it. This option works only on Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

What was new in version 4.2

Additional Desktop Calendar Type & Style

We have added one more calendar type with 3 months that displays the current month plus next two months. You can also choose the orientation, horizontal or vertical, for 2 months calendar.

Notes spacing

If you have a lot of notes on your desktop you can use this new option to squeeze in even more notes by reducing the spacing between them.

Done tasks removed from the desktop

With "do not show on desktop" option enabled the program will automatically remove a task from the desktop when you set it as Done. Of course, the task will remain in the list until you delete it by yourself.

Notes view improvements

Today's cell is now highlighted with light-blue and currently selected cell (if not the same as today's) with light-yellow. You can use keyboard arrows for navigation, plus Home key to jump directly to today's date, Page Up/Down to go to previous/next month and Enter to open Editing Note dialog. Copying notes works both from the right click context menu and through standard keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V). Basically, you can paste any text you have on the clipboard and the program will automatically create a note for it.

What was new in version 4.1

CSV export/import

You can now export and import data in comma separated values .CSV (Windows) format. When importing from a CSV file please note that it has to be formatted in the same way as a CSV file exported from the program. That means it has to have the leading row with data field names in the same order. Export a CSV file to check how exactly it should look like. Also, dates in CSV file to import have to be written in the same format as in an exported file on the same computer because date format depends on the regional settings.

Range of reccurence

This feature allows you to limit the number of occurrences for a recurrence pattern. You can do that in two ways. One is to set the exact number of occurrences you want and the other one is to set the date after which there should be no more occurrences.

What was new in version 4.0

Calendar data layers

Prior versions of the program stored all calendar data in a single file so there was no way to separate them on any account. For example public holidays, personal and business notes all went to the same place. This new version brings you the opportunity to have your notes and tasks categorized in separate data layers. Layers are automatically blended on the desktop in a familiar single view. Of course you can enable/disable and import/export your data layers easily, but for many of you the best thing about data layers is described in the next point. Read further to learn about data sharing on a local network.

Share calendar data on a local network

Suppose you want to share some of your calendar data on a local network. Nothing easier with this new version of the program. You will create a separate data layer for that purpose, relocate its data file to some shared folder and tell your colleages where they can find it. Then they just have to connect to that file and your shared data will immediately appear on their desktops. Sharing works for all types of calendar data (notes, tasks and alarms).

What was new in version 3.2

Printing notes and tasks

The option for printing calendar data is finally here. Notes and tasks are always printed on separate sheets so you can choose whether you want to print only tasks, only notes or both. There is also a special set of options to choose date range for printing notes.

Desktop Pictures - improvements

New option added to desktop pictures allows you to scale down a picture so you do not have to use other programs to resize large pictures that you want to put on your desktop. We also added a preview thumbnail of the selected image so you do not have to rely just on file names in the list. Finally, desktop pictures proved to be quite popular so we made them a shortcut for quick access from the Notes/Tasks View.

What was new in version 3.1

Desktop Pictures

This option allows you to add some of your pictures to the desktop on top of the background picture you may already have. It can be your company logo, some personal picture or anything else you like. You can have more than one picture displayed this way. Supported picture file formats are .BMP and .JPG.

What was new in version 3.0

User interface

Program's user interface is brand new. We have re-written large parts of code to make it work more efficient and easier to use. It is based on many comments we got from faithful program users so we hope you will find it satisfactory.

Interactive desktop

We moved away from Windows's active desktop and made our own system that should work everywhere.

Three months calendar on the desktop

This was one of the most wanted options. Previous versions of the program displayed only current month on the desktop. From now on you can have one (current), two (current and next) or three (previous, current and next) months displayed on the desktop.

Alarms

It is now possible to attach an alarm to a note, or to have stand alone recurring alarms. Alarms are also included in the export function so you can easily have full backup of your calendar data.

Recurrence patterns

Recurrence patterns are extended to offer options similar to those available in Outlook for example.

What was new in version 2.9

Hide calendar data option

This option allows you to remove Active Desktop Calendar's data from desktop if necessary without exiting the program. The option named "Hide Data" is listed in the program's system tray menu. When it is enabled program does not display any data (notes, tasks, calendar) on the desktop.

What was new in version 2.8

Multiuser support

Multiuser support allows each user on a single computer installation to have its own calendar data set (notes, tasks, alarms) along with one common data set that is shared with all other users. This option is useful even on single user computers because you can maintain two separate data sets, for example one private and the other for business. Pay attention to the title bar of program dialogs and you will see current user and data set info.

What was new in version 2.7

Invisible/Private notes (desktop view)

With this new option you can control how individual notes are displayed in notes/tasks list on your desktop. Default view for each new note is Normal (Visible). If you set a note to be Private then the generic text "(private)" will be displayed on the desktop in place of the original note text. This will prevent those who just pass by your computer screen to read that note and you will still have a visual reminder of its existence. However, if you set a note to be Invisible then it will not be displayed at all in notes/tasks list on your desktop.

Editing tasks improved

Two new settings are available regarding task list management. First, you can choose position for a new task: program can place it either on the top or at the bottom of the task list. Second, you can select program behaviour when some task is marked as Done: its position on the task list could remain the same or it could be automatically moved to the bottom of the task list. Additionally, Edit Tasks dialog got keyboard shortcuts, standard multiselect options and two new commands: Move Top and Move Bottom.

What was new in version 2.6

Notes/Tasks bar size & position control improved

We are introducing a number of improvements in defining size & position of Notes/Tasks bar. Now you can define notes/tasks bar width with more precision as a percentage of full screen width. Division of space between Notes and Tasks is also given as percentage. Three new options are available. Blank header and footer options allow Notes/Tasks bar to be squeezed vertically so there is free space left above and/or beneath. Finally, right margin option allows Notes/Tasks bar to be positioned virtually anywhere on the screen.

Marking dates with notes/alarms on the calendar

These new options provide visual connection between notes, alarms and dates on the calendar. If there is an alarm due on some date, it will have special icon shown on the calendar. Same thing with note(s) wich have additional option to automatically use already attached icon. Text mode is also supported via bold & italics font attributes. Each option can be enabled or disabled separately.

Marking weekdays

It is quite usual to have Saturdays and Sundays marked on a calendar. Active Desktop Calendar gives you full control over this option, so you can choose any combination of weekdays to be marked. Mark Saturdays and Sundays? No problem that's standard. Mark only Thursdays? Again no problem because you have Active Desktop Calendar.

Different icons for day names

Those who enjoy playing with icons will especially like this option. It gives you the opportunity to choose different icon library for representing day names on the calendar.

Regional settings

Something very important for our users around the world. Now you can set font, script and encoding so Active Desktop Calendar will allow writing with international characters and will show those characters properly.

What was new in version 2.5

Alarms

Sometimes even having a note/task displayed directly on desktop is not effective enough. Recognizing the need for more active notification we are happy to provide you with powerful alarms system. It allows you to set reminders that will play designated sound file and show pop-up message window helping you to keep your promises and never miss anything important. You can add, edit and delete alarms at any time, use customizable snooze function when some alarm shows up and easily handle multiple alarm events queued at the same point in time. Additionally, every alarm can have its own sound file.

Multiple Notes Per Date

You told us "single note per date" concept is rather limiting so now we are bringing you full power of defining multiple notes per date. Notes editing window got an additional column (Notes) showing the list of notes existing for selected date in Dates column. Note which is actually an instance of a repeating note defined in the past is marked with a letter "R" in front of a note number.

Data Export-Import

This new functionality solves all problems with transferring data between two or more Active Desktop Calendar's installations. Whether you have a new computer that needs to be filled with data or just want to share some notes/tasks with a friend, program's export-import system is an easy solution. When exporting, you will select which data sets should be included in export file, choose time frame and get .adc file as a result. That file is to be opened on a target computer, its data contents automatically classified and prepared for import. If you export all data at a regular basis and keep that .adc file somewhere safe, export-import functionality could also serve you as a good data backup system.

Notes/Tasks Bar Background Transparency

Having calendar and notes/tasks bar displayed on a wallpaper leave less space for a background image. You can of course minimize calendar by switching it to text mode, but what about notes/tasks bar? So far you could only opt to disable its background but that could affect information readability on particularly vivid background images. Now you can set notes/tasks bar background color to be transparent and have the best of both worlds. Pretty cool stuff.

Instant Screen Saver Function

Did you try Active Desktop Calendar's own simple and useful screen saver? This version brings you some more functionality in that direction. You can enable Instant Screen Saver option and have it launched immediately by placing a mouse pointer in one of top corners of the screen. There is an option to choose the instant screen saver activation corner as well as set delay time in seconds before screen saver starts running.

Various Other Improvements

Some usability changes were introduced to Notes editing window. Calendar navigation system is altered so to allow easier and more direct control. Clicking on Apply button will not take you back to the current date. Bi-weekly option is added to repeating notes. If there is one or more alarms set for the current date, program shows a bell icon just above the Note Text box. When you start typing in the empty Note Text box, program automatically adds a note for the selected date on calendar. You can now search through notes text with a Find command available under Notes button.