MonthVu adds a very useful month-at-a-glance view to the Psion 3a/3c/and Siena. How many times have you wanted to just pick up your Psion and quickly scan an entire month's worth of appointments all at once? MonthVu gives you the ability to do just that with an intuitive and simple-to-operate program. MonthVu shows graphical timelines, automatically searches for free time slots in your schedule, and switches directly to the selected day in the Agenda Application.
MonthVu is a shareware program. The registration fee is listed in the Registration Info dialog from the Setup menu (or press Psion/I) You may use MonthVu for up to 30 days, but after that time you must either register the program or remove it from your computer.
As an incentive for registering, you get a special registration number that permits the display of any month and which enables Psion/G to jump to the corresponding day in the Agenda application. Unregistered versions can only display the current month and (if they are in the same year) the next and previous months. All preference items and features (except for Psion/G) are available in unregistered versions and there are no annoying nag screens.
To register MonthVu, send cash, money order or cheque in the amount specified in the Registration Info dialog (Setup Menu or Psion/I) to:
Pimlico Software
2031 Lowery (Old Loving) Road
Morganton, GA 30560
USA
register on-line through Compuserve by entering GO SWREG and following the instructions to specify that you want to register the MonthVu Program (SWREG ID# 11130).
register on-line through RegNet by pointing your web browser at:
3a/3c: http://www.swregnet.com/574p.htm
Siena: http://www.swregnet.com/575p.htm
There is a slight premium for registering via RegNet, but this is offset by the ease of registering for most users.
Installation
The MonthVu.ZIP file contains two files:
* MonthVu.opa - The actual application program
* MonthVu.wrd - The file you are reading
* ReadMe.txt - Brief install/upgrade notes
After unzipping the file on your MAC or PC, copy the MonthVu.OPA file into any APP directory on the Psion 3A palmtop using the copy command.
Install MonthVu by selecting the install option on the Apps menu of the System program.
If you are using a non-English Psion, see the special note for the Day View, Jump to & Switch Accel Keys preference option so that Psion/G works properly.
Upgrading the Program
When upgrading it is always important to make sure that you delete all the old XXXXX.MVU files (and MonthVu.Bin if you downloaded the initial release) and the MonthVu.prf file. Failure to do that may result in an error message on startup or may cause the program to hang. You may want to rename or copy down your Preference settings so you can easily restore them. Note that starting with version 1.01j, the image file(s) and Preference file are put in their own MonthVu directory (that directory is created automatically by MonthVu).
Remove the MonthVu icon from the system screen, then re-install the MonthVu application.
Start MonthVu and re-enter your Preference settings and Registration ID.
Running the Program
When the program is first run, MonthVu will scan your Agenda file (even if you have Agenda open) and display the current month. It will also create the MonthVu.prf preferences file in that same APP directory.
NOTE: MonthVu always shows Todo's on their due date (and not the advance warning date if one was set) and does not alter the display date to today for pending ToDo's not completed on their due date.
Scrolling through the Calendar
Use arrow keys to select a day and Psion/right-left arrow to move forwards and backwards by months or Psion/down-up arrow to move forwards or backwards by years.
Press digits 1-9 to go to the corresponding month (1=Jan, 2=Feb etc.). Use zero or 'o' for October, 'n' for November and 'd' for December.
Psion/J allows you to jump to any date in the range: 1-Jan-1980 to 31-Dec-2030. You can press TAB after Psion/J to open up the standard Psion calendar selection to choose a date. When a new month is selected, the first day of that month is always highlighted (unless it is the current month). Psion/J always selects the first day of the month except for the current month, in which case today is selected.
The Spacebar automatically displays the current month and highlights today (Today always has the day of the month highlighted).
Tab/BackTab moves the highlight forwards or backwards to the next day cell in the current month that has an entry, skipping over blank days.
ESC temporarily removes the highlighting for the currently selected day. Highlighting resumes on the next keystroke.
Psion/Menu briefly shows the Status Window which. also lists the name of the agenda file that you have open
Viewing All Items
Although MonthVu can only display 3-5 entries per cell, up to 11 entries are remembered and can be displayed in a window that also shows more of the text of the appointment.
If there are more entries for a cell that are not displayed, a down-arrow is displayed at the beginning of the last line of the cell.
To view all items for a day, select the day with the arrow keys and press Enter. A window appears showing you all the appointments for that day (up to a maximum of 11). This window also shows the day of the year and the week number of the year.
The Type (T on the Siena) column shows the appointment type (Siena letters shown in parens)
Appt(A) Timed or untimed Appointment
Todo(T) Todo item - priority shown under time column
Anni(Y) Anniversary item - Start yr/# of yrs shown
For repeating items, the 'Rp' column shows the repeat type:
d Daily repeat
w Weekly repeat
m Monthly repeat by date
M Monthly repeat by days
y Yearly repeat
For timed appointments, the start time is always shown. Timed appointments that have a duration also show the end time and the duration of the appointment.
Press any key to dismiss the window and redisplay the calendar.
Filtering Items
Press Psion/F or select the Find option in the File menu and type in the string to find. The display will then be filtered so that only entries that have that text present will be displayed. To remove the filter, press Psion/F and delete the filter string. Filters are always removed when the program is loaded.
Crossed-Out Items
Crossed-out items can be optionally displayed in MonthVu. For Todo's, the date is the date when the entry was crossed out which provides a nice record of when tasks were completed.
Styles
Styles are displayed by MonthVu, so if you put an entry in bold in agenda (with Psion/S), it will display as bold in MonthVu. Bold, italic and underline styles are supported by MonthVu. Also, if you put a
(CTRL-219) character at the start of an entry, the
is removed and the remaining text is displayed in reverse (white on black). This can be used as an effective tool for highlighting important events (such as holidays, etc.)
Free Time Search
MonthVu has a nifty feature to scan your schedule looking for available free time. This feature can automate a search to find, for example, six contiguous hours on a business day. To use this feature, press Psion/T. In the dialog, type in the amount of time (hours or hours and minutes) you are trying to find. If necessary, change your preference defaults for the start/end times and the days of the week you want to search and press ENTER. MonthVu will scan the current month starting with the currently selected day looking for available free time. If a match is found, the date is shown along with the last appointment that immediately preceded the free time. You can then press ENTER to jump to that day in MonthVu or 'N' to continue the search with the next day of the month, or ESC to go back to the originally selected day. The search ends when the end of the month has been reached.
Note: MonthVu only tracks up to 11 appointments/day so the time from the end of the 11th appointment to the end of the day would be considered available. Also, the search only encompasses the current month.
There is one special case on the search. If you start the search at today, MonthVu will not find any time slots that precede the current date and time. However, if you start the search on a day prior to today, the search will start with that day.
Going to Agenda
Press Psion/G to go directly into a Day View in Agenda with the selected day in MonthVu. If Agenda is not running, it will be automatically started. You can also setup a global hotkey to return to MonthVu that is active in all Psion Applications as the 3rd character in the Day View, Jump to & Switch Accel Keys option. For example, DjV would cause Psion/SHIFT/V in any Psion application to bring up MonthVu.
NOTE FOR NON-ENGLISH PSIONS: To use this feature you may need to change the Day View, Jump To & Switch Accel keys Preference item in order to it to work properly (See Preference items below). You may want to change this preference item anyway in order to control which view is displayed when you enter agenda and to set up the hotkey for MonthVu.
Updating the Calendar
Remember that because MonthVu is a separate program for Agenda it is NOT dynamically refreshed whenever you make a change to your agenda. To update the MonthVu display, press Psion/U. It is not necessary to close out the Agenda file as MonthVu will automatically close Agenda, read the file and then restart Agenda in the background.
Note that when Agenda is restarted it will always display the current day in the default view.
Exiting the Program
To exit from the program, press Psion/X.
Opening Other Agenda Files
To open other agenda files, either select them from the system screen, or press Psion/O in MonthVu which brings up a standard Psion File Open Dialog.
Help screen
Press the HELP key for a selection of help topics. Most HELP items should be self-explanatory.
Preferences
MonthVu operation can be changed through the Preferences menu. NOTE: on the Siena, some of the preference legends shown below have been abbreviated.
Show Day of Week Legends
In All Cells
Always displays names of days of the week on the top line of the calendar. However, the top row of the calendar will then only have room for one less item than in other rows.
In Unused Cells Only
Only shows days of the week in cells on the top row that are not used in the current month display. Allows as many items to be displayed on the top row as in other rows.
Include Dated Todo's Above Priority
Dated Todo's may be optionally shown in the Calendar. Never means they are never shown. Otherwise, you can select the priority level at which Todo's will be included, so 3, for example, would show Todo's at priority levels 1,2, and 3.
Sort (1/2=Appt, 3=Anni, 4=Todo)
Indicates how items should be sorted: the first digit shows which item type appears first, the second digit shows which item type appears second, etc. Item types are:
1 - Timed Appointment
2 - Untimed Appointment
3 - Anniversary
4 - Todo
The default value is 3214 = Anniversaries, untimed appointments, timed appointments, Todo's. Timed Appointments are further sorted by time of appointment and Todo's are sorted by priority
To eliminate an item type from display, remove it from the sort list. For example, 214 would eliminate all anniversary entries from the display.
Time Format
12hr
Displays time in US standard 12 hour format with am/pm cycle designation.
24hr
Displays time in European standard 24 hour format.
Wrap Single Entries
When set to YES, if there is only one item for the day, MonthVu will wordwrap the text for that item to multiple lines in the day cell.
Display Crossed-Out Entries
If set to YES, crossed out appointments and Todo's will be displayed by MonthVu with crossed-out text. Crossed-out Todo's will be displayed on the date they were crossed out. Crossed out, undated Todo's are included for display (note that undated Todo's are otherwise never displayed). This feature provides a nice display of completed tasks.
AutoSave/Load Image File
The Image file saves a lot of time when MonthVu is launched as it reads a copy of the Agenda file in a highly optimized format. When this option is used, MonthVu saves the current file as \APP\MonthVu\ XXXXX.MVU, where XXXXX is the name of the Agenda file. Remember, however, to refresh the calendar from time to time as this copy is not dynamically linked to the Agenda file!
NOTE: Image files are only tracked by 8-char name and not device, so if you open a file on a different device with the same name it is possible that MonthVu will not reread the file, thinking that it has the right MVU file to read instead. Just press Psion/U to update the file in that case.
This option only takes affect during initialization so you have to exit and re-start MonthVu to see a change in this preference item.
Never
Indicates that the Agenda file should be reread every time the MonthVu program is loaded.
From Internal Drive
Indicates the Image file should be read and written to the APP\MonthVu directory on the internal drive regardless of where the MonthVu.opa file was ran from. This is a suitable option if running MonthVu from a Flash SSD otherwise the *.MVU files continuously consume space as they are re-written. Also see note on how to get MonthVu to read the Preference file from the internal drive when loading from another drive (especially if you want to write-protect the drive)
From Load Drive
Indicates the Image file should be read and written to the APP\MonthVu directory where the MonthVu.opa file was ran from. This is a suitable option if running MonthVu from a RAM SSD or the internal drive where rewriting causes no problems.
Update Automatically
Specifies what MonthVu should do after it detects that a change has been made to the agenda file (in the agenda application).
MonthVu will not update the display, but will flag the display as needing an update. The update flag consists of a horizontal line drawn between the Month and Year.
Always
MonthVu will automatically update its display whenever you switch to MonthVu and MonthVu sees that a change has been made to the agenda file. Keep in mind that with a larger agenda file you may find this option annoying.
MonthVu will ask you whether or not you want to update the agenda file when it sees that a change has been made. If you say NO, MonthVu will flag the agenda file as needing to be updated
The following preference items appear in the More Preferences dialog:
Show Time Bar
If answered Yes, then for any day that has timed appointments, the top line of each day cell is used to display a graphical timeline of appointments for that day.
This preference item sets the default display on startup. You can use Psion/L to toggle the display back and forth without affecting this preference setting.
Day Starts At
When performing a scan for available time, MonthVu needs to know the earliest time it can start the search at. This value can be temporarily changed when the Free Time search feature is invoked. Time can be entered as a one or two digit hour, a colon and a 1 or 2 digit minutes value, optionally followed by an 'a' or 'p' for the cycle designation (for 12hr times).
Day Ends At
Same as above except specifies the default end time for the day.
Days to Search (1=Mo, 2=Tu)
For the free time search, MonthVu needs to know which days of the week can be searched. Enter a string of digits to represent each day of the week, using 1 for Monday, 2 for Tuesday... and 7 for Sunday. The default value is 12345 which searches Monday-Friday. As with the start and end times, this value can be changed temporarily whenever a search is performed.
Week Starts on
This Preference item selects the starting day of the week for the calendar display. Note that this setting does not necessarily have to match the global setting in your Psion. However, week of year numbers displayed by MonthVu are always based on the Psion's internal setting and not on this MonthVu setting.
Display Font
This Preference item selects either a normal or condensed font. The condensed font displays more characters in each cell but at a small cost in legibility.
Day View, Jump To & Switch Accel Keys
If you have a non-English Psion you may well have to change this item to get the Psion/G function to work properly. The first letter is the key to use with the Psion Key to switch Agenda to the Day View. The second letter is the key to use with the Psion key to Jump to a specific date. If the Shift key is needed, put the letter in upper case. On English Psions, the switch to Day View is made with Psion/Shift/D, and the Jump To dialog is accessed with Psion/j, hence the English default of 'Dj' for this item.
The third character sets a global hotkey to bring up MonthVu that will be active on all Psion Applications. For example DjV would cause Psion/Shift/V to switch to MonthVu. Make sure that this key does not conflict with any of your running applications or the result will not be as expected!
Important Note: The global hotkey only takes effect on program startup, so you have to exit MonthVu and restart to see it work.
German Psion: use Tg for the day view or Wg for the week view for the first 2 characters.
Danish Psion: use Dk for day view.
NOTE: You can also put in the accelerator for the week or list views instead of the day view. On an English Psion, for example, Wj would go to the corresponding day but with the week view selected.
Max Size of Item Text
Normally this item is set at 254. However, if you have a large agenda file, and are experiencing a heap overflow problem, you can change this preference item. Since MonthVu does not display much more than 40-50 characters for an item, you can always set it to a lower value. A very low value of say 10-15 should handle even the largest agenda files.
Size of Heap
Controls internal memory allocation within MonthVu. If may be able to increase the heap size. Equally, if you only use a small calendar, you can reduce memory utilization by decreasing the size of the heap. Do not change these values unless you feel confident you know what you are doing! The About Screen will always tell you how large the current heap is.
If you set the heap to zero, or when creating a default Preferences file, MonthVu will automatically resize the heap to the maximum available memory. This is done automatically when you first install MonthVu. If your agenda files are small, you can regain important system memory by reducing the heap to a smaller value.
The following preference item appears in the Third Preferences dialog:
Skip Items Older Than
Normally, this item is set to 0 to display all items in jhe agenda file. However, if you have a very large agenda file and encounter the 1,200 item limit, you can set this item to the number of days in the past to include in the MonthVU display. For example, a value of 30 would mean that any non-repeating item 30 or more days old would be omitted. A value of 1 would exclude all non-repeating items prior to the current day.
Program Limits and Restrictions
Maximum Number of entries in MonthVu: 1200
Maximum entries displayed for a day: 11
Date Range: 1-Jan-1980 to 31-Dec-2030
Repeat data records must follow associated appointment record (always true with files written by standard Agenda application)
Maximum size of a Repeat record: 255 bytes (enough for about 100 exception days)
ToDo's are always displayed on due date (not advance warning date)
Registering MonthVu
When you register MonthVu, you will be given a registration code. In MonthVu, Select Register MonthVu in the Setup menu or press Psion/R, and type in the code (make sure the case matches perfectly and that there are no multiple spaces between items).
The Date field of the first line in the MonthVu.prf database file must have a period followed by either a valid registration code or the word UNREGISTERED. If it gets corrupted MonthVu will not run. If this happens, you can delete the Preference file, as MonthVu will then automatically re-create the file with the standard defaults.
Installation Issues
Sizing of heap
When you first install MonthVu, the heap is sized to use all of available memory. This setting should be capable of reading almost all agenda files. Some additional memory is also reserved for the program.
However, if your agenda file is very large you may get an error message telling you that the heap has overflowed or that a heap is too large to allocate). In both cases, MonthVu will go directly to the More Preferences dialog so you can change the heap setting or use a smaller setting for the Max Size of Item Text. The size of the heap set on initialization is probably close to the limit (some users may be able to eke out another 1,500 or so bytes). If you set the heap too large, you may get a NO SYSTEM MEMORY message when you go into the first or second Preference screen. If that happens, reduce the size of the heap. Once you get that error, you will have to delete your preference file (or edit it manually with the DATA application) and choose a value say 500 smaller than the value that caused the overflow message.
If your agenda files are relatively small. you can conserve memory by reducing the size of the heap. The ABOUT dialog will show you the actual size of the heap that was needed to handle the current agenda file being displayed.
You can always reset the heap size to zero to allow MonthVu to automatically resize it when the program next runs.
Finally, if the Heap is still overflowing, try adjusting the Max Size of Item Text item down to say 30 or 40. If that is not enough, try 10-15 or even 5 and then work back up to the largest value that still leaves about 1000 bytes left.
>1201 records in Agenda File
Your agenda file is too large to display all the items. The best solution is to use the Skip Items Older than Preference item (3rd Pref menu) to skip your older appointments - for example, a setting of 30 would skip any non-repeating appointments that were older thsm 30 days. Another approach would be to remove one category of items (such as ToDo's).
Psion/G does not work after Registering
The most likely problem is that you have a non-English Psion and have not set up the Day View & Jump To Accel Keys preference item (see More Preferences). Note: if you have V-1.01f of MonthVu, you will need to upgrade it to get this feature to work properly.
An item displays in Agenda and not MonthVu (or vice versa)
This may be a problem in MonthVu. Make a copy of your Agenda file if possible and send it to Pimlico for analysis along with a note indicating where the problem is.
Before doing that, however, make sure that you issue an update command (Psion/U) to bring MonthVu into synchronization with your agenda file. Also, remember that MonthVu shows ToDo's on their due date (and not advance warning date) and does not advance the date to today for incomplete ToDo's.
Global hot key does not work
Remember that you have to completely exit MonthVu and restart it in order to set the hotkey. If it still does not work, try picking another key as it is just barely possible that some other application may have selected that same key.
No System Memory
Your heap is too large - see note above on sizing the heap. Note that this message can legitimately appear even though you have lots of Free Memory in your Psion (what matters is space available to the MonthVu application in its own partition).
MonthVu says No System Memory when calling up More Preferences dialog but is otherwise ok
Same problem as above: your heap setting is too high.
Invalid Filename on Startup
You probably upgraded MonthVu without de-installing and re-installing MonthVu as mentioned above. Just remove the MonthVu application and re-install it.
Using MacSys to load MonthVu
MacSys (a macro utility) can be used to load/switch to MonthVu from Agenda. However, if you try the command:
RunAppC:("MonthVu","agenda.agn")
MacSys will load/switch Agenda instead, so use:
RunAppC:("MonthVu","agenda.mvu")
as MonthVu has a special feature to recognize what's going on and supply the proper agn extension. If necessary, provide a full path (including device) to the agenda file that you want to load.
Forcing MonthVu to read Preference file from internal drive
Normally MonthVu will read (and create) the Preference file from the same drive that the program loaded from (the "load" drive). If you run MonthVu off a write-protected drive, however, the preference file cannot be updated without causing a write error. To circumvent this problem, unprotect the drive the first time you run MonthVu so that MonthVu can create its preference file on the load drive. Then copy this file from the APP\MONTHVU directory on the load drive to the APP\MONTHVU directory on the internal drive (creating the directory if necessary) and then delete and remove the APP\MONTHVU directory on the load drive. You can then write-protect the drive as MonthVu will then read and update the preference file from the internal drive. Remember to make sure that the AutoSave/Load Image File option does not have From Load Drive or you will get write errors!
Other Psion 3a/3c/Siena programs from Pimlico Software
QuikNote - a quick note taker for the Psion. Can automatically run whenever you power on your Psion. Maintains a date/time-stamped database of notes and (V-2.00) has multiline, word-wrapped editing capability with single key shortcuts and support for Bring. Shareware: $15/
XpensEZ - a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use time-billing and expense manager for the Psion. Handles multiple clients/accounts, converts foreign currencies and is highly configurable. Shareware: $20/
Timer - Elapsed/countdown timer - handy for giving speeches etc. Freeware: $0/
Software Support
If you encounter any problem with MonthVu, or if you would like to suggest improvements etc., the best way to communicate is to send an email to Pimlico at cesd@gorilla-haven.org, send a fax to 706-374-4491 (USA) or send a letter to:
Pimlico Software
2031 Lowery (Old Loving) Road
Morganton, GA 30560
USA
You will always find us responsive even if you haven't registered the software!
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