PDA Software Library/pdasoftwarelib.iso/PSION/1997/969.ZIP/HOL.TXT

Text File | 1997-03-24 | 17.6 KB | 506 lines

* HOL - calculate holidays and write to agenda file

HOL is a program for the Psion 3a, 3c and Siena that can be configured
to calculate many holidays and write them to your agenda.

The program reads a holiday definition file, calculates dates for
holidays according to the file, and writes the holidays to an agenda
file. The user interface allows you to select which configured holidays
to actually use, which years to calculate for, and preview the
calculated dates on the screen before writing them to the agenda file.

Holidays can be defined relative to a fixed date (e.g. New Years Day),
a fixed Hebrew date (e.g. Passover), a fixed Islamic date (e.g. the
Islamic New Year's day), a specific weekday (e.g. Midsommardagen; 1st
Saturday after June 20th), Easter, or selected among several dates
depending on a condition.

Style and year symbol can be specified generally and/or for each holiday.
The holidays are written to the agenda file as untimed day entries in
the default time slot or as anniversaries. Some holidays can be written
as repeating entries.

Holiday definition files for Sweden, USA, Holland, Argentina, Uruguay,
Norway, Finland, Germany, the Church of Ireland, France, the Church
in Wales, Denmark, UK and Hebrew holidays are included.
Examples of Islamic holidays are also included.


* If you are upgrading...

If you already have version 1 of HOL installed you need to know this:

 o HOL has become an OPA that must be installed with Psion-I to be used.
 o The directory for HOL-files and HOL.RSC has been changed to \HOL\.


* Quick quide

** Installation

This assumes that you have PsiWin.

1) Unzip the archive with directories on the PC. (Use "PKUNZIP -d" or
   check "Use Directory Names" in WinZip.)

2) In PsiWin, drag the unzipped APP and HOL directories to the root
   directory ("\") on the Psion. (This will copy HOL.OPA and HOLEDIT.ALS
   to the APP directory and all holiday definitions files to \HOL\.)

3) Install HOL.OPA on the Psion system screen with Psion-I.


** Using the program

1) Exit the Agenda program if it has your agenda file open.

2) Select a file under the HOL icon with your country code and start
   the program.

3) Preview holidays with Psion-P or write to the agenda file with
   Psion-W. The default settings will write all holidays for the current
   year, using repeating entries if possible.


** Uninstallation

1) Remove HOL from the system screen with Psion-/

2) Delete HOL.OPA and HOLEDIT.ALS from the \APP\ directory.

3) Delete the \HOL\ directory and all its contents.


* Detailed usage instructions

1) Install the files:
   - Copy HOL.OPA to \APP\. Install it from the system screen with
     Psion-I.
   - Copy *.HOL files to \HOL\.
   - Optionally, copy HOL.RSC to \HOL\. This is the help text for HOL.
   - Optionally, copy HOLEDIT.ALS to \APP\. Install it from the system
     screen with Psion-I if you want to create or edit *.HOL files.

2) Examine the *.HOL files with a text editor, e.g. HOLEDIT, to see if
   one suits you. If not, you can modify or create one with guidance
   from EXAMPLE.HOL and the configuration section below.

3) Start the program and open the *.HOL file. All holidays that are
   defined in the file will be listed on the screen with the style and
   year-symbol specified in the file. The listing can be scrolled with
   PgUp, PgDn, Home, End and arrow keys.

4) Initially all holidays are selected to be written to the agenda file.
   This is shown with a '*' on each row. Select or deselect holidays
   with Psion-M, Psion-U, Psion-N, Psion-T or the SPACE-key.

   Psion-N selects all holidays that can't be written to the agenda as
   repeating entries. See "How to use repeating entries" below for a tip
   on how to use this.

5) Optionally, calculate and preview the dates with Psion-P. See below
   for information about the dialog box. The dates will be listed on the
   screen. Press ESC to cancel the listing or any other key to
   temporarily pause the listing.

6) Calculate and write the dates to an agenda file with Psion-W. Select
   an agenda file to write to. See below for more information about the
   dialog box. To be safe, accept the offer to make a backup copy of the
   agenda file. The dates will be listed on the screen as they are
   written to the file. Press any key to cancel.


** The "Preview/Write holidays" dialog box

When you preview or write holidays a dialog box be shown where you:

 o Enter a year range to calculate dates for.

 o Select whether HOL should try to use repeating entries ("If
   possible") or not ("No"). See the next section for information about
   when it is possible to use repeating entries.

 o Select whether the Agenda program should show all occurrences of
   repeating entries or only the next outstanding occurrence. This
   corresponds to the "Show"-line in the "Repeat entry" dialog box in
   the Agenda program. If you selected not to use repeating entries this
   information will be ignored.

 o Select whether repeating entries should repeat forever or until the
   end of the year range. If you selected not to use repeating entries
   this information will be ignored.

 o Select an agenda file (only in the "Write holidays" dialog).


** How to use repeating entries.

One of the many useful features of the Psion Agenda program is the
ability to make an entry repeat at various intervals. An entry can for
example be set to repeat on a specific date of the year or on the first,
second, third, fourth or last occurrence of a weekday in a month.

Many holidays or special dates that we want to enter into our agenda
file can in fact be made into repeating entries, e.g. New Years Day and
Mother's Day. HOL can be used to write these repeating entries under
certain conditions.

To be able to write a holiday as a repeating entry, the holiday must be
specified in the holiday file with only one of these directives:

  o FIX(m,d)      - Meaning a fixed day D of month M in a year.
                    E.g. FIX(1,1) is January 1st (New Years Day).

  o FLOAT(m,wd,n) - Meaning the N'th weekday WD of month M, where N is
                    1,2,3,4 or -1. E.g. FLOAT(5,0,2) is the second Sunday of
                    June (Mother's Day).

(See the end of this file for more information about holiday files and
directives.)

When you preview or write holidays you can tell HOL to write repeating
entries "If possible". This means that if a holiday is specified using
FIX or FLOAT as shown above, HOL will write the holiday once and make it
a repeating entry. The holiday will be written for the first year in the
specified year range.

The easiest way to use repeating entries is to accept the defaults in
the "Write holidays" dialog box. This will give you repeating entries
that are shown all years within the year range.

If you prefer to have repeating entries repeat forever, I suggest you
do the following when using HOL on an agenda file for the first time:

1) Mark all holidays with Psion-M

2) In the "Write holidays" dialog box, enter a year range. Accept the
   default to use repeating entries if possible.

Holidays will now be written for the specified year range, with some
holidays entered only on the first year in the range as repeating
entries.

The next time you use HOL on the same agenda file (when the first
year range has passed) I suggest you:

1) Mark holidays that can't be made to repeat with Psion-N. (The others
   are already in the agenda file as repeating entries)

2) Specify a new year range in the dialog box.


* License

This program is free software under the terms of the GNU General Public
License. See the file COPYING.TXT for details.

HOL.OPL was written by Odd Gripenstam <[e-mail]>.
Calendar and holiday routines are translated from lisp code found in
GNU Emacs.

Copyright (C) 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Free Software
Foundation, Inc.
Copyright (C) 1996 Odd Gripenstam


* Acknowledgements

The help compiler and the code that accesses the help was written by
Jezar at Psion. It is available as HELPKIT1.ZIP in the archives.
Contact me if you can't find it.

I would like to thank Patrick Wildenborg, Horacio Hirsch, Mikael Tham,
Knut Utne Hollund, Erlend Leganger, Jokitulppo Vesa, Holger Pfaff,
Brian Mayne, Denis Casanova, Ian Day, Ole Carsten Pedersen, Klaus
Singvogel, Paul Everington, Edward Arnowitz, Awi Szotten, David M. Kurtz
for contributing holiday definitions.


* Feedback

No registration is necessary, but I would appreciate if you send me a
mail or postcard if you use the program.  If you try the program and
*don't* use it, please send me an e-mail and tell me why.

If you write or modify a holiday file, please send it to me and I will
include it in the distribution so more people can benefit from your
effort.

You can reach me at:

  E-mail:
                [e-mail]
  Snail-mail:
                Odd Gripenstam
                Skagersvagen 14
                120 38 ARSTA
                SWEDEN


* Files in the distribution

This distribution should contain:

  \APP\HOL.OPA          The program
  \APP\HOLEDIT.ALS      Text editor alias for \HOL\*.HOL
  \HOL\EXAMPLE.HOL      Example holiday file
  \HOL\AR.HOL           Argentinian holidays
  \HOL\COFI.HOL         Church of Ireland holidays
  \HOL\CIWC.HOL         Church in Wales holidays, Welsh/Cymraeg
  \HOL\CIWE.HOL         Church in Wales holidays, English
  \HOL\DE.HOL           German holidays
  \HOL\DK.HOL           Danish holidays
  \HOL\FI.HOL           Finnish holidays
  \HOL\FR.HOL           French holidays
  \HOL\NL.HOL           Dutch holidays
  \HOL\NO.HOL           Norwegian holidays
  \HOL\SE.HOL           Swedish holidays
  \HOL\UK.HOL           UK holidays
  \HOL\US.HOL           US holidays
  \HOL\UY.HOL           Uruguayan holidays
  \HOL\ARUY.HOL         A mix of South American holidays
  \HOL\HEBREW.HOL       Hebrew holidays
  \HOL\ISLAMIC.HOL      Islamic holidays
  \HOL\HOL.RSC          Compiled help text
  HOL.OPL               Source code for the application
  HOL.HLP               Help text source file
  HOL.TXT               This file
  HOLAPP.PIC            Icon for HOL.OPL
  HOLEDIT.PIC           Icon for HOLEDIT.ALS
  HOLCHANG.TXT          A history of changes to the files
  COPYING.TXT           GNU General Public License


* Translation

Unfortunately, the source file HOL.OPL is too big to be translated on
the Psion. You can translate the file on a PC with the MS-DOS translator
S3ATRAN, or you can split the file in two parts before copying it to the
Psion and add a LOADM command to first part.


* Other resources

Here are some other resources related to holidays and the Psion agenda.
They are all available on the net. You can mail me if you have trouble
finding a copy or if you know of a file that should be added to the
list.

JBWHOL.ZIP      Calculates predetermined English and German holidays and
                adds them to the agenda.

FEIER10.ZIP     Calculates German holidays and adds them to the agenda.
                Probably configurable for other languages and holidays if
                you make a few educated guesses about its data file format.

FTAG30.ZIP      Calculates and adds holidays related to easter and
                whitsun to the agenda. Includes OPL source.

EASTER_E.ZIP    English translation of FTAG30.ZIP

HOLI3A.ZIP      An agenda file with US holidays 1992-1997.
                Some holidays are specified as repeating entries.

LOTSOHOL.ZIP    Agenda files with US holidays 1995-2000.
                Some holidays are specified as repeating entries.

HOLI_UK.ZIP     Agenda file with UK holidays 1994-2005.


* Configuration

Holidays are defined by writing a holiday definition file.
A holiday file is a text file with the file type .HOL. It contains
directives to the HOL program on what holidays to calculate and how to
write them to an agenda file.

The text in a holiday file consists of comments, keywords, punctuation
characters and quoted strings.

A comment is any text after an exclamation mark or the keyword REM up to
the end of the current line. Keywords (e.g. STYLE) are not case
sensitive. A quoted string is any text within double quotes (e.g. "H").
A quoted string can not span lines.

The file EXAMPLE.HOL explains the syntax with commented examples. Here
is a more formal looking definition:

<directive> :
        <year-symbol-directive>
        <style-directive>
        <entry-type-directive>
        <simple-holiday-directive>
        <compound-holiday-directive>

<compound-holiday-directive> :
        { <local-directive-list> }

<local-directive-list> :
        <local-directive>
        <local-directive-list local-directive>

<local-directive> :
        <year-symbol-directive>
        <style-directive>
        <alias-directive>
        <entry-type-directive>
        <simple-holiday-directive>

<year-symbol-directive> :
        YEAR_SYMBOL = " <year-symbol> " ;

<style-directive> :
        STYLE = <style-list> ;

<style-list> :
        <style>
        <style-list> , <style>

<style> :
        NORMAL
        BOLD
        ITALIC
        UNDERLINE

<alias-directive> :
        ALIAS = <alias> ;

<entry-type-directive> :
        ENTRY_TYPE = <entry-type> ;

<entry-type> :
        IGNORE
        UNTIMED
        ANNIVERSARY

<simple-holiday-directive>:
        " <holiday-name> " = <date-expression-list> ;

<date-expression-list> :
        <date-expression>
        <date-expression-list> <date-expression>

<date-expression> :
        <simple-date-expression>
        <flow-control>

<simple-date-expression> :
        <date-setter>
        <date-modifier>

<date-setter> :
        <alias>
        FIX ( <value> , <value> )
        HFIX ( <value>, <value> )
        IFIX ( <value>, <value> )
        FLOAT ( <value> , <value> , <negvalue> <opt-value>(opt) )
        LAST ( <value> )
        EASTER

<opt-value> :
        , <value>

<date-modifier> :
        + <value>
        - <value>

<flow-control> :
        DONEIF ( <condition-list> )
        IF ( <condition-list> ) { <simple-date-expression> }
        ELSEIF ( <condition-list> ) { <simple-date-expression> }
        ELSE { <simple-date-expression> }

<condition-list> :
        <condition>
        <condition-list> OR <condition>
        NOT ( <condition-list> )

<condition> :
        WEEKDAY ( <value> )

<negvalue> :
        -(opt) <value>

<year-symbol>  = max one character.
<alias>        = a word with characters A-Z, max 33 characters.
<holiday-name> = a sequence of printable characters (except quote (")),
                 max 254 characters. If the text contains %IY or %HY
                 then those three characters will be replaced by
                 the Islamic or Hebrew year for the calculated date.
<value>        = a positive number, digits 0-9


Functions:

FIX(month, day)
        Sets the date to day # DAY in month # MONTH.
        Day and month numbers start at 1.

HFIX(month, day)
        Sets the date to day # DAY in Hebrew month # MONTH.
        Day and month numbers start at 1 (month 1 = Nisan).
        Month 13 is the last month of the year, i.e. Adar or
        Adar II depending on whether it is a leap year or not.

IFIX(month, day)
        Sets the date to day # DAY in Islamic month # MONTH.
        Day and month numbers start at 1 (month 1 = Muharram).

FLOAT(month, weekday, n)
        Sets the date to the date of the Nth WEEKDAY in month # MONTH.
        Day and month numbers start at 1. N starts at 1. If N < 0 count
        N WEEKDAYs from the end of the month. WEEKDAY numbers are from
        0 (Sunday) to 6 (Saturday).

FLOAT(month, weekday, n, day)
        Sets the date to the date of the Nth WEEKDAY on or before/after
        day # DAY in month # MONTH.
        Day and month numbers start at 1. N starts at 1. If N < 0 count
        N WEEKDAYs before DAY MONTH, otherwise count N WEEKDAYs after
        DAY MONTH. WEEKDAY numbers are from 0 (Sunday) to 6 (Saturday).

LAST(month)
        Sets the date to the date of the last day of month # MONTH.

EASTER
        Sets the date to the date of Easter Sunday (non-orthodox).

DONEIF(condition)
        If the condition is true then the rest of the current holiday
        directive (up to ';') will not be used.
        A condition is 'WEEKDAY(day)' or 'WEEKDAY(day) OR WEEKDAY(day)'
        etc.

IF(condition) { simple-date-expression }
        If the condition is true then the simple-date-expression will
        be used.

ELSEIF(condition) { simple-date-expression }
        If the condition is true and no preceeding IF or ELSEIF condition
        was true then the simple-date-expression will be used.

ELSE { simple-date-expression }
        If no preceeding IF or ELSEIF condition was true then
        the simple-date-expression will be used.

WEEKDAY(weekday)
        Can only be used in DONEIF, IF and ELSEIF.
        Returns 'true' if the date is on the weekday specified as a
        parameter. WEEKDAY numbers are from 0 (Sunday) to 6 (Saturday).

NOT(condition)
        Can only be used in DONEIF, IF and ELSEIF.
        Returns the opposite value of the condition.

* Limits

Line length in holiday file: 255 characters
Number of holiday definitions: 101
Number of aliases: 10
Number of characters in an alias: 33