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TO DO LIST!: V1.4 WRITTEN BY: DAVE SCHOEFFEL dRs Engineering ############################################################################## ######################## NEWS FLASH ######################################## ############################################################################## WATCH FOR THE TO DO LIST VERSION 2.0......COMPLETE WITH ONLINE HELP AND MANY, MANY OTHER NEW FEATURES. THIS ENHANCED VERSION OF THE TO DO LIST IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF 1992. CHECK YOUR LOCAL BBS OR SOURCE OF THIS FILE FOR THIS EXCITING UPGRADE. STAY TUNED FOR GOOD THINGS TO COME IN THE FUTURE FROM dRs ENGINEERING..................................... ############################################################################## ######################## NEWS FLASH ######################################## ############################################################################## INTRODUCTION TO DO LIST is a simple Windows 3.0 utility to help you get your day organized. It includes a place to note the date and up to 10 locations for listing tasks to complete. Each location can hold up to 25 characters. If you need more space, simply use several lines to hold additional information. You can change the colors of the form as well as specify a default data file to be loaded when the To Do List is first run. This program was written using Microsoft Visual Basic version 1.0 to run under Windows 3.0 and must have the VBRUN100.DLL file located in your path. Simply place VBRUN100.DLL in your Windows directory (or any convenient directory in your path) and forget about it. This file is available on most bulletin boards as well as other sources, and should be obtained and installed prior to using the To Do List. Be sure to check out the other fine products offered by Dave Schoeffel of dRs Engineering. These products are available on many bulletin board systems, as well as Compuserve in the WINADV section. (Please note that these programs are all designed for Windows 3.0 and are written using Microsoft Visual Basic. Therefore, the above mentioned file VBRUN100.DLL is a must.) Product (file name) Description AUTOV1_0.ZIP Auto maintenance tracking/remind application. ABCV1_0.ZIP Alphabet Teaching for small children. 123V1_0.ZIP Number Teaching for small children. REGISTRATION This program is being released as Shareware. Please feel free to copy and distribute it freely amoung your friends and business associates. I would ask, however, that if you find the program useful (the definition of useful in this case meaning that you still have it installed after your evaluation, then it must be useful) please send the registration fee of $6 to: Dave Schoeffel dRs Engineering 1313 Riverton Dr. Mukwonago, WI 53149 Your registration will encourage me to create other useful utilities. You will also rest assured that you have done your good deed for the day. Registration has been made simple for the user. Simply run the program and choose the FILE - ABOUT option from the menu. This information screen has a registration form on it and can be filled in by the user and printed out to be mailed in. Please take a few short minutes to register your copy. ############################################################################ It is the policy of dRs Engineering that all customers that register a shareware version of our software are entitled to update to any future versions of the same software without any further registration fees. ############################################################################ Corporate and site licensing is available. Contact dRs Engineering at the address listed above for more information. FILES The following files should have been included in the ZIP file that you received (or all files included from whatever your source for this program): TODOLIST.DOC This file that you are reading. TODOLIST.EXE The executable code for the To Do List. TODOLIST.CFG The configuration file that holds color info, etc. SAMPLE.TDL A sample To Do List data file. INSTALLATION To install the program, simply copy all of the files listed above into a subdirectory. Remember that you need the VBRUN100.DLL file somewhere in your path to use the To Do List. RUNNING You may run the To Do List several different ways. You could open File Manager and double click on the TODOLIST.EXE file name. It could also be installed via Program Manager into any convenient group. Another method of assuring that the To Do List is routinely run is to install it into your WIN.INI file. This will assure that whenever Windows is started, the To Do List will automatically load. To do this, simply edit your WIN.INI file with a text editor or from within Windows using the SYSEDIT.EXE function. In the WIN.INI file locate the line that says LOAD= and insert (Drive):(Path)\TODOLIST.EXE. This will load the To Do List utility every time that Windows is run. OPERATION Operating the To Do List is simply a matter of entering data into the form and looking back occasionally to check off completed tasks. The following section of this document describes all of the features and how to use them. FILE - NEW The FILE - NEW option of the menu simply wipes all entered information clean and allows the user to start from a clean form. The current system date is automatically entered into the date section of the To Do List. FILE - OPEN... The FILE - OPEN option of the menu allows the user to load in previously saved data files. When To Do List is first installed, a sample data file named SAMPLE.TDL is included. This data file has several useful suggestions for users of the To Do List. FILE - SAVE The FILE - SAVE option allows for routine saving of an already named data file. To name a data file, see the FILE - SAVE AS section below. This option is most useful in the everyday use of To Do List. As your To Do List changes, and you check off items that are complete, remember to SAVE the data file. If you exit To Do List or Windows, this will assure that your data file will remain intact. FILE - SAVE AS... Just as the above option, FILE - SAVE, saves your data files, the FILE - SAVE AS option saves your data files but allows you to assign a file name unique to your data file. These data file names must follow all standard DOS conventions. Use only letters and numbers and avoid punctuation. The file extension .TDL will be added to the file name. FILE - DELETE... As you routinely use To Do List, you will most likely accumulate quite a large number of data files. These data files may or may not be useful to you after the events have passed. If you wish to delete these data files, you may use the FILE - DELETE option of the menu. Simply select the file or files to be deleted, one at a time, and double click on the file name or click on the DELETE box. When you are finished deleting files, click on the DONE box to return to the To Do List. FILE - PRINT LIST After you have completed one or several To Do Lists, you may wish to print them using the FILE - PRINT LIST option. This option simply dumps the To Do List to the printer specified in your Windows printer setup. FILE - PRINT EXTENDED By using the "Extended Text" option of this program, you may add up to 150 characters to each item on the list. After you have entered extended text, you may print a formatted "Extended Text" To Do List. Simply choose the FILE - PRINT EXTENDED menu option and the "Extended Text" To Do List will print on the printer specified in your Windows printer setup. FILE - ABOUT... The FILE - ABOUT option of the menu gives general information about the program and the programmer. This is also the option that should be used to register your copy of the To Do List. Simply choose FILE - ABOUT from the menu, fill in the registration form, print it out, and mail it complete with the registration fee to the programmer listed. FILE - EXIT The FILE - EXIT option of the menu allows the user to completly exit the To Do List utility and terminate any further To Do List activity. EDIT - CUT This option works exactly the same as the CUT option in any Windows application. Simply highlight the text that you wish to cut and select this option from the menu. The highlighted text will be deleted and added to the Windows environment clipboard. You may then use this text to be pasted someplace else, either in the To Do List or in any other Windows application. EDIT - COPY This option, like the CUT option above works the same as other Windows applications. To copy text among any other applications within the Windows environment, simply highlight the text and select this option from the menu. EDIT - PASTE To past text from the environment clipboard to your To Do List, place the cursor where you want the text pasted to and select this item from the menu. Any text that was present on the environment clipboard will be pasted into your To Do List. The limitations to this operation are the field size of the item list. Any pasted text that is larger that the item list field size will be lost. The field sizes are 25 characters for the item lists and 11 for the date field. EDIT - EXTENDED TEXT Choosing this option from the menu brings up a dialog box that will allow the user to enter up to 150 additional characters for each of the item list areas of the main To Do List. This information is saved with each To Do List file and can be printed using the FILE - PRINT EXTENDED menu option. If extended text is added, then an "E" will appear in the box immediately to the right of the item that extended text was added for. This box may show a "B" if an alarm time has also been set. EDIT - INSERT ITEM To insert an item before another item on the list, simply place the cursor where you wish the new item to be and select this item from the list. Please note, however, that the last item (if used) on the list will be lost. This is because we only have room for 10 items. If you attempt to insert an item when you already have 10 items listed, the 10th item will end up in the bit bucket. EDIT - DELETE ITEM As you complete tasks, you may wish to delete them from your list. To delete items from your To Do List, simply place the cursor in the field of the item that you wish to delete and select this item from the menu. All items below the deleted item will move up one on the list. EDIT - SET DATE If you use just one To Do List data file and keep updating it, you will find that the date stays the same as the date that you entered (or the date that was present) when you created the list. As you use the list, you can keep the date current by selecting this option. The date that is set will be the system date of your computer system. CONFIGURE - BACK GROUND COLOR... This option allows the user to adjust the color of the back ground of the To Do List form. When the form appears on the screen, three controls for RED, GREEN and BLUE appear. As the user adjusts the controls, the amount of each color is mixed into the form back ground color. When an acceptable mixture of back ground color is reached, simply choose the save option. This will save these colors to the configuration file and all future session of the To Do List will use this background color. If you wish to revert back to the old colors, simply choose CANCEL before leaving the configuration menu. The original colors that were present before entering this menu will appear on the screen. CONFIGURE - ITEM LIST COLOR... This option works identically to the CONFIGURE - BACK GROUND COLOR option described above. All references to back ground color will now apply to the areas of the To Do List where the user enters information. CONFIGURE - CHECK BOX COLOR... This option works identically to the CONFIGURE - BACK GROUND COLOR option described above. All references to back ground color will now apply to just the check boxes that you select on or off as tasks are completed. CONFIGURE - DEFAULT DATA FILE... This option allows the user to specify a default data file to be loaded every time the To Do List is run. The user can choose three options, described below for the default data file "NONE" Choosing this option will load the To Do List with no data, except the current computer system date in the date area of the To Do List. "CURRENT DATE" Choosing this option will cause To Do List to search for a data file with the file name MMDDYY.TDL where the MMDDYY is replaced by the date from the current computer system date. For example, on August 6, 1991 the data file would be 080691.TDL. If this file does not exist, then the To Do List will run just like choosing the "NONE" option above. "SPECIFY FILE" Choosing this option will also highlight the Filename section of the default data file form. This will allow the user to enter a valid DOS filename for a data file to be used until changed again by the default data file option. Simply enter a data file name that has already been created or will be created. This file, if it exists, will automatically be loaded when the To Do List is run. If this file does not exist, then the To Do List will run just like choosing the "NONE" option above. CONFIGURE - SET ITEM ALARM When choosing the CONFIGURE - SET ITEM ALARM from the menu, the user is presented with a dialog box for setting an alarm date and time. This dialog box is tagged to the item that was highlighted prior to selecting this menu item. You will see the item presented on this dialog box as a reminder of which item you are setting an alarm for. To set the alarm date and time, simply adjust the scroll bars to the date and time that you wish to be reminded and select DONE. If you change your mind while in the SET ITEM ALARM dialog box, simply select CANCEL to remove any changes to the date and time that you may have made. To completely clear the alarm date and time, select CLEAR ALARM. If you want to use the current date and time as a starting point, simply click on the CURRENT buttons that are near the date or time field. One additional feature of this alarm is the ability to set a daily alarm. If you wish to have an alarm event happen at the same time every day, simply set the beginning date and the time of the event and then check the box next to the word 'Daily:'. When the notification dialog box appears on your screen, and you clear this box, either by choosing OKAY or by the box time out feature, the date is incremented by one day and the file is saved to disk using the current file name. When returning to the main To Do List, you will notice an "A" in a small box immediately to the right of the item that you entered an alarm for. This box may contain a "B" if you also have extended text entered for this item. CONFIGURE - ALARM ON NOTE: If you have set alarm dates and times using the CONFIGURE - SET ITEM ALARM menu item, the alarm is automatically set to the ON mode. This function is simply a toggle for the user to turn the alarm on or off. In order to enable or disable the alarm function, choose the CONFIGURE - ALARM ON function from the menu. This will enable the To Do List to routinely check if any alarm tagged items are due for notification. A few words on this alarm function are in order: When you enable the alarm using the ALARM ON function, this function will use some computer system time whenever it is activated. I have designed the program to check the item alarm dates and times at approximately 60 second intervals. You may notice some slight system performance slowing at these intervals. I do not think, however, that this degrade of system performance will be noticeable to the average user. The default for the alarm function is for the alarm to be on when the program is first run. This is due to the fact that you will want to put the program in your WIN.INI file and set alarms for items. As soon as Windows runs, you will expect the alarm to notify you of items that are due for notification. Therefore, the alarm function must default to on at program run time. Otherwise, the user would have to remember to turn the alarm on each time Windows is started, or else no notification would take place. The program will check the alarm dates and times from the top to the bottom of the list. Therefore, if you have two items that have the same alarm date and time, the first item that is encountered on the list will notify you first. The second item may not come due for notification until several minutes after the first item. (See the description below on ALARM TIME OUT to understand how the alarm works.) CONFIGURE - ALARM TIME OUT When an item is found to be due for notification, a dialog box will appear on the screen. This will happen even if the To Do List is minimized. This will not happen, however, when a non-Windows application is running from within Windows. This box will contain the text of the item that caused the notification. In the default mode of this notification function, this dialog box will remain on the screen until the user clicks the OKAY command button. This may cause the user to miss other important alarm functions. In order to avoid this situation, if you choose the CONFIGURE - ALARM TIME OUT option, the notification dialog box will remove itself from the screen after being displayed for approximately 30 seconds. (This can benefit other current computing operations which may be taking place 'in the background'. If you have other operations taking place, this dialog box will interrupt them and they will remain stopped until this dialog box is removed from the screen.) ####IMPORTANT NOTE:#### When the notification dialog box is removed from the screen, either by the user pressing the OKAY command button or by timing out, as above, the alarm date and time for that item are reset. Therefore, no further notification will take place for that item until the alarm is set again by the user. The exception to this rule is if the Daily box is checked on the alarm set screen. If this box is checked, the alarm date is incremented by one day and the time remains the same. CONFIGURE - 24 HOUR CLOCK The user is allowed to select an optional 24 hour clock display. This menu selection item will be stored to the user's To Do List configuration file and will remain in effect until changed by the user. This includes any additional times that the To Do List program is run. The 24 hour clock mode is used on the main To Do List screen as well as the alarm setting screen and alarm notification screens. All alarm times are stored and compared in 24 hour format. The 12 hour mode is simply displayed for the user's convenience. VERSION INFORMATION Version 1.0 Never quite made it to release. Just as I was about to 08-01-91 release the program, several fairly major flaws came to light. By the time they were discovered, version 1.1 was well on the way to completion. So, version 1.0 was never released. Version 1.1 This version fixed serveral major flaws discovered before 08-11-91 version 1.0 was released. Also several new features were added to the program as well as several "foibles" fixed. These features are listed below: **When any option box appears on the screen, the main To Do List box is disabled from any action. This will force the user to either complete the action started by the option box or cancel it and go back to the main form. I found it quite odd to be able to minimize the To Do List when any other option box was present on the screen. **A simple method was added to update the date of the To Do List. As lists are created and saved to disk, the user may wish to change the date after opening a list. This can now be accomplished quite simply with one of the Tools. **Several "foibles" were repaired such as the order of the buttons on the configuration boxes and beeps on keyboard entries where there shouldn't have been any beeps. I made an attempt to make the code more efficient. As this is written using Visual Basic, I rewrote segments of the code to call common code rather than just copying the code. Version 1.2 This version fixed several minor errors, listed below, in the 08-30-91 program operation: **Default Data File now shows what the current selection is when it comes on the screen. **When certain option selection boxes were closed (colors, file open, etc.), the To Do List would occasionally go behind other windowed items such as Program Manager, etc. This was fixed by making the To Do List the focus after closing any option selection box. **I see no reason why option boxes (colors, open files, delete files etc.) should be resizable by the user. The main To Do List form itself does not need to be resized. In version 1.2, this capability is defeated. Also the major features listed below were added: **CUT, COPY, PASTE...These options allow the user to cut, copy, and paste text to and from the Windows environment. This is accomplished using the standard clipboard that can be accessed via any Windows application. **Insert and Delete Items...These options allow the user to rearrange the order of the items on the To Do List. All items above or below the item to be inserted or deleted are moved up or down by one item accordingly. **OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE...As I took a long hard look at the code for the To Do List, I realized that it could be streamlined and still have the same rich features. I did a complete code restart in some cases. All things considered, I kept the .EXE file roughly the same size while adding all of the features described above. Version 1.3 The following bugs were fixed: 11-10-91 *Pressing Enter from the date field resulted in an error and program termination. Now, Enter is allowed from any field and simply moves to the next item list field. *Menu items made to typical Windows standards. This simply places a ... after each menu item that causes an additional dialog box to appear. Items without the ... after the menu cause immediate action. *When typing within an item list area, reaching beyond the maximum characters per line causes the focus to move to the next item list. This allows for multi-line items. The bug is that the last character typed on the previous line is lost. This has now been fixed and the character that causes the line wrap now becomes the first character on the next item line. *Improved file handling when entering file names from the FILE - SAVE AS menu. This menu previously could have allowed a user to create an invalid DOS filename. Now the field is limited to 8 characters, the . is not a valid input character and the program takes care of adding the extension for the user. Also, when entering the FILE - SAVE AS option, the current file name is entered into the name field and high- lighted. If the user wishes to use this file name, simply press enter or click on SAVE. If a new file name is desired, simply type in the new name, the old file name will be deleted with the first keypress of the new file name. *Entering "," or "." in the item fields causes successive file opens to get lost in the order of data loaded. This can also happen in the new "Extended Text" feature. In the new feature, entering a <CR> in the extended text can also cause the data to get garbled when loading. I have eliminated the ability to enter a comma or period into the item fields. I have eliminated those two and a <CR> from being entered into the extended text field. If there is a demand for these punctuations, I will add it in a future version. *The following NEW features have been added: *Extended Text. People asked for the ability to add more than just the 25 characters in the list item. Simply choose the item that you wish to have more text for and select EDIT - EXTENDED TEXT from the menu. You are now allowed to enter up to 150 characters as "Extended Text". This text can then be printed in an "Extended Text Format" by selecting FILE - PRINT EXTENDED from the menu. *Full drive and path support. When opening, saving or deleting files, support has been added for the full directory structure. This has been implemented in the standard Windows format. When the dialog box appears for the above functions, simply change to the drive and/or directory desired. The file list box will change to reflect the files available in the drive and directory specified. Note, however, that this new drive and directory becomes the default until changed by the user. *Alarm functions for all items. You may now specify an alarm date and time for each of the 10 items on the list. At the specified time, a reminder dialog box will appear on the screen and a notification beep will sound. These alarm times will be saved with the data files. *A clock has been added to the main To Do List screen. This clock, in the upper right side of the list is just a handy reminder of the current time. It can be useful when setting the items on the list and when determining what times to set on the alarm. *****##### PRICE REDUCTION, PRICE REDUCTION #####***** Can you imagine that, all of these neat new features and fixes and still I manage to reduce the price by a whopping 25%. Wow, what a bargain. Please register your copy today. Version 1.4 Version 1.3 introduced several major new features. Therefore, 12-01-91 I guess that it is only fitting that several coding errors have been discovered. The following oopses have been fixed: *When the To Do List is minimized and an alarm event occurrs, the date and time of the alarm is not always cleared or incremented properly. This is due, in part, to the priority that each user has assigned to the background process running in Windows. I have overcome this problem by causing the To Do List to be brought to the foreground after the user clicks the Okay button from the alarm notification screen. This is probably a normal procedure to follow anyway. *When the user enters the menu option for setting the alarm dates and times, in certain instances, the alarm may sound for the current item that the user is setting the alarm for. This was due to a program error that set the item date and time prior to the user clicking the DONE button on the alarm setting screen. This will no longer occurr. Note, however, that when in the alarm setting screen, alarms that may have previously been set for the current item, as well as other items, may still sound. *If an alarm date was set to a previous date, the alarm would not sound until the current time was also greater than the alarm time. This was due to the fact that the program used the >= logic for the date as well as the time. It has now been changed to > for the date and >= for the time. Now, if the date is prior to the current date, the alarm will sound regardless of the current time or alarm time. *While not really an error, I have now changed the cursor focus to the first item on the list when the program is first run and when the user selects FILE - NEW from the menu. This is due to the fact that I decided not to support Extended Text or alarms for the Date field at the top of the list. I felt that it would be awkward to new users to attempt to set either Extended Text or an alarm if the focus were on the Date field. I have also disabled these menu selection items when in the Date Field. *When setting alarm times, in order to get to 12 A.M. (or 00:xx in the 24 hour mode) the user had to press the button to increment the hour once and then the button to decrement the hour once. This has now been fixed and will work in both 12 hour and 24 hour mode. With the time field cleared, clicking the hour increment button results in 12:xx A.M. Clicking the hour decrement button from this point will not go below 12:xx A.M. Similarly, in the 24 hour mode, the first increment for hours goes to 00:xx and will not go below. *When entering the DEFAULT DATA FILE screen, the user was allowed to enter almost any keyboard character and a file name that would violate the standard DOS file names. This has been corrected to allow only numbers and letters, only 8 characters maximum, and the program takes care of adding the extension for the user. *When using the DAILY feature of an alarm, if the date goes past the maximum valid number of days in the current month, the program will error out when re-settting that alarm. This is due to some code that I inadvertantly neglected to add to the program. This code checks for a valid number of days for the current month and increments the month if this number of days is exceeded. Also, if months>12 then the year is increased by one, if the year is greater that 99 then the year is set to 0. Several new features have been added. They include: *When the user attempts to create a new To Do List, Open a different data file, or Exit the To Do List, the program reminds the user to save the current data file. This only occurrs if changes have been made to the current data file since the last file save operation. *The alarm notification screen now shows any Extended Text for each alarm item as well as the alarm date and time that was originally set for the item. *If a user selects the Daily check box on the alarm setting screen and then does not, for whatever reason, run the To Do List for several days, the alarm for that specific item will sound multiple times. For example, if I set an alarm on an item for the 15th of the month and then don't run the To Do List for several days (perhaps vacation or the weekend), on the 20th of the month, this item alarm could sound 5 times. Each time the alarm sounds, the alarm date will be incremented by one day (16th, 17th, etc.). I have now decided that when the Daily box is checked on the set item alarm screen and the user selects Okay from the alarm notification screen, the alarm date is incremented by one day from TODAY. This occurs only if the alarm time has already passed. If the alarm time is still to come in the day, then the alarm date is set to the current date. The current date is obtained from the computer system, incremented, and stored with the To Do List data file. *When the alarm notification screen is presented to the user, the ALT key is sent to the keyboard. This should stop most screen savers, place the notification on the screen and then wait for user verification or alarm time out. Then, if the user does not respond to the alarm, and the screen saver times out, the alarm screen is momentarily erased from the screen also. *Users are allowed to enter punctutation in the item lists and Extended Text. In addition, the users are allowed to enter a carriage return in extended text fields. In prior versions, the method of saving the data files prevented punctuation and carriage returns to be used. The format for data files has now been changed and the users are allowed to use punctuation. Any previous data files are still useable. *When the user selects the alarm time out feature, described below, the status of this menu item is stored in the config file for the To Do List. This item will remain the same until the user changes it, even when running a new version of the To Do List. *A new menu item allows the user to select to use a 24 hour clock. Prior versions defaulted to a 24 hour clock. From now on, the To Do List will default to a 12 hour clock and make a 24 hour clock a selectable option for the user. This option, like the alarm time out option, is saved with the config file for the To Do List. *The menu item described above for a 24 hour clock will set the clock type on the main To Do List screen as well as the alarm setting screen and alarm notification screen. *On the set item alarm screen, the user is now allowed to select a WEEKLY alarm. This mode, when active, will simply increment the date by seven days from the current alarm DATE setting. NOTE: When using this mode, the new alarm date will be advance seven days from the previous alarm date. It will not be subject to the same conditions described in the section above regarding the DAILY check box. Also, a MONTHLY alarm can be selected. This alarm is subject to all of the conditions of a weekly alarm with the following exceptions. The month is simply incremented by one. However, in cases where the day is greater than the total number of days in the next month, the day is set to the greatest number of days in the next month. For example, if I set an alarm for October 31 and check the monthly alarm option, then after the alarm sounds on October 31 and times out (or the user clicks okay), the alarm date will be set to November 30. This is also true for February. The day will also not be incremented when the current alarm is for the 30th of the month (except for Feb). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Do List is a copyright product of David A. Schoeffel and dRs Engineering of Mukwonago, WI. Visual Basic version 1.0, Windows 3.0 and VBRUN100.DLL are all trade marked and copyrighted products of the Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Washington. No warranties, expressed or implied, are extended for the use of this product or any side effects of the use or misuse of this product.