If you don't like to read documentation, please quickly read this section for a brief description of how to use Right On Time. This information is covered in detail in the sections which follow. Registration information is at the bottom of this document.
If you have the demo version of Right On Time (prior to version 2.6.4), you may only add up to 5 events. "Demo Version" is displayed when printing as well. Otherwise, it is fully functional. You will be given the password to unlock the full version of Right On Time as soon as your shareware fee is received.
The file "Events" will be read automatically when ROT starts up. This file must be in the same folder as the application. The first time you start ROT, this file will be created automatically (you never have to "save", as events are immediately saved each time you create, edit, or delete them).
Archived events are stored in the file "Old Events". If you have a file named "Sounds" (in the same folder) which contains "snd " resources, these sounds will be added to the list of sounds which can be played when an event comes due (along with sounds in your System file).
Each Events file contains its own list of categories which you may edit as you like.
Balloon Help is supported for the Monthly and List view windows.
• Introduction
Right On Time is a versatile application which provides To-Do List, Calendar, and Reminder features, as well as a menubar clock. You can set up one-time or repeating reminders, and Right On Time will notify you when the reminders are due. You can also create to-do items, which are like reminders but have no specific due date. You can organize your reminders and to-do items by category, and play sounds when reminders are due.
You can use Right On Time to remind you when bills are due, when birthdays or anniversaries are coming up, or other important dates. With the archiving feature, you can also keep a history of significant events. The perpetual calendar built in to Right On Time can show you any month of any year (with certain limits).
Currently, two types of views are supported for viewing the events you create: a List View and a Monthly Calendar. The List view is well suited for viewing to-do items, but you can view reminders as well.
Right On Time is AppleEvent-aware, and supports the four required AppleEvents. Also, a custom AppleEvent is supported which allows you to add reminders from another application.
• Installation
Unlike other similar packages, Right On Time is just an application, and does not include a system extension. This gives you more control over how much memory is used, and eliminates the possibility of system extension conflicts. You can start up and quit Right On Time any time you want, and no system restart is necessary. Installation is easy: just copy Right On Time to any location you prefer. Three special files, "Events", "Old Events", and "Sounds" must be located in the same folder as the application. Your main events file is called "Events", and archived events are placed in the file named "Old Events". The special "Sounds" file must be present if you want to add your own sound effects (you can also use the sounds that are inside your System suitcase). This file contains standard "snd " resources.
Right On Time should work on all Macintoshes running at least System 6. Since there are lots of possible configurations and I haven't personally tested them all, I make no guarantees. I have had no problems running System 7.6.1 on the latest crop of power macs and clones. This program is pure 68K code.
You will probably want to place an alias to Right On Time in your Startup Items folder (within your System Folder) so that you can see reminders when you start your computer. DO NOT place the actual application in the Startup Items folder, just an alias to it. If you leave Right On Time running in the background, you will be reminded of events throughout the day.
The file "Events" is the default file which will be read when you start up Right On Time, although you may create and read other events files by using the File menu. Only one events file may be "active" at a time.
Right On Time works best if your system contains the bitmap fonts Monaco 9 and Monaco 12 (having just the truetype versions is not sufficient). If you have display problems, first check to make sure you have these fonts installed.
• Registering Your Software
If you have a demo version of Right On Time (prior to version 2.6.4), you need the serial number to transform it into a full working version. In the About Box, there is a button called "Register". Clicking this button changes the software back and forth between the demo version and the full working version. To switch to the full working version you must enter your name and the serial number (both required), and an optional company name.
Each time you move Right On Time to a different disk and try to run it, you must re-enter the registration information. If you do not remember the correct serial number at that time, you can always switch to demo mode. The demo version limits the number of new events that you can create, but it can read in a file with an unlimited number of events.
Remember, if you click "Register" while not in demo mode, you will immediately go to demo mode, and you will have to re-enter the registration information to return to the full working version.
• Creating and Editing Events
You must open either the List window or the Monthly Calendar window before you can create events. You can use the Edit menu to create the event, or use a shortcut. You can double-click on a day in the Monthly View to create a new event for that day, or click the New Event button in the List window.
You can double-click an existing event in the Monthly Calendar or List window to edit that particular event. To delete an event, select it in the List window and choose "Delete Event" from the Edit menu, press the DELETE key, or click the Delete Event button (the trash can). If you choose "Archive Event", the event will be removed from the current file and placed in the file called "Old Events".
In the Edit Event window, you can enter several options, most of which are self-explanatory. You can type in the date and time, or you can select a date by clicking the "Select Date" button (it looks like a small calendar). Likewise, you can enter the time using the "Select Time" button (it looks like a small clock). After an event becomes due, you can specify that it stay in the list, be automatically deleted, or be automatically archived (moved to the "Old Events" file).
There is no duration for events that you create -- only the start time is entered. If you have an event that repeats every Monday, you would create an event for the next Monday, and specify a repeat interval of 1 week. If you have a meeting every day for a period of 1 week, you would enter the first meeting time and date as the "due time" and "due date", specify a repeat interval of 1 day, and select "repeat until" the last date.
You may specify that an event be a "no-time" event, if the time of day is not important (like for holidays). You may also create a "to-do" item, which is an event that has no date associated with it. To-do events can only be listed in the List view, by clicking the "to-do" button there.
If you want to be warned of an upcoming event, you may attach an alarm to the event. Checking this checkbox will bring up the alarm options. An alarm will go off at the time you specify, which may be before the actual event (no special notice will be given when the event becomes due, unless you have an alarm attached). The alarm may be in the form of a blinking menubar icon, or you may have a dialog box appear. In addition, you may specify the type of sound that is to be played. See the section on alarms below.
There is never a need to "save your work", since events are immediately saved to disk when you create or change them.
• Alarms
Unless you attach an alarm to an event when you create it, no special notice will be given when an event becomes due. An alarm consists of an audible sound and some form of notification. The sound may be a simple "beep" (whatever sound you have currently selected as your system beep sound), a digitized sound (from the list of sounds stored in your System suitcase and the "Sounds" file), or synthesized speech (which requires the Speech Manager software to be installed in your system).
The notification method for an alarm may be either a blinking menubar, or a dialog box. With the first method, an icon will appear blinking in the Application menu until you pull it down and bring Right On Time to the front. At that time a message will explain what event just occurred. In the other notification method, Right On Time will be automatically brought to the front and a message will be displayed.
IF YOU ARE USING SYSTEM 6, Right On Time will never bring itself to the front, so the only alarm notification method you may choose is the menubar type.
In the "Other Prefs" dialog box, you may specify that the audible portion of an alarm be repeated every minute, until it is responded to. This is useful for menubar-notification events, which may not be noticed if you step away from your computer.
When the alarm dialog is displayed, you have two special options. The "Go Back" button will send Right On Time back to the background, if it was just automatically brought to the front (in the case of dialog-notification events). The "Warn Again Later" button allows you to put off the alarm until a later time (like a "snooze" button). Please note that when you delay an alarm in this manner, it is only temporary, and will not be remembered after you quit the application. Therefore, delaying an alarm by a day or more will not work unless you always leave your computer turned on.
In the "Other Prefs" dialog box, you may specify a time limit to be notified of old alarms. For example, if you have alarms which go off every day and you take a two week vacation, you probably don't want to be told of all the events that occurred in the last two weeks. You may specify "don't show alarms older than 3 days" to skip past these old alarms.
• Importing Events
You can import the events from another Right On Time Events file by choosing "Import Events". Only events with different names (summary) will be added to the current Events file. You should double-check the assigned categories after importing events.
• The List window
The List view shows you a list of events for the time period you select. Only 32K of information will fit into this list, although it is possible to have even more events stored internally. You can select events and edit, archive, or delete them from this window. Past due events are marked with a bullet ("•"). You can copy selected events and paste them into other applications (TAB's are inserted between columns).
You may select and event and choose "Edit Event", or just double-click the event to change it. The "Delete Event" menu item, the trash can button, or the DELETE key will delete an event. If you choose "Archive Event", the event will be removed from the current file and placed in a file called "Old Events". You may also click the New Event button (it looks like a hand with a ribbon around a finger) to create a new event.
Important note: in the current version, only the past and next occurrences of a repeating event are displayed in the List view. Unlike the Monthly view, which has the capability to show all future occurrences of a repeating event, the List view now can only show the next occurrence.
Monaco 9-point font is used for the List view. If you don't have this font installed in your system, the list will not appear formatted correctly.
There is no way to not show past due events (those marked with a "•"). This is intentional, so that you are reminded to get rid of these old events. Since all events (including expired ones) are stored in memory, Right On Time will run more efficiently if you have fewer events. You may archive the old events if you want a record of them.
• Monthly Calendar
The Monthly Calendar is a perpetual calendar which also marks the days on which events occur. When you first open this window, the current date will be hilited, as well as listed below the calendar. You can always click on the current date listed below to change the calendar back to the current month.
If you have repeating events, you may opt to see ALL occurences or just the NEXT occurence. You can choose the option you prefer by selecting the "Misc Prefs" menu item. Projecting a repeating event far into the future (like years) can cause a small delay in updating the calendar.
You can double-click on a date to create a new event on that date. If you click right on the text of an existing event, then you can edit that existing event.
The font size of the calendar automatically changes as you change the size of the Monthly view window. At the smallest size, Geneva 7-point font is used for the dates. Since this is not a standard bitmapped font size contained in most systems, your calendar will not look good at this size unless you have TrueType fonts installed in your system. If you are not using system 7, you can install Geneva 7-point yourself with the Font/DA Mover. If you make the window large enough, the summary of events will be displayed within each day's box.
• When Events Become Due
Past due events usually stay around until you explicitly delete them. In the case of repeating events, a new event is automatically created for the next repeating time, but the old event is not necessarily deleted (the old event is no longer a repeating one, but the new one is). When you create an event, you can specify that it be automatically archived or deleted when it becomes due.
• Categories
Using the "Categories Setup" menu item, you can customize the list of categories. This custom list is stored with the currently open events file. Remember that each events file has its own categories list associated with it.
Each category has a set of default settings associated with it. You can customize these settings as well. When creating or editing an event, the default settings will be automatically set when you change categories. Of course, you can always override the default settings for any particular event.
You can specify the "default" category, which is the category which new events are automatically set to when first created.
• Menubar Clock
Using the "Other Prefs" menu item, you can choose to display the current time in the menubar, even when Right On Time is in the background. When you move your mouse pointer over the time, the date will be displayed. In the "Other Prefs" dialog, you can specify how far from the right side to display the clock.
Since Right On Time is an application, and does not patch the operating system in any way, the menubar clock cannot always be updated instantly. In particular, when you are running several appliations, it may take a moment longer to display the date when you point to the menubar clock.
By moving your mouse pointer over the diamond, you can see what the next event is. In some cases, showing the next event in this manner may wipe out some of the text of your menubar. You can refresh the menubar by moving to the Finder and back.
• AppleEvents Support (programmers only)
Right On Time supports the four required AppleEvents (oapp, odoc, pdoc, quit), as well as 1 custom AppleEvent which may be used by other applications to add events. This custom AppleEvent is type "ROT " and id "ADDE". This AppleEvent should contain 2 descriptors: "time" and "name". The "time" parameter is of type long integer, and is the time and date (in seconds, standard mac format) of the event. The "name" parameter is a Pascal-style string of up to 31 characters which is the summary name of the event. These are the only two parameters you may send right now; other information will be filled in with default values.
If you would like to take advantage of this AppleEvent support, but would like more features supported, just contact me and we can discuss your specific needs.
• Virus Checking
Right On Time checks itself when it starts up for the presence of a virus infection. If critical sections of Right On Time are modified, then a warning message will be displayed to this effect. You can still run the application, though. Be careful if you try to ResEdit the application!
• Hot Key
You may press and hold down the OPTION and R keys simultaneously to bring Right On Time to the front. When several applications are running, you may have to hold down the keys a second or two.
• Freeware
Previous versions of Right On Time (prior to version 2.6.4) were shareware. This was a very successful project for me and I am deeply grateful to those who supported me. Unfortunately I have become a very busy person and have not had much time to spend on updating this program lately. Rather than see this program slowly fade away, I have now made Right On Time a free product for all to enjoy. Please, this program is presented “as is” and I have very little time now to support it. You may contact me via email but I cannot guarantee new versions will be available.
