Big Blue Disk Sampler 1/BigBlueDiskSampler.img/DATEBOOK.TXT

Text File | 1989-01-09 | 11.9 KB | 225 lines

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|A║ |6Helpware |A║═══════════════════════ ^1Datebook |A═══════════════════════║ |6Helpware |A║
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^Cby
^CBob Napp and Richard Wong


   ^1Note:  Since this program can create large data files as you enter lots of
^1information, we suggest you copy it to your own disk -- or, better yet, a hard
^1drive -- before entering your appointments.

   Anyone with a busy schedule has the need to keep track of upcoming events.
Perhaps you've got a business meeting every Tuesday morning, a club meeting on
the second Saturday of each month, and a dentist appointment this Thursday
afternoon.  And your spouse will kill you if you forget your anniversary.  How
are you going to keep all of that straight?  You could write it all in a paper
datebook, but what if you forget to look at it?  Anyway, you have to keep buying
expensive refills for those things every year; and until you get next year's
book, you may have difficulty figuring out what day is the second Monday of
February.

   Along comes BIG BLUE DISK to your rescue, with Datebook, to help you keep
your appointment schedule.  You can set up your computer to run Datebook
automatically every time you boot up, so you'll always be reminded of what's on
tap for today.  You can set up one-time appointments as well as regular,
recurrent events; and you can give yourself advance warning of such things as
birthdays and anniversaries.  A perpetual calendar is built-in to show you the
weekdays of any date, past, present, or future.


^CINSTRUCTIONS

   Datebook is fully menu-driven with on-screen help throughout the program;
it shouldn't be difficult for you to figure out what to do at any point in the
program.  However, here are some directions to help get you started.

   When you run Datebook, you will see an initial title screen.  Press any key
and you will see a prompt to enter a filename.  At this point, you must specify
the directory path and filename of an existing Datebook event file, or enter a
new filename to create an event file.  If you specify an existing file, Datebook
will load the file and automatically display the current month's calendar and
the day's events.  If you created a new file at the initial prompt, Datebook
places you in the "Create New Events" mode.  Instructions on using the calendar
and on creating new events are given below.  (Note: For Datebook to function
properly, you must set your system date correctly, either through a real-time
clock board or by the DATE command of DOS.  The DATE SET program in BIG BLUE
DISK #26 may be helpful in this regard for those of you without clock boards. If
the date has not been correctly set, Datebook will prompt you to enter the
correct date after the title page is displayed.)

   All of Datebook's commands center around a simple main menu.  Normally, this
menu can be reached by just pressing ESC once, unless the on-screen prompts
indicate otherwise.  From the main menu, you get the following choices:

   ^1Create new events^0:  Lets you enter the information on upcoming events.  A full
description of this section is given below.

   ^1View event calendar^0:  Places you in the calendar mode.  From this event
calendar, you may view a list of events for any day between 1700 and 2099.  You
also have the option of editing or deleting events here.

   ^1Browse existing entries^0:  Lets you look through all events you have entered.
You can edit or delete each one as it is displayed.  A menu of all events
(listed in chronological order by starting date) can be displayed to help you
easily find an event to edit or delete.

   ^1View pending notices^0:  Lets you see what events are upcoming if you have
placed requests for advance warning.  Only the warnings which are pending for
the current day are displayed.  Once these notices are displayed, you may toggle
the warning status of any event On/Off; if you leave the warning status on, then
you will be continued to be warned until the event occurs or the status is
turned off.  After any periodic event occurs, its warning status is
automatically turned back on for the next occurrence of the event.  If you do
not want an event's warning status reactivated, then you should edit the event
and clear the warning period field (go to the warning period field and press
Ctrl-End or backspace over any specified warning period).

   ^1Switch to another event file^0:  Lets you change to a different set of events.
You can keep separate files for different purposes: maybe you'd like personal
and business appointments to be on separate datebooks, or you have several
family members or co-workers sharing a PC and wishing to keep their own
appointment files.  Type the name of a disk file to load or create; you'll be
shown a list of the files on your disk.  To get to different drives and paths,
use the up arrow to reach the "Directory" field; see your DOS manual for syntax
of paths.  The file extention ".DBD" is used for all Datebook event files, so do
not specify an extension with your filename.

   ^1Exit Datebook^0:  Leaves the program and returns you to DOS or BIG BLUE DISK.

   ^1Change the standard date format^0: Lets you choose what style to output dates.
You might prefer "12/31/1988" to "31 Dec 1988" or vice versa.  Several choices
are provided.  Datebook redisplays starting and ending dates in the date format
specified here, but you may still enter dates in any valid format.  Choose the
date format which you are most comfortable editing.


^CENTERING EVENTS

   While entering or editing an event, you're placed on another screen with a
number of fields.  You can step back and forth through them with the Tab and
Shifted Tab keys, and enter data in them by typing it followed by ENTER.  The
fields are:  (Press F1 for additional help on most of these fields.)

   ^1Event^0:  A brief description of the event, such as "Dentist appointment" or
"Staff meeting."

   ^1Event Type^0:  This has several choices.  One Time refers to an event that only
happens once on the indicated date, while Daily, Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly,
Bimonthly, Quarterly, and Annually let you set up recurring events.  Type the
first letter of the desired choice, or press F2 for a menu.  In addition to
those mentioned above, choosing First, Second, Third, or Fourth enables events
for the indicated week of each month; e.g. "First Saturday."  (See below for how
to indicate weekdays.)  For Monthly, Bimonthly, Quarterly, and Annual events,
the recurrences will take place on the indicated day of the appropriate months.
For Weekly, Biweekly, and First through Fourth, they will take place on the
given days of the week (see the section on days below).

   ^1Starting Date^0:  The date of the event.  You may enter it in several forms:
^1Jan. 1, 1989^0, ^12/29/92^0, ^16 March 91^0.  Two-digit years default to 1900+year for 80
and up, and 2000+year for 01 through 79.  For one-time events, use the date of
the actual event; for recurring events, you may use the most recent or nearest
upcoming date, which is used as a starting point to calculate future
occurrences.  If you wish to view past occurrences of an event, then you must
enter a starting date in the past (e.g. you might enter Independence Day as an
annual event starting July 4, 1776).

   ^1Days^0:  For one-time events, you may use the day toggle option to indicate
that they last more than one day.  The selected date's weekday will
automatically be toggled, and you can tab back to that field and toggle any
other weekdays as well to indicate continuation of the event to later days.  For
instance, if a convention lasts from Thursday through Sunday, you can put it in
as a one-time event on Thursday, then select Friday, Saturday, and Sunday also.

   For the recurrent events Weekly and Biweekly, or which use the First,
Second, Third, Fourth, or Last types, you must indicate one or more days of the
week.  Use the arrows to step from Sunday through Saturday, and press Enter to
toggle each day on or off.  Tab exits the field.

   For one time, weekly, and bi-weekly events, you may select any number of
days, up to and including all seven.

   If you have an event on the first Thursday of every month, select "First" for
the event type, and toggle Thursday on; only one day of the week may be marked
for the "First" through "Last" event types.  If you have a meeting every Tuesday
and Thursday, select "Weekly", then toggle both Tuesday and Thursday on.


   ^1Ending Date^0: This specifies a cut-off date for recurrent events.  For
example, you may specify a weekly event beginning on March 1st and ending on
March 31st.

   ^1Advance warning^0:  If you want to be warned of an event in advance, use this
feature.  Toggle it on by pressing any key, and type the length of the desired
advance warning (e.g., 1 day, 2 weeks, etc.) in the field below.  You can see
advance event warnings for the day using the View Pending Notices main menu
item.  The "View pending notices" option on the main menu will display any
upcoming events which have a warning period specified.


   ^1Start time^0, ^1End time^0:  Enter the times of day the event starts or ends, if
known.  The standard format is hh:mm with an AM or PM suffix, but you may type
free-form data like "Lunch" or "Midnight."

   ^1Comments^0:  Type anything you want here to describe the event further.


^CRUNNING DATEBOOK DAILY

   For Datebook to do you any good, you must use it regularly.  It's a good idea
to run it automatically every time you boot your system.  Use the "Copy It"
option to install DATEBOOK into a directory of your hard disk that is included
in the list in the "PATH" command in your "AUTOEXEC.BAT" file, or else copy it
into the root directory "C:\".  Hard disk users probably have a file named
AUTOEXEC.BAT in their root directory; this contains commands that are executed
every time the user boots up.  Add the line:

   DATEBOOK

to the end of this file, using a text editor such as our BLUELINE editor.

   For floppy disk users, use the "Copy It" option from BIG BLUE DISK to place
the Datebook program on a formatted, system disk.  Finally, type the following
lines from the DOS A> prompt with the new disk inserted in drive A:

   COPY CON AUTOEXEC.BAT
   DATEBOOK

followed by F6 and ENTER.  Now, when you boot your system from the new disk, it
will run Datebook.

   This will let you get into the habit of booting the Datebook program every
day.  When you do, look and see what events are in store for the day, print out
a list with the P command if you'd like to have it in front of you as you go
about your rounds, and check the advance warnings of upcoming events.  When
you're through with this minor daily chore, exit the program and proceed with
your regular PC work.

   You can get Datebook to open an event file automatically (skipping the title
screen and filename prompt) with the following command:

   DATEBOOK /F filename

in place of "DATEBOOK" alone in the previous examples.  (Use your filename in
place of the word "filename."  Some examples:

   DATEBOOK /F HIS.DBD
   DATEBOOK /F HERS.DBD
   DATEBOOK /F BUSINESS

   The ".DBD" extension is optional; Datebook will add it if not included.  When
the /F switch is used, you are automatically placed in the view calendar mode
with the current day's events displayed.

   A few more options:  "DATEBOOK M" comes up in monochrome mode, similar to the
"GO M" switch in BIG BLUE DISK.  "DATEBOOK F" speeds up screen output a little
on systems with snow-free CGA cards (that's just about every CGA except IBM's).
If necessary, you can combine the /F switch with one of these monitor options.
Thus, both "Datebook M /F datebook" and "Datebook /F datebook M" run Datebook in
monochrome mode and automatically load the file "DATEBOOK.DBD" for use.

DISK FILES THIS PROGRAM USES:
^FDATEBOOK.EXE
^FDATEBOOK.HLP
^FDATEBOOK.DBD