DateReminder Version 2.3 (Freeware) November 1995 copyright 1995 Mitchell System Designs All Rights Reserved This release adds an alarm indicator in the main view. If an entry has an alarm, an asterik "*" will be displayed just before the entry type. Also, the date column width has been increased slightly to allow for dates formatted for different locales. And finally, a German language version is available thanks to the translation done by Tim Ulrich of Reutlingen, Germany. (Sorry, this readme file is not available in German.) What is it? ---------- I wrote DateReminder because I wanted a way to keep track of birthdays without needing to enter a name card for each birthday (I only need one address card for a family, but may want to remember 4 birthdays and an anniversary). I also did not want to enter repeating meetings to remember the dates from year to year. Dates can be entered and viewed a month at a time, or for a full year. DateReminder supports the Newton Connection Kit. DateReminder can set alarms. Set any number of advance reminders for a date. DateReminder supports local and global Find. (For details on changes in v2.0 see the release history below.) *WARNING - Installing or updating to this version of DateReminder will use up ~4K of your internal storage for the alarm functionality. This storage is only lost the first time run and NOT every time DateReminder is run. Note that if you have already installed another application that uses alarms (not including built in calendar) this ~4K space will have already been taken and will NOT be taken again by DateReminder. *WARNING - The alarm functionality adds a soup to your internal storage. Do not delete this soup. Note that each alarm added uses space on your internal storage in this soup. Back up your Newton before installing this version of DateReminder. Note - The first time this program is run it may restart your Newton. (I'd be happy to create other language versions. If you would like to see this in another language let me know. If you would be willing to do the translation of the labels and messages that would be great. I will have to rely on volunteers since this is a free program.) Updating -------- If you used a previous version of DateReminder, this version will update all entries to the new version when you run it for the first time. How to use it ------------ Install on your Newton device like any other package Overview The DateReminder screen has a set of tabs (buttons) on the left of the screen which are used to select what will be displayed on screen. The display area will show lines including a date, label, type and "age" for any dates you want to remember. At the bottom of the screen are five buttons. Clock Button Standard button to show the date, time and battery level. i button Pop up menu for "About" and "Prefs". "About" shows a window with the program name, version, and my name and address. "Prefs" will open a window to enter DateReminder preferences. Tap on the clock to set the time of day you want DateReminder alarms to go off. Any alarms you set in DateReminder will use this time of day for the alarms you set. The default is 12 noon. The input line is to write in the number of days advance notice you want for your alarm. This is a default, when setting the alarm you can write in any other number. New Button Tap on the New button to get a window to add a date to remember (the calendar is currently only for display, not for entry), fill in the fields and tap on the Add button. Date can be entered either mm/dd/yy or dd/mm/yy depending on your locale. Options Button Review/Remove Alarms - tap on this choice to see a list of all pending DateReminder alarms. There are two buttons available, Remove One and Remove All. To remove a single alarm, tap on the alarm line then tap the Remove One button. If you want to remove all pending DateReminder alarms, tap the Remove All button. (IMPORTANT-Tapping Remove All when viewing all alarms will remove all alarms for DateReminder. This is different from removing all alarms for a single entry.) Note-To scroll the list of alarms, tap on either the first line or last line and drag your pen either up or down just above or below the box. Remove All Alarms - tap on this choice to remove all pending DateReminder alarms. (This is quicker than displaying first and then tapping on the Remove All button.) Sync birthdays from Names - This will read through all the Name cards, take any that have a birthday entered, and add them to DateReminder. If there are any changes to a name or date, when the "Sync" is done again it will make the changes in DateReminder. If a name card is deleted, the next "Sync" will remove the entry in DateReminder. Prepare to de-install - If you don't like DateReminder and want to remove it, tap on the options button to "Prepare to de-install". This will remove the DateReminder soup, remove the entry in the system soup, the directory soup, any links to the Names soup, and will remove any pending alarms. After doing this, remove the application. Changing an Entry If you want to change an entry, tap on the line and a change window will display (the calendar will display the month, day and year for the date that was entered) There are three buttons here; Alarm(s), Delete, and Okay. Okay - Make any changes to the entry then tap okay to save the changes. Delete - Tap the delete button to delete the entry. This will also remove any link to the Names soup if one existed. It will also remove any pending alarms for this entry. Alarm(s) - Tap this button to open the Alarms window. This is the same as mentioned previously with the addition of an entry line and an Add button. When opening the Alarms window from the change window, only the alarms for the one entry will be displayed. Note that you may create more than one alarm for an entry. The entry line defaults to the number of days advance notice that was entered in the preferences. Just tap the Add button to add an alarm. If you want additional alarms for this entry, write in the number of days advance notice and then tap on the Add button again. (IMPORTANT-Tapping Remove All when viewing only this entry's alarms will remove all alarms for this entry, NOT all DateReminder alarms. This is different from removing all alarms for all entries.) Note that each alarm will take space on your internal storage. If you change the month or day of an existing entry and there are pending alarms, you will be asked if you want the pending alarms adjusted automatically. You can tap OK and they will be adjusted, or you can cancel and adjust them yourself. Limiting the display Tap on any month tab on the left of the screen to restrict the view to only that month. Problems -------- DateReminder currently uses three "Types"; Anniversary, Birthday, Holiday; if you add entries in Newton Connection Kit and do not enter one of these types the entry will be refused. But the message does not say which entry it does not like. Make sure the "Type" is one of these three. I may add better error messages in the future. Occasionally a "Type" is blank in the overview after entry. I have not been able to reproduce this problem. If I find the cause I will fix it, in the meantime just tap on the line to get the change window, tap on the "Type" popup and select the type again, then save the entry. Tapping on the clock in preferences to set the alarm time will sometimes display the new time being AM when the radio button shows PM. This does not happen all the time. Just tap on the radio button to get the two in sync. If you have a lot of alarms set, tapping on the options button to "Review/Remove Alarms" can be really slow building the list of alarms to display. (No actual timing done, but seemed to be almost 1 sec per alarm) Alarms can only be added from the change screen, not when adding a new entry. (I didn't want to increase the size even more so did not add this ability. I would want to change the structure of the program first, make it more efficient so adding this ability would not require adding a lot of code.) Distribution ----------- This application is Freeware. You may use and distribute copies of this application as long as this documentation is included as is, the application is not altered in any way, and you don't charge for it. Comments/Bug reports --------------------- I'd like to hear from you if you have any comments, suggestions or bug reports. You can contact me at: Internet: PMitchell@eworld.com AppleLink: MSD.PETER or Peter Mitchell 9526 - 83 St. Edmonton, AB, Canada, T6C 3A1 Future Plans ----------- I'm also thinking of adding the ability to export dates out to the calendar. I'm not sure how much I'll actually add to this program in the near future. I want to keep offering this program for free, but I would like to start making a living from Newton programming so I will have less time for this. (I have been doing this in spare time while working on a commercial vertical application. Any spare time in the near future will probably be spent on ideas for new shareware or commercial applications. Not to mention that I don't spend all my time doing this, I do like to spend time with my family!) I will continue to make bug fixes. This will all be affected by feedback I receive. (ie: I get a lot of requests for an addition and people are finding the program useful.) Disclaimer ---------- This application comes as is with no warranty, use at your own risk. Release History -------------- v2.3 (November 1995) This release adds an alarm indicator in the main view. If an entry has an alarm, an asterik "*" will be displayed just before the entry type. Also, the date column width has been increased slightly to allow for dates formatted for different locales. And finally, a German language version is available thanks to the translation done by Tim Ulrich of Reutlingen, Germany. v2.2 (September 1995) This release fixes a bug where alarms would show up for the wrong entry. This affected entries added by a sync with birthdays in the Names application. v2.1 (August 1995) This release fixes a bug where, under certain conditions, an alarm would get set a year into the future even though it should have been set in the current year. v2.0 (July 1995) Added support for local and global Find Added ability to set alarms to remind about upcoming dates Changed so the default type is now "Birthday" when adding a new record Added preferences Added code to update entries from previous versions to version 2.0 Added a warning message if date entered is not valid Extended support for localization on dates (ie: mm/dd/yy or dd/mm/yy) Added "Initializing..." screen when opening DateReminder Fixed bug in re-display of screen after adding a new entry Updated de-install code to remove the preferences and any related alarms still pending v1.1 (June 1995) (I don't get much time to spend on this, so changes are slow right now.) Reduced the size of the icon in the extras drawer (thanks for the suggestion) Added option to remove soup and system entry to prepare to de-install application v1.0 (May 1995) Added (fixed) support for Newton Connection Kit Added option to synchronize birthdays from the Names application Added Info button v0.9b (Jan 1995) Initial release