Viewing What's Happening

Choosing a Date Range
The "What's Happening" sub-menu of the 'Remember?' menu is where you select a range of dates to view:

- Today, Tomorrow, This Week, This Month
Pretty self-explanatory. Lists all occasions for the appropriate dates.

- Days from Today
A sub-sub-menu to view a number of days starting with today.

- Of Interest
Lists only today's important occasions. Exactly which occasions are considered important depends on how you have defined your Occasion Types (see the Managing Occasion Types  chapter.) An occasion appears in this list when the number of days until it occurs is within the advance notification period of its Type. Some Types, such as Trivia, specify that no advance notification be given and they will never appear in an Of Interest list.

The largest advance notificiation determines the number of days shown.

- Other...
This item presents a dialog where you can quickly select any range and starting date.

The occasions are shown in a What's Happening window where you can browse the individual dates. If such a window is already open, it is re-used to display the range, or you can create additional windows by holding down the SHIFT key while selecting a range.

the What's Happening Window

The title of the window indicates the range of days shown, in this case 8 days from today.  When you use the date range controls (5), the title indicates the number of steps forward (" + N") or backward (" - N") you have taken from 'today'. Special titles such as "Next Week" or "Last Month" are used for common cases.

Calendar
The top portion of the window gives a quick summary of the dates with occasions and allows you to scroll to any date in the list.

(1) the Date Line
The range of dates for this list.

(2) the Calendar Box
Classic calendar style display showing all dates in the range. Those with at least one occasion are bold, or in the color of the highest priority Occasion Type on color Macs (see the Managing Occasion Types  chapter.). Today's date is enclosed in a box.

(3) the Twist Down arrow
Click on it or press 'COMMAND -' (COMMAND and MINUS keys) to show or hide the Calendar Box.

Click on a day number in the Calendar Box to scroll to and highlight occasions for that date. You can also use the LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to step from date to date. Clicks on empty dates are ignored. Clicks on other portions of the calendar remove any current highlighting.

Double-click on a number to create a new occasion for that date.

The height of the calendar is automatically adjusted for the number of days shown. Previous versions required that you manually adjust the height by dragging up or down on the double line below the Calendar Box. If you prefer that method, you can restore it using "Automatically set calendar height?" in Preferences.

(4) The Occasion List
The lower portion of the window is a scrollable list of all the occasions for the date range. Use the scroll bar to change the view. The UP and DOWN arrow keys scroll one entry at a time. The HOME/END/PAGE UP/DOWN keys work as you would expect. You can also use COMMAND-UP/DOWN arrow keys for HOME/END and OPTION-UP/DOWN for PAGE UP/DOWN.

Only dates with occasions are listed. Each begins with a title line giving the full date, followed by the occasion descriptions.

The descriptions are indented to make room for the optional Prefix string for each occasion Type. If the indent is too large, check your Types and shorten the prefixes. For long descriptions, lines after the first are indented a little more.

Overdue persistent occasions, those you haven't mark completed since the last date they occurred, have a special string of the form " -- from X days ago" appended to the description where 'X' is the number of days overdue.

Click on a description to select it, or on a date title to select all of its occasions. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking to select additional items or the COMMAND key to toggle the selection. Some pop-up menu commands (described below) act on the currently selected occasions.

Double-click on a description to view or change its definition, or on a date title to create a new occasion for that date.

(5) Date Range Controls
These three buttons change the current date range.

The right and left side buttons bump the range forward or backward respectively, as do the COMMAND-RIGHT/LEFT arrow keys.

The center button lets you jump to any starting date and range.

(6) Pop-up Window menu
Click on this little triangle icon to get a pop-up menu with commands specific to this window. The first three apply only to the selected (highlighted) occasions in the list:

- Mark Completed
Each occasion is advanced to its next occurrence after the date selected. Mainly useful when you finish an occasion early or to acknowledge overdue Persistent occasions. You are asked if you want to delete occasions with no future dates. Hold down the OPTION key to delete them without asking.

- Edit
Open an Occasion window for each selected occasion so you can view or change its definition.

- Delete
Delete all selected occasions. Be careful! This removes every occurrence of the occasion, past, present and future, not just those for these specific dates. Asks before actually deleting, unless you hold down the OPTION key.

The Edit menu Copy command copies the definitions of selected occasions to the Clipboard. It copies both an internal definition suitable for Pasting to other "Remember?" windows and a TAB delimited text format that can be Pasted into other applications.

The remaining pop-up commands apply to the entire list:

- Print Window...
Prints the entire list in multi-column format. Prints a calendar at the top if this window's Calendar Box is visible. You can set the number of columns and other parameters in Preferences.

- Print as Calendar...
Print the entire list on a single page in classic calendar style format. The printed list will not be complete if some dates have more occasions than will fit in the available space. They are marked as "(partial)" in the printout. Select a smaller printed font size in Preferences to fit more text at the expense of readability.

NOTE:  This format looks best in LANDSCAPE (wide) rather than PORTRAIT (tall) page layout. Unfortunately, I cannot pre-select this so be sure to click the appropriate Orientation icon in the printing dialog.

- Export...
Save the entire list to a text file. The date, start time, Type and description of each occasion are saved in standard TAB delimited format (see the export section of Managing Occasion Files .) Handy for importing into other applications.

Calendar Only Windows
Select Calendar Only in the Remember? menu to get a quick reference calendar. It does not display scheduling information, but you may find it useful for simple tasks such as finding the day of the week for a given date. It is resizable, and the font size is adjusted automatically.

Not sure why you would want to, but you can create additional Calendar Only windows by holding down the SHIFT key while selecting the menu item.

Uses the same date range controls as described for the "What's Happening" window above.

Click on a day number to select it, double-click to create a new occasion. Hold down the OPTION key while double-clicking to see the occasions for that date.

Edit menu support
If a date is selected, Copy saves an untitled occasion for it in the clipboard. You can also Paste in a date to select it.

Window Sets
These are saved arrangements of What's Happening and Calendar Only windows. The size and position of each window is saved, as well as the exact date range for What's Happening windows including any forward or backward bumps you have given them with the date range controls.

This means that you can have "Remember?" present you with your own preferred arrangement of dates and windows every time you use it. You can also define variations that are used under special circumstances.

A set can contain more than one window, if you hold down the SHIFT key while selecting a date range from the main menu. For example, you can have one window with This Week, and a second for Next Week (open another This Week window then bump it forward once with COMMAND-RIGHT ARROW.)

the Window Set Sub-menu
The first four items are the available sets. Selecting one closes the current windows and opens those saved for that set. If there is no saved set, you get a friendly reminder to that effect. The current set is marked with a check. Hold down the OPTION key to change the current set without aletering the currently open windows.

The last two menu items operate on the current set:

- Save
Save the current What's Happening and Calendar Only windows in Remember's Settings file. They will be re-created when this set is selected.

- Forget Saved
Delete the windows saved in the Settings file for the current set. Not available if this set has not been saved.

the Default Window Set
This is the set shown when you select "Remember?" from the apple menu. It is also the only set most folks need concern themselves about.

The choice of date range really depends on personal preference. Until you save your own Default set, you get a window showing Today and a message nagging you to save one.

the Other Window Sets
If one is not enough, there are three additional window sets that are used in special circumstances, if you have created them.

- Startup
Used when "Remember?" finds occasions it needs to bring to your attention when you turn on your Mac.

- Alert
Used when you select Remember? DA from the pop-up alert window's menu (see the Pop-Up Alerts  chapter.)

- User
Substituted for the Default set if you hold down the SHIFT key after selecting "Remember?" from the apple menu.

These sets are completely optional. Feel free to completely ignore them. Only the Default set is needed for day to day use.