Managing Occasion Files

Only occasions contained in files on your Active Occasion File list appear in What's Happening lists or pop-up alerts.

The active list is maintained from the Occasion Files dialog accessible by selecting Occasion Files in the main Remember? menu.

the Occasion Files dialog

(1) the Active Occasion File list
These are the names of the occasion files you want to use for What's Happening lists and pop-up alerts.

Click on a name to select it. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking to select multiple files, or the COMMAND key to toggle a selection.

Adding an Existing File to the list:
Click the [Add...] button and use the standard 'Open file' window to select the Occasion file to add. Click the Open button to add it to the Active list. It is probably a good odea to keep all your occasion files in one folder to simplify backups.

Adding a New Occasion File:
Click the [New...] button, then use the standard 'Save file' window to enter the name and select a folder for the file. Click the Save button to create and add it to the Active list.

Removing Files from the list:
Select the files in the list to be removed, then click the [Remove] button.

Setting the Default File for New Occasions:
Hold down the OPTION key then click on the name of an unlocked file and it becomes the default file for new occasions. It is marked with a bullet (•).

(2) Information Area
Click on a name in the list to see useful information about it here.

The Locked box is checked if the occasion file is locked to prevent changes. Click in the box to unlock it. (Can't be changed if the volume is locked.)

When the Auto-Delete box is checked, expired one-time occasions are deleted when "Remember?" starts up. Uncheck this box if you want to keep the old occasions after they have passed. (Disabled if the file or volume is locked or if the master auto-delete switch in Preferences is turned off.)

The location of the occasion file is shown below the two checkboxes. The path to the file starts with the name of the volume and lists the name of enclosing folders with a colon (:) between each.

(3) Keep Changes After Quit
This box is checked when you make changes to the list, either adding or removing files. The changes will be saved and used the next time you access "Remember?". If you uncheck this box, the changes are discarded when you Quit.

This can be useful if you want to temporarily add an occasion file to copy occasions from it to your own files (see the Browse window below.)

(4) the Done button
Click this button to close the Occasion Files dialog.

Exporting Occasions
Select one or more files in the list, then click the [Export...] button to create a text file for each containing the occasion definitions. The text files have the creator tag for TeachText/SimpleText but can be read by any word processor.

The format for each occasion is:
  <1>[TAB]<2>[TAB]<3>[TAB]<4>[TAB]<5>[TAB]<6>[RETURN]
where:
  <1> is the occasion's date pattern
  <2> is the Start time
  <3> is the Alert time
  <4> is Persistent or empty if the occasion is not persistent
  <5> is the Occasion Type
  <6> is the description
  [TAB] is a tab character
  [RETURN] is a return character to mark the end of the line.

Unused fields are left empty. Exported What's Happening lists use the same format.

NOTE: Exported text file may not preserve the 'persists since' date and will not preserve future Completed dates.

The proverbial "expert" user can change the format using ResEdit on the appropriate STR# list item (if you don't know what that means, you don't want to fool with it.)

Importing Occasions
Click the [Import...] button, select a text file then click the Open button to convert it to a list of occasions. The number of occasions found is reported and you can save them as new occasion file which is added to the active list.

In addition to files exported by "Remember?", you can import text files created by other reminder packages or that you entered by hand. Each line of the file is examined for items that can be used to make an occasion, everything else is assumed to be the description. Lines with no apparent date information are ignored. You will definitely want to open a Browse window for the converted file to look for nonsensical entries.

Occasion File Browse Windows
Select one or more files in the Occasion Files dialog list then click the [Browse] button to open w window for each file showing its contents:

(1) the Title Bar
The name of each column: When contains the date pattern and start times, What is the descriptions and Type lists the Occasion Types.

Click and drag a title left or right to change the spacing between columns or rearrange the column order.

Click on a title without dragging it to sort the list by the contents of that column. What has the least overhead since it follows the natural order of the occasions. When lists repeating occasions first, then one-time occasions all sorted by date.

(2) the Occasion List
One line for each occasion in the file.

Click on a line to select it. Hold down SHIFT while clicking to select more than one, or the COMMAND key to toggle a selection.

Double click on a description to open an Occasion window for it.

(3) Occasion count
The total number of occasion in the file.

(4) Pop-up Window Menu
The all too familiar menu of window specific commands.

The first three operate on the currently selected occasions:

- Edit
Open an Occasion window for each selected occasion.

- Delete
Delete the selected occasions. Prompts before deleting them unless you hold down the OPTION key (not available if the file is locked.)

- Set Type sub-menu
Change the Type for the selected occasions to the one you select from this menu (not available if the file is locked.)

The next two commands print the list. The columns are printed in the same order and spacing used by the window. There are Preferences to customize the format.

The last command opens a new, empty Occasion window pre-set to this File.

Edit menu commands

Cut and Copy work as you would expect on the currently selected occasions.

Paste inserts the occasions you have previously Cut or Copied. If you Paste a block of text, "Remember?" tries to convert it to a list of occasions.

Mass Movement of Occasions
There are occasion files containing large collections of celebrity birthdays, special events and holidays. Rather than clutter up your lists with all of them, you can grab just those that you find interesting using this procedure:

Step 1 - Select Occasion Files in the Remember? menu and use the [Add...] button to add one of the big files to your list. Turn OFF the 'Keep Changes' checkbox because we don't want it to stay in the list. Click on the name of the file, then hold down the SHIFT key and click on the file to receive the selected occasions. Clicm the [Browse] button to open Browse windows for both.

Step 2 - Wander through the Browse window for the big file and COMMAND-Click on each occasion you want to keep. When you are done, you should have a scattered list of selected occasions. Select Copy in the Edit menu.

Step 3 - Click on the Browse window for the file to receive the occasions, then select Paste in the Edit menu. The occasions should now appear in the list.

Step 4 - Quit from "Remember?". This closes the extra file. Alternatively, you can just remove it from the list yourself and repeat the steps for another collection of occasions.

Misplaced Occasion Files
The location of each active file is saved in the Remember's Settings file. If you move an active file to a different folder or volume, you will get the message 'Cannot find your Occasion file "BLAH", do you know where it is?' when you next access "Remember?". Click 'Yes' if you know where it is, then use the standard 'Open file' window to locate it.

If you rename an occasion file, click the 'No' button then use the Occasion Files dialog [Add...] button to add it back to the list.

But I didn't do it!
Well, maybe not intentionally. But if you re-install your System software or restore your hard drive from backups, "Remember?" loses the location of your files. Don't panic, just point it at the new location for the first file and the rest should be opened just fine.