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CALNOTES
The Electronic Notekeeper
February 19, 1992
By Bob Borah
Copyright (c) 1992 All Rights Reserved
CONTENTS
Introduction............................................................i
The Shareware Concept.................................................i
Disclaimer...........................................................ii
License..............................................................ii
Registration Form...................................................iii
Installing Calnotes.....................................................1
Getting Started - a Tour of Features....................................3
Summary of Features.....................................................7
Changing the Date.....................................................7
Creating or Editing Notes.............................................7
Exporting Notes to an ASCII File......................................8
Importing Notes from an ASCII File....................................9
Printing Notes........................................................9
Finding Information in Notes..........................................9
Deleting Notes.......................................................10
Copying Notes From One Day to Another................................10
Condensing the Database..............................................10
Creating and Erasing Fixed Holidays..................................11
Creating and Erasing Variable Holidays...............................11
Changing CALNOTES Defaults...........................................13
Using the Telephone List.............................................14
Temporary Exit to DOS................................................15
Terminating Calnotes.................................................15
INTRODUCTION
CALNOTES is an electronic calendar and database program that helps
you organize important information. CALNOTES is a flexible, powerful
easy to use program. You can set variable and fixed events (holidays),
associate notes up to 150 lines long with each day, set alarms, store
telephone lists, make "to do" lists, and perform many other related
functions. Use a mouse or keyboard, menu or "hotkeys" to activate the
functions. (A mouse is not required).
You probably will not need this manual to use the CALNOTES program.
CALNOTES has a context-sensitive help system that you can use by pressing
the F1 key. A single keypress or a menu selection activates most
CALNOTES features.
THE SHAREWARE CONCEPT
CALNOTES is distributed as a shareware product. Shareware is a
software distribution method that allows you to try software before you
pay for it. Shareware is different from the commercial software you
might buy at a computer store in that copying and distributing shareware
is not only allowed but actually encouraged. Shareware is like commercial
software in that both are copyrighted products that must be paid for when
installed on a computer and used on an ongoing basis.
There are several ways shareware is distributed. You can download
shareware products from bulletin boards. Many companies offer disks
containing shareware programs at a cost of five dollars or less. Computer
stores sometimes place shareware programs on the hard disks of computers
they sell. Individuals can give copies to people they know. As you can
see, the distribution costs are very low for the shareware product's
author. Since the marketing overhead is low, the price of a quality
shareware product can be considerably less than a comparable commercial
product.
Shareware comes with the "ultimate money-back guarantee". If you
don't like it or can't use it, you don't pay for a shareware product.
When a shareware product does meet your needs, you are required by
copyright laws to "register" your copy with the product's author.
Registration of CALNOTES has the following benefits:
Support from the product's author.
Notification of product upgrades.
You get a warm, fuzzy feeling knowing you have paid the author fair
compensation for the skill and time it took to develop the product.
i
The success of the shareware concept depends on the integrity of
shareware product users. There are no "shareware police" that enforce
the concept. Shareware product authors are professionals like commercial
software authors and can continue to provide low-cost, high quality
programs only when they are adequately compensated for their work.
If you find CALNOTES useful, please use the form on the next page
to register your copy. You will receive support from the author and a disk
containing the most recent version of the program without messages that
encourage you to register.
The shareware version of this program is fully functional and has
not been "crippled" in any way. The only difference between the registered
and unregistered versions is that the registered version does not contain
messages encouraging you to register your copy.
DISCLAIMER
The author, Bob Borah, claims no responsibility for any damages
caused by the use or misuse of this product. This product is distributed
"as is" with no warranty expressed or implied. The author will not be
responsible for any losses incurred, either directly or indirectly, by the
use of this product. Use this product entirely at your own risk.
Considerable effort has been made to produce a program that is reliable
and free of any known defects. Hardware and software failures can occur,
however. MAKE REGULAR BACKUPS OF ALL CRITICAL INFORMATION you store in
the CALNOTES database.
The author reserves the right to make modifications at any time.
Prices are subject to change without notice.
If you have comments, suggestions, or bug reports about the shareware
version of CALNOTES, you are encouraged to contact the author by writing
to:
Bob Borah
P.O. Box 4051
Merrifield, Va 22116
or send a message to compuserve id 76012,1772.
LICENSE
You are granted a limited license to use the shareware version of
CALNOTES at no cost for a period of thirty days. If you continue to use
CALNOTES after the thirty day evaluation period you are required to
register your copy as explained in this document.
You are free to distribute shareware copies of CALNOTES provided that
none of the included files are modified or removed, and provided that no
additional files are included in the archive (with the exception of BBS
promotions). Modifying the archive from .ZIP to other formats is
permitted.
ii
******************************
* CALNOTES REGISTRATION FORM *
******************************
NAME: _____________________________________________________________
COMPANY: _____________________________________________________________
ADDRESS: _____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
CITY: _____________________________________________________________
STATE: _____________________________________________________________
PHONE: _____________________________________________________________
WHERE DID YOU RECEIVE CALNOTES? ________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
COMMENTS: _____________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Enclose registration fee for ___ copies of CALNOTES at $30 each ________
Specify disk size: _____ 5 1/4" or _____ 3 1/2"
Send to: Bob Borah
P.O. Box 4051
Merrifield, VA 22116
Sorry, MC/VISA not accepted
iii
INSTALLING CALNOTES
You can run CALNOTES on either floppy disk or hard disk systems. If
you run from a floppy disk, it is a good idea to make a copy of the
original distribution disk and store the original in a safe place. To
accomplish this, place the original disk in drive A and a blank,
formatted disk in drive B if you have one. Type COPY A:*.* B: to make a
backup copy. The following instructions assume you received CALNOTES on
a disk. If you downloaded it from a bulletin board, go to the directory
that contains the CALNOTES files when instructions call for drive A.
If you are comfortable with DOS commands, you can just copy the
contents of the original disk to a different drive and directory.
Otherwise, you can use the INSTALL program. The INSTALL program displays
a series of screens that explain the installation procedure and then
offers a menu that allows you to change the installation defaults. Put
the distribution disk in drive A and type A:INSTALL. Read the infor-
mation on the screen and press ENTER. Read the next screen and press
ENTER again.
When the menu is displayed, a window at the bottom of the screen
shows what the current defaults are. The first line of the defaults
window shows where CALNOTES will be installed. If you don't change it,
the program will be installed on drive C in the CALNOTES directory. The
first menu selection allows you to set a different drive and directory.
To change where CALNOTES will be installed, use the arrow keys to
highlight the first menu item and press the ENTER key. At the prompt,
type in a new drive and directory, and press the ENTER key. If you
respond to any prompt in the INSTALL program by pressing the ESC key,
the installation will be aborted and INSTALL will exit to DOS.
The second menu item is for changing the location of the files to
to be copied. The default is drive A. If the distribution files are in
a different place, highlight the second menu item and press the ENTER
key. Respond to the prompt with the drive and directory that has the
distribution files and press ENTER.
The third menu item is for defining whether or not INSTALL is to
create or modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you request it, the INSTALL
program will place the CALNOTES directory in the DOS path to allow the
CALNOTES program to be loaded from any directory. You can also request
addition of CALARM.COM to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The default for both
of these options is NO. To change these defaults, use the up or down
arrow keys to highlight the third menu item and press ENTER. Answer "Y"
or "N" to the prompts, pressing ENTER after each one.
1
The last menu item starts the installation process. Files are
copied from the distribution directory to the CALNOTES directory. If you
asked for modification of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, INSTALL asks what drive
you boot from. For floppy disk only systems, drive A usually contains
the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you use drive A, make sure you have your boot
disk in drive A before you answer this prompt. Hard disk systems usually
boot from drive C.
This completes the installation procedure. INSTALL terminates,
leaving the system at the drive and directory that contains CALNOTES.
Type CALARM, and then type CALNOTES to start the program.
2
GETTING STARTED - A TOUR OF FEATURES
Now that you have CALNOTES installed, let's see what it can do for
you. If you don't haven't started it yet, type CALNOTES and press ENTER.
You should see a copyright notice for a few seconds. If you see a box
asking about colors, answer "Y" if you see the colors and "N" if you
have a monochrome display. Next, CALNOTES displays a calendar showing
the current month. The current day of the month should be highlighted.
If a different month or day is highlighted, your computer does not
have the correct date set. To change the date in your computer, press
the E key and then press ENTER. At the DOS prompt, type DATE. DOS will
display what it believes is the current date and wait for a response.
Type in the correct date and press ENTER. While you're at it, check the
time too. Type TIME and press ENTER. DOS will display what it believes
is the current time and wait for a response. If the time DOS displayed
is not correct, type in the correct time and press ENTER. Type CALNOTES
again to get a new calendar display.
Press and hold down the "Ctrl" key and press the "Home" key. This
sets the calendar to January first of the current year. Now press and
hold down the "Ctrl" key and press the "End" key. This sets the calendar
to December 31st of the current year. Release the "Ctrl" key and press
the "Home" key. The calendar shows the current date again.
Press the "Tab" key. This moves the calendar to the same date of
next year. Press and hold down the "Shift" key and press the "Tab" key
again. This moves the calendar back to the previous year.
Press the "PgDn" key. This advances to the next month. Press the
"PgUp" key. This moves to the previous month. Press each of the four
arrow keys. Doing this highlights a different day of the month. If you
attempt to move the highlight past the last or first days of the month
the calendar will switch to the next or previous month.
Press the "G" key. You will see a window for you to type in a date.
Enter the date 10/05/1964 and press ENTER. Notice that the "/" is
inserted for you automatically. You could have entered the year as just
"64" instead of 1964. The "G" key allows you to go to any date.
Press the "H" key. You will see a small box in the center of the
screen. The top line is for a month and day. Enter 10/25. The highlight
moves to the first "Holiday Name" line. Type "Sarita's" and press
ENTER. Now type "Birthday" and press ENTER. The small box goes away and
the words "Sarita's Birthday" appear for October 25th. Press the "Tab"
key to move to the next year. Notice that holidays you define using the
"H" key appear every year.
3
Press the "H" key again. Enter 10/25 again and press ENTER twice.
Notice that the holiday you set for October 25th has disappeared. When
you define a holiday and leave the name blank, any existing holiday for
that date is erased from the calendar.
Press the "G" key again. Enter the date 11/01/92 and press ENTER.
This moves the calendar to November 1, 1992. Press the "V" key. You
will see three boxes in the center of the screen. The top box has the
days of the week on it with "Sun" highlighted. Press the right arrow key
once to highlight "Mon" and press ENTER. Notice that "Monday" appears in
the bottom box. A new box appears at the top containing "1st", "2nd",
"3rd", and "4th". Press the right arrow key once to highlight "2nd" and
press ENTER. Notice that "Second" appears in the bottom box.
A new box appears near the top of the screen with the month names
in it. Press the left arrow key twice to highlight "Nov" and press
ENTER. The bottom box now shows "Second Monday in November" and the
top box asks for two holiday names. Type "Veteran's" and press ENTER.
The second line of the top box is highlighted. Type "Day" and press
ENTER. Press ENTER again to verify that the holiday is correct. Notice
that the second monday in November is now marked as Veteran's Day.
You can press "Tab" and "Shift Tab" to see that "variable holidays" also
appear every year.
Press the "O" key. This causes a box to appear in the center of the
screen. "O" activates the calendar's built-in telephone list. Press
the F1 key. A window appears that explains how to use the telephone
list. You can press F1 anywhere in the calendar and get information
about the screen you see. Press the "Esc" key to remove the "Help"
screen. Type any name and press ENTER. Type any address and press ENTER
after each line until you reach the telephone number line. Enter a
telephone number and press ENTER. Do this as many times as you like.
Experiment with the features the help screen gave you. Press F1 again
if you need to. When you are finished, press the "Esc" key again to
remove the telephone list box from the screen.
When you have finished with the telephone list and removed it from
the screen, press the ENTER key. You will see a large box with the words
"Notes for September 1, 1992" at the top. This is the editor screen.
Press the F1 key. You will see another box that shows the keys you can
use with the editor. Press the Esc key to remove the help window from
the screen. Type in some information and experiment with the keys the
help screen showed you. The editor has some advanced features, including
word wrap at the right margins. When you have finished entering infor-
mation press the "Esc" key. This removes the editor from the screen.
4
Notice the highlighted day has a musical note symbol in it. This
means there is a "note" stored on disk for this day. You can write a
different note for every day of the year. The only limitation on the
number of notes is the amount of disk space you have.
Press the ENTER key while the day with the note symbol is high-
lighted. The note you just typed appears again. You can look at any
note you have created by going to the date of the note and pressing
ENTER. You can edit the note while you are there. When you press the
"Esc" key any changes you made will be saved.
Move the highlight to a different day and type another note. It
doesn't matter what you put in it, but remember a word or phrase that
appears all on one line. Press the "Esc" key.
Now you have two notes stored on disk. Press the "F" key. A small
box appears in the center of the screen asking for a phrase to find.
Type a word or phrase you have in one of your notes and press ENTER.
If you have entered the word or phrase correctly, the editor will pop up
again with the cursor on the line that contains the information you
asked for. You can move around and read the note but you cannot change
it. Press the "Esc" key to remove the editor from the screen. If the
same word or phrase appears in the other note you created, it will pop
up also. If it does, press the "Esc" key again to remove it from the
screen.
Move the highlight to one of the days that contains a note symbol
and press the "D" key and press ENTER. Notice that the musical note
symbol disappears. When you no longer need a note you have created, you
can delete it by pressing the "D" key.
Press the "A" key. A box appears on the screen and the cursor is
positioned in a block for you to enter a time. If you see an error
message press the "Esc" key, then press the "E" key and the ENTER key.
Type "CALARM" and press the ENTER key. Start CALNOTES again and then
press the "A" key. Look at the time at the upper right corner of the
screen. Enter a time that is two minutes from now. The cursor will move
to the next field where you enter "AM" or "PM". Enter either an "A" or
a "P" to make the correct time.
The cursor moves to the "Alarm message" line. Enter any message on
this line and press ENTER. The box disappears. You have just set an
alarm that will pop up on the screen at the appropriate time. Press "E"
and the ENTER key to terminate the CALNOTES. The alarm will work whether
the calendar is loaded or not. You can have up to 20 alarms set at once.
Type "CALARM ?" and press ENTER. You will see a list of commands
the alarm program recognizes. If the alarm window pops up while you are
working, press the "Esc" key to remove it from the screen.
5
Type "CALARM L" and press ENTER. The alarm you set from the
calendar will be displayed on the screen.
Type "CALARM 12:34P Hello" and press ENTER. This sets another alarm
without the calendar. Type "CALARM L" to verify that this alarm has been
set.
Type "CALARM 12:34P" and press ENTER. If you give CALARM a time
without a message, any alarm with that time will be erased. Type
"CALARM L" to verify that the alarm for 12:34 PM has been erased.
Type "CALARM C" and press ENTER. This turns on a clock at the upper
right corner of the screen. Type "CALARM C" again. Typing this command
while the clock is on the screen turns the clock off.
Load the calendar again by typing CALNOTES. In the previous pages,
we looked at the "shortcut" way to activate the calendar's functions.
If you don't remember what the shortcut keys are, you can use a menu.
Press the "Esc" key and you will see a menu with most of the functions
you used before. Press the "Esc" key again. The menu goes away. Press
the "/" key. Either "Esc" or "/" will bring up the menu. If you have a
mouse and the mouse driver is loaded, pressing the right mouse button
also brings up the menu.
With the menu on the screen, press the "F1" key. CALARM has "Context
Sensitive" help. F1 gives you more information about whatever is on the
screen. In this case, the help window displays information about the
highlighted menu item. Press "Esc" to remove the help window and use the
arrow keys to highlight other menu items and look at their help screens
using the F1 key. Almost everything you need to know to use CALNOTES
is available in the help system.
Highlight the "Exit" entry on the menu and press F1. Notice that the
bottom of the help screen says "See shell keys". "shell" is highlighted.
Use the right and left arrow keys to move the highlight between "shell"
and "keys". Many of the help screens have cross-references at the bottom.
Highlight "keys" and press ENTER.
When you press ENTER on a highlighted help screen cross-reference,
the help screen for the highlighted topic will appear. The help screen
for "keys" is now on the screen. This is a summary of the shortcut keys
you used at the beginning of this tutorial. You can use the arrow keys
and ENTER to get information about any of the topics at the bottom of
this screen.
You now have enough information to get you started using CALNOTES.
Remember, if you don't know what to do anywhere in the program, just
press F1 for help.
6
SUMMARY OF FEATURES
Changing the Date
When you first load CALNOTES, the date currently set in your PC is
highlighted on the screen. If CALNOTES shows the wrong date or time
exit to DOS (Using the "E" key) and use the DOS "DATE" and "TIME"
commands. See the tutorial on page 2 if you don't know how to do
this. There are five ways to change the date the calendar displays:
Tab Increments the year.
Shift-Tab Decrements the year.
PgUp Decrements the month.
PgDn Increments the month.
G Asks for a specific date to Go to.
Creating or Editing Notes
There can be a different note for every day of the year. Notes do
not conflict between years. For example, you can have a note for
July 2, 1992 and July 2, 1993 at the same time. The actual limit on
the number of items that can be in the database is two billion,
making the practical limit the amount of disk space you have.
To create or edit a note, highlight a day and press the enter key.
An alternate method is to move the mouse cursor over a day and press
the left mouse button.
You can use the cursor control keys (arrows, PgUp, PgDn, Home,
End) to move around in an existing note. The following keys
control other editor functions:
F1 - Displays a help screen with a summary of editor keys.
F2 - Cancels the FIND function (See bottom of page 8).
F3 - Erase edit data. This clears any information in the note.
F4 - Format the paragraph the cursor is on.
F5 - Marks the first line of a block. Lines can be marked for
delete, copy, or move as a group using the F9, F8, or F7
keys.
F6 - Marks the last line of a block started with the F5 key.
F7 - Moves the block of lines marked using the F5 and F6 keys to
the line the cursor is now on.
F8 - Copies the block of lines marked using the F5 and F6 keys to
the line the cursor is now on.
7
F9 - Deletes the block of lines marked using the F5 and F6 keys.
F10 - Unmarks the block of lines marked using the F5 and F6 keys.
Ctrl-A Sets an alarm using the text the cursor is now on. The
cursor must be at the beginning of the line. The editor
searches the line for a time, and if it finds one,
subtracts five minutes and sets an alarm for the resulting
time. Next, the editor uses the line text as the alarm
message. For example, if the editor line is:
Meet Tom at 11:00 AM.
an alarm will be set for 10:55 AM. At 11:55 AM the message
"Meet Tom at 11:00 AM" will pop up on the screen, whether
CALNOTES is loaded or not.
If the current line does not contain a time, or the cursor
is not at the beginning of the line, you will be prompted
for a time and message the same as you are when you set an
alarm from the main calendar display.
Note that CALARM.COM must be loaded before you can use the
alarm feature.
Ctrl-B Moves the cursor to the bottom of the screen.
Ctrl-D Deletes the current word.
Alt-D Deletes the current line.
Ctrl-T Moves the cursor to the top of the screen.
Ctrl-Right Arrow Moves the cursor to the next word.
Ctrl-Left Arrow Moves the cursor to the previous word.
Home Moves the cursor to the beginning of the line.
Ctrl-Home Moves the cursor to the beginning of the note.
End Moves the cursor to the end of the line.
Ctrl-End Moves the cursor to the end of the note.
Exporting notes to an ASCII file
You can export a note to an ASCII file so you can include it as
part of a larger document you may be writing using another editor
or word processor. To activate the export feature highlight a
date containing a note. Press the ESC or "/" keys and select
"Export" from the menu or just press "X" while the main calendar
is on the screen.
8
CALNOTES asks for the name of the file to receive the note. Enter
any name that is valid for a DOS file. You can enter a complete
pathname (drive, directory, and file name). If you do not enter a
complete pathname, the file will be placed in the same directory
as the CALNOTES database files (CALNOTES.DB and CALNOTES.IDX).
Importing notes from an ASCII file
You can import a note from an ASCII file into the calendar. To
activate the import feature, press the ESC or "/" keys and select
"Import" from the menu or just press "I" while the main calendar
is on the screen. The date to receive the note should be
highlighted.
CALNOTES asks for the name of the ASCII file to be imported. Enter
any name that is valid for a DOS file. You can enter a complete
pathname (drive, directory, and file name). If you do not enter a
complete pathname, the file will be retrieved from the same
directory as the CALNOTES database files (CALNOTES.DB and
CALNOTES.IDX).
The CALNOTES editor does not accept a full 80 characters on a
line. The reason for this is that the PRINT command adds a left
margin to the page and the note will not print correctly on most
printers if the resulting lines are greater than 80 characters
long. If you import a file with 80-character lines, you probably
will need to edit the imported note for a pleasing format.
Printing notes
To print a note, highlight the date containing the note. Activate
the print feature by pressing the ESC or "/" keys and select
"Prtnote" from the menu or just press "P" while the main calendar
is on the screen. The note will be sent to the printer which must
be assigned to LPT1 or PRN.
Finding information in notes
You can search all notes in the database for a selected string of
characters. To do this, press the ESC or "/" keys and select
"Find" or just press "F" while the main calendar is on the screen.
CALNOTES will ask for the characters you want to look for.
It does not matter whether you enter upper or lower case letters.
When you press ENTER, all of the notes will be searched for the
characters you asked for. When CALNOTES finds a match it calls the
editor and displays the note at the line that contains the desired
characters.
You can use the paging and arrow keys to look at the note but you
cannot change it. When you press the ESC key, the editor
terminates and the search continues. Each note that contains the
characters you ask for will be displayed in the editor.
9
Deleting notes
To delete a note, highlight the date containing the note. Press
ESC and select "Delete" or just press "D" while the main calendar
display is on the screen. If you selected "Delete" from the menu,
the note will be deleted immediately. If you pressed "D" without
the menu, CALNOTES will confirm your intention to delete the note
before taking any action.
Any notes you delete are removed from the database files making
room for any future notes that fit in the same space. Deleting
notes does not make the database files smaller, but makes space
available for use when you create more notes. If you need to
reduce the size of the database files (CALNOTES.DB and
CALNOTES.IDX) delete some notes and then execute the "Condense"
command described below.
Copying Notes From One Day to Another
Notes can be easily copied from one day to any number of days.
Highlight a day that has a note. Press ESC or / and select COPY
from the menu or type "Y" from the main calendar display. A box
appears at the top of the screen telling you that CALNOTES is in
the copy mode. Highlight a day that does not have a note and press
ENTER. The note will be copied to the new day. You can continue
highlighting new days and pressing enter to copy the note as many
times as you like. When you have made as many copies as you need
press the ESC key to return to normal operation.
Condensing the database
The "Condense" feature allows you to reclaim the space occupied by
deleted notes immediately. Normally, CALNOTES reuses the space
being held by deleted notes when you create new ones, so the data-
base file never gets smaller. To reduce the size of the database
files, press ESC or "/" and select "Condense" from the menu or
just press "C" while the main calendar display is on the screen.
This function copies the active notes to a new database file and
then deletes the original database to reclaim the space. You will
need some free space on your disk to allow this to happen.
10
Creating and erasing fixed holidays
A fixed holiday is one that occurs on the same date every year.
An example of a fixed holiday is NEW YEARS DAY which occurs on
January first, regardless of the day of the week that happens to
be. You can use the fixed holiday feature to set actual holidays
on the screen or to set any reminder that will fit on two
ten-character lines. You might want to set birthdays as fixed
holidays in your calendar so they always display during the month
in which they occur, for example. January first is already set in
your calendar as a fixed holiday. If you press Ctrl-Home you can
see what a fixed holiday looks like on the screen.
To set a fixed holiday, press the ESC or "/" keys and select
"fixed Holiday" from the menu. You can also activate this feature
by just pressing "H" while the main calendar display is on the
screen.
You will be presented with a window that asks for a date. Enter
the month number as two digits followed by the day of the month
as two digits. The cursor will move to the next line where you can
enter a ten-character name. Press ENTER after you have typed this
name and the cursor will move to the next line. Here, you can
enter another ten-characters to complete the holiday name.
If you want to delete an existing fixed holiday, follow the same
procedure but just press ENTER without entering any holiday names.
When you leave holiday names blank, any existing fixed holiday for
that date is actually deleted from the database, and not just
overwritten with spaces.
Creating and erasing variable holidays
A variable holiday is one that occurs at intervals insted of fixed
daes. Thanksgiving for example, is the fourth Thursday in November
without regard to what date in November that might be. You can use
the variable holiday feature to set actual holidays or to remind
yourself of recuring events. For example, you might want to set
the second Monday in July as "Annual Retreat" as a reminder that a
company meeting occurs at that time. The fourth Thursday in
November is already set on your calendar as a variable holiday. If
you press Ctrl-End and then press the PgUp key you will see the
Thanksgiving holiday.
To set a variable holiday, press the ESC or "/" keys and select
"Variable holiday" or just press "V" while the main calendar
display is on the screen.
Three windows appear on the screen when you activate the variable
holiday feature. The top window has the days of the week. Select
a day using the arrow keys or by pressing the highlighted letter
that represents the day you want.
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Once you have selected a day, that day appears in the bottom
window and a new window appears with the abbreviations 1st, 2nd,
3rd and 4th. You are being asked to select the first, second,
third, or fourth occurence of the day you selected in the previous
window. Select one of these by using the arrow keys and pressing
ENTER or by pressing the highlighted letter that represents your
selection. This selection appears in the window at the bottom of
the screen.
The months of the year appear near the top of the screen. Select a
month using the arrow keys and pressing ENTER or by pressing the
highlighted key that represents the holiday month.
When you have selected a month, the window near the bottom of the
screen gives a complete description of when the holiday you are
about to define occurs. For example, the statement "First Monday
in October" might appear.
If you press the ESC key at any point during the holiday
definition, the entire definition will be cancelled.
After you have selected a month, a window appears for you to enter
two ten-character holiday names. Enter two names and press ENTER
after each one.
The variable holiday has now been defined and only the center and
bottom windows remain. The center box is there to allow you to
change any of the previous entries or accept the holiday as it was
defined. To accept the holiday as you defined it, press the ENTER
key. To change the holiday definition, press the highlighted key
that corresponds to the part of the definition you want to change.
For example, press the "N" key to change the holiday name.
As with fixed holidays, if you leave the holiday name blank, any
existing variable holiday with the same definition will be deleted
from the database.
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Changing CALNOTES defaults
Some of the CALNOTES defaults, including most screen colors, are
kept in the CALNOTES.DB file. You can change these defaults by
selecting "seTup" from the menu or by pressing "T" while the main
calendar display is on the screen.
When you select SETUP, a screen appears with the following
contents:
Nag string **
Printer handles graphics N
LCD display N
Calendar color
Calendar highlight color
Calendar header color
Menu color
Menu hotkey color
Editor color
Editor title color
Editor highlight
Holiday color
The first entry, "Nag string", refers to CALNOTES' ability to
carry certain lines in notes from one day to another. This is
useful when you use the editor to create "to do" lists. The two
asterisks are the characters CALNOTES uses to identify important
entries in the lists. The default is "**", meaning any line in a
note that begins with two asterisks will be automatically carried
over into the note for the next day. These new entries are created
when CALNOTES is loaded on a day after the day containing the
"nag string". When the cursor is on the "Nag string" line, you can
change "**" to any other sequence of characters that CALNOTES
should use to identify important "to do" items.
The second entry, "Printer handles graphics", is used for the
"print calendar" feature. The calendar screen contains line
drawing characters which many printers cannot print. If this entry
is set to "N", CALNOTES will translate the line drawing characters
to normal characters any printer can handle. If the entry is set
to "Y", CALNOTES sends the characters to the printer as they
appear on the screen.
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"LCD display" is a shortcut way to set colors for a monochrome
screen. If you set this entry to "Y" and press ENTER, the
remaining entries in the SETUP screen will be skipped.
The remaining entries all refer to colors of items on the screen.
When the cursor is on one of these lines, a box appears with
colors your monitor can display. Highlight the color you want to
use and press the ENTER key for each entry. If you just press the
ENTER key, the existing color will not change. The colors you can
change are:
Calendar color - The main display color.
Calendar highlight color - The color that marks the current date.
Calendar header color - The color of the main display top.
Menu color - The color of the menu that displays
when you press ESC or "/".
Menu hotkey color - The color of the capital letters in
the menu entries.
Editor color - The foreground and background colors of
the editor screen.
Editor title color - The color of the title at the top of
the editor screen.
Editor highlight - The color of marked lines.
Holiday color - The color of the fixed and variable
holidays.
Using the telephone list
You can store a telephone list in the calendar's database using
the "phOne list" feature. You can select this feature either from
the menu or by pressing "O" when the main calendar screen is
displayed.
Phone list entries are displayed one at a time in a box at the
center of the screen. Use PgUp, PgDn, Ctrl-Home and Ctrl-End to
browse through the list.
You can search for a particular name by pressing Alt-S or Alt-F.
CALNOTES displays a window asking for the "search name". Type in
all or part of a name you want to find and press ENTER. CALNOTES
will display the closest match it finds.
To add a new entry to the telephone list, press the grey + key
(the one at the right side of the keyboard beside the numeric
keypad). A window will appear for you to type in new information.
You must press ENTER on the bottom line of the window to add the
information to the database.
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To delete an entry from the telephone list, press the grey - key
(the one at the right side of the keyboard beside the numeric
keypad). A window will appear asking you to verify that you want
to delete the current entry. If you answer "N", the entry will not
be deleted. If you answer "Y", CALNOTES will remove the entry from
the database.
To update an existing entry in the telephone list, just type over
the information displayed on the screen.
Temporary exit to DOS
When you are using CALNOTES, you can exit to DOS temporarily using
the "Shell" feature. To do this, press either the ESC or "/" keys
and select "DOS Shell" from the menu or press "S" while the main
calendar display is on the screen.
What happens next depends on how much memory and disk space you
have. If you have enough EXPANDED memory (EMS 4.0) or free disk
space, CALNOTES will be saved and most of it will be removed from
memory. This makes space for large programs you might want to run.
If there is not enough EXPANDED memory or disk space available,
the entire CALNOTES program remains in memory. In either case,
control is returned to DOS. You can execute any DOS commands, run
any program that fits the memory available, and then return to
CALNOTES at the point you left it. Just type "EXIT" at the DOS
prompt and CALNOTES will reload.
Terminating CALNOTES
There are three ways to terminate CALNOTES. You can press the ESC
or "/" keys and select "Exit" from the menu. If you press "E"
while the main calendar display is on the screen, you will be
asked if you want to terminate the calendar. Answer "Y" and
control will be returned to DOS. Alt-X has the same function as
the "E" key when the main calendar display is on the screen.
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