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PAL The Personal Appointment Locator Version 2.0 ______ ______ _ | __ | | __ | | | | |__| | | |__| | | | | ____| | __ | | | | | | | | | | |___ |_| |_| |_| |_____| Copyright (c) 1988 by PAL Software NY, Inc. All rights reserved PAL Software NY, Inc. 51 Cedar Lane Ossining, New York 10562 Voice: (914) 762-5322 BBS: (914) 762-8055 _______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER PAL and PALARM are trademarks of PAL Software NY, Inc. SideKick is a trademark of Borland International Preface PAL is the Personal Appointment Locator that radically improves your ability to manage your time. It is distributed both commercially and as shareware. (i) The Shareware Distribution Concept The term "shareware" refers to a distribution method through computer user groups, bulletin boards, friend to friend, and associate to associate. Shareware permits a person to try the program before buying it. If you find the program useful and intend to continue to use it, then you are required to register and pay the commercial price. You will then receive a copy of the commercial version. For informa- tion on how to register, see chapter 17. The shareware version of PAL is a completely functional version, identical in all respects to the commercial version, except that you cannot exit the shareware version without being nudged to register the program and providing a yes/no response to that nudge. If you have registered your shareware version or have received the commercial version directly, then, in the words of the wine cooler salesmen, thank you for your support. Please understand that only the shareware version may be freely distributed to others and that your commercial version may not be further distributed by you without violating your license to use the product. Persons who would like to receive the try-before-you-buy benefit of the shareware version may receive the most current shareware distribution disk directly from PAL Software NY, Inc. by printing out the order form which can be generated by PAL from the "registration" section of the online help facility. The author is a member of (in fact, he drafted the bylaws for) the Association of Shareware Professionals, an organization dedicated to the advancement of the concept of shareware. (ii) The History of PAL PAL is the brainchild and beloved work of a single programmer, a lawyer by day. Law office work being what it is, the author wanted to harness the power of the computer to assist him in more efficiently managing his time. i SideKick seemed like a good starting point, since it allows the entry of appointments quickly, even while the user is busy working within another application. But, oh, to try and get the information back out of SideKick in an efficient and useful manner! Gordon Liddy gives information more freely. So, PAL was born in the spring of 1985 as a simple program that would read the SideKick appointment file, sort it, and display upcoming appointments starting with the present system date and continuing through a number of days that the user chose when invoking the program. The programmer was pleased enough with that first version 1.0 that he placed it on a few computer bulletin boards for dissemination, under the philosophy of paying back to the computer public what the author had received in the past from downloading other useful programs. The response was fantastic! Following the show of support and encourage- ment, the author listened to the needs and desires of his users (as well as some of his own needs and desires). The result to date is PAL version 2.0. (iii) What PAL Can Do For You In addition to the ability to show a sorted report of your upcoming appointments, PAL can, among other things: * search for a particular appointment, * maintain a to-do list which will tickle you if you fail to do something after a specified date, * set a virtually infinite number of alarms, * run reports on multiple appointment files, * automatically repeat appointments, * delete old appointments, * run with or without SideKick, * provide online help, * show common secular and religious holidays automa- tically, * allow you to customize the program for your own needs and style of use, ii * show you a calendar for any month in the 20th or 21st century, and * do much, much more.... (iv) The Future of PAL If the release of this new version of PAL were held off until all potential goodies were implemented, then you'd never get a chance to see it. PAL is, and probably will always be, a work in progress. On the drawing board for future versions: * Timed Events: Make an alarm cause your computer to execute a batch file, run a program, or insert something into your application as if you were there typing at the keyboard. * Enhanced Multiple Appointment Files: Have PAL read appointments from multiple SideKick appointment files, one or more cloned versions of PAL, one or more clone image files, and any combination of the foregoing. * Pop-Up PAL: Edit the appointment scratchpad while running within another application. * SideKick Plus compatibility. * Context sensitive help. Registered users are entitled to notices of upgrades. Upgrades within 6 months of payment for registration will be made at a nominal cost; upgrades thereafter will be available at a discount for registered users. I have enjoyed creating PAL, and I very much hope that you enjoy using it. If there is something that you would like PAL to do that it does not presently do, then express your desires. Through comments from users like you, PAL has grown to what it is today. Robert D. Tolz, President PAL Software NY, Inc. Ossining, New York June, 1988 iii Table of Contents Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 2: INSTALLATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1 System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.2 PAL in hard disk systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.3 PAL in floppy disk systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.4 PALARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.5 Screen Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.6 Customizing PAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.7 PAL.COM and PALARM.COM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Chapter 3: SUMMARY OF OPERATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3.1 Menu Operation of PAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3.2 Entering a Command Line From the Menu . . . . . . . 9 3.3 Command Line and Batch Operation of PAL . . . . . . 10 3.4 Menu or Command Line? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Chapter 4: ONLINE HELP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Chapter 5: REPORT MODE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.1 What Does a Report Show? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.2 REPORT MODE Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 5.3 Date Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.4 Toggle Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.5 File Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 5.5.1 File Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 5.5.2 PAL's Appointment Scratchpad . . . . . . . . . 19 5.5.3 Overriding PAL's Assumptions . . . . . . . . . 19 5.6 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 5.7 Special Memos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Chapter 6: SEARCH MODE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 6.1 SEARCH MODE Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 6.2 SEARCH MODE Optional Parameters . . . . . . . . . . 22 6.3 What SEARCH MODE does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Chapter 7: THE APPOINTMENT SCRATCHPAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 7.1 Getting There . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 7.2 The Appointment Scratchpad Menu . . . . . . . . . . 25 7.3 The Appointment Scratchpad Screen . . . . . . . . . 26 7.4 "A"dding Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 7.4.1 Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 7.4.2 Setting Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 7.4.2.1 Once . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 7.4.2.2 Daily, Weekdays and Weekends . . . . . . . 28 7.4.2.3 Weekly, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Last . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 7.4.2.4 Biweekly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 7.4.2.5 Monthly, Bimonthly, Quarterly . . . . . . 30 iv 7.4.2.6 Annual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 7.4.3 Entering the Memo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 7.4.4 Choosing the Time Slot . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 7.4.5 Saving (or Erasing) Your Choices . . . . . . . 31 7.5 "D"eleting an Appointment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 7.6 "E"diting an Appointment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 7.7 "F"inding an Appointment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 7.8 "N"ext Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 7.9 Removing "O"ld Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 7.10 "P"revious Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 7.11 "S"orting Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 7.12 "ESC"ape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Chapter 8: REMINDERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Chapter 9: SK AUTO-REPEAT APPOINTMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 9.1 Single Character Auto-Repeat . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 9.2 Special Auto-Repeat Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . 39 9.2.1 Daily types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 9.2.2 Weekly types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 9.2.3 Monthly types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 9.2.4 Annual type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 9.3 Special Month Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 9.4 Limiting the Number of Times to Repeat . . . . . . . 42 9.5 Auto-Repeats Not Shown Within SideKick . . . . . . . 42 9.6 Auto-Repeats in Appointment Scratchpad . . . . . . . 43 Chapter 10: SK DELETE and PURGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 10.1 Out of Date Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 10.2 Deleting Auto-Repeat Appointments . . . . . . . . . 45 10.3 Putting Out the Garbage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 10.4 Avoiding a Conflict With SideKick . . . . . . . . . 46 10.5 How to Safely Update When SK is Loaded . . . . . . . 47 10.6 Multi-Tasking and Task-Switching Systems . . . . . . 48 10.7 Knowing When to Use PURGE or DELETE . . . . . . . . 49 Chapter 11: MULTIPLE SK APPOINTMENT FILES . . . . . . . . . . . 50 11.1 SideKick's Deficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 11.2 PAL's Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 11.3 An Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Chapter 12: ALARMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 12.1 Auto-Repeat Alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 12.2 PALARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 12.3 Two Ways to Set Alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 12.4 Capacity for 10 Alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 12.5 How to Kill or Snooze a Sounding Alarm . . . . . . . 53 12.6 Controlling the Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 12.7 How to Write a Memo to Become an Alarm . . . . . . . 54 12.8 Advance Alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 12.9 Run PAL to Automatically Update Alarms . . . . . . . 56 12.10 Editing Alarms Manually with PAL SET . . . . . . . . 56 v 12.11 Removing PALARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Chapter 13: CLONING NEW VERSIONS OF PAL . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 13.1 The Clone Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 13.1.1 Appointment Scratchpad . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 13.1.2 File Location Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . 62 13.1.2.1 The Second Directory . . . . . . . . . . . 62 13.1.2.2 The Third Directory . . . . . . . . . . . 62 13.1.2.3 Appointment Calendar Name . . . . . . . . 62 13.1.2.4 Appointment Calendar Type . . . . . . . . 62 13.1.2.5 Report File Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 13.1.3 Holidays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 13.1.4 Miscellaneous Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 13.1.4.1 Default Command Line . . . . . . . . . . 65 13.1.4.2 Color Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 13.1.4.3 Reverse Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 13.1.4.4 Single Character Auto-Repeat . . . . . . . 66 13.1.4.5 Effect of PURGE and DELETE . . . . . . . . 66 13.1.4.6 Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 13.1.4.7 Extended Alarm Report . . . . . . . . . . 67 13.1.5 Printer Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 13.1.5.1 Initialization String . . . . . . . . . . 67 13.1.5.2 Exit String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 13.1.5.3 Lines Per Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 13.1.6 Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 13.1.7 <ESC> to quit without change . . . . . . . . . 68 13.1.8 The RESTORE Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 13.1.9 Saving and Reading CLONE Images . . . . . . . . . . 69 13.2 The PAL SET INSTALL Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . 71 13.2.1 Data File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 13.2.2 Sound Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 13.2.3 Snooze Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 13.2.4 Clock and Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 13.2.4.1 Clock Visibility on Start-Up . . . . . . . 73 13.2.4.2 Date Visibility on Start-Up . . . . . . . 73 13.2.4.3 Colors for Clock and Date . . . . . . . . 73 13.2.5 Cloning Your PALARM Changes . . . . . . . . . . 74 Chapter 14: TSR WARS, RAM CRAM AND MULTITASKING . . . . . . . . 75 14.1 TSR Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 14.2 Ram Cram and Multitasking . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 14.3 Hints on PALARM with Multitasking . . . . . . . . . 76 14.4 PALARM and Task-switching Programs . . . . . . . . 78 Chapter 15: SUPPORT AND UPGRADES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Chapter 16: LICENSE, WARRANTIES AND LIMITATIONS . . . . . . . . 80 16.1 Shareware License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 16.2 Commercial License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 16.3 Further Shareware Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . 80 16.4 Site Licenses and Dealer Pricing . . . . . . . . . . 81 vi 16.5 No Modifications Permitted . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 16.6 Limitations on Warranties and Remedies . . . . . . 82 Chapter 17: REGISTRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 17.1 Shareware Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 17.2 Commercial Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Postscript: SideKick Plus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 vii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION Please check your distribution files to see if you have received a file called "PALREAD.ME". If so, this file contains additional information or changes which do not appear in this documentation. Use the DOS type command or any other file listing utility to read the file. PAL is distributed in three "archived" files: PAL2A.ARC, PAL2B.ARC and PAL2C.ARC. The various files within these archives can be extracted with PKXARC, a shareware program distributed by PKWARE, Inc. If you have received a shareware disk from us or registered or purchased PAL commercially, then you will find a program called PALINST.EXE on the floppy distribution disk. This program will extract all the files from the three archives and place them into a subdirectory of your choice within your DOS path. You should have the following files: PALREAD.ME If present, contains latest information not included in this documentation. PAL.EXE PAL main program file PAL.OVR PAL overlay file PALARM.EXE PALARM program file PALOFF.EXE Removes PALARM from memory PALDEMO.BAT Demonstrate PAL PALDICK.APP Data file for PALDEMO.BAT PALJANE.APP Data file for PALDEMO.BAT PAL.DOC This documentation PAL is a utility which was initially designed especially for IBM-PC and compatible owners who use SideKick. PAL enhances SideKick's appointment calendar feature. Beginning with this version of PAL, even if you do not use SideKick, you will be able to use PAL by taking advantage of PAL's own Appointment Scratchpad feature. The only major feature which you would lose by not using SideKick would be the loss of the ability to pop up over an application program to enter an appointment. However, you can obtain the equivalent of pop-up use by employing multi-tasking or task- switching software such as Desqview or Carousel. If you would like a quick demonstration of some of PAL's 1 features, then run the batch file PALDEMO.BAT. PALARM is a resident alarm which is usable on IBM-PC's and compatibles, regardless whether you use SideKick. PAL provides online help, which is available to you by choosing the help selection from PAL's opening menu, or you can bypass the opening menu by typing "PAL HELP" at the DOS system prompt. Following is a quick overview of each of the chapters contained in this manual. Chapter 2 describes the installation of PAL and PALARM. Chapter 3 summarizes the two methods of using PAL: through menus or directly from the DOS system prompt. Chapter 4 describes how you can get help within PAL. Chapter 5 tells you how to get a report of your upcoming appointments and your old reminders. Chapter 6 shows you how to find a particular appoint- ment. Chapter 7 describes PAL's own internal Appointment Scratchpad. It is this facility which allows PAL to stand alone, even if you do not have SideKick. Chapter 8 tells you how to get PAL to remind you to do something. Chapters 9, 10 and 11 are exclusively for SideKick users. Chapter 9 shows how you can create auto-repeat appointments within SideKick. Chapter 10 describes how to get rid of old appointments in your SideKick file. Chapter 11 tells you how to combine multiple SideKick appointment files so that PAL can do a side by side search. Chapter 12 describes how to create alarms. Chapter 13 tells you how to customize PAL and PALARM to your own liking. In particular, section 13.1 focuses on changes to PAL's operation, while section 13.2 focuses on changes to PALARM's operation. Chapter 14 contains a discussion of multitasking and possible conflicts with other resident programs. Chapter 15 describes support available to registered users. 2 Chapter 16 contains your license to use PAL and PALARM as well as other important limitations. Please read it carefully. Chapter 17 provides guidance on how to register. 3 Chapter 2: INSTALLATION 2.1 System Requirements You must be running on an IBM-PC or compatible computer. Some machines which are not 100% compatible and which include their own screen displays may have some difficulty showing PAL well. If you have such a problem, then see section 2.5 below for possible solutions. You will find it convenient if you have a clock/calendar within your system which sets the clock and date when you turn on your computer. If you are uncertain whether your machine sets the time and date automatically, either through hardware or software, consult your manual or your installer. PAL requires at least 138K bytes of free memory to operate. If you want to use the resident alarm feature, then you'll need an additional 30K bytes to install PALARM.EXE. PALARM must be loaded into memory for PAL's alarm feature to work. The term "free memory" means the amount of memory left over after you have installed all drivers and resident programs. You can determine the amount of free memory by running the DOS program CHKDSK. CHKDSK will report "xxxxxx bytes free", where xxxxxx stands for the actual number reported. To convert that number to "K" bytes, just knock off the last three digits on the right. A hard disk is not required, but is strongly recom- mended. Expanded memory (memory above 640K which meets the LIM specification) is not required. However, if you do have 164K of expanded memory available, then PAL's overlay file will be loaded into that region of your computer and accessed with lightning speed. 2.2 PAL in hard disk systems To use PAL in a hard disk system, copy the following files to a single subdirectory which resides in your PATH (if 4 you aren't familiar with paths, check your DOS documenta- tion): PAL.EXE (the main program file) PAL.OVR (the overlay file) Invoke PAL by issuing the command "PAL" from the DOS system prompt. 2.3 PAL in floppy disk systems To use PAL in a floppy disk system, copy the main program file and the overlay file mentioned above to a single disk. If you use SideKick, then use the disk on which you keep your SideKick appointment file. Make sure that the disk containing PAL is in the current drive, or else that you have set your DOS PATH to look in that drive. Invoke PAL by issuing the command "PAL" from the DOS system prompt. Operation from a floppy disk based system which does not have expanded memory may seem slow as PAL accesses its overlay file from time to time. Registered users may request a special, non-overlaid version of PAL, at no extra cost. The tradeoff in using the non-overlaid version is that it requires much more free memory to operate: 265K as opposed to 138K. 2.4 PALARM PALARM is the central switching station for your alarms. It remains resident, waiting to be fed information from PAL regarding the alarms you want to trigger. It then stands watch over your system's clock and calendar until the appointed time to alert you with your audible and visual alarm. To use PALARM, make sure that the file PALARM.EXE is in your current drive and directory or in your DOS path. Then simply type "PALARM" at the system prompt and hit the carriage return. You will probably find it most convenient to place the "PALARM" command within your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. PALARM will then install itself and remain resident in memory. You will not have any further need of "PALARM.EXE" until the next time you boot. If you are using SideKick, PALARM must be invoked prior 5 to the time that you invoke SideKick, so place the PALARM command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file prior to the SK command. When PALARM first loads itself into memory, it will search your disk for the presence of a file containing alarm information which it may have previously written. If PALARM detects an alarm that was supposed to have been triggered at an earlier time but wasn't (because your computer was shut off or PALARM was not loaded at the appointed time), then PALARM will sound that alarm a few seconds after it is loaded. This is your assurance that you will be notified of all alarms which were scheduled for a time when PALARM was unable to alert you. Better late than never. 2.5 Screen Display Persons with 100% compatible monochrome and color monitors will ordinarily find PAL's screen display quite comfortable. However, persons with less than 100% compatible displays which try to emulate the IBM color screen may have difficulty reading what PAL writes. For instance, it is known that some laptop computers which show colors as shades of gray inter- pret some of PAL's color combinations very poorly. Solutions: 1. The simplest solution is to have PAL write to your screen in basic black and white. To see quickly how your screen will look in basic black and white, go to the directory in which the PALDICK.APP file resides (this is a demo SideKick appointment file which is used by PALDEMO.BAT) and issue the command "PAL 60C PALDICK". If you find the display more readable, then you should CLONE PAL to always show in black and white. See section 13.1.4.2. Since the CLONE procedure itself may display poorly on the screen, before attempting to CLONE, issue the DOS command "MODE BW80" in order to turn off color generally within your system. After you finish cloning, you can restore color to your system with "MODE CO80". 2. Another possible solution to the screen display problem is to use the facilities that may be provided by your own computer manufacturer for dealing with such problems. Many computers have the ability to emulate monochrome monitors rather than color graphics adapters. Others may permit you to choose from several palettes of 6 color combinations to avoid a difficult display. In any case, you should explore your hardware manual to see what options you have. 2.6 Customizing PAL You may, if you like, customize PAL to your own specifi- cations in many respects. See the sections on the CLONE procedure (section 13.1) and on the SET installation function (section 13.2) to understand the possibilities. 2.7 PAL.COM and PALARM.COM Versions of PAL and PALARM prior to version 2.0 were produced as "COM" files rather than the "EXE" files which come with version 2.0. If you have used any earlier ver- sions, then you may have the files "PAL.COM" and/or "PA- LARM.COM" remaining on your hard disk. If so, this could cause confusion, because DOS will always execute a COM file before an EXE file of the same name. For this reason, you should either delete the old COM files or move them to a directory which is not within your DOS path. 7 Chapter 3: SUMMARY OF OPERATION PAL may be run either through menus or directly from the DOS system prompt. 3.1 Menu Operation of PAL PAL is distributed so that if you invoke the program without any additional command line parameters, it will present you with a menu so that you may choose from its various operations. PAL's main menu appears as follows: 1. Appointment Scratchpad 2. Clone New Defaults 3. Delete Old Appointments 4. Enter Command Line 5. Help 6. Purge Deadwood From Appointment File 7. Restore Original Distribution Defaults 8. Set Alarms <ESC> to exit program To select an operation on any menu, hit the alphabetic key, function key or numeric key which corresponds with the operation you desire to activate. No carriage return is required. Some of the foregoing choices on the main menu will lead you to other menus. Just to give you an idea of the pathways you can follow with PAL's menu system, here's a diagram showing the menu structure: MAIN MENU ______________________|__________________ | | | | Appointment Clone Help Set Scratchpad Menu Menu Menu Menu | | Appointment Alarms Scratchpad Menu Menu For detailed information about the various choices, see: 1. For more information about the Appointment Scratch- pad, see chapter 7. 8 2. For more information about cloning new defaults, see chapter 13. 3. For more information about deleting old appoint- ments, see chapter 10. 4. For more information about entering a command line, see chapter 5 for REPORT MODE and chapter 6 for SEARCH MODE. 5. For more information about online help, see chapter 4. 6. For more information about purging deadwood from the appointment file, see chapter 10. 7. For more information about restoring original dis- tribution defaults, see section 13.1.8. 8. For more information about setting alarms, see chapter 12. If you require online help, just choose the help function. You will be presented with a number of topics to choose from. You may use the CLONE procedure to force PAL not to show the menu on start up, but to perform some other operation instead. Hint: If you do clone PAL to perform a different operation on start up, you can always reach the main menu by issuing either "PAL MENU" or "PAL M" from the DOS system prompt. 3.2 Entering a Command Line From the Menu If you choose selection 4 ("Enter Command Line") from the main menu, you will be able to enter the commands which instruct PAL to perform any of its possible operations, with the same syntax you would use if you were summoning PAL directly from the DOS system prompt. You will be provided with an on-screen reminder of the syntax that PAL uses. When entering a command line here, do not start with the word "PAL" as you would from the DOS system prompt. The initial word "PAL" is assumed; you'll see it on the screen 9 already. Examples: If you enter "7" and hit return, PAL will give you a 7 day report of your appointments. On the other hand, if you enter "PAL 7", this is incorrect syntax since the word "PAL" is already assumed. What you have entered is equivalent to the entry "PAL PAL 7" at the DOS system prompt. You'll get an error message on the "booboo" screen. More often than not, you will be using the command line to summon PAL's REPORT MODE to show your upcoming appoint- ments, reminders and alarms, or to summon PAL's SEARCH MODE to search for an entry. For more information about REPORT MODE, see chapter 5. For more information about SEARCH MODE, see chapter 6. 3.3 Command Line and Batch Operation of PAL As an alternative to menu operation, you may invoke any of PAL's operations directly from the DOS system prompt by adding parameters after the program name. Command line operation is especially useful for batch files. There are many possible parameters which may be added after the program name to instruct PAL to perform its operations. These include the following (the items which are shown within square brackets are optional): PAL [@mm/dd/yyyy] n[ABCFHPR] [FILENAME] for REPORT MODE (see chapter 5) PAL [@mm/dd/yyyy] $[BCFPR] SEARCHTERM [FILENAME] for SEARCH MODE (see chapter 6) PAL APPOINT or PAL A for invoking Appointment Scratchpad (see chapter 7) 10 PAL CLONE or PAL C for invoking Clone procedure (see chapter 13) PAL DELETE or PAL D for invoking Delete procedure (see chapter 10) PAL DELETEAUTO for non-stop Delete procedure (see 10.4) PAL DELETEAUTOALL for non-stop Delete procedure (see 10.4) PAL HELP or PAL H or PAL ? for invoking online help (see chapter 4) PAL MENU or PAL M for invoking Menu operation (see chapter 3) PAL PURGE or PAL P for invoking Purge procedure (see chapter 10) PAL PURGEAUTO for non-stop Purge procedure (see 10.4) PAL READIMAGE [FILENAME] to read a Clone image (see 13.1.9) PAL RESTORE or PAL R for invoking Restore procedure (see 13.1.8) PAL SAVEIMAGE [FILENAME] to save a Clone image (see 13.1.9) PAL SET or PAL S for invoking the Set procedure (see 12.10 and 13.2) The shareware version contains a registration request at the conclusion of the program. In order to exit the program you have to answer two yes/no questions regarding registra- tion. This requirement to answer yes/no makes it inappro- 11 priate to use PAL in an unattended batch file operation unless there are no significant commands in the batch file following the invocation of PAL. The only way to get around this impediment is to register and pay for a "commercial" version of PAL. The commercial version of PAL generally does not require any keystrokes to exit the program when an operation is run from the DOS prompt. There are two situations, however, in which PAL does wait for you to hit a key to exit the program. These are (1) any time the "booboo" screen pops up (you'll know what the booboo screen is the first time you make a mistake in how you enter the parameters), and (2) any Report Mode or Search Mode operation for which you specify the optional "B" switch (see section 5.4) but which does not involve the "F" toggle switch (writing to a file) or the "P" toggle switch (sending the report to the printer). Use of the optional "B" switch will pause the automatic execution of additional batch file commands that could obliterate informa- tion from the screen. 3.4 Menu or Command Line? In general, once you get the hang of what PAL can do for you, you will find that things go more quickly by using command line operation directly from the DOS system prompt. Hint: The one instance in which the menu will be more effi- cient is if you want to perform more than one operation with PAL; in that situation, rather than reloading the program each time you want to do something, you can quickly initiate each successive request directly from the menu. 12 Chapter 4: ONLINE HELP You can invoke online help from the beginning menu, or directly from the DOS system prompt with "PAL HELP" , "PAL H" or "PAL ?". To select a subject for help, hit the alphabetic key which corresponds with the subject which you wish to review. No carriage return is required. Additional help regarding alarms is available from the PAL SET menu. You reach the PAL SET menu by issuing "PAL SET" or "PAL S" from the DOS system prompt or by choosing "S", "8" or "F8" from PAL's main menu. Once at the PAL SET menu, you can summon the additional help by striking "H", "4" or "F4". 13 Chapter 5: REPORT MODE 5.1 What Does a Report Show? When you request a report from PAL, you will first see PAL's title screen. In the upper left hand corner, PAL will provide a message telling you the name of the file it is analyzing. In the center of the top line, as PAL inserts your memos in a sorted manner into your computer's memory, PAL may display the number of bytes of free memory which remain as it does its work. Here's a sample screen display: Personal Appointment Locator Ver. 2.0 Copyright 1988 PAL Software NY, Inc. ---------------------- |April 20 1988| Searching \SK\PAL.APP |--------------------| Today is Wednesday, April 20, 1988 | 10:38:13am | 14 entries listed for next 14 days: |--------------------| |SU|MO|TU|WE|TH|FR|SA| Wed, Apr 20 1988, 9:00 am :Mr. Kurlin |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| Wed, Apr 20 1988, 10:30 am :Word processing demo |27|28|29|30|31| 1| 2| Wed, Apr 20 1988, 5:00 pm :Run for the train@ |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| | 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9| Thu, Apr 21 1988, 5:00 pm :Run for the train@ |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| |10|11|12|13|14|15|16| Fri, Apr 22 1988, 5:00 pm :Run for the train@ |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| |17|18|19|20|21|22|23| Mon, Apr 25 1988, 8:00 am :Partner's Meeting |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| Mon, Apr 25 1988, 12:00 pm :Lunch with Gracie @10 |24|25|26|27|28|29|30| Mon, Apr 25 1988, 5:00 pm :Run for the train@ ---------------------- Tue, Apr 26 1988, 5:00 pm :Run for the train@ When the file is completely read and sorted, PAL will flash the first screen of the report. On the right side of the screen, you will see a calendar for the current month, with today's date highlighted. There will be a digital clock above the calendar, ticking away with the present time. The clock will continue as you page through the report. PAL will highlight your most pressing appointments. Today's appointments will show in intense yellow on color monitors, and all appointments after today through the next business day will be highlighted in intense green. Mono- chrome and black and white monitors will show all these appointments in reverse video. 14 The memo "Run for the train @" is an auto-repeating weekday alarm which was produced by a single memo entry. When PAL has finished showing you your coming appoint- ments, it will then tell you if you have any future alarms to load into PALARM. For information on alarms, see chapter 12. Then PAL will show you your old reminders, if any. See chapter 8 for information on reminders. There are a few modifications to the report which you can make with the CLONE procedure. First, you may have PAL tell you at the beginning of the report how many bytes could be saved from your file if you use the DELETE or PURGE procedures. Second, you may have PAL give you an extended report describing each of the alarms which will be loaded into memory. Third, you may turn off the sound which PAL makes as it displays each page. For information on the CLONE procedure, see section 13.1. 5.2 REPORT MODE Syntax Syntax for the REPORT MODE is: PAL [@mm/dd/yyyy] n[ABCFHPR] [FILENAME] The only required entries at the DOS system prompt are the program name and "n", where "n" is the number of days you would like the report to encompass. The maximum number for "n" is 32,767. PAL can show memos and holidays through the year 2099. For instance, "PAL 7" would give you a report of your next week's appointments. The remaining parameters are optional. Do not type in the brackets; they are set forth above only to indicate that the items are optional. Note that all operations which can be invoked from the DOS system prompt can also be entered at PAL's main menu. See section 3.2. 15 5.3 Date Control The first optional parameter is to set the start date of the report at other than your present system date. For instance, "PAL @1/1/88 7" will give you appointments for the first week in 1988. Hint: If you use the "@" by itself without a following date, then PAL will assume you mean "@1/1/85"; this is useful if you want a shorthand method to begin a Report or Search from a very early date. For instance, "PAL @ 730" will show all appointments for 1985 and 1986. 5.4 Toggle Switches The second group of optional parameters ("ABCFHPR") consists of toggle switches. They must be specified imme- diately following "n", without intervening spaces. They stand for: * "A" disables the "A"larm updating function. Any alarms which PAL finds scheduled within the appointment file will not be loaded. This toggle switch is useful, for instance, where you have combined your own SideKick appointment file with somebody else's so that you can view them together, but you do not want the other person's alarms to be loaded into your system. See chapter 11 for information on combining several SideKick appointment files. * "B" is for batch usage. This forces reports to pause before exiting back to the DOS prompt, requiring the user to strike a key. This switch would be useful only if you are invoking PAL from a batch file and PAL is not the final command in the batch file, thus preventing the report from scrolling off the screen while the remaining commands execute. Since the shareware version of PAL already requires user action to exit from the program, the "B" switch is only necessary in batch operation of the registered, commercial version of PAL. * "C" toggles "C"olor. If you have a color display, or a screen which tries to emulate a color display (such as many laptop 16 computers), then PAL will automatically attempt to show in color. You may prefer to see a simple black and white display, or your laptop may display the colors poorly. If this is the case, then you should try the "C" toggle to see how the reports look with color turned off; e.g., "PAL 7C". If you prefer to have color turned off permanently, then you can make the adjustment permanently within the CLONE procedure. Once you make such a permanent adjustment with the CLONE procedure, the meaning of the "C" toggle is that you will temporarily be viewing the report in color. The "C" toggle switch will not have any effect with monochrome displays. * "F" sends your report to a "F"ile. PAL uses the name PAL.TXT for the file. You may change the name with the CLONE procedure. When you specify "F", the screen display will not pause as it fills with appointments. Instead, the appointments will scroll by quickly as they are being written to the file. You may force the scrolling to pause by hitting the key combination CTRL-S; strike any other key to continue scrolling. * "H" suppresses the reporting of "H"olidays. This toggle switch is useful if you want to see a report of your appointments without the clutter of holidays. PAL will ordinarily show several holidays automatically. Within the CLONE procedure, you may turn off holidays individually, and you can make PAL show several other holidays which the distribution version is not set to show. See section 13.1.3 for information on holidays. * "P" sends your report to the "P"rinter. PAL assumes that you would like only 48 lines per page and that you would like a form feed at the conclusion of each page. With the CLONE procedure, you may change these assumptions and send tailor-made instructions to your printer immediately before and after each report. As with the "F" parameter, when you specify "P", the screen will not pause as it fills with appointments. Instead, the appointments will scroll by quickly as they are being sent to the printer. Use CTRL-S to pause and any other key to continue. * "R" suppresses auto-"R"epeat appointments. This toggle switch is useful if you want to see a report without the clutter of repeating appointments. 17 5.5 File Handling The last optional parameter permits you to specify the complete name, including drive and path if needed, of the file you desire to examine. 5.5.1 File Assumptions If you do not specify the filename, then PAL will use its default assumptions for the name and location of the file. These default assumptions can be set in the CLONE procedure. On distribution, PAL assumes that the name of the file to examine is "APPOINT.APP" and looks for it first in the current directory and the DOS path. If PAL does not find APPOINT.APP, it looks for the file in "C:\SK" and then in "C:\". PAL allows you to specify your filename in "shorthand". If you specify a directory only, then PAL will supply the filename and extension. If you specify a directory plus a filename but leave out the extension, then PAL will automati- cally supply the assumed extension. You can have PAL examine a file that has no extension by adding a period after the filename. Examples: For instance, assume that you have a file called "BUSINESS.APP" for your business appointments and "VIDEO.APP" to schedule all the TV shows you want to video tape, and that both files reside in "C:\SK". The command line "PAL 7 VIDEO" will examine the file "C:\SK\VIDEO.APP". Similarly, the command line "PAL 7 BUSINESS" will examine the file "C:\SK\BUSINESS.APP". The command line "PAL 7" will cause PAL to look for the file "APPOINT.APP" in the series of directories described above, while the command line "PAL 7 C:\SK\" will force PAL to look for the file "C:\SK\APPOINT.APP". 18 5.5.2 PAL's Appointment Scratchpad In addition to examining the specified SideKick appoint- ment file, PAL will examine all the appointments which you have entered in PAL's own Appointment Scratchpad. See chapter 7 for a complete description of the Appointment Scratchpad. If you specify "Nofile" as the file to examine, then PAL will not examine any physical file on your disk. Instead, PAL will only examine the Appointment Scratchpad. For instance: PAL 30 NOFILE will force PAL to avoid looking in any SideKick appointment file and to focus its attention on the Appointment Scratchpad instead. If you are not using SideKick with PAL, then you absolutely must specify "Nofile" as the file to examine. Otherwise, PAL will always be looking for a non-existent APPOINT.APP. Instead of specifying "Nofile" each and every time that you run PAL, you can force PAL to change its internal assumptions so that it will always act as if you had speci- fied "Nofile". See section 13.1.2.3 for instructions on how to CLONE this change into PAL. Once you make the change to "Nofile" with the CLONE procedure, you can always explicitly name a SideKick file on the command line. 5.5.3 Overriding PAL's Assumptions In general, if PAL's assumptions as to the name and location of your appointment file are incorrect, then you may either: (1) change PAL's assumptions with the CLONE feature, or (2) change the name and location of your appoint- ment file in order to match PAL's assumptions, or (3) fully specify the name and location each time you invoke PAL. 19 5.6 Examples As an example of REPORT MODE, to see all your appoint- ments for the next week, issue the command "PAL 7". A very common use for PAL is to insert such a command as the last line of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, so that your coming appointments greet you when your computer finishes booting in the morning. It was for this very purpose that the author wrote the first version of PAL in early 1985. Other examples: PAL @1/1/88 366hr -- shows all appointments in 1988, sup- presses holidays and auto-repeat appoint- ments. PAL 30 nofile -- shows appointments for next 30 days, but only those which have been entered in the Appointment Scratchpad. PAL @ 32000p myapp. -- shows appointments for 32,000 days starting at 1/1/1985, and sends the report to your printer. Looks for file MYAPP (which does not have a filename extension). 5.7 Special Memos In REPORT MODE, PAL will interpret some of your memos as having special meaning and will provide you with extra- special results when those memos are encountered. They are: * Reminders: Memos containing "!" * Alarms: Memos containing "@" * Auto-Repeat: SideKick memos containing any of the following characters: [ ] { } ~ Caution: A caution for persons printing out this documentation rather than viewing it on a computer screen: The special 20 characters shown on the immediately preceding line are generally known as the left and right square brackets, left and right curly braces and the tilde (a small, wavy line). Some printers may not print the correct image of these characters. Therefore, if you have any doubt as to the "truthfulness" of your printer, consult PAL's online help regarding auto-repeat appointments and view the characters on your screen; or you can view this documentation with DOS's TYPE command or any other program that permits you to view the documentation on your monitor. For details on reminders, see chapter 8. For details on alarms, see chapter 12. For details on auto-repeat, see chapters 7 (for the Appointment Scratchpad) and 9 (for SideKick auto-repeat). 21 Chapter 6: SEARCH MODE 6.1 SEARCH MODE Syntax Syntax for the SEARCH MODE is: PAL [@mm/dd/yyyy] $[BCFPR] SEARCHTERM [FILENAME] The required parameters in SEARCH MODE are the program's name, followed by the "$" character (think "$earch"), followed by the term for which you want PAL to search. 6.2 SEARCH MODE Optional Parameters The optional parameters are identical to those permitted in REPORT MODE, with minor exceptions. For information regarding date manipulation, see section 5.3. For information regarding the toggle switches, see section 5.4. The only differences in the effect of the toggle switches within SEARCH MODE are that the "A"larm and "H"oliday switches have no effect, and the "R" switch prevents search of the Appointment Scratchpad. For information regarding the FILENAME, see section 5.5. 6.3 What SEARCH MODE does SEARCH MODE is restricted to the single, simple function of conducting a search for your "Searchterm" through your file and/or through PAL's own Appointment Scratchpad. A search will pick up appointments which fall on or after the date of the report. The "Searchterm" is the string of characters that you are trying to match. The search is insensitive to upper or lower case. Suppose you want to search for "Uncle Herman's Birth- day". You can shorten the number of letters you type by just choosing a few. Let's say you issue the command "PAL $ man". 22 You may get a search report that looks something like this: Personal Appointment Locator Ver. 2.0 Copyright 1988 PAL Software NY, Inc. ---------------------- |March 7 1988| Searching C:\SK\APPOINT.APP |--------------------| The following matches have been found | 6:47:37pm | for "MAN": |--------------------| |SU|MO|TU|WE|TH|FR|SA| Scratchpad # 15, Yearly :Uncle Herman's Birthday |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| |28|29| 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| Tue, Mar 8 1988, 2:00 pm :Ullman appointment |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| | 6| 7| 8| 9|10|11|12| |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| |13|14|15|16|17|18|19| |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| |20|21|22|23|24|25|26| |--|--|--|--|--|--|--| |27|28|29|30|31| 1| 2| ---------------------- Notice that this search picked up another appointment as well. You would have picked up only the appointment you wanted if you had been more exclusive in your search by, for instance, using "Herman" as your searchterm. In your search report, all matching appointments which are found in the Appointment Scratchpad which are auto- repeating (that is, all of them except those which you designate with a frequency of "once") will be clustered at the beginning of the report with an indication that they are located in the Scratchpad, the number of the appointment slot within the Scratchpad, and the frequency of the auto-repeat. For more detailed information, you'll have to enter the Appointment Scratchpad to see the restrictions imposed on the appointment. All "carryforward" appointments from your SideKick appointment file will also be shown. By "carryforward" we mean appointments which were entered prior to today's date, but which are intended to be shown today or after today's date, such as auto-repeat appointments and reminders. These carryforward appointments will be shown in your search screen as occurring on the day for which they were initially entered. Thus, auto-repeat appointments are shown only once in Search Mode. It is up to you to look at the special character codes that you have entered in the memo in order to determine when they will repeat. If your searchterm spans more than a single word, then you must enclose the entire searchterm within quote marks; 23 otherwise, PAL will interpret the second word of the search- term as the name of the file you wish to search. If you wish to search for a string which itself contains quote marks, then you must enclose each of those quote marks themselves within quote marks. Examples: PAL @ $r ~ -- will pick up all appointments in your SK file (the "r" disables search of the Appointment Scratchpad) after 1/1/85 which contain the tilde character, which signifies an auto-repeat appoint- ment within a SideKick memo. PAL $c max -- will pick up "max", "maxine", "maximum", etc. in your default appointment file. Color is toggled. PAL $ max planck -- will pick up same as preceding command, but will search a file called "PLANCK.APP" (if it can be found). PAL $ "max planck" -- will search for the words "Max Planck" in your default appointment file. PAL $ "Pay Joey """The Hatchet""" !" -- will search for the words: Pay Joey "The Hatchet" ! 24 Chapter 7: THE APPOINTMENT SCRATCHPAD PAL's Appointment Scratchpad allows you to keep track of your appointments even if you do not have, or prefer not to use, SideKick. You are provided with 60 slots to enter your memos, but by employing the easy to use auto-repeat editing capacity within the Appointment Scratchpad, the number of appointments you actually design could easily exceed 60,000. Furthermore, by using PAL's ability to save and read images, you can have an infinite number of Appointment Scratchpads, restricted only by available disk space. See section 13.1.9. 7.1 Getting There You can reach the Appointment Scratchpad any of three ways. 1. From the DOS system prompt: PAL APPOINT, or PAL A 2. From PAL's main menu: Hit "1", "F1" or "A" 3. From PAL's CLONE menu: Hit "1", "F1" or "A" 7.2 The Appointment Scratchpad Menu When you first enter the Appointment Scratchpad, you are presented with the following simple menu: Add, Delete, Edit, Find, Old, Sort, ESC to quit To choose any of the operations, just hit the first letter of the operation you wish to perform, or strike the ESC key to exit the Appointment Scratchpad. Use the cursor keys to view another screenful of appointments. The Home key will always take you to the top screen, while the End key will always take you to the bottom screen. To page down through individual screens, use either 25 the Page Down key, the right arrow key or the down arrow key. To page up through the individual screens, use either the Page Up key, the left arrow key or the up arrow key. If you perform a Find operation which results in a match for a memo which is located on a screen not currently visible, then the menu will also show "Next" if the match is on a screen with higher numbered appointments and/or "Pre- vious" if there is a match on a screen with lower numbered appointments. 7.3 The Appointment Scratchpad Screen When you enter the Appointment Scratchpad, you will see your appointments in tabular form. Here's a sample showing the first page: No Frequency Restrictions Memo Timeslot 1|Once |11/07/1987x 1, ...............|Finish Documentation! | Title 2|Once |11/25/1987x 1, ...............|First Jersey |10:30 am 3|Weekly |10/22/1987x 40, Thu............|Mtg with D.M. @45 | 7:30 pm 4|Weekly |10/27/1987x , Tue............|Mtg with K.T. @45 | 7:30 pm 5|1st Week |Always--------, Mon............|Partner's Meeting | 6:00 pm 6|1st Week |10/27/1987x 9, Tue............|Marianne @45 | 6:30 pm 7|3rd Week |10/22/1987x 9, Thu............|Rhetta @45 | 6:30 pm 8|3rd Week |10/27/1987x 9, Tue............|Lynn @45 | 6:30 pm 9|Yearly |Always--------, 07/06/****.....|Delia's Birthday | Title 10|Yearly |Always--------, 07/20/****.....|Aunt Ethel's Birthday | Title 11|Yearly |Always--------, 10/16/****.....|Micah's Birthday | Title 12|Yearly |Always--------, 12/21/****.....|Dad's Birthday | Title 13|Yearly |Always--------, 11/21/****.....|Laura's Birthday | Title 14|Yearly |Always--------, 02/06/****.....|Jesse's Birthday | Title 15|Yearly |Always--------, 02/20/****.....|Phyllis' Birthday | Title As you can see, each appointment is numbered (from 1 to 60). The columns show the frequency with which the appoint- ment will appear, the restrictions which you have imposed on the appearance of that appointment, the memo which will be shown with REPORT MODE or SEARCH MODE, and the time slot for which the memo will appear. To some extent, the facilities of REPORT MODE and SEARCH MODE are duplicated within the Appointment Scratchpad's own menu. For instance, you may "F"ind a sequence of characters in the Appointment Scratchpad instead of exiting and running a search. You may also order the appointments within the Appointment Scratchpad with the "S"ort command; however, only a complete report in REPORT MODE will expand the auto- repeating appointments, show you holidays, load alarms, and 26 provide all the goodies available in REPORT MODE. 7.4 "A"dding Appointments To add an appointment to the Appointment Scratchpad, just hit the "A" key. PAL will select the lowest-numbered empty slot for your appointment to occupy. As you construct the record for the appointment you want PAL to memorize, PAL will guess at the answers to the questions posed and will display those guesses opposite the questions. If you wish to accept PAL's guess, then just hit the return key. Otherwise, enter your own choice and then hit the return key. As soon as you finish answering each question, PAL will convert your answer to start building a visual record of your choices. When you complete all of your answers, the record will appear in identical form to all the other appointments which already reside in the Appointment Scratchpad. This record will appear on the line immediately below the last line of the Appointment Scratchpad. If you make a mistake while building the record, don't worry about it. Just keep hitting the return key in answer to all the rest of the questions until you come to the last query: "Are you satisfied with the record you have built?" -- which can be answered only with a "Y" or an "N". Strike the "N" key, and your erroneous information will disappear so you can try again. Even if you select "Y" and the informa- tion in your Appointment Scratchpad is changed, the changes are not permanently accepted unless you CLONE when you exit the Appointment Scratchpad. 27 7.4.1 Frequency The first choice you are requested to make is the frequency of the appointment: Enter desired frequency: _____ A. Once D. Weekends G. 2nd Week J. Lst Week M. Bimonthly B. Daily E. Weekly H. 3rd Week K. Biweekly N. Quarterly C. Weekdays F. 1st Week I. 4th Week L. Monthly O. Yearly You will see an "A" to the right of the "Enter desired frequency:" prompt. If you want to enter a non- repeating appointment, then just hit the return key to accept the "A" selection. Otherwise, choose a letter that corre- sponds to the frequency you desire and then hit the return key. 7.4.2 Setting Restrictions Once you have chosen the frequency for the appointment, then you will be asked for the manner in which you would like the appearance of the appointment to be restricted. 7.4.2.1 Once Setting restrictions for a one-time appointment is simple. All you need to do is set the date on which the appointment falls. Use the cursor keys to manipulate the month, day of month, and year. 7.4.2.2 Daily, Weekdays and Weekends For daily, weekday and weekend appointments you will first be asked whether you would like to show the appointment always. If you answer "Y", then the appointment will be picked up by PAL for every appropriate day which is contained within your report, regardless of the beginning and ending day of your report. 28 If you answer "N", then you will next be asked for the earliest date for which you would like the appointment to appear. To manipulate the date, use the cursor keys as shown at the bottom of the screen. For weekday and weekend appointments, you will note that as you change the date with the cursor keys, the date will jump over inappropriate dates so that, for instance, you cannot select a weekend date for a weekday appointment. If you have answered "N" to the query whether you want the appointment to repeat always, then after you select the date, you are asked whether you would like to limit the number of times for the appointment to repeat. If you answer "N", then the appointment will repeat from the date you have chosen in the prior step until the end of your report, regardless of the ending date of your report (The Appointment Scratchpad will reflect your choice by inserting a series of three "infinity" characters in the line you are building). If you answer "Y", you may then select a number between 1 and 255 to limit the number of repetitions. 7.4.2.3 Weekly, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Last The procedure for restricting weekly appointments is substantially similar to the discussion for restricting daily, weekday and weekend appointments. The only difference is that prior to getting into any of the other questions, you are first asked the day of the week on which you would like the appointment to be reported. Then you answer all the same questions outlined above in section 7.4.2.2. Appointments which you request to be scheduled for the first, second, third, fourth or last occurrence of a particu- lar day of the week in each month are restricted with the same steps as for weekly appointments. However, you are given the additional opportunity to further restrict the appointment to be shown only in a particular month each year, so that, for instance, you can set an appointment to fall on the fourth Thursday in November if you know of any holiday or appointment that could benefit from such a schedule. 29 7.4.2.4 Biweekly The procedure for restricting a biweekly appointment is the same as for a weekly appointment, but with one signifi- cant difference. Since it is important to know the starting date for a biweekly appointment (so that PAL knows which of the alternate weeks you want the appointment to be shown), PAL goes directly to the question of the starting date. Thus, you are not given the opportunity to designate a biweekly appointment as repeating "always". However, if you do want the appointment to appear from the beginning of any report through the end of any report, then simply pick a starting date prior to today (or prior to any earlier date that you might conceivably specify with the "@MM/DD/YYYY" parameter on the command line) and do not restrict the number of times for the appointment to repeat. 7.4.2.5 Monthly, Bimonthly, Quarterly If you select a monthly, bimonthly or quarterly appoint- ment, you will first be asked to specify the day of the month on which the appointment must appear. For bimonthly and quarterly appointments, you must then specify which monthly pattern to follow; for instance, for bimonthly you can choose either the even numbered months or the odd numbered months of the year. Once you have specified the day of the month, and, where appropriate, the monthly pattern, you will then be given the opportunity to state whether the appointment should be shown always. As with other types of appointments, if you answer "Y"es, then the appointment will be shown from the beginning to the end of all your reports. If you answer "N"o, then you must specify a start date and then will be asked whether you wish to limit the number of repeats. 7.4.2.6 Annual First you will be asked to specify the month and day on which you would like the annual appointment to fall. Then you will be given the opportunity to require the appointment to be shown always. If you do not want it shown always, then you must specify the beginning date and whether or not you want to limit the number of repeats. 30 7.4.3 Entering the Memo Now that you have chosen the frequency and have set the restrictions for your appointment, you may enter the memo as you would like it to appear in your report. As with Side- Kick, your memo can be as long as 26 characters. Any of your memos in the Appointment Scratchpad may contain the special codes to create an alarm. In this way you can readily create repeating alarms. See chapter 12 for how to create an alarm within your memo. Since the Appointment Scratchpad has already learned the frequency of your memo and the restrictions on how your appointment will repeat, there is no need to use any of the valuable 26-character memo space for the special codes which would have been needed in a SideKick memo to design an auto- repeating appointment. 7.4.4 Choosing the Time Slot You may choose any standard SideKick-type time slot, including "Title" and all half-hour intervals from 8:00 a.m. through and including 8:30 p.m. Of course, with the ability to set advance alarms (see section 12.8), you have a much wider choice of times at which you can be alerted to your appointments. 7.4.5 Saving (or Erasing) Your Choices Once you have selected the time slot, you will be asked whether you are satisfied with the record you built. If you answer "N"o, then the record will be erased and you will be returned to the Appointment Scratchpad menu. If you answer "Y"es, that you are indeed satisfied with the record, then your new appointment will temporarily be added to the Appointment Scratchpad. You will be able to see it inserted in the slot which was selected when you initially selected the "A"dd operation. In order to make the addition permanent, you must CLONE when you exit the Appointment Scratchpad. You will be given this opportunity when you hit 31 ESC to leave the Scratchpad. If you choose not to CLONE, then you will lose the changes which were made to the Appointment Scratchpad during this session. 7.5 "D"eleting an Appointment To delete an appointment from the Appointment Scratch- pad, simply supply the number of the appointment you wish to delete. You will be asked to confirm that you want to delete the appointment. As with changes made using the "A"dd operation (see section 7.3), the changes which you make with the "D"elete operation take effect only temporarily. To make the changes permanent, you must CLONE when you "ESC"ape from the Appoint- ment Scratchpad. 7.6 "E"diting an Appointment To edit an appointment, select any appointment slot. You will then be taken through each of the choices that you would have to make if you were "A"dding an appointment (see section 7.3). The difference here is that if the slot you have selected to edit is already occupied, the guesses which PAL makes for the answers to the questions it poses will match the original information which you already have for the entry being edited. If you would like to retain any of the original information, just hit the carriage return key to accept that default information. To change the information, just enter the information as you would like it to appear, then hit the return key. 7.7 "F"inding an Appointment While within the Appointment Scratchpad, you may search for an appointment without having to exit and run PAL in its SEARCH MODE. Of course, you may always run PAL in SEARCH MODE to look for an appointment, and PAL will turn up the matches in both your SideKick appointment file and PAL's Appointment Scratchpad. When you select the "F"ind operation, you will be asked what you want to search for. You can enter any sequence of 32 characters or words to search for. Do not use quotation marks to surround groups of words as you would if you were using SEARCH MODE. Hit the return key when you are finished typing the term or terms you want to find. PAL will then immediately examine all of the appoint- ments in the Appointment Scratchpad to see if there is a match. Lower and upper case characters will be treated identically. If PAL finds a match or matches, then those matches will be highlighted in the Appointment Scratchpad screen, and PAL will report in the lower left hand corner the numbers of the matched appointments. If there is a match located on a screen with appoint- ments numbered higher than those on the visible screen, then the "N"ext operation will appear in the menu, and hitting the "N" key will take you immediately to the next screen with a match on it. Similarly, if there is a match located on a screen with lower-numbered appointments, then the "P"revious operation will appear in the menu, and hitting the "P" key will take you immediately to the prior screen with a match on it. You may also use the cursor keys to page through the Appointment Scratchpad screens one by one. Choosing any operation other than "N"ext, "P"revious or paging with the cursor keys will remove the highlighting on the found appointments. 7.8 "N"ext Screen Immediately following a "F"ind operation, if a match is found in an appointment which resides on a screen with higher-numbered appointments than the screen presently being shown, then the "Next" selection will appear on the Appoint- ment Scratchpad menu. By hitting the "N" key, you will be taken directly to that screen. 7.9 Removing "O"ld Appointments When you select the "O"ld operation, you are being given the opportunity to delete all non-repeating appointments (those which show in the frequency column as "Once"). You will be prompted whether or not you also want to delete old reminders, that is, appointments with the "!" character in 33 them. It is possible that some of your auto-repeating appoint- ments for which you specified a limited number of repeats are indeed out of date. However, the "O"ld operation will not automatically delete them. Since it is possible that when you specified the limited number of repeats you gave only a rough guess, it may be inappropriate for PAL to assume that you want to get rid of the limited auto-repeat appointment automatically. To cull out the auto-repeat appointments which are out of date by reason of the limitation on the number of repeti- tions, you must examine each of them, and if you truly no longer need them, use the "D"elete operation. Hint: You may find it convenient to examine limited auto- repeat appointments by using the "S"ort operation to sort by number of repeats, thereby bring the limited appointments all together. This will force the time-limited appointments to be sorted between those which appear only once and those which appear an infinite number of times. See section 7.11. 7.10 "P"revious Screen Immediately following a "F"ind operation, if a match is found in an appointment which resides on a screen with lower- numbered appointments than the screen presently being shown, then the "Previous" selection will appear on the Appointment Scratchpad menu. By hitting the "P" key, you will be taken directly to that screen. 7.11 "S"orting Appointments To sort appointments within the Appointment Scratchpad, just hit the "S" key. You will be presented with a number of choices as to the order in which you would like to sort the 34 appointments: A. Complete F. Start Date, Descending B. Memo G. Frequency, Ascending C. Time Slot, Ascending H. Frequency, Descending D. Time Slot, Descending I. Repeats, Ascending E. Start Date, Ascending J. Repeats, Descending To run a sort, strike the alphabetic key which corre- sponds with the type of sort you want. To get back to the Appointment Scratchpad without sorting, strike the "Q" key to "Q"uit. Once you run a sort, you may then immediately re-sort on another category if you wish. This will permit you to set up sorts within sorts, so that you can tailor the order of your Appointment Scratchpad display to your own needs. For instance, if you would like to see your appointments sorted mainly by the number of repeats but would also like to see all appointments further sorted by increasing start date, then first use sort "E" (for the start date), then use sort "I" (for the number of repeats). Hint: In general, when you want a sort within a sort (or a sort within a sort within a sort, etc.), then the least significant category should be sorted first, and the most important category should be sorted last. If you select "Complete" (choice A), which is the default choice, then PAL will do a multiple sort. The sequence of the complete sort, in order of most to least significant, is (1) ascending frequency, (2) ascending start date, (3) ascending time slot, (4) ascending repeats, and (5) alphabetic. Selecting "Memo" (choice B), will sort alphabetically by your memo. "Time Slot, Ascending" (choice C) will sort by the time slot in increasing order of time, while "Time Slot, Descend- ing" (choice D) will sort by the time slot in decreasing order of time. "Start Date, Ascending" (choice E) will sort by increas- ing order of the commencement date of the appointment, while "Start Date, Descending" (choice F) will sort in reverse. When sorting by start date, appointments which are marked as "Always" (that is, they have no start date) will be considered to be earlier than appointments with a specified 35 start date. "Always" appointments will also be considered to be equal to each other in start date, except that annual appointments situated next to one another will be sorted by month and date, monthly type appointments (monthly, bimonthly and quarterly) will be sorted by day of the month, and weekly type appointments (weekly, biweekly, first, second, third, fourth and last) will be sorted by the day of the week. "Frequency, Ascending" (choice G) will sort by the frequency order. The order used for frequency is that which is displayed in the choices provided when you add or edit an appointment (see section 7.4.1). "Frequency, Descending" (choice H) will sort in the opposite order. "Repeats, Ascending" (choice I) will sort by order of increasing number of repetitions, while "Repeats, Descending" (choice J) will sort by decreasing number of repetitions. Appointments which are not limited in the number of repeti- tions will be considered to repeat infinitely. If you want to quit back to the Appointment Scratchpad menu without sorting, then strike the "Q" key. 7.12 "ESC"ape At the Appointment Scratchpad menu, once you hit the ESC key, you will either be dropped back to the DOS system prompt, the main menu or to the CLONE menu, depending on how you first entered the Appointment Scratchpad. If you have made changes to the Appointment Scratchpad, then you must CLONE them in order to save them. PAL will automatically remind you of the need to CLONE unsaved changes when you exit back to the DOS system prompt or to the main menu; if you are "ESC"aping back to the CLONE menu, then you'll be reminded of your unsaved changes if you attempt to exit the CLONE menu without saving. If you choose not to CLONE, then the changes you made in this session will be ignored. 36 Chapter 8: REMINDERS If you want to maintain a reminder list, then enter an appointment either with SideKick or with PAL's internal Appointment Scratchpad and insert an exclamation point ("!") anywhere in the memo. If the day passes and the memo is still there, then PAL will remind you of that memo in a special section of its report. This feature is designed to serve as a "tickler." Any time you have passed the day for which the reminder has been set, you will be specially alerted. If you have run the demonstration batch file "PALDEMO" you will recall that Dick was supposed to have bought an engagement ring for Jane quite a long time ago. Hint: Once you no longer require a memo to be characterized as one of these tickling reminders, all you need to do is enter SideKick or PAL's Scratchpad, as the case may be, and edit the memo to delete the "!", or else delete the memo in its entirety. Caution: You cannot create automatically repeating reminders. PAL will tickle you only for the actual, physical entry which you make, but not for any repetitions of that appointment which it interprets with its auto-repeat function. For instance, study the two following appointments: Pay mortgage! Pay car loan!] Assuming that both are entered on March 1, 1988, then on March 2, 1988 and thereafter both will appear in the remin- ders section of your report. If you have asked for a report which extends beyond March 31, 1988, then since the car loan memo is a monthly auto-repeat (see section 9.1), you will see the car loan memo on the first day of each month which is included in the report. However, in the reminders section of the report, you will see each of those memos only once. To be reminded for more than a single date, you must enter a memo on each date for which you want to be tickled. 37 Chapter 9: SK AUTO-REPEAT APPOINTMENTS If you are not using SideKick with PAL, you can skip this chapter 9 in its entirety. PAL has extensive facilities to automatically repeat an appointment. You may combine the auto-repeat capability with the alarm function to have an automatically repeating alarm. PAL's Appointment Scratchpad gives you a very simple method to automatically repeat appointments, but that is not the focus of this chapter. Instead, this chapter focuses on creating auto-repeat appointments with SideKick. For an in- depth discussion of the Appointment Scratchpad, see chapter 7. 9.1 Single Character Auto-Repeat Daily, weekly, monthly and annual appointments may be repeated in either of two ways. That is, you may either use a single character or a sequence of characters. All auto- repeat patterns other than daily, weekly, monthly and annual require a special sequence of characters to be set. If you want to have an appointment come up periodically on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis, then you may insert characters as follows: Annual: Use the left bracket ("[") or the sequence "~A" Monthly: Use the right bracket ("]") or the sequence "~M" Weekly: Use the left curly brace ("{") or the sequence "~W" Daily: Use the right curly brace ("}") or the sequence "~D" 38 The four single-character codes are found on two keys on your keyboard. To remember their use, it may be helpful to visualize them as follows: weekly daily \ / \ / { } [ ] / \ / \ annual monthly Thus, for instance, if you would like PAL to remind you of your client's wedding anniversary so that you can remember to send out a greeting card and thereby be assured that the client will view you as a thoughtful person entitled to even more business, then either of the following two methods will produce an annual auto-repeat of that memo: Mr. Money Anniv. [ Mr. Money Anniv. ~A The single-character codes (the square brackets and curly brackets) were chosen because of the likelihood that they would be infrequently used in your memos. However, in the event that you find that it is more important to you to use the square brackets and the curly brackets as text instead of as auto-repeat characters, then you may disable them as auto-repeat characters. To do so, simply enter the CLONE procedure and make the change described in section 13.1.4.4. 9.2 Special Auto-Repeat Sequences More complex auto-repeat patterns can be inserted through the use of the tilde ("~") character. PAL interprets the tilde as a signal that the next character or characters represent the codes for a special pattern. You may follow the tilde with any of the following combinations: 39 9.2.1 Daily types ~D Daily ~WD Weekdays ~WE Weekends 9.2.2 Weekly types ~W Weekly ~WO Biweekly (think "Week Other") ~1 First occurrence of that day in each month ~2 Second occurrence of that day in each month ~3 Third occurrence of that day in each month ~4 Fourth occurrence of that day in each month ~L Last occurrence of that day in each month 9.2.3 Monthly types ~M Monthly ~MO Bimonthly (think "Month Other") ~Q Quarterly 9.2.4 Annual type ~A Annually Each of these patterns will repeat starting with the day for which the appointment has been entered, with the follow- ing exceptions: * If you enter a ~WD appointment on a Saturday or Sunday it will not commence repeating until the following Monday. * If you enter a ~WE appointment on a weekday it will not commence repeating until the first Saturday which follows. * If you enter patterns ~1 through ~L, and the day 40 for which you have entered the appointment does not coincide with the occurrence that you have specified, then the appointment will not repeat until the first appropriate occurrence thereafter. For instance, suppose that you have entered "Department meeting ~2" in a timeslot for Thursday, October 15, 1987. Your specified pattern calls for the appointment to repeat on the second Thursday of each month, but the date on which you entered the appointment is actually the third Thursday of October, 1987. The auto-repeat will not commence until the second Thursday of the following month: Thursday, November 12, 1987. 9.3 Special Month Restrictions The patterns of ~1 through ~L may be further restricted to a particular month. The way to impose this restriction is to add a single character at the end of the pattern to signify the desired month. The characters to add are: 1 -- January 2 -- February 3 -- March 4 -- April 5 -- May 6 -- June 7 -- July 8 -- August 9 -- September O -- October N -- November D -- December Thus, for instance, you can make Thanksgiving appear on the appropriate date each year by entering the following memo in any Thursday timeslot: Thanksgiving ~4N Of course, PAL itself will automatically show Thanksgiving for you, but you get the idea. This month-limiting feature may be useful for special holidays for which PAL does not provide. 41 9.4 Limiting the Number of Times to Repeat An additional useful function which PAL permits in an auto-repeat appointment is to specify the precise number of times that you would like the appointment to repeat. This is accomplished simply by placing the number sign ("#") imme- diately following the pattern which you have already con- structed, and then following the number sign with an integer between 1 and 255 to signify the limitation. Placing the number sign in any position other than immediately following your auto-repeat pattern will be ignored by PAL. To help understand this ability to limit the repeats to a specified number, compare the following two entries: Pan Am Flt #7~m Pan Am Flt ~m#7 The first memo will display as "Pan Am Flt #7" and will appear every single month, without restriction as to the number of times displayed. The second memo will display as "Pan Am Flt" and will repeat monthly for 7 times beginning with the date for which it was originally entered. If you do not limit the number of repeats with the number sign, then the memo will repeat through to the last day of your report, regardless of the number of days in your report. 9.5 Auto-Repeats Not Shown Within SideKick Caution: One final caution regarding using the auto-repeat ability within SideKick's appointment file. It is important to understand that what is happening with PAL's auto-repeat function is that PAL is interpreting a single memo within your SideKick file and showing it multiple times within PAL's own report. That memo will not be reproduced physically within SideKick's own file. Therefore, when you use Side- Kick's calendar pad to page through the appointment file, you will NOT see a repeating appointment unless you are looking at the actual day on which you entered the appointment. For this reason, if you use auto-repeat appointments within SideKick and want to know whether a particular time slot is available to make a new appointment, you will be best off by using PAL first to report on what's doing for the day. 42 Once you have determined with PAL that you have the time, you can then invoke SideKick to actually enter the appointment. 9.6 Auto-Repeats in Appointment Scratchpad Once you start playing with the character sequences to generate automatically-repeating appointments in a SideKick memo, you may rue the 26 character limitation in each time slot. The auto-repeat character sequence, depending on the restrictions you impose, may take up much more space than you would like. The logical alternative is to make use of PAL's own internal Appointment Scratchpad, where auto-repeat appoint- ments can be designed without using up any of the 26 charac- ter limitation for your memo. See chapter 7 for complete information about the Appointment Scratchpad. 43 Chapter 10: SK DELETE and PURGE If you are not using SideKick with PAL, you can skip this chapter 10 in its entirety. PAL has the ability to get rid of entries in your SideKick appointment file which are of no further use to you. If you would like to see the amount of space that you could save in your SideKick appointment file by employing the DELETE or PURGE procedures, then by making the appropriate changes within the CLONE procedure (see section 13.1.4.7), you can have PAL advise you of the benefits each time you run a report. To remove old appointments from the Appointment Scratch- pad, use the "O"ld function from the Appointment Scratchpad menu. See section 7.9. Deleting old appointments from SideKick's file is the subject of the remainder of this chapter. 10.1 Out of Date Appointments If you'd like to delete all your old appointments from the SideKick appointment file, then invoke the delete function with "PAL DELETE" or choose "Delete" from the main menu. This will get rid of all your out of date appointments except for reminders ("!") and auto-repeat appointments. PAL will specifically ask if you would like to delete old reminders as well, and will do so if you answer "Y"es. PAL will not automatically delete old auto-repeat appointments whose usefulness has expired. The DELETE procedure has no effect on the Appointment Scratchpad. Caution: Beware! When you DELETE old appointments, the SideKick file is changed so that you will not be able to recover the old appointments unless you have previously saved a backup copy of the file. 44 10.2 Deleting Auto-Repeat Appointments The DELETE procedure, as stated above, will not delete old automatically repeating appointments. This is so even though it is possible that an auto-repeat appointment whose number of repeats has been limited may indeed be out of date (see section 9.4 for an explanation of how you can limit the number of repeats in a SideKick memo). The reason that we have implemented PAL so as not to delete such appointments is that we recognize that you may have merely estimated the number of times that you want the appointment to repeat. Hint: If you want to examine your time-limited auto-repeat appointments to make a conscious decision whether to delete any of them, then simply ask PAL to locate them for you so you can examine them. To locate the time-limited auto-repeat appointments within your SideKick file, search for the special character that signifies the limited number, the "#" character. The command to search for those appointments, starting from 1/1/85, is "PAL @ $ #". 10.3 Putting Out the Garbage The DELETE procedure will also get rid of some useless records in your appointment file which SideKick tends to leave there even after you delete them with SideKick. When you delete an appointment with SideKick, SideKick does not physically remove the bytes from its file. Instead, all that SideKick does is place a special code within the file so that the appointment then becomes invisible. If all you want to do is collect and dispose of this garbage but leave your old visible appointments intact, then use the command "PAL PURGE" or choose "Purge" from the main menu. The PURGE procedure has no effect on the Appointment Scratchpad. The DELETE procedure will automatically invoke the garbage collection procedure that PURGE uses, so you needn't invoke both procedures separately. 45 10.4 Avoiding a Conflict With SideKick If PAL detects that SideKick is not loaded, it will automatically change your appointment file and rewrite the new, clean version to disk. However, PAL will refuse to upgrade your file automatically if it senses that SideKick is resident within your system. Instead, PAL creates a new file with the name "CLEAN.APP" and instructs you to copy CLEAN.APP over your existing file when SideKick is not loaded in memory or when you know that SideKick is not attached to the file that has just been cleansed. Caution: If you have multitasking software or task-switching software in your system, PAL may not be able to sense the presence of SideKick. If you have such software in your system, please read section 10.6 carefully. The reason for this protection is that we have observed that SideKick has at times had problems writing new appoint- ments to its appointment file when that file has been shrunken (by PAL) without its knowledge, with the potential result of scrambling data on your disk! For this reason, please heed PAL's warnings! For convenience, we supply you with three additional command line alternatives which you may find useful to place in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file prior to the command which loads SideKick. Each of these commands will perform its operations to their conclusion, without pausing to provide instructions or to request input from the user. If PAL senses that SideKick is loaded when these commands are issued, then the requested operation will not be completed. PAL DELETEAUTO Deletes all out-of-date appointments, except for old reminders. Also performs "PURGEAUTO". PAL DELETEAUTOALL Deletes all out-of-date appointments, including old reminders. Also performs "PURGEAUTO". PAL PURGEAUTO Deletes only the empty appointments left behind when you erase an appointment within SideKick's calendar. 46 10.5 How to Safely Update When SK is Loaded We strongly recommend against DELETING or PURGING while SideKick is loaded and encourage you to follow the procedures set forth earlier in this chapter. If you do follow those procedures, then there is no need for you to read the remainder of this section. If, however, you have a particular need to use DELETE or PURGE while SideKick is loaded, then please read this section carefully. If you have multi-tasking or task-switching software in your system, please read section 10.6 before attempting to employ these procedures. When PAL senses that SideKick is loaded, PAL tells you it is not automatically updating your appointment file but instead is creating the file CLEAN.APP. There are three methods you can follow to copy CLEAN.APP over your APPOINT.APP: 1. First, if and only if you have not yet used SideKick's appointment entry pad since you booted your computer, then SideKick will not yet be attached to your appointment file. You may then perform the copy. 2. Second, you can remove SideKick from memory before issuing the copy command. Follow the instruc- tions in your SideKick manual to do this. Go ahead and copy the appointment file. You may then reinstall Side- Kick. 3. Third, you can force SideKick (without removing it from memory) to recognize the new size of your cleansed appointment file with a little bit of fancy footwork: a) Pop up SideKick and force it to disattach itself from your original appointment file by doing the following. Call up the calendar, then enter the appointment entry pad (Alt-L, followed by Return). Hit "F2" to tell SideKick to attach itself to a new file name for the appoint- ment file. Give it the name of any file other than the original appointment file which PAL has just cleansed. Press return to make sure that SideKick has accepted your new choice of file. SideKick has now disattached itself from your original appoint- ment file. Drop out of SideKick and return to the DOS system prompt. 47 b) Now: "COPY CLEAN.APP APPOINT.APP". c) Pop up SideKick again, and reattach your original appointment file by using the "F2" selection in the appointment entry pad and supplying the name of the original file. SideKick now will be operating with correct information regarding the length of your cleansed file. 10.6 Multi-Tasking and Task-Switching Systems Persons who use multi-tasking systems (e.g. Desqview, Taskview, Topview) or task-switching systems (e.g. Carousel) must exercise extra-special caution, because PAL will not be able to sense when SideKick is loaded in a partition of memory different from that from which PAL was invoked. In particular, PAL will be able to sense SideKick only if (a) SideKick has been made resident globally prior to installation of the multi-tasking or task-switching software, or (b) if PAL is run within the separate partition in which SideKick has been made resident. When SideKick is made resident within one partition, and you ask PAL to run either the DELETE or PURGE procedures within another partition, PAL will merrily go about its activity oblivious to SideKick's presence in a hidden partition of your system and will change your file without the built-in precautions described above. To avoid potential data loss in multi-tasking or task- switching systems, you may exercise any one of the following precautions: 1. Refrain from using DELETE and PURGE during the normal course of your computer usage. Instead, insert one of the automatic batch file commands (described in section 10.4 above) within your AUTOEXEC.BAT file prior to the command which loads SideKick. 2. If you must use the DELETE or PURGE procedures while SideKick is loaded in your system, make sure that SideKick is not hidden from PAL in another partition. You can assure yourself of this by either: (a) loading SideKick globally before your multi-tasker or task- switcher, or 48 (b) if you load SideKick after your multi-tasker or task-switcher, then use PAL only within the partition in which SideKick is loaded. 3. You may run PAL DELETE or PAL PURGE with complete safety from a partition which differs from that in which SideKick resides only if the operation is performed prior to your first use of SideKick's calendar since you last booted your computer. 4. If you mistakenly run the DELETE or PURGE procedure from a partition which differs from SideKick's partition, and if SideKick's calendar has already been invoked, then refrain from permitting SideKick to write any additional appointments to your appointment file until you follow the "fancy footwork" instructions under option 3 described in section 10.5. 10.7 Knowing When to Use PURGE or DELETE If you would like to know how many bytes you can save in your appointment file with these garbage collection proce- dures, then you can enter the CLONE procedure, call up the screen for Miscellaneous Defaults, and ask PAL to show you the effect of the PURGE and DELETE procedures. The next time you run PAL in REPORT MODE, you will receive information at the head of the report showing the number of bytes you could save if you use either procedure. See section 13.1.4.5. 49 Chapter 11: MULTIPLE SK APPOINTMENT FILES PAL offers the ability to merge two or more SideKick appointment files in order to view them together. If you are not using SideKick with PAL, you can skip this chapter 11 in its entirety. 11.1 SideKick's Deficiency SideKick by itself has no capability for simultaneously viewing the appointments of two or more persons. In particu- lar, you can merge two files into a single file to be read by SideKick, but if both files contain an appointment on the same day at the same time, SideKick will show you only one of the appointments in the time slot. PAL corrects this defi- ciency. 11.2 PAL's Solution If you keep more than one appointment file and would like to view them together to check on conflicts or common free time, then copy them together (using the "/b" parame- ter), and view the combined file with PAL. For instance, if Dick uses DICK.APP and Jane uses JANE.APP, use the following command to combine the files into TOTAL.APP: COPY DICK.APP + JANE.APP TOTAL.APP /b Then use PAL on the combined file: PAL 7 TOTAL If you fail to use the "/b" parameter, then the combined file will not have the correct number of bytes, and PAL will refuse to recognize it as a valid appointment file. If any of the files to be combined contains alarm appointments, then you may or may not want PAL to load all of the alarms from all of the files. By default, PAL will load all alarms which it senses. One of the command line toggle switches which might be appropriate for using here is the "A" parameter, which turns off alarm loading. To turn off alarm loading when reporting on the combined file, use the command "PAL 7A TOTAL". 50 11.3 An Example Suppose a single appointments secretary maintains appointments for six lawyers on her own computer using SideKick. She uses files named "JOHN.APP", "SUSAN.APP", "ROBERT.APP" and so forth, all in the "\SK" directory. There are no other "*.APP" files in her system. Here's the contents of a simple batch file which she could write to give her a hard-copy printout of everyone's appointments for the next week: CD \SK DELETE ALL.APP COPY *.APP ALL /B REN ALL ALL.APP PAL 7PA ALL This batch file first changes to the directory on which the *.APP files can be found, then deletes the old merged file (if any), then merges everyone's appointment records, then sends a 7 day report on the merged file to the printer. Alarm updating has been suppressed. 51 Chapter 12: ALARMS PAL will insert alarms into your computer memory for you so that you may have an audible and visual signal at the time you wish to be alerted to an appointment. 12.1 Auto-Repeat Alarms By combining the alarm feature with PAL's auto-repeat feature, you may design automatically repeating alarms. For instance, with PAL and PALARM you can set your computer, with just two memos, to awaken you at 7:00 a.m. each weekday and 11:30 a.m. every weekend day for the rest of your life. Since you'll be visually and audibly reminded at the appropriate times with an auto-repeat alarm, you may consider viewing these alarms in your REPORT MODE reports to be unnecessarily cluttering. Do you really want to see your 7:00 a.m. wakeup call in your report intermixed with your other appointments? Probably not. Therefore, PAL allows you the option of making an auto-repeat alarm invisible to REPORT MODE. This is accomplished by inserting the inverted carat character -- ^ -- any place within the memo. Although this memo will thereafter not appear in any report, you can still search for it in SEARCH MODE, and any alarms which are sent off to PALARM will be visible in the table of alarms accessi- ble in the PAL SET ALARMS menu (see section 12.10). 12.2 PALARM In order for PAL to insert alarms into your computer memory, you must first load PALARM. To do so, all you have to do is issue the command "PALARM", and that program will install itself and remain resident. You must call PALARM prior to installing SideKick, because SideKick must remain the last-installed program in memory. 12.3 Two Ways to Set Alarms There are two ways that PAL can communicate an alarm to PALARM: automatically and manually. 52 First, PAL has the capability of automatically inter- preting a special character (the "@") in your SideKick or Appointment Scratchpad memo as signifying that you want the memo treated as an alarm. See section 12.7. Second, in the PAL SET menu, you may manually add or edit alarms directly without using SideKick or the Appoint- ment Scratchpad. See section 12.10. 12.4 Capacity for 10 Alarms PALARM allows your computer to maintain up to 10 alarms at any time. When the moment comes for the alarm, PALARM will pop up over your current application and will present you with both a visual and an audible alarm (the visual alarm will not pop up over a graphics application). 12.5 How to Kill or Snooze a Sounding Alarm You kill a sounding alarm by hitting the carriage return key. If you fail to kill the alarm within a specified period, then PALARM will automatically silence the alarm, snooze for a period, then pop up again later. You can intentionally force PALARM to snooze by hitting any key other than the carriage return when it pops up. If PALARM is snoozing, you will hear a soft ticking sound approximately once per second. As distributed, the alarm will display for 10 seconds and will snooze for 1 minute. You can change the time for display to between 1 and 60 seconds, and the snooze time to between 1 minute and 24 hours. This change can be made by entering the Install function from the PAL SET main menu. See section 13.2.3. Hint: If you want to kill an alarm before it pops up or while it is snoozing, then you must delete it within the PAL SET ALARMS menu. See section 12.10. 53 12.6 Controlling the Sound An additional control you have over the alarm is the ability to specify the type of sound you hear when the alarm goes off. You can change the sound to OFF, LOW, NORMAL or HIGH. The distribution version of PALARM has the sound set to LOW. See section 13.2.2. 12.7 How to Write a Memo to Become an Alarm To tell PAL that you want a memo to be loaded automati- cally as an alarm, simply insert the "@" character anyplace in the memo. All of the following are valid examples of memos which will be treated as alarms: Run for the train @30 @@@@@@ WAKE UP @@@@@@ @ Partners Meeting When you ask PAL to run a report of your coming appoint- ments, PAL will translate your memo into an alarm and feed the information to PALARM. The alarm will then pop up at the time for which you wrote the memo. The "Title" slot in SideKick and the Appointment Scratchpad will be interpreted as 7:30 a.m. 12.8 Advance Alarms If you want advance notice of the appointment, you can force the alarm to pop up prior to the time slot of the appointment by writing the amount of time to advance the alarm immediately following the "@" character. The alarm will then pop up that number of minutes prior to the time slot for which you wrote the memo. For instance, the sequence "@20" means you want the alarm to pop up 20 minutes before the time slot of the appointment. The maximum number you can use is 1440. This gives you the capability of advancing the alarm anywhere from 1 minute to 24 hours. Furthermore, you can amplify the effect of the number to reflect the number of days or the number of hours for which you would like advance notice. If you follow the number with a "D", then the alarm will be advanced that number of days; 54 if you follow the number with an "H", then the alarm will be advanced that number of hours; if you follow the number with any other letter or with nothing, then the alarm will be advanced that number of minutes. Hint: By using advance alarms, you can effectively set appointments for after 8:30 pm (the last regular time entry slot in SideKick and the Appointment Scratchpad) or before 8:00 am (the earliest slot). Note also that PAL will interpret the Title slot as calling for an alarm at 7:30 am. For instance, suppose you want an alarm to sound at 11:30 pm: you could enter an alarm in the next day's Title slot with the code "@8h", in the 11:30 am slot with the code "@12h" or in the 8:00 am slot with the code "@510" -- any of the foregoing combinations (and innumerable other possible combinations) would produce an 11:30 pm alarm. Examples: Call IRS @ A simple alarm Wake up @ ~wd Example of a repeating alarm, every weekday Run for the train @ ~wd^ Example of a repeating weekday alarm which will not show up when you run a report, but which will pop up at the appointed times regularly. Flight to London @240 Warns you 4 hours in advance Wedding Anniversary @1d Lets the forgetful husband/wife know a full day in advance Catch Train @ 10 Beware! This will pop up at the precise time of your memo slot, not 10 minutes in advance! The space between the "@" and the number means that PAL will not interpret the "10" as a command to advance the alarm. 55 12.9 Run PAL to Automatically Update Alarms In order to automatically update your alarms, you must run PAL in REPORT MODE from time to time. The alarms which you design with SideKick and the Appointment Scratchpad do nothing at all unless PAL reads them, interprets them, and sends them off to PALARM. PAL will examine each alarm for its intended date and time, and if the alarm is to be sounded after the moment at which PAL is examining it, then PAL will try to load it into the ten-slot queue which PALARM holds in memory. Only the 10 most immediate alarms will be held in the queue. Hint: Periodically running PAL to ask for a report will make sure that your alarms are updated regularly. If you run PAL in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file every morning when you boot up, then you're likely to do just fine. Since PALARM has only a 10 alarm capacity, if you set more than 10 alarms during a day, you'll have to run PAL more frequently than once daily. 12.10 Editing Alarms Manually with PAL SET Editing alarms manually is accomplished by entering PAL SET, then entering the "Alarms Menu". You can reach the PAL SET menu by issuing the command "PAL SET" or "PAL S" from the command line, or just invoking "PAL" to get to the main menu and then selecting "SET" from the main menu. The PAL SET menu appears as follows: 1. Alarms Menu 2. Clock Toggle 3. Date Toggle 4. Help 5. Install Assumptions 6. Load Info From Disk 7. Save Info To Disk <ESC> to quit to main menu From the PAL SET menu, press the "A", "1" or "F1" keys to enter the Alarms Menu. The Alarms Menu appears in the 56 lower right hand corner of your screen as follows: 1. Add an Alarm 2. Clear all Alarms 3. Delete an Alarm 4. Edit an Alarm 5. Purge Old Alarms <ESC> to return to main menu At the top of the screen when you enter the Alarms Menu is a listing of all the alarms which PALARM currently contains in memory (up to 10): You have the following Alarms set: 1. Thu, Mar 3 1988, 4:30pm : Gary Fields @30 ................ 2. Thu, Mar 3 1988, 6:45pm : Aerobics @45 .................. 3. Mon, Mar 7 1988, 6:45pm : Art Class @45 ................ 4. Thu, Mar 10 1988, 6:45pm : Aerobics @45 .................. 5. Mon, Mar 14 1988, 5:45pm : Lynn @45 ....................... 6. Mon, Mar 14 1988, 6:45pm : Art Class @45 ................ 7. Thu, Mar 17 1988, 5:45pm : Rhetta @45 ..................... 8. Thu, Mar 17 1988, 6:45pm : Aerobics @45 .................. 9. 10. You are shown the full memo for each alarm and the time at which it is scheduled to pop up. The next scheduled alarm will be highlighted to set it off from the rest of the alarms. If any of the alarms are currently snoozing, that fact will be noted together with the time at which it will pop up again. From the Alarms Menu, you can add alarms, edit them (change the date, time or memo), delete specific alarms, purge old alarms (those which are listed prior to the next scheduled alarm), or clear the entire alarm sequence. When you exit the Alarms menu and get back to the opening PAL SET menu, you should "S"ave your changes to the data file if you want the information remembered the next time you boot up. If you fail to "S"ave the information, then your changes will be remembered only for your current computing session. If, prior to saving the current changes, you would like to restore the information which was last saved to disk, then use the "L"oad option from the PAL SET main menu. Manual editing of an alarm permits you to determine 57 explicitly the date and time that a memo will pop up, without having to insert any special codes within the memo. Hint: It is best to manually edit alarms which are not near the end of the 10-place queue that PALARM holds. The reason for this caution is that the automatic interpretation by PAL of SideKick and Appointment Scratchpad memos may, under certain circumstances, delete your manually entered alarm. Here's how that would happen. Let's say you have manually entered an alarm for one year down the road. PAL, however, sees from your SideKick or Appointment Scratchpad memos that you want 15 alarms sounding between now and then. As indicated above, PALARM has space for only 10 alarms. What PAL will do is insert the 10 most immediate alarms in those spaces. If it finds that an alarm which has already been scheduled is set to occur later than the 10 alarms it wants to insert, then the later alarm will be pushed out of the queue. If that alarm which has been kicked out was within the SideKick or Appointment Scratchpad memos, then PAL will automatically add it back to the queue when there is room. But if the unfortunate alarm was manually added, then it won't get back in unless you manually add it in once again. Hint: Whenever you kill a sounding alarm, PALARM will update the alarm data file on your disk, even if you are in the midst of an alarm editing session. Therefore, if an alarm pops up in the middle of an editing session and you don't want the current changes to overwrite your existing data, then instead of killing the alarm, force it to snooze. When you are certain that your editing changes are correct, you can then kill the alarm the next time it pops up. 12.11 Removing PALARM To remove PALARM from memory, you must be at the DOS system prompt. Simply invoke "PALOFF" at the DOS system prompt. "PALOFF.EXE" is one of the files supplied, and it should reside in a directory within your DOS path for maximum convenience. If it is safe to unload PALARM from memory, then the program will terminate its operations and release its occupied memory. If another program is resident in memory after PALARM 58 and that program uses some of the same interrupt vectors that PALARM uses, then it is not safe to remove PALARM until the other program is first removed from memory. In the event such a condition exists, PALARM will remain in memory. You will have to remove the other program first before trying again to unload PALARM. 59 Chapter 13: CLONING NEW VERSIONS OF PAL There are many, many ways you can customize PAL to meet your own needs. All you need to do is tell PAL how to change its assumptions, then PAL will clone a new version of itself which will remember what you told it. There are two places within the program in which you can specify assumptions: 1. In the CLONE procedure, you have numerous options to change regarding the operation of PAL. See section 13.1. 2. To change aspects of the operation of PALARM, you must first enter the SET procedure and then select "Install Assumptions". See section 13.2. To reach the CLONE procedure, simply invoke "PAL CLONE" or "PAL C" from the command line, or select it directly from PAL's opening menu. Similarly, to reach the SET procedure, invoke "PAL SET" or "PAL S" from the command line, or select it from PAL's opening menu. Then select "Install Assumptions". 13.1 The Clone Procedure After reaching the CLONE procedure, you will be pre- sented with a menu of the following choices: 1. Appointment Scratchpad 2. File Location Defaults 3. Holidays 4. Miscellaneous Defaults 5. Printer Defaults 6. Clone <ESC> to quit without change You may select any of the six operations by hitting the alphabetic key corresponding to the function, the numeric key, or the function key (F1 - F6). Each of the first 5 operations permit you to change PAL's internal assumptions. You may change all, some or none of the assumptions. You may jump from operation to opera- 60 tion, and PAL will remember all of your changes until you leave the CLONE menu. There are only two ways to leave the CLONE menu: by choosing operation #6 to CLONE the changes you have made, or by hitting ESC to leave the menu without making any changes. Hint: If for some reason you have made so many changes from the original distribution default assumptions that you want an easy method of returning to PAL's original assumptions, then use the RESTORE procedure, discussed at section 13.1.8. Example: The benefit of being able to CLONE different copies of PAL is illustrated by the following scenario. Suppose you use PAL sometimes to print out (on paper) a report of your coming appointments for a month, and you need to use special printer control codes to squeeze the characters to the smallest possible size so that you have a nice neat little schedule to slip into your wallet. At other times you want to use normal size print for a hard copy of the coming week's appointments to place on your desk. For the first use, you can insert the special printer codes , make the default command line "30P", and, when you go through the CLONE operation specify "MONTHLY" as the name of your new ".EXE" file. For the second use, use PAL's default printer codes, change the command line to "7P" and name the ".EXE" file "WEEKLY". At the DOS system prompt, issuing the command "MONTHLY" will cause your squeezed, monthly report to be issued, while issuing the command "WEEKLY" will give you your hard copy for the next week, at normal print size. A description of each of the operations which can be initiated from the CLONE menu follows. 13.1.1 Appointment Scratchpad This choice summons PAL's Appointment Scratchpad, which can be used both as an auxiliary to and/or as a replacement for SideKick's appointment file. For detailed information about the Appointment Scratchpad, see chapter 7. The changes which you make in the Appointment Scratchpad will take effect only if you choose to CLONE the changes. 61 13.1.2 File Location Defaults When you summon this choice from within the CLONE menu, you are given the opportunity to change the following assumptions. Remember that the changes which you make here will not take effect unless you CLONE and do not ESCape from the CLONE procedure. 13.1.2.1 The Second Directory This is the full path name of the directory in which PAL should look for your SideKick appointment file if it cannot find the file in your DOS path. As distributed, PAL assumes the Second Directory to be "C:\SK\". 13.1.2.2 The Third Directory This is the full path name of the directory in which PAL should look for your SideKick appointment file if it cannot find the file in your DOS path or in the Second Directory. As distributed, PAL assumes the Third Directory to be "C:\". 13.1.2.3 Appointment Calendar Name This is the filename (first 8 characters only) of the SideKick appointment file. As distributed, PAL assumes the name to be "APPOINT". If you change this name to "NOFILE", then PAL will automatically look only in its own Appointment Scratchpad, unless you supply a specific filename on the command line. 13.1.2.4 Appointment Calendar Type This is the extension for the filename (the 3 characters after the period in the whole file name) of the SideKick appointment file. As distributed, PAL assumes the type to be "APP". The purpose of this assumption is that PAL will automatically add the extension to a filename specified by you on the command line but for which you do not explicitly state the extension. If your filename is "NOFILE", PAL will not add the extension. Instead, the NOFILE filename will force PAL to look in the Appointment Scratchpad without looking at any SideKick appointment file. To override the assumption for files that do not have any extension, simply specify the filename on the command 62 line with a period immediately following it. Examples: PAL 7 -- will look for APPOINT.APP in the DOS path, then the Second Directory, then the Third Directory. PAL 7 JANE -- will look for JANE.APP in the same sequence of directories. PAL 7 d:\utility\ -- will look for d:\utility\appoint.app PAL 7 d:\utility\jane -- will look for d:\utility\jane.app PAL 7 noextens. -- will look for the file NOEXTENS, which does not have any extension in the last three character places of the file name. 13.1.2.5 Report File Name This is the name of the file to which PAL writes your report when you specify the "F" optional parameter. On distribution, PAL assumes the name of the file to be PAL.TXT. This file will be written in the current subdirectory from which you invoke PAL. 13.1.3 Holidays PAL will automatically show you several common holidays. You may use the CLONE procedure to change the holidays that PAL shows. Once you enter the CLONE procedure, hit "3", "F3" or "H" in order to view your holiday settings. You will be pre- sented with a list of possible holidays in two columns: "General Holidays" and "Religious Holidays". On distribu- tion, PAL is set to show fewer than 50% of those holidays which it is capable of showing. The holidays marked below 63 with an asterisk are the ones which PAL will show you if you make no changes to its initial assumptions: *New Year's Day *Easter Sunday Martin Luther King Day *Good Friday Lincoln's Birthday Ash Wednesday Valentine's Day Shrove Tuesday *President's Day Palm Sunday St. Patrick's Day Pentecost *Mother's Day *Memorial Day *Hanukkah Flag Day *Rosh Hashanah *Father's Day *Yom Kippur *Independence Day *Passover *Labor Day Succoth *Columbus Day Simchat Torah Election Day Tu B'Shevat Veteran's Day Sh'mini Atzeret *Thanksgiving Day Purim *Day After Thanksgiving Yom Hashoah *Christmas Day Lag B'Omer Shavuot Tisha B'av When you first enter the holiday screen, those holidays which are set will appear highlighted. You will be asked whether you want to change any of the holidays. If you answer "Y" for yes, a small arrow will be pointed at "New Year's Day" and you will be prompted for your response for each holiday. At each position, you may answer "Y" or "N", you may simply hit the carriage return to accept whatever state the holiday is set for, or you may hit "ESC" to end your editing session. The changes which you make in the holiday editing session will take effect only if you choose to CLONE your changes. The holidays you select will show up whenever you run a report in REPORT MODE. If you prefer not to see the holidays in a report, you may either (a) turn off all of the holidays permanently in the CLONE procedure, or (b) turn them off temporarily by using the "H" toggle switch (e.g. "PAL 7H"). 13.1.4 Miscellaneous Defaults The Miscellaneous Defaults operation is selected by hitting "4", "F4" or "M". You will be presented with a series of choices, with a description of the effect of each 64 choice, and you will be asked whether you want to change any of the assumptions. If you answer "Y" for yes, then you will be able to make the following decisions: 13.1.4.1 Default Command Line This is the command which PAL will execute if you do not specify any additional parameters on the command line. In the distribution version of PAL, this default command line is "MENU", so that PAL will show you its main menu if all you do at the DOS system prompt is write the command "PAL". You may change the default command line to any command that PAL can understand. Do not start off the command with the word "PAL" as you would if you were issuing a command from the DOS system prompt. Instead, provide a command similar to that which you would use in the "Enter Command Line" choice in the main menu. The beginning "PAL" is assumed. If you have substituted a new default command line with this option, you can always request the main menu from the DOS system prompt with the command "PAL MENU" or "PAL M". 13.1.4.2 Color Display This choice is important only for color monitors. The distribution version of PAL will display in color on systems with color monitors. Systems which try to emulate color monitors but in shades of gray will try to display PAL's colors. Some color and composite monitors may display PAL's colors poorly. A "composite" monitor is one which displays only two colors (e.g., black and white, black and amber, black and green) but which tries to emulate a color graphics adapter rather than a monochrome display; this is common in many laptop computers. You can use this selection to permanently turn off color so that PAL will write to your screen as if it were a simple monochrome monitor. If your screen display is so poor that you cannot even read the directions within the CLONE procedure, then please read the discussion in the Installation chapter under the heading "Screen Display" at section 2.5. If you run PAL on a true monochrome monitor, your selection for this option is unimportant. Hint: Whatever you choose for this selection, you can tempo- rarily force PAL in REPORT MODE or in SEARCH MODE to toggle back to the reverse kind of display by using the "C" toggle 65 switch. 13.1.4.3 Reverse Video This choice is significant only for monochrome and black & white monitors (including color monitors for which you have forced PAL to display in simple black and white). The distribution version of PAL will show some messages in reverse video on monochrome monitors and black & white monitors. For instance, your appointments for today through the next business day will show up in reverse video. However, some monitors may not show reverse video in a satisfactory manner. If you prefer to use intense (bright) video in lieu of reverse video, then answer "N" to this question. Otherwise, answer "Y". 13.1.4.4 Single Character Auto-Repeat PAL will interpret certain special characters in your SideKick memos as signals that you want the appointment to be repeated in your report automatically. The square brackets- - '[' and ']' -- and the curly brackets -- '{' and '}'-- will signal annual, monthly, weekly and daily repeating appointments. These frequencies for repeating may also be signified by two-character sequences beginning with the tilde character "~". See the chapter on auto-repeat appointments for more information, section 9.1. You may prefer to employ the bracket characters for normal usage within your SideKick memos without having them signify auto-repeat appointments. You would then rely on the tilde sequences instead. To make PAL ignore the bracket characters, answer "N" to this question, otherwise answer "Y". The distribution version of PAL does use the bracket characters to signify auto-repeat. If you do not use SideKick with PAL, then your answer to this choice is unimportant. 13.1.4.5 Effect of PURGE and DELETE If you answer "Y" to this question, then at the top of each Report of your appointments, PAL will let you know how many bytes you could save in your SideKick appointment file if you were to use the PURGE or DELETE procedures. The distribution version of PAL does not show this information. 66 If you do not use SideKick with PAL, then your answer to this choice is unimportant. 13.1.4.6 Noise The distribution version of PAL will blip at you occa- sionally in certain circumstances. You can silence PAL by answering "N" to this question. 13.1.4.7 Extended Alarm Report The last thing that PAL tells you in REPORT MODE is whether you have alarms to be loaded into PALARM. If so, you can have PAL tell you all the alarms which it is loading. On distribution, PAL does not give you this extended report. To force PAL to give you this information, answer "Y" to this question. 13.1.5 Printer Defaults You can send a report to your printer by using the "P" switch. For instance, "PAL 7P" will send a 7 day report to your printer. There are three changes which you can make to PAL's printer defaults. 13.1.5.1 Initialization String PAL allows you to send up to 26 bytes to your printer to initialize it prior to printing a report. You need to know the hex notation of the printer codes you want to send. On distribution, PAL's initialization string is merely a series of zeroes, which should not have any effect on your printer. 13.1.5.2 Exit String PAL also allows you to send up to 26 bytes to your printer after the report is concluded. As with the initiali- zation string, you need to know the hex notation of the printer codes to send. On distribution, PAL's exit string is just a form feed character (hex code: 0C), followed by a series of zeroes. 13.1.5.3 Lines Per Page This is the number of lines that PAL will print to a page before telling your printer to advance to the next page. On distribution, PAL will issue the form feed instruction after every 48 lines. You may change this number to any other number. A simple 0 will force continuous printing 67 without form feeds. 13.1.6 Clone Once you have made all the changes that you desire within the CLONE procedure, the only way to make those changes permanent is to strike "6", "F6" or "C" to force the changes to be written to disk. The first screen that you reach is one which reminds you what happens if you proceed. If you want to avoid writing your changes, then hit the ESC key. You may proceed to CLONE by hitting any other key. Assuming that you proceed, you will next be asked the name of the file that you want to create. You may accept the default name by hitting return, or you may select any other name for the file. The default name will appear as "PAL" or as the last name you chose when you previously CLONED the program. You can CLONE several copies of PAL, all with different names, each of which can contain different internal assumptions. The next screen informs you that PAL will seek a valid PAL.EXE file in your path and will CLONE a new copy into that directory. Here again you will be given the opportunity to avoid CLONING by hitting the ESC key. If you hit any other key, PAL will proceed with the CLONE operation. If PAL cannot find a valid PAL.EXE file in your path, it will seek your help in locating one. If you are asked to supply the name of a valid PAL.EXE file, you may provide the name of any renamed or CLONED file which is a descendant of your original PAL.EXE. If PAL finds that a file already exists with the same name that you are trying to create, PAL will give you the choice of overwriting that file, backing it up, changing the name, or hitting the ESC key to abort the process. 13.1.7 <ESC> to quit without change ....means just what it says. If you hit the ESC key, then all the changes which you have made within the CLONE session will be lost, and the defaults which existed within PAL prior to entering the session will be retained. 68 13.1.8 The RESTORE Procedure For a quick method of restoring PAL's original distribu- tion defaults, use the RESTORE procedure. Employing this procedure returns all of the selections back to PAL's virgin state. You may have need of this procedure, for instance, if you have made many changes, have thought better of it, and would like to start from scratch again. The RESTORE procedure restores only the assumptions which were changed with the CLONE procedure, as described in all of the sections which fall within section 13.1 of this manual. The changes which you may have made with the PAL SET INSTALL procedure described in section 13.2 will not be affected. To invoke the RESTORE procedure, either choose the RESTORE selection from PAL's main menu, or you can call it from the DOS system prompt with "PAL RESTORE" or "PAL R". 13.1.9 Saving and Reading CLONE Images You can use virtually an infinite number of CLONE setups by taking advantage of PAL's ability to save its CLONE settings, including the entire Appointment Scratchpad, to a disk file. You may then read back any one of those CLONE images to make PAL accept all the assumptions contained in the requested image. This feature may also come in handy for you when future enhancements of PAL come out. Instead of having to re-enter all your Appointment Scratchpad memos and all your CLONE settings to a new version, each new version of PAL will be able to read your old image file. Saving and reading CLONE images affects only the assumptions which were changed with the CLONE procedure, as described in all of the sections which fall within section 13.1 of this manual. The changes which you may have made with the PAL SET INSTALL procedure described in section 13.2 will not be saved or affected. To save an image, go to PAL's main menu. Press the "ALT" key, then while still holding the ALT key, press "S" (this key combination is commonly referred to as "ALT-S"). You will be asked for the name of the file to which you would 69 like the image written. The default name is "PAL2.0", which will be used unless you specify a different name. If you accept the default name, the file will be written in the current directory. If the file already exists, then you will be given the choice to overwrite the file, back it up, change the name you want to use, or else escape the procedure. To read an image, press ALT-R at PAL's main menu. Since reading a new image into PAL will obliterate the CLONE image which currently exists within PAL, you will be asked to confirm your choice to read an image. This will give you the opportunity to change your mind so that you can save the existing image first. If you choose to proceed, you must select the file name of the image. The default name is "PAL2.0", but you may choose any other existing image file. Once you select the name, PAL will search for the file along your DOS path and the two alternate directories which you previously set with the CLONE procedure. If you specify a complete file name including the directory, then PAL will look only in that directory for that particular file. As an alternative to using ALT-S and ALT-R at the main menu, PAL offers two special command line parameters: SAVEIMAGE and READIMAGE. Each of these command line alterna- tives is designed for quick action by PAL without pausing for confirmation or choices from the user, and therefore should be employed only when you know that the data which will be overwritten either has been previously saved or does not need to be saved. To save an image, use the command: PAL SAVEIMAGE [FILENAME] where FILENAME is the optional name of the file to which you would like to write. If you do not designate a FILENAME, then PAL will write to the file PAL2.0 in the current directory. PAL will not query whether you want to take alternative action if the file already exists, it will just overwrite the file, so be certain before using this command that you are not concerned about losing the data in the existing file. To read an image, use the command: PAL READIMAGE [FILENAME] where FILENAME is again the optional name of the file which you want to read. If you do not designate a FILENAME, then PAL will try to find PAL2.0. PAL will seek the image file in the DOS path and the two special directories which you have set with the CLONE procedure. It will not query you to 70 confirm whether you want to proceed, so satisfy yourself that the existing CLONE information either is not of importance to you or has first been saved. If PAL cannot find the speci- fied file in the path, then it will return to the DOS system prompt without further action. 13.2 The PAL SET INSTALL Procedure This chapter has, so far, described the assumptions that can be changed within PAL concerning its methods of operation and how it presents its reports to you. We now turn to a description of how you can change various assumptions that PALARM uses with respect to how it deals with your alarms. As with the CLONE procedure, PAL offers you the opportu- nity to change these assumptions through a series of choices, then writes your desired changes to your PALARM.EXE file for permanence. These changes are reached from the PAL SET menu, at which you arrive by issuing "PAL SET" or "PAL S" from the command line, or hitting "7", "F7" or "S" from PAL's main menu. Once in the PAL SET menu, choose "Install Assumptions" by hitting "5", "F5" or "I". When you request the INSTALL procedure, you are pre- sented with a screen that shows the current assumptions with which PALARM is presently working, and you are asked whether you want to change any of them. If you do, then respond with a "Y"; if not, then hit the "N" key and you will be returned to the PAL SET menu. When you respond with a "Y", you will be presented with a series of four screens offering you the opportunity to change assumptions. Each screen shows a few of the assump- tions which can be changed, describing what effect they have and what PALARM presently assumes. The screens are as follows: 13.2.1 Data File This is the name of the file which contains a record of your alarms. When PALARM is first loaded into memory, it will look for this file. When PALARM pops up an alarm and you kill it by hitting the carriage return key, then PALARM will update this file. This is so that PALARM will know the next time it's loaded that the alarm has already been popped up. If, when PALARM loads, it senses an old alarm in the 71 data file which has not yet been popped up, then PALARM will pop up with that alarm immediately. This will assure you that if you missed an alarm because your computer was shut off at the appropriate time then you will not ignore the alarm in silent bliss. On distribution, the name of the data file is assumed to be "\PALARM.DAT". You may change this to any legal file name. 13.2.2 Sound Level When an alarm pops up, you will be presented with a visual and an audible alarm (though the visual alarm will not pop up over a graphics screen). You may select any of four sound levels for the alarm: a) Off -- self-explanatory. b) Soft -- the distribution default, sounds a bit like the squishy sound of walking in soggy shoes. c) Medium -- a more insistent beeping that sounds like your nephew's toy ray-gun. d) Loud -- a high-pitched siren. 13.2.3 Snooze Feature Once the alarm pops up, you may cancel it by hitting the return key. If within a limited period of time you fail to hit the return key, or if you hit any key other than the carriage return, then the alarm will silence itself and permit your system to continue running while it snoozes. You will be reminded that an alarm is snoozing because your system will be emitting a soft ticking sound in the meantime. The alarm will pop up once more after a specified period of time. The two changes you can make here are: (a) The number of seconds for the alarm to sound: between 1 and 60 seconds. (b) The number of minutes for the alarm to snooze: 72 between 1 and 1440 minutes (a full 24 hours). The purpose of the snooze mode is fairly obvious. Imagine the following scenario with an alarm system that captures your system and refuses to let go until you con- sciously choose to silence the alarm. Suppose you start a sort of your customer records with SlowBase VI, knowing that it ought to take an hour. So you go out for lunch, expecting the sort to be completed by the time you come back. Lo and behold, when you return you find that the alarm is screeching at you for some event that you had forgotten about. When you kill the alarm, SlowBase VI resumes its sort at the 45th of 5,784 records! An alarm without a snooze feature is fairly useless, isn't it? Hint: If, while an alarm is snoozing, you would like to cancel the alarm without waiting for the snooze period to finish, you can delete the alarm by entering the PAL SET procedure. From the PAL SET menu, select "A"larms, then "D"elete the alarm that shows as snoozing. 13.2.4 Clock and Date 13.2.4.1 Clock Visibility on Start-Up As distributed, PALARM will automatically show you the time in the upper-right corner of your monitor. With this choice, you may force PALARM not to show the clock when it loads. To turn the clock on or off quickly and temporarily, you may use the "Clock Toggle" selection at the PAL SET menu. 13.2.4.2 Date Visibility on Start-Up As distributed, PALARM will automatically show you the date in the upper-right corner of your monitor. With this choice, you may force PALARM not to show the date when it loads. To turn the date on or off quickly and temporarily, you may use the "Date Toggle" selection at the PAL SET menu. 13.2.4.3 Colors for Clock and Date If you are not pleased with the color combination for the clock and date display, you may change the colors with this choice. You will be presented with a table of numbers 73 displayed in varying combinations of background and fore- ground colors. Simply choose the number which corresponds to the color combination of your choice. 13.2.5 Cloning Your PALARM Changes Once you have made your desired changes within the PAL SET INSTALL procedure, you may clone these changes permanent- ly. Just follow the instructions presented on the screen. If you choose to clone, then all changes will take effect immediately. 74 Chapter 14: TSR WARS, RAM CRAM AND MULTITASKING This chapter discusses some of the problems you might face if you use PALARM so that you can take advantage of PAL's alarm capability. If you do not use PALARM, then you don't need to read the remainder of this chapter. 14.1 TSR Wars Resident programs are often referred to as TSR's, named after the DOS programmer's function that permits a program to Terminate but Stay Resident. As more and more resident programs vie for memory, processor time and control, it is inevitable that skirmishes may result, sometimes resulting in total system lockup which can only be remedied by turning the system off and then back on again. PALARM has been tested in many system configurations and has been found to coexist peacefully in the vast majority of situations. If, for any reason, you find that the introduc- tion of PALARM as a resident program in your system causes computer lock-ups or any other problems, then try the following: 1. In most cases, you will find that loading PALARM early on in the sequence should solve your problem. 2. You should also make sure that SideKick is your last-loaded resident program. Caution: Running "CHKDSK" with the "/F" parameter is a potential problem under certain limited circumstances. This is the case with ANY program that alters your disk's FAT table. Although this is not the result of a war between two resident programs, it is a concern which can arise because two things are happening in your computer at the same time without the two processes being aware of each other. If you kill an alarm while CHKDSK is running, PALARM updates its data file, and it is possible that CHKDSK may be fooled into thinking that you have a disk error when in fact there is none. Answering "YES" to CHKDSK's query whether it should fix the "problem" could result in scrambling PALARM's data file and other unknown results. For this reason, you should do either of the following when running "CHKDSK /F": (1) Snooze the alarm instead of killing it if the alarm pops up before CHKDSK makes its report, or (2) Answer "NO" to CHKDSK's fix- up query if the alarm has popped up before CHKDSK has finished its processing and CHKDSK then reports an error on your disk. 75 14.2 Ram Cram and Multitasking Another problem which is presented by the proliferation of resident programs is "ram cram," a malady that results when you have so many programs residing permanently in your computer's memory that you don't have sufficient memory left to run your normal applications programs. A few years ago, CP/M based computers with a 64K limit were the cutting edge of technology, and when IBM came forward with a 640K capa- city, many people wondered why anybody could possibly want so much memory. Now, the 640K "horizon" is more frequently viewed as a "barrier" to efficient computing. PALARM only uses about 30K of your RAM, but that little bit may, to some people, be too precious to part with. In order to go beyond the 640K barrier, you'll need to get operating software that supports breaking down that wall. Future versions of OS/2 promise to permit this, and some presently available software, such as Desqview operating on 80386 machines, offer this possibility now. 14.3 Hints on PALARM with Multitasking PALARM and PAL have seen limited testing in multitasking systems. If you have any problems using PAL and PALARM in a multitasking system, please let us know so that we can make it work for you. If you use a multitasking program, PALARM will work best if it is loaded prior to the multitasker. This will ensure that PALARM will always be watching the system clock and that PAL and PALARM can communicate with each other. If, for reasons of limited memory, you must load PALARM in a window of the multitasker, then you have a solution to the ram cram problem, but the operation of PALARM will be somewhat inefficient. Following are considerations which you should be aware of if you load PALARM within a window of your multitasker: 1. The PALARM window should be configured to run in the background. Otherwise, PALARM won't be able to watch your system clock to determine when to pop up an alarm. 2. When an alarm pops up over your current application, you will not be able to communicate with PALARM to snooze or kill the alarm unless you switch to the PALARM window first. 76 3. Once you snooze or kill the alarm within the PALARM window, PALARM will attempt to restore your screen to its state at the moment before the alarm popped up. The trouble here is that the visual alarm originally popped up over an application in an entirely different window. Consequently, the PALARM window will wind up with screen information from your Lotus spread- sheet (or whatever you were in), and the Lotus spread- sheet will still have the visual alarm blinking in it when you return to the Lotus window. Although this may be disconcerting when you see it, no harm is done. What has been scrambled is only your screen information, not your data. Each window's screen will be corrected the next time you take an action in that window which causes the screen to be refreshed. 4. You will have to decide whether you want PALARM by itself in a small window, or whether you want PAL and PALARM together running in a larger window. There are advantages and disadvantages to both choices. The advantage of the small PALARM window is that multitasking RAM is being used more efficiently. The disadvantage is that PAL will not be able to communicate with PALARM unless it is within the same window. The advantages and disadvantages of the large PAL/PALARM window are, of course, the converse of the small PALARM window. 5. If you choose the small PALARM window, you will still be able to communicate new alarms to PALARM by observing the following procedure. To update alarms either automatically or manually, you'll have to completely kill the small PALARM window, temporarily open a large PAL/PALARM window to communicate the alarms and create an updated data file (PALARM.DAT), kill the large PAL/PALARM window, then open a brand new PALARM window which will read the updated PALARM.DAT. This procedure is clunky, but if you must save RAM by loading PALARM in a small window, you will find that it does work. 6. Lastly, you will have to design a batch file to be executed in each window. An appropriate batch file for the small PALARM window would be: PALARM PAUSE The "PAUSE" is required to prevent your window from closing immediately. You would add the same command for any window in which you want to load a program that terminates and stays resident. An appropriate batch 77 file for the large PAL/PALARM window would be: PALARM PAL This window will close whenever you exit PAL. 14.4 PALARM and Task-switching Programs Task-switching programs such as Carousel are designed to shift programs rapidly in and out of memory. The application which is shifted out of memory does not run in the back- ground. For this reason, it is inappropriate to load PALARM in a window of a task-switching program. Instead, PALARM should be loaded globally before the task-switching program. 78 Chapter 15: SUPPORT AND UPGRADES Support will be provided to paid, registered users only. This is one of the benefits of registering your shareware version of PAL. a) Voice Line: (914) 762-5322. This line is answered most of the time by an answering machine. Let us know the problem and we'll call you back. b) PAL Software BBS: (914) 762-8055. Answers your computer 24 hours a day at 300, 1200, 2400 and 9600 (US Robo- tics) baud. c) Compuserve: ID # 70475,1071. Send us an EASYPLEX message, or you can send a public message on any of the following SIGS: IBMSW or BORAPP. d) Source: ID # ST2338. Send us mail to the fore- going ID number. e) By mail at PAL Software NY, Inc., 51 Cedar Lane, Ossining, NY 10562. Registered users are entitled to notices of upgrades. Upgrades within 6 months of payment for registration will be made at a nominal cost; upgrades thereafter will be available at a discount for registered users. 79 Chapter 16: LICENSE, WARRANTIES AND LIMITATIONS Our lawyer says we have to write this stuff here. It just so happens that the sole shareholder of PAL Software NY, Inc. is a lawyer. 16.1 Shareware License PAL and PALARM (the "Licensed Programs") are the exclusive property of PAL Software NY, Inc. (the "Licensor"). Holders of the shareware version are granted a license to try the Licensed Programs for a limited period of time. If you use the Licensed Programs at least once a week or over a period in excess of one month, then it is understood that you are satisfied with the Licensed Programs and must register and pay for the Licensed Programs. If you continue to use the Licensed Programs under such circumstances without registering and paying for them, then you are in violation of this limited license. The plain English limitation here is: If you like and use the program, then register and pay for it. If, after a period of time of using the program you choose not to pay for the it, then stop using it. 16.2 Commercial License It is understood that users who have purchased the commercial version directly from the Licensor or from an authorized dealer have satisfied the requirements of the preceding paragraph. The commercial, non-shareware version may not be sold, transferred, sublicensed or otherwise disposed of by any person except with prior written authorization by PAL Software NY, Inc. 16.3 Further Shareware Distribution Persons in possession of a copy of the shareware version of the Licensed Programs are encouraged to share them with others by uploading them to computer bulletin boards, sending copies to friends, etc. You are permitted to re-distribute the shareware version so long as no changes are made to the 80 programs or the documentation and the entire archived set is distributed unaltered. A reasonable charge may be received for the expense of copying the programs and transmitting them, but in no event must the person with whom you are sharing the Licensed Programs be lead or permitted to believe that payment of such amounts constitutes registration or satisfies the require- ments to register which are imposed by this license. Disk distribution services are encouraged to distribute the shareware version of the Licensed Programs so long as the service's catalog or other indexing material contains a clear statement that the Licensed Programs are shareware, not public domain, and that the user is expected to pay for the Licensed Programs if the user likes them and intends to continue to use them. Disk distribution services are encouraged to contact the Association of Shareware Profes- sionals for suggested language. Computer consultants and hardware sellers are permitted to distribute the shareware version of the Licensed Programs along with their products and services so long as it is made clear to the end user that the Licensed Programs are share- ware and that the Licensor requires payment if the end user continues to use the Licensed Programs. In no event may the end user be lead or permitted to believe that the fee paid for consulting, hardware or software includes the registra- tion fee required for the Licensed Programs. 16.4 Site Licenses and Dealer Pricing For information concerning site licenses, please contact the Licensor. For information on dealer pricing, please contact the Licensor. 16.5 No Modifications Permitted In no event is any person permitted to modify the Licensed Programs or any of the associated documentation. 81 16.6 Limitations on Warranties and Remedies The Licensor represents that many users have enjoyed using PAL and certainly hopes that you will, too. However, the Licensor DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE LICENSED PROGRAMS ARE FIT FOR ANY PARTICULAR USE OR ARE MERCHANTABLE. THE LICENSED PROGRAMS ARE NOT WARRANTED TO BE FREE OF BUGS, NOR ARE THEY PROVIDED WITH ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE LICENSED PROGRAMS ARE SUITABLE FOR YOU. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE LICENSOR, ITS OWNERS OR AGENTS BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR LOST DATA OR PROFITS TO ANY PERSON OR ENTITY THAT MAY ARISE OUT OF THE USE OF THE LICENSED PROGRAMS, EVEN IF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO THE ATTENTION OF THE LICENSOR. RECOVERABLE DAMAGES IN ANY EVENT SHALL BE LIMITED TO NOT MORE THAN THE PRICE PAID FOR THE LICENSED PROGRAMS OR THE RETAIL PRICE OF SAME, WHICHEVER IS LESS. 82 Chapter 17: REGISTRATION 17.1 Shareware Version If you have the shareware version of PAL, you are obliged to register the program and pay the required fee if you continue to use the program. Every time you exit the shareware version of PAL, you view a screen which reminds you to register. At the bottom of your screen, you will see two successive prompts asking whether you would like to print out a registration form and mailing envelope. Make sure your printer is connected and turned on, then answer "Y" to each question. You will have the following three options, listed in increasing order of benefits and price: 1. A disk of the latest shareware version: $3.00. This choice does not constitute registration and is offered so that you or your associates can get the latest available shareware version. The cost of the shareware disk may be applied against a future full registration. 2. A disk of the latest commercial version, without printed documentation, but with documentation contained in a disk file which can be printed to your printer: $35.00. This choice entitles you to full support and notices of upgrades. 3. A disk of the latest commercial version, with binder and printed documentation: $49.95. This choice also entitles you to full support and notices of upgrades. Fill out the form, fold the envelope, insert your check and the completed registration form into the envelope, seal and stamp the envelope, then entrust the entire assemblage to the U.S. Post Office. We reserve the right to change prices without prior notification. If there has been a price increase, then we will communicate with you before processing your order. If there has been a price decrease, we will process your order immediately and rebate the excess. 83 17.2 Commercial Version We recommend that you register your commercially distributed version of PAL. In this way, we can inform you of updates and other pertinent news. Furthermore, if you have purchased your commercial version from an authorized dealer rather than directly from PAL Software NY, Inc., then you must register with us so that we know you are entitled to support. To obtain a registration form, enter online help and select the choice for "registration". As with the shareware version, you will be presented with a screen describing registration and permitting you to print out a registration form and envelope. Follow the instructions described above in section 17.1, except do not send a check unless you are ordering a shareware disk ($3.00) which you might wish to give to a friend or associate. The cost of the shareware disk can be applied to a subsequent commercial purchase. 84 Postscript: SideKick Plus It has finally been released! After many months of anticipation, Borland has completed and commenced distribu- tion of its long-awaited enhancement to SideKick. What does this mean to you, and how does this news affect PAL? Well, if you're using PAL as a stand alone product, it probably doesn't make a whit of difference. If you're using PAL with SideKick, you're probably wondering whether to pay the (expensive) freight and pick up SideKick Plus. You should be aware that Borland has an- nounced its intentions that SideKick Plus is not necessarily a replacement for SideKick, but is a brand new product, and it is anticipated that the two products will coexist in the marketplace. In fact, Borland's documentation for SideKick Plus clearly contemplates that the two products may coexist peacefully IN THE SAME COMPUTER! The following comments are designed to assist you in understanding the choices. As you may know, SideKick Plus includes a complex array of features: a file manager, multiple notepads, multiple outline processors, a phonebook, a time planner, four calculators, and an ASCII table. If all of this flexibility is important to you, then by all means pay the piper. However, if your main concern is the difference between SideKick's calendar (enhanced by PAL) and SideKick Plus's time planner (not yet enhanced by PAL), then you'll need a bit more information. What does SideKick Plus (without PAL) have that SideKick (with PAL) does not have? Among other things: * More than 26 characters in the memo field * Optional notepad attaches to the calendar * Move and copy appointments * Dial the phone at pre-appointed time * "Paste" text at pre-appointed time * Search for a vacant time slot * Show graphic schedule of appointments * Change available time slots and resolution Although SideKick Plus's time planner is clearly superior to SideKick's calendar, standing alone, there are several things that you might miss if you abandoned the SideKick-PAL combination: 85 * More flexible auto-repeat appointments * Easily obtain reports of upcoming appointments * Batch operation * To-do list (reminders) * Automatic snoozing of alarms (see 13.2.3) * Control sound of alarms * PAL's internal Appointment Scratchpad * Report and search on multiple files * Automatically show holidays As a final note, we reproduce for you the text of a message left on the PAL Software BBS shortly after SideKick Plus became available: "Msg # 220 Dated 04-06-88 20:16:16 From: xxx xxxxxx To: ALL Re: PAL SUPPORT FOR SIDEKICK+ I just bought Sidekick Plus and have not been happy with the way it handles the calender. I much prefer how PAL does it. Will there be any new version of PAL to support the new sidekick files?" We are committed to upgrading future versions of PAL to ensure that they will remain compatible with SideKick Plus. This will not involve the purchase of a new program from us, just an upgrade of the existing PAL. Registered users will receive notification of the availability of this upgrade. Acknowledgments The following are gratefully acknowledged: Borland International, for their great products (Side- Kick and Turbo Pascal). The Association of Shareware Professionals. TurboPower Software, for their wonderful collection of programming utilities for Turbo Pascal. Lester Penner, author of JCAL, a shareware program which was instrumental in developing the dates used by PAL for Jewish holidays. JCAL can be ordered for $15 from its author at 25 Shadow Lane, Great Neck, NY 11021. Phone numbers are (516) 466-5574 evenings or (516) 273-3100 days. 86 Compuserve, onto which the author logs daily to confe- rence with IBM mavens and novices alike. PAL's beta test cadre, who are good at breaking things. Delia Tolz, who has graciously put up with the author's fanaticism for PAL. 87 Index Alarms 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 31, 38, 50, 51, 52, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 67, 71, 72, 73 ALT-R 70 ALT-S 69 Appointment Scratchpad 1, 8, 10, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 44, 45, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 61, 62, 62 Auto-repeat 15, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 52, 55, 66 AUTOEXEC.BAT 6, 20, 46, 48, 56 Batch 2, 6, 10, 20, 46, 48, 51, 56 CHKDSK 4, 75 Clock 4, 5, 14, 73 CLONE 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 25, 31, 32, 39, 44, 49, 60, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 71, 74 Color 6, 7, 14, 16, 17, 24, 65, 73 Command Line 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, 30, 46, 50, 56, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 69, 71 Date 4, 14, 16, 22, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 58, 73 Delete 8, 9, 11, 15, 25, 32, 33, 34, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, 57, 58, 66, 73 DELETEAUTO 46 DELETEAUTOALL 46 Directory 4, 18, 62, 63 DOS 4, 5, 6, 18, 62, 63, 65 Edit 25, 32, 56, 57, 58 Hard Disk 4 Help 2, 8, 9, 11, 13, 21 Images 69, 70, 71 Install 4, 7, 53, 60, 65, 71 License 80, 81, 82 Memory 4, 14, 47 Menu 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 25, 65 Monochrome 6, 14, 17, 65, 66 Multi-tasking 47, 48, 49 76, 78 Multiple Appointment Files 50, 51 Nofile 19, 20, 62 PALARM 2, 5, 6, 15, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 80 Path 4, 5, 18, 58, 62, 63, 68 Print 17, 20, 60, 61, 67 Purge 8, 11, 15, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 57, 66 PURGEAUTO 46 READIMAGE 70 Registration 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86 Reminders 10, 15, 20, 21, 33, 37, 44, 46 Repeat 15, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 52, 55, 66 SAVEIMAGE 70 88 Scratchpad 8, 10, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 44, 45, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 61, 62 Search 9, 10, 16, 22, 23, 24, 32, 33, 45, 63, 65 Shareware 79, 80, 81, 83, 84 SideKick 1, 2, 5, 6, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 32, 37, 42, 43, 45, 46, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58, 61, 62, 75 SideKick Plus 85 Site License 81 Snooze 53, 58, 72, 73 Subdirectory 4, 18, 62, 63, 68 Support 79 Task-switching 46, 47, 48, 49, 78 89