This file contains late-breaking news and information that isn't found in the documentation. Please read this document before using your new software.
What's New in Version 3.5.1
-----------------------
• Fixed a problem where QuickPad would crash if Macintosh Drag & Drop was
not installed.
• Fixed a bug in the Now Up-to-Date server that would cause it to forget it's name every third or fourth launch.
• Fixed a problem that could cause Now Up-to-Date to use up all it's memory and crash on machines using the PowerPC 604 processor.
What's New in Version 3.5
-----------------------
QUICKPAD:
The QuickPad component lets you enter new Calendar information in an intuitive and free-form way, all without having to open the application. QuickPad takes cues from what you type and creates Events accordingly. Its support for multiple open windows lets you enter a lot of information quickly, and return to it at your convenience.
TO-DO LIST:
The To-Do List is available as a split window in all views except the List View and the Year View. To see the To-Do List, just click the button on the far right of the Toolbar. The To-Do List opens and displays the To-Dos and Calls for the current day. To see the To-Dos for a different day, just select that day in the attached View.
You can change the Done/Not Done status of To-Dos and Calls in the To-Do List using the checkbox that appears next to each one. When a To-Do or Call is Not Done, the checkbox is blank; click the checkbox once to mark the item as In Progress (a single line appears in the box); click it again to mark the item as Done (a checkmark appears in the box). When you mark an item as Done, it moves to the bottom section of the To-Do List.
Unlike other Now Up-to-Date views, you can change the Priority of an item in the To-Do List by dragging it to a new location in the list. When your list shows a few items with the highest Priority setting (High) and a few with a setting one below the highest (Medium), dragging one of the Medium items to the top of the list changes that item’s Priority setting to High. When you have a group of items marked High, and you drag one of them to the top of the list, you give that item a higher “Sub-Priority” than the others—an incremental Priority that’s available only in the To-Do List. You can drag-reorder independently in the Dated and Undated groups.
GROUP SCHEDULING:
• An important change to Group Scheduling is the addition of a new Event type: Meetings. In version 3.0 we became aware that the distinction between an Appointment and a Meeting wasn’t entirely clear, because a Meeting was essentially an Appointment that contained attendees. Now Meetings and Appointments are distinct Event types, with distinctly different attributes.
• Several Event types now include attributes that allow you to specify that they affect your availability for Meetings. Appointments, Special Events and Banners now display a “Blocks My Time” checkbox in the Event Info window; selecting this checkbox when creating or modifying one of these Event types marks you as unavailable for Meetings during the time period it represents.
An Appointment with “Blocks My Time” selected will cause you to be unavailable for its duration; a Special Event makes you unavailable for the entire day on which it falls; and a Banner makes you unavailable for the number of days that it spans. Even when the Event in question is in a Public Category, your setting for this option applies only to you—individual users on the network can have different settings for these Event types. Note that Holidays automatically represent “Busy” time for the days on which they fall.
WRAPPING BANNERS:
You can now create Banners that span multiple weeks in the Month View. Just choose New Banner from the Event menu, drag the new Banner to position it over the desired starting week, and then drag its right edge downward and to the right until your Banner spans the desired period.
The Event Info window for a Banner now includes start and end date fields, plus a Duration field that lets you quickly specify how many days the Banner should span. Use the Event Info window if you want to create a Banner that spans multiple months (or use the Scrolling View option in the Month View).
UNIQUE REPEATS:
Now Up-to-Date 3.5 now allows you to change the description text of individual repeating Events within a series, without the change affecting all Events in the series. Now, when you change the description text of a repeating Event in version 3.5, you’ll be prompted to specify whether the changes should affect one, all, or only the future Events in the series. Click One to have your changes affect only the individual Event you’re working on.
OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION
=============================
GENERAL:
• You can now register your software directly with Now Software using your modem. After you enter your name and registration number, you're walked through the process of connecting toll-free directly to Now Software, where your registration can be transmitted and processed in about 60 seconds. After this process is complete, you may notice an oddly named file in the same folder as Now Up-to-Date. The file will be named something like "~052NLA10 NUD350 Reg Info". Once you've registered your software, feel free to delete this file. It isn't unnecessary once registration is complete.
• If you're running multiple Public Event Servers on the same machine, you need to follow somewhat different installation instructions when updating the servers:
1. Insert Install Disk 2.
2. Locate the file "Public Event Server Archive" and double-click it.
3. Select a destination for the uncompressed server application.
4. In the Finder, make a copy of the server appication for each Public Event Server you're running.
5. Quit any running servers.
6. Replace each version 3.0 server application with a new 3.5 application.
7. Give the 3.5 server application the same name as the 3.0 server application.
NOTE: You must respecify the server passwords and backup file location for each server you upgrade.
• You can no longer create repeating banners in version 3.5. It was necessary to remove this functionality to provide the wrapping banners feature. As wrapping banners have been a user request for quite some time, we felt the tradeoff was worth it.
• Now Up-to-Date's suggested memory requirement of 2MB should be plenty for the average user. However, if you use Group Scheduling extensively, or are on a network with a large number of Public Events, you may find that increasing Now Up-to-Date's memory partition will improve performance. To do this, perform the following steps:
1. Quit Now Up-to-Date, if it's running.
2. In the Finder, select the Now Up-to-Date application.
3. Choose Get Info from the File menu.
4. Increase the value in the 'Preferred Size' box in the window that opens.
5. Close the window, and reopen Now Up-to-Date
PUBLIC EVENT SERVER:
• In Now Up-to-Date 3.0, the administration, category creation, and resource creation passwords were stored in the Public Event Server application. To improve security, these passwords have been moved into the server database itself. As a result, replacing the server application will not allow you to gain access to the server if you've lost your password. If you forget your password, you need to call Now Software technical support, and we'll help you resolve the problem.
• In Now Up-to-Date 3.0, the Public Event Server reset the attendance status for a Meeting's attendees every night at midnight. As a result, if you wanted to check who attended and who declined yesterday's staff meeting, you would find that everyone was listed as "unconfirmed." Now Up-to-Date 3.5 allows the server administrator to specify how often the server will reset the attendance status of past Meetings to unconfirmed. The default setting is now seven days, so you'll be able to check who attended a given Meeting for seven days after the Meeting occurs. You may adjust the interval in the server configuration dialog box of the Public Event Server. Be aware, however, that increasing the interval will adversely affect server performance, since the server must now keep track of much more data than it does in its default configuration.
• One of the best ways to increase server performance is to regularly archive old Events from the categories on the Public Event Server. Version 3.5 makes this easier by reviving a feature present in version 2.0. If you run Now Up-to-Date on the same machine the Public Event Server when archiving events from the server, you don't need to know the owner passwords for the categories you are archiving. When Now Up-to-Date prompts you to enter the owner password, enter anything at all (you must enter at least one character) and Now Up-to-Date will accept it as a valid password.
GROUP SCHEDULING:
• If you used "Commitments Only" mode in Now Up-to-Date 3.0, you'll find that this feature has been changed in version 3.5. Instead of a "Commitments Only" command in the View menu, Now Up-to-Date 3.5 has an "Include All Events That Block My Free Time" checkbox in the Define Sets dialog box. When this checkbox is turned on for a Set, Now Up-to-Date displays every Event in every Category you've selected to be displayed, as well as every Event that blocks your free time, no matter what Category the event is in. If you want to emulate the Commitments Only function of version 3.0, simply do the following:
1. Choose "Sets…" from the Define menu.
2. Click the "New" button in the dialog box that appears. Give your new Set a descriptive name, like "Commitments Only."
3. Make sure that the "Include All Events That Block My Free Time" checkbox is selected, and also make sure that there are no checkmarks next to any Categories in the category list.
4. Click "OK."
Now whenever you switch to this Set, you'll see only those Events that are blocking your free time. If you want, you can subscribe to additional Categories in this Set. If, for example, you have a company paydays Category, you may want to subscribe to that Category so that you can see all the paydays and all your commitments.
• QuickDay (formerly Reminder) now displays in it's menu every Event that blocks your free time. It will continue to display every Event in every Category that you've set to receive Reminders in the "Define Sets" dialog box. If you want to have QuickDay display only Events that you're attending, do the following:
1. Choose "Sets…" from the Define menu.
2. In the dialog box that appears, select each Public Category that has a bell to the right of its name and deselect the "Receive Reminders" checkbox.
3. Click "OK."
QuickDay will now only display Events that block your time. If you want to see Reminders for every Event in certain Categories (a company paydays category, for example), select the "Receive Reminders" checkbox for that category, ensuring that you will receive Reminders for Events in that category whether they block your time or not.
• Now Up-to-Date 3.0 used Appointments for time-based Events that required Group Scheduling (a weekly team meeting, for example), and for Events that involved you alone (a dentist appointment, for example). Now Up-to-Date 3.5 adds the Meeting Event type to distinguish between Events that involve Group Scheduling and those that do not.
You'll notice a "Blocks My Time" checkbox in Appointment, Special, and Banner Event Info windows. Selecting this checkbox makes you unavailable for Meetings for the duration of the Event. By default, this checkbox is selected for new Events. If you use Banners and Specials to indicate something other than a period of time during which you are unavailable, you should be careful to deselect this checkbox when creating the Event. Otherwise, you'll be unavailable for Meetings for the entire day for Special Events, or every day covered by a Banner. The Preferences window pane for each of the Event types now includes a checkbox that allows you to specify if you want the "Blocks my time" checkbox selected by default when you create a new Event of that type.
• Group Scheduling treats Holiday Events in Public Categories in a unique way. If you attempt to schedule a Meeting on a day containing a public holiday, Auto-Pick skips over the day, as if you were unavailable for Meetings for the entire day. This feature allows a network administrator to add comany holidays to the calendar without requiring everyone to attend the public holiday to have it block their time. Be aware that if you inadvertently add spurious holiday Events to your public calendar, you may cause confusion when people attempt to schedule Meetings with you.
• When you move or delete a Meeting and you haven't included the Meeting's conference room or resources in Users and Resources, the conference room or resource will not be notified that the Meeting has been moved or deleted. You'll know that you haven't included the conference room in Users and Reources because "not included in Users and Resources" appears to the right of the conference room in the Event Info dialog box. Anyone attempting to schedule a Meeting in the conference room at that time is notified that the room is busy, even though no Meetings appear to be taking place at that time. To rectify the situation, someone who is a proxy for the conference room or resource ( our network administrator will know who this is) should do the following:
1. Choose "Server Connections…" from the Define menu.
2. Select every server in the dialog box that appears, and click the "Update Now" button then click "OK."
3. Wait for the server status line to read "Public Events Up to Date."
Performing these steps should rectify the problem. It is a good idea to perform these steps with each of your resources and conference rooms from time to time, to ensure that these problems do not occur.
CONNECTING VERSION 3.0 CLIENTS TO A VERSION 3.5 SERVER:
As long as all your Public Event Servers are from version 3.5, version 3.0 and 3.5 clients can co-exist on the network without difficulty. There are, however, some issues you should be aware of when adminstering a mixed version network:
• In version 3.5, if you recieve an invitation to a Meeting in a Category you are not subscribed to, Now Up-to-Date provides the full description of the Meeting and displays which invitees have attended, declined, and so on. If, however, a version 3.0 client creates or modifies the Meeting, you'll no longer receive the Meeting description or attendance status.
• Now Up-to-Date 3.5 allows you to "wrap" Banners around weeks and months. However, when you create a Banner in a Public Category, any 3.0 clients will see the Banner represented as a series of single day Banners that repeat every day for the duration of the Event. For example, if Joe creates a 21 day banner using version 3.5 and places it in a Public Category, Mary (who is still using version 3.0) sees this Banner as a one day Banner that repeats every day for 21 days.
• Version 3.5 allows you more flexibility in scheduling your time by allowing you to have Banner, Special, and Appointment events block your time for Group Scheduling. Version 3.0 clients, however, will not see this time as blocked, and can schedule a conflicting meeting.
