@database "Everyday-Organiser" @author "Mathew Wilson" @wordwrap @What you looking at? Try using Multiview 8). @node main "The Everyday Organiser System." The Everyday Organiser System. v1.10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @{" " link Introduction} Introduction @{" " link Installation} Notes on Installation/Updating -------------------- @{" " link Future} Future Development @{" " link Compilation} Compilation Details -------------------- @{" " link AboutMUI} About MUI @{" " link Thoughts} Issues for MUI programmers -------------------- @{" " link TheAuthor} The Author @{" " link Thankyous} Thanks to... @{" " link History} History/Changes @endnode @node Introduction "Introduction to the Everyday-Organiser." Everyday Organiser (EO) consists of four main programs designed to help you manage your personal day-to-day activites. You can store friends addresses while keep up-to-date on events such as birthdays and appointments etc. It acts slightly differently to some other systems but is easy to use. The functioning of the Organiser system is split up into different programs so you may choose which ones to use, and how to use them. You will need @{" Magic User Interface " link AboutMUI} (MUI) v3.3 to operate the main programs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The programs included with EO are: @{b}Locate@{ub}....: Yet another contestant in the wonderful world of Address Management programs ;-). It has a few options that separate it from the rest. @{b}Alarmist@{ub}..: A daily alarm management program that can be used on its own but is best used in conjunction with On-Time. @{b}On-Time@{ub}...: A personal event scheduler. @{b}Tasker@{ub}....: A personal task manager. There are four extra utility programs included: @{b}TimePrefs@{ub}.: MUI replacement for the Workbench Time preferences program. @{b}Talk@{ub}......: Replacement for CLI 'Say' command. Has quite a lot more features! @{b}Sam@{ub}.......: Small & simple yet useful CLI sound datatype player. @{b}Coder@{ub}.....: Small CLI program to encrypt files. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Have Fun, Mathew Wilson - March 1996, Adelaide, South Australia. @endnode @node Installation "Notes on Installation" You may install or update EO by double-clicking on the 'Install_EO' icon (you will need the standard Installer program). The contents of the EverydayOrganiser program drawer (including drawer) will be copied to the location of your choice. If you wish, the four Extra programs will be copied to different drawer. Talk, Sam and Coder to C: and TimePrefs to the system prefs drawer. The installer may copy the docs/guide files for the four major programs into the "Locale:help/english/" drawer. You may access these documents by pressing the "Help" key while the program's interface is opened. The programs don't mind if the AmigaGuides are in the directory the program was run from or the previously mentioned drawer. The installer automatically sets some tooltypes for the programs so they know where to find certaiin ARexx scripts. The main one is 'DROP_SCRIPT' but Alarmist has 'CHIME_EXEC' and 'WARN_EXEC' which are set to supplied ARexx scripts by default. You may be asked by the Installer whether you wish Alarmist to be copied into your WBStartup drawer. This is because Alarmist is required to act as a commodity and be present at all times. It doesn't make much sense to put it anywhere else. A file called "Talk_Defaults" will be copied to your "S:" directory. It is an optional file used by the program 'Talk' located in the "Extras" drawer. Consult the Talk docs to find out more about this file. After installation you'll probably end up with duplicates of some of the programs because there were copied from the installed drawer to other places like C:. The actual location of all the individual programs is not important, so you may reorganise things to how you like them best. Just remember to read the program docs to find out other relevant files. If you want to do the installation by hand then just drag the EO sub-drawer onto your HD. Make sure you copy the LIBS: drawer over to the correct place too! Within the Extras drawer you should copy Talk, Sam and Coder to C: and TimePrefs to your Preferences drawer. Then make yourself a coffee and read the docs. You will need to set some of the main applications tooltypes so they know where to find the ARexx scripts. @endnode @node Future "Future Development" I would have liked to merge the functions of Tasker into On-Time. This would have made operation a lot more logical. In fact I would have liked to completely re-written On-Time and include begin and end dates/times for events. On-Time would be fully object oriented too and not so messy in my head. Ah, if it were not for the following fact I may just have done so. The future for EO may seem a little bleak at the moment as I am about to plunge off the sinking ship and into the disgusting land of pc. For me, the Amiga is just *not* a viable solution for my personal needs. I have been with the Amiga for 7 years and I enjoyed the machine most of that time. But after, and previous to, the collapse of Commodore there has been a steady decline in the viability of the Amiga and a steady increase in the viability of other platforms. The cost performance ratio of the Amiga just makes it all the more obsolete. The main problem for me is software. Unfortunately I need good spreadsheet software that is available on the PC. There is nothing on the Amiga that comes even close. No disrespect to those hard working Amiga programmers but I really need professional business software. Emulation just doesn't make sense when you consider hardware costs. I am not planning on leaving the Amiga scene for good! I have to get the extra money first but, I hope to be back in a year when hopefully better machines and software will be available (but will it be affordable/cost effective????????). I want the Amiga to survive (really, I do) but I don't want an 030 powered vacuum cleaner. Sometimes we just have to face reality. ...Ea quae credis sunt veriora veritate ipsa If someone comes up with a spreadsheet program with excellent WYSIWYG and **REAL** structured OBJECT charts (HIGH quality printable) then the Amiga might look a little better. @endnode @node Compilation "Compilation Details" @{u}Compilation Details@{uu} Everyday Organiser was written using SAS/C version 6.55. The programs were compiled with the following options: - String Merge - Standard Maths - All CPUs - Parameters passed on registers - No Stack Checking - Inline calls to ROM Utility.Library All programs were compiled with optimisation options: - Global Optimiser on - Peephole Optimiser on - Instruction Scheduler on - Loop Optimisation on - Optimisation for Time not Size @endnode @node AboutMUI "Why not register today" This application uses MUI - MagicUserInterface (c) Copyright 1993/94 by Stefan Stuntz MUI is a system to generate and maintain graphical user interfaces. With the aid of a preferences program, the user of an application has the ability to customize the outfit according to his personal taste. MUI is distributed as shareware. To obtain a complete package containing lots of examples and more information about registration please look for a file called "muiXXusr.lha" (XX means the latest version number) on your local bulletin boards or on public domain disks. If you want to register directly, feel free to send DM 30.- or US$ 20.- to Stefan Stuntz Eduard-Spranger-Straße 7 80935 München GERMANY @endnode @node Thoughts In all the MUI programs I have seen coming out there seems to be some lack of consistency in interface design. I would like to make a few suggestions. These are only my personal oppinions and @{u}not necessarily@{uu} the oppinons of others including Stefan Stuntz. I welcome comments and suggestions. I have no money for Internet access on a regular basis so subscription to the MUI Mailing list is out of the question for now. · Wherever there is an instance of a gadget that has an associated label alongside of it, I would like to see them both enclosed in a group frame and group background. My reasoning for this is that often users have complicated window backgrounds and text wacked straight on top can be unreadable. If you place all your label objects on a group background WITH a group frame them the user can select an appropriate group backdrop to increase readability. There will be instances when this is silly or unavoidable. A single gadget with a label in a window full of non-labelled gadgets may look out of place. I feel programmers should be more careful with the type of frame and background they choose. Thinking twice before selecting a frame will aid in maintaining a consistant look for all applications. I have seen sets of text objects grouped together in a text frame containing a window background. This doesn't make much sense to me at all. In such case, the programmer might want a text frame but surely you should use a goup background. Another example is a radio gadget smacked straight on top of a window - very hard to read indeed! I think group frames and group backgrounds should be used more often (within reason). I use the following definition when I want to enclose or group together a set of objects. #define MyGroupFrame GroupFrame, MUIA_Background, MUII_GroupBack #define MyGroupFrameT(s) GroupFrameT(s), MUIA_Background, MUII_GroupBack · Menu layout on the Amiga is almost a case of pot-luck sometimes. Other OS platforms have rigid layout rules but don't provide for flexibility. Running through menus to find a particular item can be a real pain sometimes. I believe that Starting with Project, Edit and Settings Menus is a good basis for logical menu layout. Throwing everything in the Project menu can be very confusing as well. @endnode @node TheAuthor The Everyday Organiser system was written by Mathew Wilson. You may contact me (or send postcards) at: Box 6022, Halifax Street Post Office Adelaide SA, 5000 AUSTRALIA At present I can be e-mailed via David Cottrell. (I'm poor and can't afford my own account.) dcottrel@adam.com.au @endnode @node Thankyous "Thanks to..." @{u}Thanks to...@{uu} Thanks to Dave Cottrell for running this on his machine and letting me know when strange things occur. He has spent a great amount of time sending email and general stuffing around on Internet for me. Those email replies would not have been possible without the help of Dave! I started programming with C in April '94 and I would like to thank Peter Jackson for his invaluable help with learning C on the Amiga. He answered my many questions and gave me some great ideas along the way. A big thanks to Stefan Stunz for creating and maintaining the MUI system. Greetings and thanks to those who sent me email regarding EO. Feedback is always a good thing and it's nice to know there are other people on the planet 8). Thank YOU for taking the time to read the docs. @endnode @node "History" @{u}History@{uu} Changes to individual programs can be found by reading the "History" sections in their Amiga-Guide documentation. · @{b}v1.10@{ub} - Second Release (27th March 1996) A new program called Tasker has been added to the system. It is designed to handle tasks/events that occur over a period of time. It might have been a little more logical to incorporate these facilities into On-Time instead of creating a new program. This may occur in the future (if I stay with Amiga). Major Changes Include: - The day after (true!) the first release I found a thousand and one Enforcer Hits. For this I am deeply sorry. There is no excuse for such criminal activities! I normally test for such nasties but this time I didn't! The problem was that I did an enormous amount of re-coding in the week previous to release. I tested most things except for the dreaded Enforcer Hit. Please accept my deepest apologies. - A nasty memory/task allocation bug would occur EVERY time one of the programs sent an ARexx message. In such cases a console would be allocated and NOT de-allocated so you would end up with a console task hanging around after an ARexx message was sent. (not too good eh? oops 8). - A new Tool-Type called 'DROP_SCRIPT' has been added to the main programs. This is not editable within the programs and must be set manually from the Workbench Information window. It allows you to specify where the Application Icon Drop Script (AIDS 8) is to be found. This allows you to finally put all the supplied ARexx scripts in a drawer of their own instead of lumping them all in the REXX: drawer (A practice that I'm not too fond of). The installation script creates a "Rexx" drawer in the "EverydayOrganiser" drawer for this purpose. So if you installed version 1.0 of EO then you may either choose to copy these new scripts to the REXX: drawer or delete the old ones in REXX: and use the new location. - The extra program Sam was not fully documented in the first release. - A Locate example file was added (in LocateData drawer). - The "everyday.library" has been changed and bumped up to lib version 2.00. - Some people reported severe problems with getting the main programs to work with the first release. EO has been running on my A2000, a friends A3000 and A1200 for a while with no problems. A friend was having a few list problems with Alarmist on his A4000 though. Hopefully this release fixes any problems. I appologise for any inconveniences. · @{b}v1.0@{ub} - Original Release (8th February 1996) @endnode @remark "It's about love, sadness, futility and about a world that never was, and yet we feel somehow mystically in touch with it."