ABKTool UPGRADE NOTES These notes highlight the major changes in ABKTool since version 2.0. Some of the changes may require you to modify configuration settings and make other adjustments. See the help and readme files for further information. -------------Version 4.0A------------- This is a bug fix only. If you select {Priority Editúlabels} and no label entry exists, ABKTool will create a blank one for you. The bug caused it to fill the entry with a repeating pattern. The fixed version will properly create a todo with a now shorter first line of text containing ®Labels¯. If you manually created an entry as a temporary fix, you'll need to change its first line of text to ®Labels¯ and ABKTool will recognize it. The help file is updated to reflect the new first line text. -------------Version 4.0-------------- New Priority menu. Instead of the numeric labels for priority levels, you can give assign text labels (i.e., Urgent, Personal, etc.) to each level. The text then is shown in place of the numbers. The labels are stored in a todo entry in the file and thus can be unique to each file. A new view, found on the Priority menu, allows you to see only the todos of a selected priority level. This gives us another way to categorize and view data. You can now choose between two screen color sets. Set 1 works on the HP 95LX and both color and monochrome PC's. Set 2 gives you bright white on a blue background on color displays {Util Config Scrnúcolor} The display and editing of alarm attributes for calendar entries can be disabled {Util Moreúconfig Ignore}. Non-95LX users have no need for those attributes and this setting allows them to avoid having to cursor through them on the editing screen. ABKTool now sets itself up as a hotkeyed TSR on all but the HP Palmtops, where it continues to use the more reliable unused interrupt trapping method. The non Palmtop hotkey is Alt-A unless changed via a command line switch (/K:). Any extended key (Alt keys to which ABKTool doesn't respond and the 95LX's "blue" keys) pressed from the main view causes ABKTool to exit only if its operating as a TSR on the 95LX. This is necessary to allow switching to other applications under SYSMGR that use those keys. On PC's all such keys are ignored, unless perhaps another TSR sees them in the keyboard buffer. The slash (/) key now also activates menus from the main view in addition to ESC. This is quicker for most touch typists. The picklist now searches for elements containing typed in phrase, which is displayed at top left border of picklist box. Typing a few characters will generally reduce the list to one or two entries. As you backspace out search characters, the list expands. Formerly the cursor would jump between elements beginning with the specified letter. Pressing "T" at the main view moves the entry under the cursor to the top of the display. This is useful when you switch to monthly text view and find the date of interest highlighted at the bottom of the display. With one keystroke you can bring it to the top and see that day's appointments and as many of the following appointments as will fit. Function key labels are shown on line 17 of the display to help DOS users associate the function key labels with the proper key. A border is drawn around the display area to visually separate it from any underlying text. More settings were added to the configuration file. When you first run this version, it will reset some of your parameters, which you will have to reset. You should not lose your saved searches or directory settings. -------------Version 3.2-------------- Especially for European users, ABKTool now displays the week of year for all date related views and at the left side of the popup calendar. I didn't add the ability to specify a week number at the Goto prompt but you can get the same effect by popping up the calendar and scrolling forward or backward to the appropriate week. A new Past Due (after view date) view (Alt-F4) has been added. It shows any todos which you've marked with an underscore (_) as the first character which have a due date on or before the current view date. This command replaces the previous Daily at system date view formerly assigned to Alt-F4 (use F4 F5 Enter instead). To add the underscore to the beginning of a todo you can press Alt-P while editing the text/note. When you add text to an existing entry's first line, you will sometimes notice that the excess portion which no longer fits on the first line is pushed onto the second line with a return after it, forcing the former 2nd line contents to the third line. This is an artifact of the way the text and note are stored in the .ABK file. If you want to more smoothly join the two lines, press Alt-F, which will remove the return and cause the two lines to come together (successive presses of Alt-F will remove the next and subsequent returns from the text/note). Up, down, pgup and pgdn keys in monthly text view will take you to the next or previous month when you attempt to move the cursor beyond the entries in the currently displayed month. Calendar, keyword and time inserts in text editor no longer add a space after the inserted phrase. Picklists now show the total number of entries in the list. The F5 calendar in the text/note edit area now begins showing the view date rather than the system date (which you can goto by pressing "T"). The end time in a calendar entry is automatically set to follow the start time unless an "a" override is added to the time entry. Thus, entering "900" after a beginning time of 1000a will give an ending time of 900p without your having to add the "p". -------------Version 3.1a-------------- This is basically a maintenance release with one significant feature improvement. The new todos view (Ctrl-F4 or Menu View Newútodos) now shows new todos for the week beginning on the current view date. This allows you to see what's ahead of you more easily. The TSR routines were reformulated to reduce their size. Cursor tracking in the monthly graphical view is improved. The Menu key on the HP 95LX no longer is converted to a slash (/) when in edit mode; it now functions that same way as the ESC key. -------------Version 3.1--------------- The 14 day view has been replaced by a monthly view, which shows the appointments for an entire month in either a list or in a vertical time lines which can be scrolled to show any 10 hours at a time. The navigation keys differ between the graphical and textual subviews: [List subview] +, Right next month -, Left previous month F9 switch to graphical subview [Graphical subview] + next month - previous month Left cursor to previous day Right cursor to next day Up cursor to previous hour Down cursor to next hour PgUp shift time window up PgDwn shift time window down Home cursor to first day of month End cursor to last day of month F9 switch to list subview In the text editor you can now add a phrase to the saved searches list (used to store Only and Find search phrases) by marking it and then pressing Shift-F6. This allows you to immediately store a keyword for later use without having to exit the entry editor and then add it to the list via the appropriate Only search subcommand. In the F5 "Goto" function the "CU" response will set the date to the date of the entry under the cursor for all entries, expanded from earlier versions which only worked for the Daily and Todo entries. The new entry default end time is now the start of the last time block highlighted in the monthly graphical view plus the duration set in the config file (12 am if the monthly view wasn't used prior to inserting the entry). Enter now moves to the next field when in edit mode, just like Tab (this was requested by several users). Calendar entries are now sorted for display according to their ending time in addition to the primary sort on starting times. Text export has been improved by adding an option to begin the export at line 4 of the edit screen instead of line 1 (thereby exporting only the text/note portion) and to stop the export after the last line of text instead of exporting to line 16 no matter the contents. In the text editor, the DEL key now "cuts" marked text. In F5 "Goto" a blank response is read as "Today" and sets the view date to the current system date. When in edit mode, you can scroll between entries by pressing pgup/pgdwn. This only works if you have not made changes to the current entry. Because ABKTool can move changed entries if one of the sort criteria changes, there is no reliable way to scroll when changes have been made (well, actually, there probably is a way, but it didn't seem worth the added code to provide it). This feature allows you to see the entire contents of each entry as you scroll through them one by one. In daily and graphical monthly views appointment start AND end times are shown; there isn't room in any other view for this information. To reduce screen clutter, Todo priority numbers are shown only when the priority number changes or following a checked-off todo. -------------Version 3.0--------------- The current date is now displayed at the upper right corner with the current time below it. They are not shown on the 14 day graphical display and editing screens due to space constraints. When in the picklist, either for files or searches/keywords, pressing any letter or number will take you to the next entry in the list that begins with that character. You can now can save up to 30 searches and pick from up to 60 keywords. The 10 day view has been expanded to 14 days. There is no room for the filename, time, etc. display at the top and function keys are automatically turned off. Tab now invokes the entry editor, just like Enter. "=" invokes the editor and then executes two Tabs, placing the cursor on the priority in Todos. When you edit an entry or change an entry's start time, the start time is compared to the end time. If its after the end time the end time is reset to the start time plus an interval you specify in the range of 1 to 200 minutes. You can turn this checking off by setting the interval to 0. Entries which contain only an Enter character on the second line and no further text will not be reported as having a note attached on the main displays. Non-English users can change the weekday & month display names via command line switches. You can merge another .abk file into the current file, subject to the memory limitations. Alt-F4 switches to Daily view for the system date from any view. Its a shortcut for F4 F5 T[oday] Enter. The alarm response and associated config option have been removed. Version 3.1 of 95Buddy, will respond to the alarm in all places (with possibly one insignificant exception). As that is a more comprehensive solution, I've removed that code from ABKTool, a significant savings. The permissible range of dates is now 1900-2099. This was done to slightly simplify a section of code. The configuration file format has been changed to reduce its size and the size of the routines to read and write to it. The first time you load version 3.0, it will replace some of the settings with defaults but you won't lose your textual defaults (helpfile location, last file, saved searches). I rewrote more routines in assembler and tweaked the code for a savings of approximately 18kb (6kb in the compressed form we use). The TSR memory footprint now slightly less than 120kb. These comparisons are to the Ver 3.0 code before tweaking; the point is that more functions were added and the memory requirements shrunk somewhat. Checked off todos: You now have the option of showing none, all or only those whose checkoff date is before or on the view date. In the expired view you can see all of them or just those on or before the cutoff date. A text export utility appends a screen shot of the editing screen for each entry in the current view to the file: ABKTOOL.EXP in the default directory. 95Buddy users will recognize the Menu-@ function as a general exit command. Its supported in ABKTool now, but only in conjunction with the about to be issued Buddy upgrade. Instead of editing the config file to change the helpfile path, you can now do so as a config menu choice. You can set the cursor so it doesn't jump to (follow) the location of a changed entry. This is useful when you are reprioritizing a whole string of todos. The insert/overstrike setting in the note editor is now maintained between edits. The blue key exit feature is now more selective. Now only the blue keys and Setup will cause an exit. Formerly any extended key that ABKTool didn't recognize would trigger this function. CALLABKT.EXE, a small caller program is included. It allows you to call up the TSR from DOS. Its handy when going back to SYSMGR is inconvenient; all you need to do is quit or shell to DOS from your application and run this routine. It requires very little memory because ABKTool is already loaded as a TSR. Corrects for a 95LX APPT program quirk: if the week start day is set to Monday, Sunday weekly repeating appts will be given a day of the week value of 8 instead of the normal 1. ABKTool spots this and takes care of the problem for you. You will only notice that the entry has been modified (even where you've made no changes to it). If you don't save the changed data ABKTool will again correct the problem when you next edit the entry. -------------Version 2.1--------------- Additional quick keys at main menu: ^F4: quick key to invoke New todos view F4: quick key to invoke All view ^F6: quick key for only search which includes checked off todos F6: quick key for only search which excludes appointments The screen is now cleared before leaving ABKTool. If, in TSR mode, the underlying program doesn't completely redraw its screen, that program is at fault (TSR mode only) ABKTool monitors the 95LX alarm interrupt and will chime if it goes off while ABKTool is active (even if the LX is off). You won't have to worry about missing an alarm. You must still reset the SYSMGR alarm by exiting ABKTool and turning it off under SYSMGR control. Also, because the interrupt is used to wake the LX up at 8 hour intervals to refresh its clock and alarms, you will get false alarms at midnight, 8am and 4pm unless you select an option that ignores alarms at those times (and, of course, you shouldn't set alarms to go off at those times if the ignore option is selected). NOTE: This feature was removed in Version 3.X (see discussion above). ABKCALL.EXM now beeps and terminates if the TSR is not loaded 24 hour & dd/mm/yy date display formats are now options From the main screen you can now press any of the Blue keys to go directly to a 95LX Sysmgr application. Config file--ABKTool only searches for its config file on c:\. You can specify another drive/directory with the ABKTCFG environment variable or the "/C:" command line switch. Existing users may have to set one or the other to allow ABKTool to find their existing config files. In situations where the menu key on the HP 95LX isn't recognized (i.e., text/note editing, in input fields) it is converted to a slash. In searches, you can now search backwards by pressing F6. In addition, you can use the calendar date picker to insert a date in the search phrase. The Utils Info screen now shows the number of entries shown in the current view in addition to the total number in the file. In text/note edit, F6 brings up a picklist of keywords from your saved searches which you may paste into the text. (Press F5 twice to insert the system date, formerly assigned to F6.) The configuration settings were split between "Config" and "Moreúconfig" on the Utils menu in order to make the screens less dense and allow the addition of other settings.