Contents

Overview	What is Ample Notice?

Installation	Files and directories used by Ample Notice

Entering appointments and notes	From simple one-date entries to complex date patterns

Keyboard and mouse functions	Different strokes for different folks

Menus	Options available through menus

Viewing your appointments	Appointment, Calendar, and File views of your entries

Alarms	Care and feeding of the alarm clock

Categories	Organizing entries into useful subsets

Printing	Different styles of printouts

Customizing	Configuring Ample Notice to your taste

Tips for using Ample Notice	Suggestions for effective use

Ample Notice is shareware	This isn't free!  Here's how to register.

Reaching us	Contacting Granny's for technical support or sales information


Viewing appointments
Viewing your appointments

You'll find different views of your data fit the bill in different situations.  There are three alternatives:

The appointment view	Navigating dates in list form.

The calendar view	Viewing appointments a month at a time.

The file view	A utility view for manipulating and archiving appointments.

ANW always starts in the appointment view.  You can change views using the View menu option, or by pressing 'V' to toggle between appointment and calendar views.


Calendar view
The calendar view

The first view you'll see when you run ANW is the "appointment view", which is a list-oriented view of your schedule.  You can switch to the calendar view for a month perspective.  You'll see the current month (or whatever month you were viewing in the appointment view) with as many appointments as will fit in each calendar cell.  A black triangle at the lower right of the cell will indicate that there are more appointments than can be displayed in the cell (in which case you can double-click on the cell to see all appointments).

The calendar view is most useful for long-term planning; the appointment view is more effective for managing appointments for just a few days.  You can edit individual appointments in the calendar view, but since appointments are shown in a small font it takes some hand-eye coordination.  Move the mouse to the appointment you want to modify and press the right mouse button -- you'll see a list of appropriate actions, including edit.

The printouts available in calendar view are especially useful.  You'll probably want to put your printer in landscape orientation first by choosing the File, Print Setup option.  If you want to print months other than the current one, choose Print Options to enter the range of dates.  Then choose Print (or click on the printer icon on the toolbar).


File view
The file view

The file view presents your appointments in raw form, as they're actually stored on disk.  Your most common use of this view will be to cull outdated or unwanted appointments from the file (optionally saving them to a separate archive file).  You can also perform other file manipulation, such as appending appointments from another file to the file you're viewing.  You can sort the file by date or by category to keep the view organized (although this won't affect the order of the appointments in other views).  For a list of menu options, see File view menu.

See also:

Marking

Sorting


File view, mark menu option
Marking and file operations

You can mark one or more entries for a subsequent action (such as archiving) in two ways: by specifying criteria for marking, or by moving the cursor to the entry you want and marking.  Select

Mark, Mark outdated appointments

from the menu to mark all appointments which won't show on any appointment listing start on or after the current date.  Select Mark matched string to mark all entries containing the text you'll be prompted to enter.  If you press the spacebar (or select Mark from the right mouse button menu) you'll mark the entry under the cursor, or unmark it if previously marked.  All this marking is cumulative -- to clear all marks and get a fresh start, choose Mark, Clear all marks from the menu.

When you've marked a set of appointments, you can perform various operations on the set from the File menu uption.  The Archive option copies the marked entries to your archive file (ARCHIVE.APT by default, but set to any file in ANW.INI), then gives you the opportunity to delete the marked entries from the current file.  (Normally you'll accept the delete option.)  The Append marked option lets you copy the marked appointments to an arbitrary file.  A good use of this option is to copy parts of your schedule to another person's appointment file.  For example, you might want to let your wife or secretary know when you're going to be out of town at a conference.

One other file options reverses this flow of information:  you can append another appointment file to the one you're editing.


File view, sort menu option
Sorting

When shown in the appointment or calendar views, your entries are sorted by date first and category second regardless of their order in the file.  However, you may want to sort the file in order to facilitate manipulation in the file view.  The Sort option lets you choose between sorting by date or by category.  Entries are grouped by type: one-shot appointments precede anniversaries, etc.


Menus

In ANW you'll always see a menu at the top of the screen.  In addition, you can bring up a smaller, more situation-specific menu by pressing the right mouse button.  For the most common menu operations, take advantage of the hot keys shown next to the menu options; for example, to switch from appointment view to calender view or vice versa, you can just press 'V' instead of going throught the View menu option.

The three main menus are associated with the appointment, calendar, and file views.  The first two of these menus are identical exept for the options available under Edit; the appointment view offers a little more flexibility in editing appointments.  See appointment/calendar menu for details.

The file view menu lets you sort, merge, and archive appointments.  The file view is essential to have, but will most likely be used infrequently (once every month or so).


File view menu
The file view menu

The menu options available in this view are:

File	File maniplation and archiving

Edit	See appointment view, Edit

Search	See appointment view, Search

View	See appointment view, View

Window	See appointment view, Window

Mark	Mark appointments for archiving, deletion, or transfer

Sort	Sort appointments by date or category

Help


Appointment/calendar menus
The appointment and calendar menus

The menu options available in these two views are:

File	File access and printing

Edit	Adding, changing, and deleting appointments

Search	Finding appointments

View	Different views of your appointment file

Window	Positioning windows

Categories	Screening appointments by category

Alarm	View current alarms or set timer

Help


File menu option

New	Creates a new appointment file

Open	Opens an existing appointment file

Close	Closes an appointment file

Rescan	Re-examines all appointments to synchronize the display with the data, just in case a glitch slips by.  With luck you shouldn't need this fail-safe option.

Save	Save the current appointment document (only available if document has changed).

Save as	Save the document under a new name.

Print options	Select the print style and range.  See Printing for details.

Print preview	Preview the printout with the options currently selected

Print	Print!

Print setup	Choose printer and page orientation

Exit	Bye!


Edit menu option

The hot keys are shown in angle brackets.  Only Insert with date and Paste are avaliable in calendar view.

Insert appointment 	<I> Insert an entry of any type: note, one-time appointment, anniversary, etc.

Edit appointment	<E> Edit the current appointment

Insert appointment with date	<T> Add an appointment that starts with the cursor date

Mark appointment as done	<M> Put a check mark next to appointment to indicate completed

Delete appointment	<D> Delete single appointment or entire cycle.  For example, if an entry which recurs each month could be deleted in the current month only.  Deleted entry is saved on clipboard.

Copy	<Ctrl C> Copy current appointment to clipboard

Paste	<Ctrl V> Paste text from clipboard to form new appointment


Search menu option

Find	<F> Search from the cursor position for the next occurrence of a search string

Next	<N> Find the next occurrence of the previous search string

Screen	Display all the appointments containing a search string

Restore	Undo Screen option: show all appointments


View menu option

Appointment	Switch to the appointment view

Calendar	Switch to the calendar view

(Pressing 'V' is a short cut for switching between appointment and calendar views.)

File	Switch to the file view

Start date	Change the start date for the year's worth of appointments you're viewing.  You can use this option to review past appointments or to browse through archive files of old appointments.  You can also change the start date to plan for the distant future.

Priority	Use this option to set the priority level and to determine whether unprioritized appointments should be displayed.


Window menu option

You'll seldom use this menu, since ANW's windows generally size themselves appropriately.  To switch between windows, it's easier to click the mouse in the window of your choice then to go through a menu.

Cascade	If multiple files are open, overlap their views

Tile	If multiple files are open, tile their views

Arrange Icons	Arrange icons of minimized views

Close All	Close all views

Also under this menu option will be a numbered list of all views open.


Categories menu option

Select	Select one or more categories from category list.  See Using categories.

New category	Define a new category.  See Defining categories.


Alarm menu option

Enable alarm clock

The alarm clock is enabled by default.  Toggle this menu selection to turn the alarm clock off or on.

Enable sound

The alarm clock normally alerts you with a visual and audible alarm.  Toggling this option determines whether the audible portion of the alarm is used.  If you're in an office environment, your colleagues may not enjoy gongs and whistles as much as you do.

Show current alarms

View the alarms due to go off today.  This will reassure you that the syntax you used for entering times and advance warnings was appropriate.

Set timer

You can add a timer alarm to the alarms associated with appointments.  You're prompted for a number of minutes.  The timer counts backwards to zero (like a kitchen timer) and the minutes remaining are displayed on the status line at the bottom of the screen.  You'll get the same audible and visual alarm with the timer as with appointments.


Overview

Ample Notice is a calendar and alarm clock package that can help organize your life.  You enter appointments and notes into a standard text file in any of a variety of natural formats, and each day you view a calendar of commitments taken from this file.  Appointments which include a time can automatically set a 'pop-up alarm clock' which notifies you at a selectable advance interval (regardless of what you are doing on your computer).  Printouts can be obtained in various styles so that you can keep track of your appointments away from your computer; you can print appointments in monthly calendars, line-by-line listings, or compressed listings for your wallet or purse.  Different categories of appointments can be tracked for preparation of group meetings or for summaries of specific activities. Outdated appointments are archived for use in preparation of taxes, reports, etc.

Ample Notice is very easy to use but its flexibility ensures that you won't outgrow it as your use becomes more extensive.  For example, you can add straightforward entries such as

  3/5/96 9:00 Meet with Bill

or

  Nov 3, 1996 Report due.

(A simple configuration option will enable the European day/month/year format if this is your preference.)  You can also enter cyclical appointments such as

  7/18  Elizabeth's birthday

(once a year date)

  !Monday 3:00 Piano lesson

(weekly appointment)

  \s6/26/96 !2d 1:00 ADR committee

(every other day starting 6/26/96)

  \s6/26/96 !3w 1:00 ADR committee

(every third week starting 6/26/96)

  \s1/10/96 !3m Quarterly report due.

(every third month starting 1/10/96)

  \s6/26/96 \e7/20/96 !2d 1:00 ADR committee

(every other day starting 6/26/96 and ending 7/20/96)

  !Jun3Sun Fathers Day

(third Sunday in June each year)

  !?3Mon Rotary Club

(third Monday of every month)

Another type of entry is 'notes'; starting a line with '*' will place that entry in an initial display of reminders that are not attached to a specific date (obligations that don't go away until you do them).  Notes can also be grouped into separate categories.

You don't have to remember all these codes -- when you enter an appointment you have the choice of short or long entry dialogs.  In the long dialog, you select appointment types, categories, etc. from lists.  In the short dialog you enter the codes yourself.  You can switch back and forth between short and long formats in the middle of editing an appointment, so there's no penalty for not remembering appointment syntax.

Ample Notice has many additional features for maintaining the appointments file and for using the alarm clock.  We recommend that you take the 'Quick Tour' of the program described in the file called QUIKTOUR.TXT in the Ample Notice program group in order to get a running start on using the program.  Another file you'll want to look at is README.TXT, which describes the latest program changes and other important information.  You can use the Windows notepad to read and print these files.

Ample Notice is Shareware and you are vigorously encouraged to register; the registration cost is only $30 and carries appreciable benefits.  Site licensing is also available.


Tips
Tips for using Ample Notice

ANW will run faster if you keep your appointments file relatively small.  Archive occasionally to move outdated appointments to a separate file, ARCHIVE.APT by default.  At the end of the year, rename ARCHIVE.APT to e.g. ARCHIVE.95; a new ARCHIVE.APT file will be created next time you archive.  This way you can break your outdated appointments into one-year chunks.

Using the '\h' option at the start of an appointment specifies a holiday.  By adding categories to holidays, you can customize calendars which show holidays for different religions, vacation times for different employees, etc.  You can use the category menu to overlay several sets of holidays.  For example, you can see all the dates on which any of Bill, Sam or Judy will be on vacation.

Many print options are specified in an "INI" file and cannot be changed while ANW is running; for example, the font sizes and margins are fixed in this file.  However, you can use more than one INI file for different "profiles".  Just specify the INI file you want to use on the command line; e.g.

C:\ANW\ANW.EXE C:\ANW\CUSTOM.INI

You can use Program Manager to add an icon for each profile you want.  Under "Program Item Properties", specify a command line with an INI file as its argument.

If your monitor and eyes are good, it is advantageous to put more text in the ANW window than is there by default.  Try fiddling with the ZOOM option in ANW.INI (see Customizing).

Many users print on 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 paper.  Try

  LeftMargin=2

  RightMargin=2

 TopMargin=2

 BottomMargin=2

in the [PRINT] section of ANW.INI.

When you print from the Calendar View, appointments are truncated in order to fit in fixed-sized boxes.  You can supplement your printout by printing from Appointment View, which will show the full text of all appointments.  Another approach is to use the DOS version of Ample Notice (version 3) to print the appointments file; month calendars in this program expand to show everything.  The Windows and DOS versions can share a common appointments file, so you can go back and forth at will.  You can get the DOS version by ftp, from CompuServe, or from most ASP disk vendors, or you can obtain it from Grannys directly.

There are many ways to cut and paste in ANW, but the most common technique you'll use is the following:

In the Appointment View, point to the appointment you want to copy, then choose Edit, Copy (or just press <Ctrl C>).  Click on the target date in the month calendar at the upper right, press the right mouse button, then choose Paste (or just point to the date and press <Ctrl V>).


Installation

An automatic installation program for Ample Notice is in the works.  Meanwhile, here's how to install "manually":

Make a subdirectory ANW and copy files ANW.EXE, ANW.HLP, and NOTES.APT to it.  E.g., from the DOS prompt:

c:

md \anw

cd \anw

copy a:anw.exe

copy a:anw.hlp

copy a:notes.apt

Add a new item to the program group of your choice by choosing File, New, Program Item from the Program Manager.  Enter Ample Notice/Win for the Description and C:\ANW\ANW.EXE for the Command Line.  Now you can click on the icon just added to the group to run ANW.

If you want to customize ANW, you'll create or edit an INI file.  By default, ANW looks for the file ANW.INI in your Windows directory.  You can have ANW look for a different file by specifying the file on the command line:

C:\ANW\ANW.EXE C:\ANW\CUSTOM.INI

If the desired INI file isn't found, ANW simply uses default values.


Keyboard and mouse functions

If you're familiar with other Windows software, you should be at home navigating in ANW.  For example, you can choose menu commands in several ways: by pressing <Alt> with a letter to open the menu, by using hot keys, or by using the mouse.  To see the hot key assignments, see the help for the specific menu you're interested in; e.g. Edit menu option.  Also of interest: pressing 'V' switches back and forth between the appointment and calendar view, and pressing <Tab> moves from window to window within the appointment view.

In general, ANW assigns simple (no Alt or Ctrl shifted) letters to the most common functions.  For example, in the appointment view pressing 'E' edits an appointment, 'I' inserts a new appointment, and 'D' deletes an appointment.  If you're editing an appointment, there are a few commands which are entered using the <Ctrl> key:

<Ctrl D> 	insert today's date into appointment

<Ctrl T> 	insert current time into appointment

<Ctrl B> 	insert both current date and time

Also, you can press <F10> to accept the edited appointment, or <Esc> to abort the entry.

ANW uses three different kinds of mouse clicks.  The function assigned to a mouse click depends on its context, and the easiest way to learn ANW's mouse functions is to experiment.  In general, a single left button click selects an item -- for example, the cursor may be moved to the appointment upon which the mouser is clicked.  A double left button click goes a step further -- for example, the cursor may be moved to the appointment and the appointment may be opened for editing.  A right button click brings up a menu of commands appropriate to the situation.  For example, if you're in the calendar view and right click on an appointment in a calendar cell, you'll see the menu:

Edit, Add, Mark as done/undone, Delete, Copy, Paste

But if you click on an empty line in a calendar cell, you'll see:

Add, Paste

since the other options no longer make sense.

In appointment view, double clicking on a day of the month in the little calendar at the upper right starts a new appointment on that date.  In the calendar view, double clicking a cell shows (but doesn't let you edit) all the appointments for that day.

Cutting and pasting is context-sensitive.  You can put text on the clipboard from another application, then press <Ctrl V> (or choose the menu option) in ANW to create the desired note or appointment.  For example, if you click in the month window in the upper right and then paste, you'll make an appointment from the clipboard data with the date you clicked on.  If the cursor is in the Notes section in the Appointment View when you paste, you'll create a note from the clipboard data.  You can also copy or cut an ANW appointment onto the clipboard and paste it somewhere else.


Appointment view
The Appointment View

The first view you'll see when you run ANW is the "appointment view."  The screen shows three windows: a note/appointment window for viewing and editing your entries, an expanded view of the appointment under the cursor, and a calendar for navigating by dates.  You can click on an entry to move the cursor to it, double-click to edit the entry, or press the right mouse button for a list of menu options specific to the situation.  Click on a day in the month window to move to the appointments on that date.  Double-click on a day to edit an appointment starting on that date.

For a list of commands available in this view, see Appointment/calendar menus.  Also see: editing appointments.


Alarms

An alarm is set in ANW if an appointment starts with a time; e.g.

4/5/96 3:00 p.m.  Dentist

The alarm will normally sound five minutes before the time of the appointment, but you can change this lead time in two ways.  You can set a new default advance interval for all appointments (see Customizing), or you can use different advances for different appointments.  For example, the short entry syntax for a 10-minute warning for the above appointment is

\(10) 4/5/96 3:00 p.m.  Dentist

In the long entry dialog, just fill in "Alarm advance" with an appropriate number.

The time can be entered in a few different ways.  "3:00 p.m.", "3:00 pm", "3:00", and "15:00" all mean the same thing (and upper case can be used as well).  P.m. is assumed on 3:00 because it is a more likely hour for an appointment; times between 8:00 and 11:59 are assumed to be "a.m." if not otherwise stated.  You can also use 1500 for 3:00 if modify your ANW.INI file to accept this syntax.

The bottom of the screen will indicate when the next alarm is due to go off.   You can view a list of all alarms set for today by selecting the menu options Alarm, Show current alarms.  You can also turn off the alarm clock or set a separate timer under the Alarm option.  To set the timer, you enter the number of minutes desired before the alarm goes off -- this is handy if you're baking something while using your computer.

See also:  alarm sounds


Alarm sounds

When an alarm goes off, a  window announcing the appointment will show at the front of your display.  In addition you have a few sound options:

You can choose to supress sound altogether,

you can enable a "beep-beep-beep" sequence of any duration (including indefinite), or

you can play a "wav" file of your choice (if you have a sound board installed in your computer).  To use a wave file, add an "Alarm = " entry to the FILES section of your ANW.INI file.  For example,

[FILES]

Alarm = c:\windows\chimes.wav

By default, ANW beeps for about 10 seconds or until the alarm window is closed.  You can change this interval to anything you like in your ANW.INI file by setting the "Duration=" entry to the appropriate value.  If you set this variable to 0 the alarm will beep indefinitely until the alarm window is closed (by pressing <Esc> or by using the system box on alarm window).  If you want a more dignified alarm sound and you have a sound board installed in your computer, you can indicate a "wav" file to be played when the alarm goes off -- see Customizing.


Categories

You can categorize appointments, and then restrict the appointment displays and printouts to just certain categories.  For example, you can bring up only notes and appointments in a Tax category and print a customized calendar of tax deadlines.  You can also use different categories for different people and select appropriate categories to schedule meetings.  You define a category in a separate entry before using it.

Defining categories

Using categories


Defining categories

You can define categories in two ways: by selecting Categories from the main menu, then choosing New Category, or by entering a line directly in your appointment file (e.g. from File View).  Either way, youll specify  up to 4 characters for the category code, and a longer description to remind you of what the code means.  For example, the code might be REC (case doesnt matter) and the description might be Recreation.  To enter this definition directly, youll add the line

\C REC=Recreation

The one reason you might want to use the direct method is that you can specify a color to be used with all entries in this category.  For example,

\C REC,3=Recreation

indicates that color number 3 should be used.


Colors
Colors in Ample Notice

Colors in ANW are referenced by the numbers 1 - 13:

1 Red	5 Dk Blue	9 Dk Gray	13 Yellow

2 Blue	6 Dk Cyan	10 Green

3 Dk Magenta	7 Dk Green	11 Magenta

4 Dk Red 	8 Dk Yellow	12 Cyan

You can associate colors with categories and with priorities.  By default, priorities 1 - 4 use colors 1 - 4 in the same order; this assignment can be changed in the ANW.INI file.


Entering appointments

You can choose between short and long dialogs for entering appointments.  By default, you'll see the short form first, but you can make long dialogs the default in ANW.INI.  A "more/less" button in the dialog lets you toggle between the two forms.

In the short form, you enter codes at the start of your appointment to indicate cycles, category, priority, etc.  If you're entering simple notes or appointments, the short form makes sense; once your entry becomes too complicated to remember the syntax, the long form lets you pick from menus rather than making you remember obscure codes.

The following simple entries are easy to make in the short dialog:

* This is a note.

4/20/96 This is an appointment.

4/20/96 4:00 This is an appointment with a time.

Be sure to put a space after the '*' character when entering a note: if the space is missing, the next characters are interpreted as a category code.

See: Types of appointments.


Appointment types
Types of appointments

The type of the appointment can be entered by using codes in the short entry dialog, or by choosing from lists in the long dialog; see Entering appointments.  Codes are not case sensitive, so it doesn't matter whether you type e.g. \s2/12/96 or \S2/12/96 for the starting date of a cyclical appointment.

Note

Single appointment

Anniversary

Birthday (with age)

Every nth day, week or month

E.g. 3rd Monday in March

E.g. every Monday and Wednesday

Category definitions

Also see: appointment options


note
Appointment type: note

A "note" is just an entry without a date attached.  Think of a note as an appointment that won't go away, like mowing the lawn.  In the short dialog, just precede your note with the '*' character and an optional category code(usually omitted).  There should be a space after the '*' if you don't use the category code.  For example:

* This is a note.

*TAX Send in tax return.

In the second example, it is assumed that there is a category called TAX.  There is no space between '*' and 'T', but there is a space between TAX and Send.

Notes are displayed at the top of the listing in the appointment view.  When you print from this view, you have the option of including notes or not.


single appointment
Appointment type: single occurrence

One-time appointments begin with a date.  If a time immediately follows the date then the time will be used in sorting the file and for setting the alarm clock.  Several date formats are recognized:

10/2/96 Call Bob

10/2/96 4:00 Call Bob at specific time

October 2, 1996 Call Bob

2 October 96 Call Bob

European date formats (day/month/year) are also allowed; see Customizing.


anniversary
Appointment type: anniversary

If you omit the year in an appointment date, the appointment becomes an anniversary and will show every year.  For example:

6/10 Wedding anniversary

You can also have an "anniversary" every month:

?/10 Mortgage payment due


birthday
Appointment type: birthday

If you want a person's (or event's) age displayed each year, record an appointment as a birthday by preceding the entry with \b followed by the birthdate (or event start).  Leave a set of parentheses with enough spaces to hold the age in the appointment text.  For example:

\b5/25/82 David's birthday (  )

The birthday will show on May 25, 1996 as:

David's birthday (14)


Nth day, week or month
Appointment type: every nth day, week or month

You can record cyclical appointments which occur every n days, weeks or months.  You must specify the starting date of the cycle with the \s option; see appointment options.  For example, if you want to schedule an appointment for every other Monday starting 2/12/96, you would enter

\s2/12/96 !2w (text of appointment)

The "!2w" means "every 2nd week".  Use d in place of w for every other day, and m for every other month.  Change the 2 to the appropriate cycle length.


Cyclical appointments: nth day, week or month
Appointment type: e.g. 3rd Monday in March

In the US, Father's Day is the 3rd Sunday in June.  The ANW syntax for this entry is:

!Jun3Sun Father's Day

You can also use a wild card in place of the month; for example, to schedule an appointment for the first Monday of every month you can enter

!?1Mon (text of appointment)

To indicate the last Monday of a month, use 5 for the week number:

!Jun5Mon This will show on the last Monday of June every year.


Cyclical appointments: every Mon and Wed
Appointment type: e.g. every Monday and Wednesday

Cyclical appointments which occur on specific days of the week can be entered in ANW.  For example, if you have a literature class which meets every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10:00, you can use the syntax:

!Mon,Wed,Fri 10:00 Literature class

To keep from overwhelming your calendar with too many of these appointments, you may want to qualify the cycle with a start and end date; see appointment options.


Appointment options

Appointments can be qualified in several ways.  The following options can be selected naturally in the long dialog by picking from lists; codes are described for use in the short dialog.  You can put the codes in any order before the text of the appointment, and you can use upper or lower case for the codes.

Adjust n days

Some cyclical appointments require an additional adjustment.  For example, Election Day is the Tuesday following the first Monday in November (which may not be the first Tuesday in November!).  Use the '>' and '<' characters to provide the additional number of days forward or backward.  E.g.:

!Nov1Mon>1 Election Day

Alarm advance

You can override the default advance interval used in setting alarms (see Alarms) by giving the interval for a specific appointment.  For example,

\(20) 5/3/96 10:00 Dentist

will sound the alarm 20 minutes before 10:00.

Category

Your entries can be categorized by starting with \*category_code, where category_code is a sequence of from 1 to 4 characters which you have defined as a category (see defining categories).  If the entry is a note, you can use a short cut -- just put the category code after the leading '*' (with no spaces in between).  For example,

\*TAX 4/15 Tax return due

*TAX Set up appointment with accountant

The second entry is short for

\*TAX * Set up appointment with accountant

Dates marked as done

Normally you will mark an appointment as completed by checking the appointment in the appointment view; this will automatically insert the desired codes in your appointment.  However, you may want to know what the codes mean if you see them in raw form.  For each date marked as done, the code \D date is inserted in front of the appointment.  For notes and one-shot appointments, the single character '>' may be inserted instead.  E.g.:

\D 10/10/96 \D 11/10/96 ?/10 Pay mortgage

indicates that  you've already made house payments for October and November, and

>10/12/96 Buy groceries

indicates that you've already completed a task for 10/12/96.

Dates excluded

This option is similar to \D above.  \X date indicates a date to be excluded from a cycle.  For example, to describe all Mondays in 1996 except for 2/5/96 and 2/12/96, you could enter

\D2/5/96 \D2/12/96 \S1/1/96 \E12/31/96 !Mon xxx

With one-time appointments and notes, the entire entry is preceded with the '~' character instead of the \D code just described.  The flagged entry is deleted next time the file is saved.

Don't print

Precede your appointment with \p if you want it to appear on the screen but not on printouts.

Holiday

Just add \h in front of your appointment and it becomes a holiday.  In the calender view, you'll see the corresponding day(s) shaded.  For example,

\h 3/4/95+8 spring break

will result in the 9 days from 3/4/95 through 3/12/95 being shaded.

Move to weekday

Precede your appointment with \~ to move the appointment to the nearest weekday if it falls on a weekend.  For example 12/31/96 is a Sunday, but \~12/31 xxxx will show the appointment (holiday?) on Monday.  As always, switches can be combined and entered in any order; e.g. \s1/1/96\~!3d xxxx will display every third day starting 1/1/96, except that Saturday appointments will be moved to Friday and Sunday appointments to Monday.

Nag

Precede your appointment with \n if you want to be nagged about an appointment after its date has passed.  One-time appointments will nag indefinitely until you delete them or remove the nag code; cyclical appointments will nag for an interval which defaults to one week, but which can be changed in ANW.INI.  The nagging is done by adding the text of the appointment to the notes section.  For example, if it's 5/10/96 and you have an entry

\n 5/8/96 xxx

then you'll see "xxx" in the notes section of the appointment view.

Priority

Entries are unprioritized by default.  To prioritize an entry from 1 (most important) to 4 (least important), precede your entry with \ followed by the priority number; e.g.

\1 5/3/96 This is important

See prioritizing entries for details.

Show n days following

A convenient way to extend an appointment over several consecutive days is to follow a date with '+n', where n is the number of extra days for the appointment.  For example,

5/3/96+2 xxx

will show the appointment xxx on the days 5/3/96, 5/4/96 and 5/5/96.

Start and end date

Precede a cyclical appointment with \s date and/or \e date to indicate starting and ending dates for the cycle.  For example,

\s 3/10/96 \e 5/2/96 !Mon,Wed xxx

indicates that the appointment xxx should show every Monday and Wednesday between 3/10/96 and 5/2/96.

Unimportant

Notes beginning with \U (for 'unimportant') will be displayed only once a week (on Monday).  For example
    \u* This is an unimportant note.
will cause the text following the '*' to be shown as a note once a week.  This option helps you avoid cluttering the screen with notes which serve more to distract than to remind.  If daily notes are compact - a third of the screen or so - they will be more effective.  You can also use categories to keep from viewing too many reminders at once.

Warn in advance

If you want an extra reminder to prepare you for an upcoming event, you can use the "forward nag" feature.  For example,

5/3/96-4 Mom's birthday!

will duplicate the appointment listed under 5/3/96 in the notes section at the top of the screen if the current date is within 4 days of 5/3/96.  If the date is more than 4 days away, you'll have exactly the same display as if the entry were

5/3/96 Mom's birthday!

Weekdays only

Precede your appointment with \w if the appointment should only be displayed on weekdays.  For example,

\w \s 4/7/96 !2d xxx

will show the appointment xxx every other day starting 4/7/96 on weekdays only.

Lines which do not fit into the categories described above are ignored by Ample Notice when generating the appointments display (but are put in alphabetical order when the Sort option is used).  You can record information to be viewed in the editor but not in the appointments display by preceding lines with a symbol such as ';'.

Multiline entries are stored by putting '&' at the start of a new line to indicate a continuation of a previous entry.  ANW handles this for you -- you won't see the '&' characters unless you view your appointment file in another editor.


Prioritizing entries
Prioritizing entries.

Your ANW entries are unprioritized by default; youll see all entries in the currently selected categories.  If you want to indicate that some appointments have higher priority than others, you can assign a priority number from 1 through 4, with 1 being the highest priority.  You can control the priority level of the display by choosing View, then Priority from the main menu.  You can set the priority level from 1 to 4; for example, selecting 3 will result in priorities 1, 2 and 3 being displayed.  You can also select/deselect Show unprioritized entries from the same menu; enabling this option (the default) allows entries with no priority level to be displayed.

To attach a priority to an appointment, just click on the priority in the long appointment dialog, or precede your appointment with \1, \2, \3 or \4 if youre using the short dialog.  E.g.:

\1 4/15 Taxes due (important!)


Using categories

You probably wont categorize many of your appointments; its easier to manage a simple calendar by just lumping all appointments together.  However, if you have defined a category you can include a reference to the category in notes and appointments so that you can display such categories selectively.  In the long appointment dialog, just use the category combo box to choose the category you want.  In the short dialog, precede your entry with '\*' and the category; e.g.

\* REC 3/5/96 This is an appointment

assuming that you have an appointment called REC.  If youre entering a note (which starts with '*'), you can use a shorthand: just follow the '*' directly (no spaces with the code); e.g.

*REC This is a notes

Categorized appointments can be filtered using the Category menu option.  Choosing "Select" will offer you the chance to check:

All (overrides other selections)

Default (no explicit catagory)

etc.

where "etc." will be replaced with the list of categories you have defined.  Initially only Default will be checked; this results in all non-categorized appointments being displayed.  You can check (by clicking with the mouse or pressing the space bar) additional categories.  Checking "All" enables all categorized and uncategorized appointments.


Printing

You can print your appointments from either the appointment view or the calendar view.  In either case, there are four pertinent options under the File option of the main menu: Print Options, Print Preview, Print, and Print Setup.  Print Setup lets you choose the printer and page orientation; normally you will want to select landscape mode when printing from the calendar view.

Print Options lets you specify details about the printout.  In appointment view, you choose between wallet and list style, whether to include notes, the number of columns in the printout, the start date for the printout, and the end date or number of pages to be printed.  Wallet printouts fold in half to the size of a dollar bill; list printouts are full page.  In calendar view you specify the starting and ending month for the printout.

ANW uses Arial and Lucida Bright fonts in various sizes by default.  You can change these fonts in your ANW.INI file.  You can also change the zoom factor used for showing these fonts on the screen; for example, putting Zoom = 110 in the [Fonts] section of your ANW.INI file will make the fonts shown on the screen 10% larger than the default.  The font sizes used in printouts are not affected by the zoom factor -- the print font sizes are specified explicitly in ANW.INI.

If you want to pack more text into your list printouts, reduce the font size in ANW.INI.  You'll probably then want to increase the zoom factor so that the screen is still readable.  For example, a 10-point Lucida Bright font is used by default in the body of list appointments.  You could change this to 9-point by including

BodyFont = Lucida Bright, 9

in the [Fonts] section of ANW.INI; by also including

Zoom = 110

the screen would look about the same as before.


Customizing

Many of ANW's default settings can be changed by adding appropriate lines to the file ANW.INI in your Windows directory (usually C:\WINDOWS).  This file will not exist when you first install ANW, but you can use the Notepad to add the file.  Just click on Notepad, enter the lines you want from the description below, then save the file as C:\WINDOWS\ANW.INI.

As with all Windows INI files, settings are broken into sections.  If a section heading (in brackets) is already in the file, don't add it a second time -- just add or modify a setting under the existing heading.  If the heading isn't in ANW.INI, add it in brackets and then edit the setting below it.  In the description below, lines starting with ';' are comments explaining the setting on the following line.  The settings shown are the defaults -- don't add the line if you're happy with the default value.

For true/false options, use '1' to indicate true and '0' for false.

[FILES]

; the default appointment file:

ApptFile=NOTES.APT

; the default archive file:

ArchiveFile=ARCHIVE.APT

; Add e.g. Alarm=chimes.wav if you have a sound board

[DIMS]

; set FullScreen to 1 if you want ANW to start using the whole screen, 0 for windowed

; the default is 0 if your screen resolution is 600 x 800 or lower, otherwise 1

FullScreen=0

; dimensions in pixels of calendar at upper right:

MonthWidth=200

MonthHeight=200

[ALARM]

; minutes between alarm going off and time of appointment:

Advance=5

; number of seconds for alarm

Duration=10

; enable alarm:

Enable=1

; enable alarm sound

Sound=1

[PRINT]

; make print options dialog exclude notes by default (but you can override when in dialog):

IncludeNotes=0

; default number of pages to print

NumPages=1

; default number of columns in appointment view printouts:

NumCols=2

; is appointment view printout wallet-sized or full-page?

Wallet=0

; add your name to printouts:

Name=

; print by page range or by date range:

Page=1

; Margins, in inches, for list printouts:

LeftMargin=.75

RightMargin=.75

TopMargin=.75

BottomMargin=.75

; If youre not happy with the dollar-bill sized "wallet printouts",

; change the next four options:

WalletWidth=5.25

WalletHeight=6.125

WalletLeftMargin=0

WalletTopMargin=0

; Change to 0 if you don't want a border around List printouts:

Border=1

; Change to 0 if you don't want weekends shaded in calendar view:

ShadeWeekends=1

[FONTS]

; Fonts and sizes used by ANW:

LargeFont = Arial, 20

HeadingFont = Arial Bold, 10

BodyFont = Lucida Bright, 10

CalendarFont = Arial Bold, 9

SmallFont = Arial, 9

WalletFont = Lucida Bright, 8

; Zoom percentage for fonts on screen:

; the default is 100 if your screen resolution is 600 x 800 or lower, 90 for higher resolution

Zoom = 100

[COLORS]

; Priorities 1 - 4 can be assigned colors 1 - 13; for example, 1 = 11 would

; make highest priority (1) magenta (11).  See Colors.

[APPT]

; how long after cyclical date has passed should we nag you about it?

Nag=7

; use month/day/year (US) or day/month/year (Europe):

European=0

; default to long or short dialog?

BigDialog=0

; With the default value of CenturyBreak = 20, 1/1/19 means 2019 but 1/1/20 means 1920.

; You can use the format e.g. 1/1/1919 regardless of CenturyBreaks value.

CenturyBreak=20

; If Military = 1, 1400 can be interpreted as 2:00

Military=0;

; Number of days you can view without changing start date, no larger than 365

Days=365

; Do you want to be forced to confirm deletions?

Prompt=1

; To show multiple lines and line breaks, change to Multiline = 1

Multiline = 0

; If you want all categories displayed when ANW is run, change to AllCategories = 1

AllCategories=0


Registration
Shareware

(This help screen will come up once every two months if you haven't registered.)

'Shareware' is a means of software distribution with several advantages to the consumer.  The complete package including this instruction manual is contained on a single diskette which may be freely copied and distributed.  Word of mouth provides a more accurate and less expensive way of making a product known than magazine advertisements, and the savings keep Ample Notice's cost down.

You can obtain the current Ample Notice disk from Granny's Old-Fashioned Software for $5 or a registered package for $30. (Shipping for US/Canada/Mexico included; other orders please add $3.)  Registration provides the following benefits:

1. A current version of the Ample Notice disk.

2. A mail-in card for a free update of Ample Notice.

3. Telephone support for your technical questions.

Shareware does not mean 'public domain'.  Distribution is permitted only if the package stays intact; all files should be passed on in unmodified form.  Commercial distributors may sell copies of the package subject to the conditions described in the VENDOR.TXT file.  Restrictions to use by an individual are described in LICENSE.TXT.  One of these restrictions is that unregistered use of Ample Notice past a trial period of 60 days is prohibited.

To register, phone (with MC or VISA) (704) 264-6906,  fax (704) 264-4634, or mail payment to:

Granny's Old-Fashioned Software

297 Camp Rock Road

Boone, NC 28607, USA

North Carolina residents please add 6%.  Please pay by MC/VISA, check in US funds drawn on US bank, or by cash.  Foreign orders may send cash in dollars or in local currency (no coins), but please allow a small margin for exchange rate fluctuations.

An order form is provided on disk under the name REGISTER.TXT.  Site licensing is also available; please call for current rates.


Reaching us

You can reach us in several ways.  Our post office address is:

Granny's Old-Fashioned Software

297 Camp Rock Road

Boone, NC 28607, USA

Our voice phone is (704) 264-6906 and our fax line is (704) 264-4634.  Our Internet email address is mh@cs.appstate.edu; our Compuserve address is 73577,230.

ANW which will change fairly often.  If you want to download the package, look for a name such as ANW100.ZIP (where100 represents version 1.00).  Minor changes -- bug fixes and small feature additions -- wont get a new version number, so you can check the file date to see if it's more recent than what you have.  You can get the latest version by FTP from ftp.acs.appstate.edu in directory

pub/pc/win3/pim.  You can also download from Compuserve: GO WINSHARE, then look in section 12 "pim/phonebk/dialers".  The package should also be available from any Association of Shareware Professionals Vendor.

When you obtain updates in this fashion, the title bar will say Unregistered version unless you make a minor change to your ANW.INI file.  Include these three lines:

  [REG]

  Name=your_name

  Code=number_obtained_from_Grannys_after_registering