A quick tour of Ample Notice for Windows 1.0

Ample Notice has many features that you'll use every day, and many 
more that you'll use infrequently, if at all.  This file guides 
you through a quick tour of the most commonly used features.  In 
particular, we'll explore simple appointments, different views, 
alarms, notes, and categories.  For more complete information, 
view the only help by pressing F1 or choosing the Help menu option 
while in ANW.  You can also click on the help icon in the ANW 
program group.

In order to have some sample appointments to experiment with, 
let's use the appointments file SAMPLE.APT created for that 
purpose.  Run ANW by clicking on its icon, then close the default 
appointments file by choosing File, Close.  Next, select File, 
Open and pick the file SAMPLE.APT.  You should see a few Notes 
(entries with no dates) and appointments.  Try clicking the mouse 
in various places to navigate through the appointments.  For 
example, if you click on a date in the little calendar at the 
upper right, you'll go to that date.  You can also scroll throught 
the appointments on the left.  You can 'autoscroll' by pressing 
the left mouse button and dragging the mouse off the top or bottom 
of the screen.  Of course, you can also use the scroll bar or 
cursor keys.

Pressing 'V' will take you to the calendar view -- here you'll see 
the same appointments divided into boxes in a monthly calendar.  
It's slightly harder to edit old appointments in this view but 
easier to get the 'big picture' of your long-term schedule.  Press 
'V' again to go back to the appointment view.

Let's enter a few appointments.  Press 'I' to insert a new entry.  
Type a date and some sample text; something like:
  11/15/95 testing 
(If you've installed ANW using European date formats 
day/month/year, please reverse the day and month order in this and 
the following entries.)  Then click on the Ok button or press F10 
to complete the entry.  You should see your new appointment on the 
calendar. 

Double click on the appointment you just entered -- it should be 
presented for further editing.  You can edit appointments using 
either a short or long dialog.  The short dialog appears by 
default (unless you make long the default in your ANW.INI file), 
but you can switch to the long form by clicking on the 'More' 
button.  Try changing to the long form now.  You'll see lots of 
types of appointments you can enter, and lots of options for each 
type.  Experiment with the buttons, lists and other fields, then 
press <Esc> or <Cancel> to leave the appointment as it was. 

Now that you're back in the appointment view, double click on a 
date in the monthly calendar window at the upper right.  This time 
you'll see an entry ready for editing with date you clicked on as 
the appointment date.  Click on the Less button to make this more 
clear -- you'll see the date at the start of your entry.  Type 
some sample text after the date and press F10.

Now let's enter an appointment with a time in it.  Press I to 
insert a new appointment, then (assuming we're in the short 
dialog) enter today's date and a time 7 minutes from now.  After 
the time, enter a sample appointment.  For example, if it's 4:30 
p.m. on 5/19/95, enter 
  5/19/95 4:37 dentist
and press F10.  After a few seconds, the status line at the bottom 
of the screen should show:
      Friday May 19, 1995  4:30 P.M.  Next alarm 4:32 P.M.
The alarm sounds (by default) five minutes before an appointment, 
so in a couple of minutes you'll hear and see the alarm.  Notice 
that we didn't enter P.M. on our time (though we could have); 
times without explicit AM/PM designations are assumed to be A.M. 
for times from 8:00 through 11:59, and P.M. otherwise.

While waiting for the alarm, browse through different views of 
your appointments or practice other entries.

In a minute or two, the alarm should sound and a little yellow 
window containing the appointment should pop up on your screen 
(even if you were in another program at the time).  By default, 
the alarm should beep for a few seconds or until you close the 
alarm window.  Close the alarm window by pressing <Esc> or by 
pressing the button at the upper left of the window.  The alarm 
sound can be changed to a different duration (including 
indefinite) or to a "WAV" file of your choice if you have a sound 
card -- see the online help for details.

Using four separate entries and pressing 'I' each time to start, 
enter the following (in the short dialog):

  * mow the lawn
  6/10 my wedding anniversary
  \b5/25/82 David's birthday ()
  !Jun3Sun Father's Day

Here's what you just did:  

The first entry is a 'note' -- a reminder that doesn't go away 
just because a date passes.  It is displayed in the Notes section 
of the calendar.

The next entry is an anniversary.  If no year is specified in a 
date, the appointment is shown every year.

You can use the anniversary format for birthdays, but if you'd 
like ages shown in the entry it's better to use the '\b' option.  
Just precede the entry with '\b' followed by the birthdate, then 
include a set of parentheses in the appointment.  The parentheses 
are filled in (each year) with the age.

ANW can handle some pretty elaborate date patterns.  The fourth 
entry says that the third Sunday in June is Father's Day.

You are allowed to attach categories to your notes and 
appointments.  You can then screen out all but selected categories 
and view or print the corresponding calendars.  This can be useful 
for scheduling if you have a category for each person whose 
schedule you want to consider.  You can also use categories for 
customized goals such as tax preparation, birthdays/anniversaries, 
project deadlines, etc.  You can use the Category menu option to 
define a new category option or to restrict the display to any set 
of existing categories.  You can choose a category from a list in 
the long dialog, or use a special code to include a category in 
the short dialog.  See 'Categories' in the online help for 
details.  For now, just try experimenting with the Categories, 
Select menu option.

This concludes the formal abuse of this sample appointments file.  
You can't do any harm through further experimentation, so browse 
for a while before exiting.  If you want to see a more interesting 
calendar, close SAMPLE.APT and open FAMOUS.APT.  You'll see scores 
of  birthdays of famous people (and many others in the 'where are 
they now...' category).  If we've omitted your birthday and you 
are certifiably famous, please let us know and we'll add you to 
the list.