Version 4
1) Basic
Calendar
Changing the Picture
Picture aspect
ratio.
Clock Chimes.
2) The
Diary.
Event
programming.
Messenger reminder
service.
Event auto
repeat.
Event hide
facility.
Additional event
information.
3) The
Media Player
Saving a Picture from Video.
Video Screen Size.
5) The
Settings Control.
Change Year.
Colour
settings.
Start up
settings.
Telephone
Communications
Speech System
Format the
diary.
Languages
6) Payment
The pc-calendars software provides the user with a personalizable picture calendar that can be configured with your own pictures and your own diary pages. Events in your diary can be programmed to prompt you with reminders that can be:
Messages on your computer screen
Spoken to you by the text to speech service.
Communicated by telephone.
Sent by Email.
Played as a wave file sound.
Played as music from the CD player.
On screen messages, speech and sound reminders are useful if you know you will be at your computer when the message is delivered. The telephone reminder can be used in conjunction with a mobile to contact you where ever you are. Music from the CD player might make a fun alternative to an alarm clock. The CD player is also controllable from the button panel on the calendar screen.
Events that are regularly repeated such as annual birthdays or weekly meetings can be programmed to update automatically.
The calendar operates on the computers system clock so the current time, day, month and year are read on start up. The settings may need changing to allow for different international date formats.
The calendar then looks through the diary for lost events that have taken place since the computer was switched off. A message is displayed if lost events have occurred and the user can elect to look through or ignore them. If the diary or setup files are missing or corrupt a message is displayed and the files are recreated as default blanks during formatting. The calendar then looks for a valid picture file, valid picture files are those that follow the naming convention. If a picture is not found the calendar starts with a blank post box instead.
While the calendar is running if an event occurs and a reminder is set, the calendar messenger will prompt the user. If the repeat is set then the event is reset to the future date.
If a date has diary events set then the text colour for that day is altered and leaving the mouse over that date shows the next message text. Mouse clicking on the date wakes the character agent and reads the messages, if the text to speech system is installed and enabled. The hide event setting disables this feature.
The calendar is operated using the mouse.
Single left clicking on the months at the top changes the month displayed and default picture for that month.
Single left clicking on the days at the bottom wakes the character agent who then reads out the days diary event list.
Double left clicking on the days at the bottom opens the diary page for that date.
Single left clicking on the picture or blank post box wakes the character agent who then reads out the text information associated with the picture.
Double left clicking on the picture or blank post box opens the settings control. Always use the OK button to save any changes you make.
Single left clicking on the days of week line wakes the character agent who then reads out any text information stored on the windows clip board.
Single left clicking on the character agent makes him disappear.
The pictures are determined by the files placed in the images subdirectory changing these files to image files of your own will change the pictures displayed by the calendar. To change the picture of a given month select that month and open a diary page in that month. Click the change picture button and select the image file you require. This will save a copy of the file in the images directory.
The files are named according to the following convention.
The picture files are located in the sub directory ....Program Files\calendar\images\ and file types jpg, gif and bmp are accepted. Different pictures can be displayed from one per month to a different picture every day.
Each month should have a default picture named as that month i.e. "January.jpg, February.gif .... December.???. The default picture is used when looking at months other than the current month and for the current month if no other picture has been supplied. The picture displayed on start up is the current days picture. The current days picture file is named curmonth$day%.??? where curmonth$ is this month and day% is today's date. If a file for that particular day is not found then the month is searched backwards day by day until a valid file is found. If no file with a day number is found then the default for that month is shown.
For example a file named may1.jpg would be shown through May until the 10th when the file may10.gif would be used. If these files were not found then a file named may.bmp would be used. Other than that a blank post box would be displayed for the month of May.
The sub directory ...\calendar\speech contains "Month".txt files that contain the text displayed in the mouse text balloon and read by the character agent. The file naming convention follows that used by the pictures.
The calendar is down loaded with some local pictures of our area Teesside in the UK.
The picture displayed can either fill the available screen space but may become distorted or retain the original aspect ratio but leave some blank screen. To select your preferred option open the settings control and tick the aspect ratio box appropriately then left click the OK button.
The PC clock can be made to chime *.wav files at regular intervals. Enter the settings control and select the file and chime period using the selectors in the chimes section.
To open the diary double left click on the required calendar date.
To program events into the calendar first open the diary on the appropriate day.
To add an event double left click on the add an event bar. Type in the message and set the event time, reminder, and repeat details. Include any extra information such as addresses phone numbers etc. by using the "More Details" button and text screen.
To enter the event left click on the SAVE button.
The event will appear on the diary event list in time order.
To modify an event double left click on the appropriate event on the diary event list and modify as required. Left click on the SAVE button to enter the changes.
To remove an event double left click on the appropriate event and remove the text from the message box, click the SAVE button and the event will be deleted.
The messenger reminder service runs on the system clock and updates once a minute. When adding or editing a diary event select the reminder box to display the range of options. The current options are "screen", "speech", "phone", "email", "sound" and "music" reminder services or "none". If phone or email are selected then when SAVE is clicked the communications setup box appears giving you the option to set the telephone number/s and service type or email address to be used.
When the event occurs in real time, providing the calendar is running a message box or character agent pops up or telephone call is made with the reminder of the event. If the event takes place while the computer is switched off or the calendar is not running the reminder takes place the next time the software is started.
The message needs to be acknowledged or the event remains in the diary. The acknowledgment is made by clicking on the message box, clicking on the character or pressing "1" on the telephone at the correct time. If the message remains in the diary it will be repeated at a frequency set in the settings control or communications control.
The event auto repeat system is useful for carrying forward repetitive events such as Christmas Day, New Years Day and birthdays. When adding or editing a diary event select the repeat box to display the range of options. The current options are never (default), daily, weekly, monthly and annually.
When the event occurs in real time the event is carried forward to the next period. If the event takes place while the computer is switched off or the calendar is not running the event is carried forward the next time the software is started.
The event hide facility is used to inhibit the calendar date colour change and text message balloon occurring when the mouse is present. This may be useful to give an advanced reminder of a diary event a few days earlier without being visible as an event itself. Perhaps one may like to be reminded to buy a birthday card or purchase tickets in advance.
When adding or editing a diary event select the hide box to add or remove the tick.
The ""More Details" button opens a text editor to allow additional information to be attached to a diary event. This may be useful for storing addresses, telephone numbers or any other text to large for the message box.
When adding or editing a diary event click the "More Details" button to open the text screen. Text maybe cut and pasted from other text documents using the right hand mouse button. The text is automatically associated with the diary event and saved when the text screen is closed. Double clicking on the event and selecting the "More Details" button retrieves the text.
The media player can play CD's Video files and MP2 or MP3 music files. Swithch the player on using the on/off button. The player auto detects for CD's in the disk drive and enables CD mode if a suitable disk is found. If a CD is not found the player asks for a media file. Use the browser to open a media file, the player will then play the file. The fast forward and reverse buttons alter the play speed in play mode and advance videos frame by frame in paused mode.
With a video file loaded you can save still pictures by pausing the video and advancing the frames to the picture you want. Then click on the month you want the picture to appear in. The save as window will appear and you can save a bitmap file of the image. Use the changing picture method to save the changes to the calendar pictures permanently.
When playing a video click on the screen button to fill the window with the video picture. Double click on this button to set the video to full screen mode, press the Esc key to return to normal.
To print the calendar double click on a month button at the top. This will open the print preview screen for that month. The print preview screen allows you to personalise the look of your calendar. You can adjust the margins, text colours and fonts, paper size and orientation.
The calendar will automatically scale itself to the area defined by the paper size and margins. The aspect ratio is determined by the main calendar window. If you have sized the calendar window as tall and thin this will be reflected by the print layout.
The margins are scaled in inches and take values in the range 0 to 2 inches. The paper size and print quality are selected from the appropriate pull down selector, landscape and black and white modes can be selected by ticking the related boxes.
The text colour and font selectors allow you to change the text style for the title, days of week, dates and diary events independently. Diary events will appear either below or to the right of the appropriate date dependant on the paper orientation setting. Events that are set as hidden in the diary will not appear on the print out.
Double left clicking on the picture or blank post box opens the settings control. Always use the OK button to save any changes you make.
Use the “Swap Day/Month” box to adjust for different international date formats.
From the settings control you can access the following:
The calendars year can be changed by entering the settings control and clicking on the change year button. Any year +/- 32000 of the year 2000 can be entered the calendar calculates the leap years and days of the week on changing the year. The time taken to do this is dependant on how far the selected year is from the year 2000. Diary events can only be set in the current year and proceeding year.
The calendars boundary and text colours can be changed in the settings control. Use the red, green and blue slider bars to mix your favorite colours, click the OK button to save them. If you get lost click the default button to recover the original settings.
The calendars startup and close procedures can be varied in the settings control. Tick the appropriate boxes for starting maximised, give a warning on close and start the calendar on system boot up (Not available for Windows NT). Clicking the default button will restore the original start up settings.
Click the OK button to save the settings.
To get the calendar to start on booting Windows NT create a shortcut to the calendar.exe file in your profiles\"user"\start menu\programs\startup folder.
e.g. c:\windows\profiles\administrator\startmenu\programs\startup\calendar.lnk
The calendar messenger service can deliver a reminder message via the telephone providing a suitable serial communications voice modem is connected. To set up the modem enter the calendar settings control and select the serial port that the modem is connected to from the modem port selection control. Click the test for modem button. The modem is then interrogated, this takes up to 30 seconds. If a modem is found the modem communications control is displayed.
The modem communications control gives you the ability to setup telephone numbers, select the service type and make test phone calls.
Up to three telephone numbers can be entered, these are dialed in order from the top first. The service type selects from speech message to beeps. Test calls are made by clicking on the test button.
The reminder service tries each number in turn until the message has been successfully delivered. The re-try box allows you to select the interval between the service attempts to ring the number set. Successful delivery of message occurs when the phone has been answered and the "1" button on the tone phone pressed at the required times.
If the service type is set to speech then a greetings message is repeated until the number "1" button is pressed on a tone type telephone. The event message is then repeated until the "1" button is pressed again. A farewell message is then given and the message is deemed to be delivered and the entry removed from the diary. If this full procedure is not completed the message remains in the diary and the messenger tries to deliver the message repeatedly until successful. The frequency of repeats is also selectable in the communications control.
If the service type is set to beeps then a series of beeps are sent after the call is made. The "1" button is again used to respond to the call and if successful the entry removed from the diary. If the "1" tone is not received the messenger service repeats the call as in the speech service. The beeps service is primarily aimed at systems without the text to speech or with incompatible voice modems.
The modem needs connecting to your sound card. This done by connecting a cable from the sound card output to the modem microphone input. Alternatively for modems with a built in hands free microphone point the sound card speakers at the modems.
This software has been tested with the following modems;
1) Pace 56 Solo
2) Modular Technology External Modem.
The speech system uses the MSAgent software that can be down loaded from this Web Site. The speech system consists of a text to speech engine and a character file. The character files must be stored in the directory C:\Windows\MSAgent\Chars and of type *.acs, different characters may be selected from the selection box in the settings control. The down load contains the Microsoft character "Merlin.acs". A range of characters are available from the Microsoft Web Site together with character editor software that allows you to create your own characters.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/msagent select "downloads" for ready built characters and "developer downloads" for character and sound editing software.
Once installed the system can be setup by entering the settings control and ticking the speech enabled box. The text to speech engine can be activated in several ways.
Click on the test speech button in the settings control to read out the text entered in the text box below. Adjust the speed and pitch of the characters voice using the controls as required. Save the settings using the OK button.
Click on the calendars picture to make the character read the text file associated with the picture.
Click on the week days (line below the picture) to get the character to read information placed on the clip board. The facility allows the character to read text from any windows document. Simply open the document to be read, select the text using the mouse or edit=>select all. Select the edit menu and copy the text to the clip board. Click on a week day in the calendar and the character will read out the text. Click on the character to stop him.
Click on a calendar date to get the character to read out the days messages.
Each of the above speech facilities can be enabled / disabled in the settings control.
If the diary files are lost, corrupted or you want to wipe the diary clean, use the format data button in the settings control. Warning, all your diary data will be lost if you do this.
The main features of the calendar can be displayed in different languages. The language is selected from the settings control. The file Lan.txt contains the language information and can be edited using Notepad.exe to allow you to customize to your own requirements. Any changes must follow the same file format which is:
A new language starts on a new line as "MyLanguage Language", the line must end with the word Language as typed.
The seven days of the week follow each starting on a new line.
The twelve abbreviated months follow each starting on a new line, then the twelve months. The final line of a language set is the word "help" for the help button. Each language set must contain 33 lines of text formatted as above.
The calendar as downloaded lasts for the year. You can convert this software into a perpetual calendar by purchasing the installation code for your calendar. This does not involve any further downloads but you will need your product code that is displayed in the top line of the settings control. When you have noted your product code number you just need to visit the payment center at www.iconelectron.com to make the purchase. Once we have confirmation of your purchase we will email your installation code within 48 hours.
When you receive your installation code you can convert to a perpetual calendar in the settings control window.
IMPORTANT: Keep your installation code as it is personal to your computer and will cover you for any future upgrades of Version 4 Calendar that you wish to download from the calendar site.
See Purchase Terms and Conditions
If you wish to remove the software from your computer.
Open the settings control and proceed with the format data button and routine. This will remove any additional files created by the calendar since it was installed except the diary data file. This file is located in the folder ...\calendar\diarydat\data.dat
Close the calendar and delete this file manually.
Click on the windows "Start" button, "Settings=>Control Panel".
Double click on the "Add/Remove Programs" icon.
Select "Calendar" and Click on the Add/Remove Button.
If you have created any calendar short cuts manually you will need to remove them.