ST ALMANAC
Version 2.1 November 1, 1991
ST ALMANAC is designed to be an easy to use all purpose
calendar and planner to keep track of holidays, special events,
birthdays, appointments and anything else you want to keep an
up to-date record of. It includes thousands of holidays and
historical events in the files included with it.
This file contains ALMANC21.PRG, ALMAVIEW.PRG, DATES.CAL,
ALMANAC.ALM and several files with the extension .YRL and *.CAL.
Another file is available called ALFILES1.LZH which contains
several alternative almanac files - HOLIDAYS.ALM showing various
holidays from around the world on each date and BIRTHDAY.ALM
shows a list of famous people born on each date of the year.
The program is shareware and if you find it useful
a contribution of $10-$20 would be greatly appreciated. Naturally
I'll be glad to mail you back an updated version of the program.
Any comments or suggestions can also be sent to:
Manfred Sierke
84 Barrette Street
Vanier, Ontario
Canada
K1L 8A3
REQUIREMENTS
Almanac must be run in medium or high resolution but
otherwise should run on any Atari ST. The program was really
designed to work on a colour monitor but should work in hi-rez.
The program requires about 300k of free memory (or less depending
on the size of the *.ALM file loaded) but unless you have a lot
of accessories installed this should be no problem even on a 520ST.
SETUP
Included are numerous files which contain the data
the program will require. I suggest that you put all the files
with the extension *.YRL in a folder called "YEARDATA" and all
the files with the extension *.CAL and *.ALM in another folder
called "ALMANAC". These are the defaults the program looks for
the first time it is run but can be easily changed to suit your
own preference.
If on running the program things just don't work right or
if that's not the way you want the files organized then use
the 'Change Path' option from the menu bar to tell the program
where the *.CAL files are and the 'Set Year Path' option to locate
the *.YRL files. Also load in the file ALMANAC.ALM and DATES.CAL
using these options on the menu bar. Then use 'Save Config' to
save the new file paths to ALMANAC.PRG and the next time the
program is run it will read the correct paths from itself.
The file ALMAVIEW.PRG should be placed in the auto folder
of your boot disk. (Read the seperate txt file for almaview.)
OVERVIEW
ST ALMANAC maintains three distinct categories of data.
These are for holidays(or special events) and two different modes
for daily planning - the appointments mode and the almanac mode.
Holidays and special events can be stored to be
displayed on the same date (or day/week of month) for every
year - with a limit of one per date (and day of week). These are
saved on disk in the file DATES.CAL.
The two daily planning modes - the appointment mode and the almanac
mode allow up to ten different entries for each date. The appoint-
ments mode is specific for a date/year and the files are stored
in the selected directory as "Axxxxxxx.CAL". The almanac mode
saves information for a date and ignores the year. These are
saved to disk as "ALMANAC.ALM" (or "*.ALM"). Any changes of data will
be automatically saved to the correct files when you change months or
exit the program.
The default mode is the appointments mode and you'll notice
that on the calendar screen the APPTS button is in inverse. To
switch modes click on the ALMANAC button (or press'a').
There are two main screens - the calendar screen which appears
when the program is run, and the editor screen which shows the
appointments for a specific date. Clicking the mouse on the desired
date switches to the editor screen.
THE MENU BAR
'Change Path' and 'Set Year Path' have already been mentioned
and allow the user to instruct the program where to find the
required data files. 'Save Changes' does an immediate save of all
data that has been altered. If you wish to maintain several sets
of data files this should be used before 'Change Path'. 'Save Almanac'
allows you to save the data in the almanac mode to a different file
name. 'Load Almanac' allows you to load in an alternate almanac file
(extension *.ALM). If you wish to create a new almanac file enter
in the name of the almanac file with an extension of ".ALM" and a
file of that name will be created. The above also applies to the
options 'Save Dates' and 'Load Dates'.
'Print Calendar' sends a copy of the calendar to the
printer. 'Print Planner' does the same but in a daily planner format.
'Save Config' saves the current data paths,the mode, and
whether the editor should be in overwrite or insert(the default)
mode to itself. 'Save Config As...' does the same but to the file
ALMANAC.CFG (a different name can be selected but use the extension
.CFG). This file can be read used the 'Load Config...' option
allowing you to change in one step to different set of data paths.
Note that 'Load Config...' can also read the configuration from
ALMANAC.PRG as well as ALMANAC.CFG. (It'll know the difference)
When ALMANAC.PRG is run it'll attempt to read a part of itself
for the correct configuration. However, I'm not sure that this
will work correctly with all the replacement desktops and menu
programs available. Therefore should it fail to be able to
read the configuration then the program will look for
ALMANAC.CFG and try again. So if you have problems with 'Save
Config' then used the 'Save Config As...' option instead.
'Quit' saves any changes which have been made and returns
you to the desktop.
THE CALENDAR SCREEN
Most of the screen is used by the dates of the current
month. In blue print you'll see any special events or holidays
that fall on those dates. A red check mark in the square indicates
that there are appointments for that date (in the current mode).
How to alter this display will be explained in the section on the
editor screen.
Of the buttons along the bottom the one marked 'appts'
will be in inverse to indicate what mode is set. Clicking on
'appts' or 'almanac' will switch to that mode. Note that the text
and check marks in the date boxes depend on which mode is in effect.
The six buttons on the right allow for the changing of the
month being displayed. The year and month buttons allow you to
go forward of backward a year or a month at a time. The 'reset'
button reads the ST's internal clock and returns you to the correct
month and year (assuming you set the clock when you booted the
computer).
The 'Select' button provides a selector box to chose the month
and year you wish to go to. The month is changed by clicking on the
desired month. Using the right mouse button also returns you to
the calendar screen. The year can be changed with the mouse by
clicking on the '+' or '-' box, (speed different for left/right
mouse buttons) or by using the up/down curser buttons on the keyboard
or by typing in the year. When done either press return or click
on the 'OK' button.
The 'Print' button prints a copy of the current month if
a printer is connected.
The 'Clear' button clears all appointments for the month
in the current mode (appts/almanac).
The 'Quit' button saves all changes to disk and returns
you to the desktop.
The 'Month Scan' button shows you all appointments set
for the current month in the selected mode.
The 'Year View' button shows a variety of events that
occurred in the year. More on this later on under Year View.
If this is not working use the 'Set Year Path' option in the
menu bar to locate the files which end in the extension *.YRL.
The 'Disk' button provides the disk control panel which
allows for some file manipulation from within St Almanac. Error
checking is done but I suggest that if you copy/move files that
you check Free Mem to ensure that the disk has sufficient space
for the operation. Formatting is done to 80 tracks/10 sectors.
All of the buttons can be called from the keyboard by
pressing the first letter of the button (eg: 'q' to quit). The
dates can be changed by using the left/right curser keys to
switch months and the up/down curser keys to switch years. Also
in the screens which contain the buttons 'Prev Next Exit'
these options can also be selected with the first letter or a
curser key (or return to exit).
THE EDITOR SCREEN
This screen allows you to edit the events for a particular
date. The mode or the date can be changed by the buttons along
the bottom. The 'clear' button clears all entries for this date
not including 'by date:' or 'by day:'. 'Cancel' restores the
entries to what they where before any changes where made.
'Print' prints a copy of the appointments for the date.
The 'Insert' (or 'Overwrite') button toggles the editor between
insert and overwrite. 'Center' centers the text for each line of
the appointments (including by date/by day).
At the top of the screen you'll find two special entries.
'BY DATE:' and 'BY DAY:' are for special events and holidays and
are not dependent on the current mode but will always be displayed.
Data entered here will also be shown for that date on the main
calendar screen. 'BY DATE:' is for events which fall on a specific
date of the year (eg:Christmas). 'BY DAY:' is for events which
fall on a certain day of the week. An example would be Mother's
Day which falls on the second Sunday of May. An entry here would
be displayed on the appropriate day. One could also make an entry
for the last day of a month (eg:Memorial Day falls on the last
Monday of May) by saving it on the 5th week. If the 5th occurrence
of that day does not occur in a month the event will be displayed
in the 4th week. To edit this entry though, skip to a year that
has the 5th occurrence and edit it there. These entries and the
first appointment line if it includes an asterisk are the entries
displayed for the dates on the main calendar screen.
Example: " this is *** Easter Sunday *** today". If this is the
first item in the appointments list "Easter Sunday" is the part
that would be displayed on the calendar screen. Since as
many as four possible special entries could fall on the same
date and only one can be shown on the calendar screen the order
of precedence to determine which is shown is:
1. by day - last of month
2. by day
3. by date
4. 1st line of appointments after asterisk
The cursor can be moved to the desired location by clicking
on the mouse or by using the keyboard arrow keys. There are also
a few combination keys to make editing easier:
Return - move to beginning of next line
Shifted left arrow - move to beginning of line
Shifted right arrow - move to end of line
Clr Home - move to the start of the first appointment line
Control c (center) - centers the text on that line
Escape - if line is empty moves cursor to the start of line,
if it contains text erases the line and saves it to the 'Undo' buffer.
Undo - restores the last line erased through escape if
pressed while the cursor is on an empty line. Only appointment lines
can be restored to an appointment line and by day/by date lines
can only be restored to those headings.
the following codes work only on the 10 appointment lines
and not on the by day/by date headings:
Control i or Control Insert - inserts an empty line. Any text
on the 10th appointment line will be lost.
Control d or Control Delete - deletes the current line. If
the line contained text this will be saved in the undelete buffer.
Control u (undelete) - when pressed while the cursor is on
an empty line will restore the last line erased with control delete.
YEAR VIEW
The 'Year View' screen shows a variety of special events
that happened during the course of the year. You can change the
year without returning to the calendar screen with the buttons
provided. It is necessary to keep the file CONFIGUR.YRL in the
same folder as the rest of the *.YRL files as this is read for the
'Year View' headings
The files used by year view are in an easy to edit format.
I won't go into details but if you examine the *.YRL files you
should have no problems figuring it out.
So if you're one of those weird people who didn't really care who
won the Sugar Bowl in 1952 then go ahead and create your own year
files. You can edit them with any text editor or word processor
in ascii mode.
FILES
The monthly appts mode files are save to disk any time
the months are changed in files with names comprised of "A",
the year and the first 3 letters of the month and .CAL.
The special dates from the 'by date/by day' headings are
saved when the program is exited in a file called "DATES.CAL"
( this can be changed with 'Load Dates'). The almanac mode files
are saved with the name of the almanac ("ALMANAC" by default) and
the extension ".ALM" when the program is exited.
Files that are to be erased or written over are changed to an
extension of ".BAK" so it'll be useful to check these every now and
then remove all the ".BAK" files which are there in case of an
accidental erasure but are not required by the program. The yearly
events calendar requires the files with the extension ".YRL".
CREDITS
ST ALMANAC was written using the assembler DEVPAC I
and GFA Basic 3.5.
THAT'S IT
I hope you find that this program works as promised
and is useful. If you don't feel like sending in a shareware
contribution feel free to use it anyways and perhaps one day
you'll reconsider (hopefully!).