
                PERSONAL TIME ARRANGER - version 1.1

                David P. Nowotnik Ph.D.
                1-H Raylon Drive,
                Baltimore, MD 21236
                (Internet e-mail: david.nowotnik@data-base.com)

                INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE


INTRODUCTION

Some of the features of Personal Time Arranger (PTA):

This is a fully functional, simple to use organizer program which
lets you add and view appointments, notes, and a to-do list.
Everything you need to see for any one day is displayed on one
form. 

PTA has an option to let you view all notes and appointments in a
week, and move quickly from one week to another.

Movement from one day, month or year to another usually requires
just one click of a button.

Repeating appointment details can be stored, so that you need not
type out each one separately.

You can obtain a printout of all or selected details, over any time
period, or send this information to a text file, for incorporation in
a document. 

If you operate on a LAN and you share a common drive, there is a
security feature which allows others to read either all, selected
parts, or none of your PTA file (and you can read their PTA files). 

The shareware version has all of the features of the full version.
except that use is restricted to 30 days for evaluation. 

SHAREWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT

By using or distributing copies of the Shareware version of the PTA,
in any way, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of the
following agreement. If you do not agree with or do not comply to
the following terms, you must cease using or distributing the
shareware version of PTA immediately. 

 1. You may use the shareware version of PTA for a period not to
 exceed thirty (30) days. If you wish to continue to use it beyond
 this period, you must register your copy of PTA with the author
 (D.P. Nowotnik), as detailed in register.txt. 

 2. You may copy and distribute the shareware version of PTA
 provided that it is made available in a non-commercial manner.
 All files (as listed under INVENTORY in the file read1st.txt) must
 be included. A distributor may charge a nominal fee which covers
 the cost of duplication and shipping. 

 3. You are not permitted to use Personal Time Arranger with a
 registered user code unless that code was supplied to you by the
 author either as a single user, or as a user covered by a Group
 Registration agreement. 

 4. Personal Time Arranger (PTA) is Copyright (c) 1995 by D.P.
 Nowotnik and is protected by United States copyright laws and
 international treaty provisions. 

 5. Personal Time Arranger (consisting of the program and
 documentation files) is provided "AS IS", without
 representation or warranty of any kind, either expressed
 or implied. The entire risk as to the use of this product
 is assumed by the user. The author accepts no
 liability for the results, performance, appropriateness, accuracy,
 reliability of this product. In no event will the author be liable
 for any damages, direct, indirect, incidental or consequential,
 even if the author has been informed of such damage(s). If you
 reside in a state which does not permit disclaimers of implied
 warranty or exclusion of consequential damage, the above
 disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you. This agreement is
 governed by the laws of the State of Maryland.  Should any part
 or parts of this agreement be deemed unlawful, the remainder shall

LICENSE AGREEMENT (Registered Version)

Any version of Personal Time Arranger (PTA) which is not clearly
marked during operation as the Shareware version is considered to
be a registered version. By using the registered version of the
PTA, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of the
following agreement. If you do not agree to the terms of this
agreement, you must cease using the registered version of PTA
immediately.

 1. You become a registered user of this program only when you
 supply the author (D.P. Nowotnik) with the registration details and
 fee as outlined in the file register.txt.  As a registered user, you
 have a non-exclusive license to use the programs and documentation
 known together as Personal Time Arranger (PTA). This program may be
 used on any computer which you own and/or which you use. You can
 make as many copies of this program for your own use as you wish. 

 2. If your copy of the program is covered by a Single User
 Registration, you are not permitted to use Personal Time Arranger
 unless you are the registered user. Each registration limits the
 use of Personal Time Arranger to one named individual. If Personal
 Time Arranger is installed on a computer which is shared, only the
 registered user is permitted to use Personal Time Arranger. Other
 users of a shared computer system may become registered users of
 Personal Time Arranger by sending the registration fee to the
 author as outlined in register.txt. 
 
 3. If your copy of the program is covered by a Group Registration,
 Personal Time Arranger may be used by several individuals located
 at one site and belonging to a single organization. The number of
 users must not exceed the number specified in the Group
 Registration. Each user covered by a Group Registration is defined
 in the same way as a user in a Single User Registration, as
 outlined in 2. Each user covered by a Group Registration may
 transfer his/her registered copy of PTA to another individual
 located at the same site/organization provided that the person
 providing the copy of the program discontinues use of PTA, and
 erases all PTA program files in his/her possession. Should there be
 any change (for example location, change of organization name) in
 the registration details specified in the Group Registration, the
 author must be informed of these changes. A Group Registration
 CANNOT be transferred to another group. 

 4. The copyright and disclaimers associated with the use of the
 registered version of Personal Time Arranger (PTA) are as outlined
 in sections numbered 4 and 5 under the Shareware License Agreement,
 above. 
 
 5. You MAY NOT provide copies of the Personal Time Arranger to
 others, unless one of the following applies: 
 a. A registered user can transfer single user registration of
    Personal Time Arranger to another party if that party agrees to
    the terms and conditions of this agreement, and if that party
    notifies the author of the change of registration. Once
    you transfer registration, you cannot keep or use any copies of
    Personal Time Arranger, either the program or documentation. You
    may not collect any payment for the transfer of registration
    which exceeds the cost of registration with the author. 
 b. A registered user can provide a copy of the Personal Time 
    Arranger to another individual provided that he/she DOES NOT
    supply his/her personal registration code. The new user must
    operate PTA as the shareware version, and must agree to the
    terms of use as specified under Shareware License Agreement.
    Distribution of PTA by registered users must also comply with
    all the terms of item 2 in the section on Shareware License
    Agreement, above. 
 
 PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The best way to learn how to use Personal Time Arranger is to have
it set up and running on your PC, while you read these notes.  So,
first of all, install Personal Time Arranger on your hard drive.
Instructions for this appear in the text file read1st.txt.

To run Personal Time Arranger, run PTA.EXE from program manager
(under the "File" menu item), or double click PTA.EXE in File
Manager, or create an icon for Personal Time Arranger in Program
Manager.  If you don't know how to do any of these steps, consult
you Windows documentation. 

When you run Personal Time Arranger, the main Calendar form
appears on the screen after an introduction/copyright message. The
main features are enclosed in the boxes entitled Date, To-do list,
Appointments, and Notes. You can select any date using the features
within the Date box. The appointments and notes boxes will show the
information entered for the selected date. On starting the program,
the "selected" date is today (assuming the date is set correctly in
your PC). This is confirmed by the date shown with the blue
background at the top of the Personal Time Arranger form. The
"selected" date is also shown at the top of the Form, in the yellow
box. The current time appears at the top-right of the form. 

Changing the selected date

Using the features within the date box, you can quickly move to
any date you require. To move about within the current month,
simply click the button showing the day of the month to which you
want to move. To change the month, click the up/down slide control
next to the "month" box. The same for moving up or down in years.
Whenever you change the day/month/year, whatever appointments and
notes you have stored for that day will appear in the appointment and
note boxes. When changing to a new month or year, the day of the
month defaults to the previous day of the month selected. The
selected date always appears in the box at the top right of the
screen, and the day of the month selected appears in italic font on
the button for that day in the Date box. 

If you want to move quickly to a specific month/year which would
require several clicks of the slide controls, there is a "Quick
Goto" option, the button marked "Q" (between month and year in the
Date box). Click Q, and select the month and year you need on the
form which appears, then click OK.

ENTERING APPOINTMENTS

One reason the author had for wanting to write his own appointments
program was the frustration he had with programs which insisted
that the day had to be segmented into uniform hourly or half hour
slots. Typically, you might have a one hour meeting at 9 am,
another at 11:00, perhaps a two hour meeting starting at 2:15.
Personal Time Arranger shows just these appointments, and not blank
spaces at times in between these appointments. If you want to assign
other time slots to specific activities, you can enter these as
appointments, or you can just leave these things to do in your
"To-do" list, and decide how best to fill these "empty" slots when
they happen. 

Once you have moved to the day that you wish to enter a new
appointment, click the NEW button in the App box (most of the
controls appear as buttons on the right of the Personal Time
Arranger form). A "new appointment" form appears. Simply type in
the appointment details. Adjust the time in the time box (default
is 12:00 midday) using the slide controls. (The buttons marked
0,15,30 and 45 make it easy to change the time to those minutes
past the hour). If you have text in Windows clipboard, you can
paste this in to the Details box (paste button).  If you select
text in the details box, you can COPY this selection to the
Clipboard (if no text is selected, clicking COPY copies everything
in the Details box to the Clipboard). The UNDO button reverses the
last change made in the Details box. Once you have entered all the
information, press OK to accept (or cancel to reject) that entry. 

There is another button on the new appointment form marked "Store".
Its purpose is to store the details of the appointment for repeat use
in the future. Say you have a monthly meeting for which your entry in
Personal Time Arranger would always be the same (or vary very
little). When you enter details for the first time, click store,
and these details will be stored separately in your PTA file.
So, if you want to enter details for the
meeting on another occasion, after clicking "NEW" on the main form,
simply press the down arrow on the list box (below the Details box),
and select the item you want from the list of items you have stored.
If you want to remove or edit an item from this list, there is an
"edit stored list" option under the 'Edit' menu item on the main
form. The stored list is saved when you save your Personal Time
Arranger file. 
 
There is another store feature, which appears on the main form (in
the Apps box). This provides a temporary store of notes and
appointments. It works like clipboard. Click the store button on
the main form, and all of the appointments and notes for the
selected day are copied. When you move to another day, click the
Rep button, and all of the stored information is entered for this
new day. If you want to use this feature, but don't want to copy notes,
select Options from the Menu bar to turn off/on notes. 

The final button in the "Apps" box on the main form (Edit) allows
you to edit or delete one of the appointments. After clicking the
edit button, a new form appears, from which you select which
appointment you want to edit/delete, then click the button
appropriate to the action you want. A quick way to edit or delete
an appointment is to click the box showing the appointment
details. 

WEEK VIEW

Click the Week button (in 'Misc') on the main form and you will
get another form showing the notes or appointments for the week. As
there is not enough space, you cannot show both notes and
appointments at the same time. Use the Notes and Apps buttons to
switch between notes and appointments. Also to save space, only
one line of the Appointment details are shown. If you make sure
that you enter the most important information first when entering
an appointment, this should not be a problem. If there are more
appointments than space available, the 'More' button will be
enabled, allowing you to see the other appointments. Clicking
'Prev' or 'Next' moves the display to the previous or next
week, respectively. Clicking the day button removes the week
display form, and returns you to the main form. If you want to
return to a specific day, click the box showing details of that
day. 

USING PERSONAL TIME ARRANGER

By now, you should be familiar with the main features of Personal
Time Arranger. Here is some more general information to help you. 

You can enter up to 15 appointments in any one day. Up to four
appointments are shown at any one time. If you have more than four
appointments, then you can use the up/down buttons to move through
the list. The size of the appointment box is limited to the three
lines you get when you enter or edit an appointment. If you need more
space, use the notes section. The notes box contains any information
you care to put in to it, and it contains information specific to
the selected day. By comparison, the To-do list does not change as
you change the selected date. It is intended to show your current
list of things to do. If you know that you have specific things to go
into the To-do list in the future, put them in the Notes box, and
transfer them to the To-do list when that day arrives.

The entries in the Notes and To-do list can be as long as you like.
Text is entered as if these boxes are regular text editors (you need
to click the notes or To-do list box to activate the cursor in the
box before you start typing). The COPY button (to the right of the
Notes box) copies (to the Clipboard) any text selected in either the
Notes or To-do boxes. If no text is selected, then clicking COPY
copies all of the text in Notes. Text on the Clipboard can be pasted
into Notes or the To-do list by clicking the Paste button (at the
position of an active cursor in one of these boxes).

Once you have started a new Personal Time Arranger file, and saved
it, you can have it load automatically every time you start
Personal Time Arranger. In the properties box for Personal Time
Arranger (in Program Manager), add the file name of the file to be
loaded in the Command line, after the program name. For example: 

C:\PTA\PTA.EXE C:\PTA\1995.CAL
 

SAVING YOUR PERSONAL TIME ARRANGER FILE

Your Personal Time Arranger data file is stored in RAM while in use
by the program. If you have concerns about the potential loss of
data (for example, due to a power outage), there is a save button
(bottom right of the main screen) which saves the file with just
one click of a button (once you have established a file name). You
can also set have the program save the file automatically at preset
intervals (anything from once every minute, to once every hour). 
To initiate autosave, click options menu item on the main form, then
click on the autosave checkbox. When you click on autosave, you get
automatically get another form with a slide control to set the
autosave frequency. Once you have selected autosave for a file, the
autosave facility will be automatically turned on every time you
re-open the file (unless you deliberately turn off autosave, of
course). 

12 HOUR OR 24 HOUR CLOCK

You have the option of having all times displayed using either the
12 hour or 24 hour system. You make this selection by clicking the
options menu item on the main form. The default is the 24 hour
system. No matter which system you use, the times are color coded
(in the appointment details and the current time, top right of the
main form) - light blue for a.m. and light green for p.m.

PRINTING PERSONAL TIME ARRANGER DETAILS

You can print details of your appointments, notes, and/or to-do
list to a printer or to a text file. To activate print, click the
Print option which is under the File menu item, and select the
options you want from the menu which appears on the screen. 

SEARCH FACILITY

The search facility is found under the Edit menu item. This allows
you to search your entire Personal Time Arranger file for a text
string which you specify. Once you have entered a text string and
pressed the search button, you are given a list of dates (assuming
that the text string was found). Click the dates (one at a time) to
view the notes and appointment details for that date. Once you have
found the date you are looking for, click "Cancel" on the search
form. 

THE 'NEW YEAR' FACILITY

You could (if you wished) continue to use Personal Time Arranger
over several years, storing everything in one file. There are two
good reasons not to do this. Visual BASIC sets an upper limit on
the size of variables, so you will eventually run out of storage
space. Also, as the file gets very large, you may notice that the 
program will begin to slow down. With this large file, you 
probably will have little use for notes and appointments from 
previous years. It makes sense to "archive" this information, 
and limit the file you use every day to one just covering the 
current and future years. The 'New Year' option under the 'File' 
menu item allows you to split a current file into two parts if it 
contains appointment/notes which extend over more than one year. 
After you click 'New Year', the program checks to see if
your appointment/notes do extend over more than one year. If so,
then it will (if you wish) create two files, with the
appointment/notes for the oldest year saved to a separate file (you
have to specify a file name), while the remainder of the
appointment/notes will be saved to the current file. On screen
messages will guide you through the process. Press Cancel at any
stage to halt the process. 

LAN USER FILE SHARING AND SECURITY

Several users registered either as single users, or users covered by
a Group Registration can share PTA files provided that they have
access to a common directory on a LAN system. As you may not want
everyone who has access to your PTA file(s) to be able to modify
that file, or see everything in your file, PTA has a security
system which allows you to provide others with the level of access
you want. Here are some of features: 

a. The *.cal files which PTA creates are text files, but they are
encoded, so that they cannot be read by someone importing them into
a text editor (However, they can easily be corrupted by someone
taking you file into a text editor, and making changes, so back up
your *.cal files frequently!) 

b. There are five levels of security, once you turn on the security
option: 
     Full read/write access
     Read access to all information
     Read access to appointments and notes only
     Read access to appointments only
     Access denied.

You should have read/write access for yourself only (there may be
problems if two people try to write to the same *.cal file at the
same time!). You can give codes to your colleagues to allow them to
access your file at whatever level of security you wish them to
have. The codes are set up as follows: 

With PTA running the file you wish to secure, click Options, then
click the security check box (so that the box is filled with a
cross). Another form automatically appears, which asks you to enter
four codes, one for each of the access levels. The codes must have
at least four characters which are numbers and alphabetic
characters only. Alphabetic characters can be either upper or lower
case (upper and lower case forms of the same letter are considered
as different characters). Once you have entered all four codes, you
can click the COPY button, to place a copy of the codes into
Clipboard (so that you can save a copy of the codes in a text or
word processor file), and click ENTER CODES to record the codes
with the current file. Once the file is saved, these codes are
saved with the *.cal file. From now one you (or someone else) will
need to have the right code to have access to that file. 

For anyone with full read/write access to this file, the security
system can be turned on or off by clicking the Security checkbox
under options. To change codes, first click off the security
option, then click again to turn it on. The code entry box then
re-appears. If you turn off the security option, your files become
freely accessible, but the codes you entered are stored, so that,
whenever you decide to re-establish security, all you need do is
click the Security option so that the clickbox shows a cross. 

Once you have entered security codes and have the security option
turned on, you will need to set up the other part of the security
system before you (or anyone else) will be allowed to use this file
in the future. 

With the security system in place on a LAN, there may be several
files to which you may want access: for example, you will want full
read/write access to your own PTA files, and your colleagues (let's
call them Bill, Fred, and Sue) will allow you to have read access
to their files. This means you need four different security codes.
These will be stored in a file called PTA.INI. This ini file is
stored in the same directory as your pta.exe program file. Each
time you start Personal Time Arranger, the program looks for
pta.ini. When it finds this file, it loads all the security codes
in that file. Then, when you ask to load a *.cal file, if that file
was saved with security turned on, you have access to it only if
one of the security codes stored with the file matches one of the
codes in your pta.ini file. You can access the *.cal file at the
highest level for which a match is found. 

The pta.ini file is a simple text file, with the following format:

####
FsT12eW        Code for read/write access to my file
Wqe432A        Code for Bill's file
24qQwas         Code for Fred's file
aXXz45A         Code for Sue's file

The first line (denoted by ####) is the registration code (more of
that in the next section). The next four lines have one access code
per line (you can have as many access codes as you want). The code
has to start on the very left (no leading spaces). If you wish to
annotate the code, leave at least one space, then add a few notes,
as shown in the above example. Your access level to your
colleague's files will depend upon which of their four codes they
have given to you. Once you decide what level of access Bill, Fred
and Sue should have, you give each of them one of your codes,
appropriate to the access level you permit them to have. 

You can prepare pta.ini with a text editor, but there is a utility
program called ini.exe supplied with PTA which sets up the ini file
for you. Ini.exe must be in the same directory as pta.exe. When you
run ini.exe, leave the box for registration code empty (unless you
have received a registration code from me; see the next section)
and enter the security codes in the format shown above. When you
have finished, click the save button, and pta.ini is automatically
created with the information you have provided. 

CONVERSION OF SHAREWARE TO REGISTERED VERSION

The shareware version of Personal Time Arranger is provided
free-of-charge to allow you to evaluate the program. If you
continue to use it beyond the 30 day trial period, you must
register the program with the author (see register.txt). In return
you will be sent a registration code. Every registered copy of PTA
has its own unique code (so that codes distributed in violation of
the license agreement can be traced), but that code will be
recognized by the program as a valid registration code. The code is
placed in the first line of the pta.ini file (see the previous
section). PTA reads this file when it first loads. If the code is
valid, a message appears which confirms that the registered version
of the program is now running. If the Shareware notice appears,
then either a mistake was made in entering the code, or the pta.ini
file was not set up correctly. The most reliable method for
creating the pta.ini file is to use the ini.exe utility which is
supplied with PTA (see the last section, on security). 

By converting to the registered version you will:
a. be able to use to program for more than 30 days
b. receive support from me should you have any problems with PTA
c. receive discounts on future versions of PTA
d. no longer get Shareware reminder messages!

As a reminder, you are permitted to provide copies of PTA to others,
but you MUST NOT give your registration code to anyone else. In other
words, the person to whom you have given a copy of PTA can only
operate the Shareware version. Before the end of their 30 day trial
period, they must obtain their own registration code from me if they
want to continue using the program. 

A FEW FINAL WORDS

I would like to hear from you if you have any comments on PTA,
and/or you have any suggestions for improvements in future versions
of PTA.  You can contact me by mail, at the address at the top of
this document, or via Internet at: david.nowotnik@data-base.com

David Nowotnik



 
