New
Features in the V-5.0a Release of DateBk5:
COMPREHENSIVE REPEATS ON
TODO'S
Adds comprehensive repeats to ToDo's, so they now have the same repeat options
as events. Regenerative style repeat from prior versions is now set with a
checkbox in the daily repeat dialog. All repeat options are available on
ToDo's except the Irregular Repeat Feature.
COLOR ICONS
As an alternate to existing monochrome icons, you can now use from 1-255 color
icons to both appts and ToDo's. Icons are compatible with thousands of
existing color icon libraries written for another Palm OS Datebook
application. Also includes a comprehensive, stand-alone icon editor dbIcon+
that allows you to import and export icons to create new custom icon
collections. DateBk5 first looks for a database with the name Icons-DATEBK5
(upper/lower case characters must match precisely). If that is not
found, DateBK5 will look for any database with a type RSRC (resource
database) and creator id of Actn. If no color icon library is present, DateBk5
will continue to use the existing monochrome icon library stored in
the memopad database under the name DATEBK3.
BACKGROUND COLORS
Adds eight background colors for appts or ToDo's in addition to the sixteen
foreground colors. Background colors will work best in split-screen if the
tight line spacing option (Split Tab) is disabled. With tight line spacing on,
the background color is only provided behind the actual text itself and may
appear uneven. For visual aesthetics, DateBk5 has to fix up the underline dots
when drawing background colors. Users with hacks that hide underline dots will
need to go into the Day View's Display Options dialog, and select Ignore
Underline Dots in the Options menu.
COLOR PALETTE SELECTION
Adds ability to change any foreground or background color to any available
color in the palette. Just tap and hold on the color in the color selection
dialog and the standard color picker pops up. You can set the color by picking
it from the main palette, or by using RGB sliders. Note that you can not
change the first slot in each palette as they are hard-wired for black and
white for the foreground and background respectively. There is also a button
in the color selection dialog to reset all the colors in the palettes to the
standard default colors. You may well need to do this when first upgrading as
your prior preference database had no valid color palette data in it and DateBk5
only re-initializes the palette if it finds illegal values there.
COLOR HIGHLIGHT SELECTION
Adds ability to select the color used for highlighting items (Split-Screen
Preference dialog).
COLOR SCHEMES SAVED TO
PREFERENCES
Color schemes are saved to preference dialog and can therefore be changed via
saved views. This includes custom palette selection.
GRAYSCALE SUPPORT
Adds full grayscale support so that all the color functionality in DateBk5 now
applies to 4-bit or 2-bit grayscale devices as well. This means that you can
use color icons to provide grayscale versions of icons and select different
grays for appointments and ToDO's, etc. (such as using a light gray for a
tentative appointment). Background shading is especially useful with the more
limited effects on monochrome devices. Grayscale support is only provided on
OS version 3.5 and later. Initial release of dbIcon does not support
the editing of icons on a grayscale device.
Note: Grayscale support can be disabled by selecting the No Gray
checkbox in the More Preferences dialog. Users of devices where
grayscale support slows down screen redrawing, or draws more battery power,
may wish to forgo these display benefits. This option does not appear on color
devices.
NEW PREFERENCE HANDLING
DateBk5 now has one large, tabbed dialog for handling all the global
preferences of the application, and several inconsistencies between views have
now been removed. In all views, the Options menu always has a Preferences
item on (Command/y) which brings up the tabbed dialog of all global
preferences (i.e. preferences that affect two or more views). The options menu
has a View Display Options item (Command/R) which contains those
preference items that only affect the currently displayed view (and no
other view). Appt. Categories (Command/6) and ToDo Categories
(Command/2)are also always available to change category settings for
appointments and ToDo's. Finally, Security (Command/H) is also
available in all views (On Palm OS 3.5 systems or later that support direct
changes to the security settings. The Tabbed Preference dialog has its own
menu with options to access the Display Options setting of any view (so you do
not have to switch to a view to change those settings) and also access the
category settings of all four databases.
The Display Options dialog on in each view also has a Preferences button so you can directly access the preference settings as does the appointment and ToDo Category selection dialogs.
SELECTIVE UPDATING OF SAVED
VIEWS ON PREFERENCE CHANGES
DateBk5 now allows you to selectively update saved views whenever you make a
change to the preference settings. To enable this feature, check the box: Update
Saved Views on Exit in the Appts tab of the preferences dialog.
Then, when you exit the preferences dialog, DateBk5 will display a list of all
saved views with checkmarks next to them. Check the box to update that saved
view with the changes you just made. Uncheck the box to leave the view
unchanged. In addition, the All or None buttons allow you to quickly select
all views or none of them. Your prior selections are always remembered, so the
next time this dialog appears, your previous selections will be displayed.
CUSTOM DATE PICKER
Adds custom date picker which includes popup list of last 10 dates selected,
TapAndHold on a day pops up list of all appts/ToDo's on that date. Date picker
includes optional display of week numbers (if you are displaying week numbers
in the title bar - prefs setting in the monthly view - note: not available on
Handera device due to bugs/incompatibility issues in the Handera OS), direct
year selection (tap on year number) as well as by prev/next arrows, tap on
first/last month when already displayed goes into prior/next year. Since this
is the same popup list that appears in the month, 4-month and year views, the
display of ToDo's is controlled by the same preference option (see ToDo tab
in the Preferences dialog). Tap on the year to popup
an edit window where you can quickly key in the year -- either as a four-digit
year (in the range 1904-2031), or a number from 0-49 (treated as 2000-2049) or
50-99 (treated as 1950-1999).
The date picker dialog will optionally display days outside of the current month (in the popup list in the Date/Time tab of the preferences dialog, select DateBk5 all days. On an OS 3.5 or later device, the days outside of the current month are displayed in gray. On monochrome devices, or devices with an OS earlier than 3.5, dates within the current month are displayed in bold and the days outside the month are displayed in a light font. If you disable this option, only days within the current month can be selected.
If you do not wish to use the custom date picker, you can disable it with a preference setting in the Date/Time tab of the Preferences dialog (just select Std. Date Dlg. in the popup list). You might want to do this if you are using a hack which hacks at the system date picker to provide some custom functionality that you need.
LAUNCH DATEBK5 WITH A
SPECIFIC SAVED VIEW
You can now launch DateBk5 with a specific saved view by using a tiny launch
app that starts up DateBk5 and tells it to run a saved view. The Zip archive
has four sample launch mini-apps with the names dbAddr, dbMemo, dbTodo, dbView. The startup view that is launched always has a name that begins with
db followed by the last four letters of the launch mini-app
name, so the dbAddr launch app will launch DateBk5 with the startup
view: dbAddr. You do have to create these saved views initially to
use these mini-apps (or you just get an alert telling you the saved view was
not found). Some DateBk5 users will find it useful to be able to press the
Memo or Addr buttons regardless of what application is running and have DateBk5
launch with that specific database open (most likely in full screen
mode in the day view).
To create a saved view for a launch mini-app, set up DateBk5 just how you
want it to look. TapAndHold on the the left-most view button (DayView) and
select Custom/Saved View from the list. Tap on the NEW button,
and enter the name for the saved view (such as dbAddr) and tap the
OK button. You can assign the launch mini-app to a hardware button,
calculator or pen stroke, by bringing up the main Palm OS application screen
with the icons, select Buttons from the popup list at top right and
then select the launch mini-app name in the popup list next to the button or
function you want to invoke the saved view. You can also change the name of
the launch mini-app to anything you want using a third party file utility like
Z'Catalog or Filez. All launch mini-apps have a different CreatorID. You may
also find it useful to use a hack like AppHack which allows you to assign more
functions to a single button and therefore more saved views, etc. (hacks like
AppHack can use two button presses to invoke different apps, so you can launch
four different apps with the sequences: Date-Date, Date-ToDo, Date-Addr,
Date-Memo etc. There is no limit to the number of mini-apps that you can
create (so you can set up a category for DateBk5 mini-apps and fill it up with
apps for every single one of your saved views. However, you will need to
assign different Creator ID's to the various mini-apps you create. Pimlico
Software has reserved CES0, CES1, CES2....CES9 for use with the launch
mini-apps. You can use other CreatorID's of course, but you must exercise
caution as you could run into significant conflicts if you inadvertently used
the same creator ID as some other app loaded on your machine. You can change
the creator ID's using a third party file utility such as Z'Catalog or FileZ.
# OF OCCURRENCES ON REPEAT
Adds # of occurrences option on repeats - so you can set the end date based on
the total number of occurrences of the item and have DateBk5 compute the
correct end date. When this option is selected from the popup list, it will
also show you how many occurrences there are in all of the repeat event (even
if you did not set the repeat originally with this option). Note that the
final setting for repeats is the END DATE, not the number of occurrences. So
if you change the start date, the end date remains unchanged, and the number
of occurrences will change accordingly. This is also true if you change the
end date.
REPEAT FREQUENCY VALUE
DateBk5 now allows the frequency value to be as large as 255 (prior limit was
99), so you can have an event repeating every 180 days for example. However,
it is not known if all conduits and desktops can manage this feature. The
database has an 8-bit field which can hold values as large as 255, and my
guess is that all conduits will just copy this value without actually looking
at it. Some programs, however, might assume that the value will always be
displayable in two-character positions. Some versions of the built-in datebook
application are *NOT* happy with this. If the value is 128 or greater, it just
decides the repeat is invalid and removes the repeat status. A value of 127
appears to cause an exception (probably trying to write 3 characters into a
slot that would only accept 2, etc). So use this feature with care, and make
sure your conduit is ok with it, etc. In almost all cases, whatever anomalies
may occur, should be quite harmless.
OPTION TO DISPLAY ADVANCED
TODO'S ON ALL DAYS
DateBk5 now has an option to display advanced ToDo's on all days from the
first advance date up to and including the due date (as opposed to only
displaying advanced ToDO's on today's schedule when within advance-days of the
due date). This option affects the day view, all weekly views with text, the
monthly view (when displaying ToDo's), and the list view. This option uses an
explicit advance on the ToDo if present, otherwise it uses the global advance
value.
LINKING TO APPOINTMENTS
FROM APPOINTMENTS OR TODO's
Adds ability to link TO appointments from other appointments or ToDo's.
Select Item to be linked, tap Link button, Select Item to link to, press Link
button again. When you tap on the link, DateBk5 goes directly to that day and
puts the cursor and/or highlights the item. It can be very handy to link
several otherwise unrelated appointments so you can quickly navigate between
them. Note also the new feature to find all items that link to a specific
item. The popup list of links includes both the date and time for
appointments.
IRREGULAR REPEAT AUTO-LINKS
THE EVENTS
On irregular repeat option, DateBk5 now links all the individual items to the
original event. See also FIND ALL ITEMS.... feature below for a quick way to
locate all the irregular repeats and then delete them or modify them.
EXCEPTIONS AUTO-LINKED TO REPEAT EVENT
Whenever an exception is made to a repeat event, either with the Make
Exception command, or from a change in the Details, dialog, the exception item
is linked to the original repeat event. Using the FIND ALL ITEMS... command
below, you can easily locate all the exceptions to a repeat event.
REMINDERS & REPEAT FLOATS
AUTO-LINKED TO TARGET EVENT
Floating reminders generated through the advance feature are now automatically
linked to the target event. Repeat floating events are similarly linked - the
non-repeating copy of the floating event that gets generated by DateBk5 when
the repeat date matches today is now linked to the repeating event itself
(which has been rescheduled to the next occurrence).
FIND ALL ITEMS LINKED TO AN
ITEM
'Find Items that link to this' in Record menu, takes the selected appt/ToDo/Addr/Memo
and locates all ToDo's and Appt's that link to that item and displays them in
the List View. This can be used for example to quickly locate all the
irregular repeats (tap on link of irregular repeat to get to original
item,then use this option to list ALL the irregular repeats that link to this
item). This is also useful for finding all links to a contact - just select
the contact in the split-screen window and select this option.
DATEBK5 CLEAN UP AFTER
RELAUNCH WHEN HISTORY DB WAS DISPLAYED
If you exit out of DateBk5 with a saved view in effect which is accessing the
history database and have a startup saved view, the startup saved view is now
invoked when you relaunch DateBk5.
BLOCK DELETE, ATTACH ICON,
CHANGE CATEGORY, BEAM in LIST VIEW
Adds "block" functions to list view. You can delete, attach an icon,
change categories or beam all viewed items in the list or just the current
page. Delete function can delete, archive or archive/copy to history DB. Note
that this option only applies to either the CURRENTLY displayed list of items
OR the currently displayed list and all PRIOR items. It does not include items
not yet displayed, so if you want everything, make sure you page to the end of
the list before invoking this command.
EXPORT TO MEMO FROM LIST VIEW
WITH OPTIONAL BILLING INFORMATION
Adds export to memo record function from list view. Includes several options
to control the output format. Also has option to total up all the hours and
minutes of all events displayed in that view and multiply it by a currency
factor for billing purposes. By assigning special icons, or categories, you
can get a memo report of all activities with a client, get a total number of
hours and have the billed amount all computed for you. As with the block
functions, this option only applies to either the CURRENTLY displayed list of items
OR the currently displayed list and all PRIOR items. It does not include items
not yet displayed, so if you want everything, make sure you page to the end of
the list before invoking this command.
ENDING DATE IN LIST VIEW
You can now set the ending date for the list view display with a date
selector in the Options dialog (Opt.
button or View Display Options in the Options menu). This ending date is
especially useful for the block and export functions. The ending date will be
remembered while DateBk5 is running. To clear the ending date, tap on the date
selector and then tap on the CANCEL button
in the date picker dialog.
STRIKE-THROUGH ATTRIBUTE
A new attribute is provided for canceled appointments. Details dialog now has
popup list for the status: normal, done or Struck. A left-to-right OR
right-to-left stroke through the time column always clears done/cross-off
status on an item that is done or crossed-off. A left-to-right stroke on a
normal item marks it as done, and a right-to-left stroke marks it as done and
crossed-off. Crossed-off items obey all attributes normally applied to Done
items. Only appointments can be crossed off (you can always convert a ToDo to
a float and then cross it off). Struck text is displayed in the day view,
weekly views with text and the List View
TAP ON UNTIMED EVENT IN
GRAPHICAL WEEK VIEW POPS UP LIST
Tap on untimed event icon (or space where icon would display) in graphical
weekly view now pops up list of all events on the day (like
month/4-month/yearly views).
TAP ON WEEK NUMBER LEGEND IN
GRAPHICAL WEEK VIEW POPS UP WEEK NUMBER LIST
Tap on the Week 14 legend at the top right of the screen (between the
two arrows) and the week number pick list dialog will appear.
DETAILS BUTTON CAN DISPLAY
FULL LEGEND
Displays details button with full 'Details' legend if 4 or less view buttons
selected.
HIGH RESOLUTION/SMALL FONT SUPPORT IN LIST VIEW
Adds hi-rez mode support to list view - small font option in preferences
allows Handera and Clie devices to display more lines of text in a smaller
font.
DISPLAY WEEK NUMBER AFTER TIME
Displays Week Number after time when showing time in Day View (unless timezone
other than home time zone is selected). Obeys option in monthly view to
display titles (that options affects monthly, weekly and day views now).
BETTER ACCESS TO CURRENT TIME
TapAndHold on window title in any view now displays time without popping up
menu. Quick tap pops up menu. This works better than the 'kludge' of sliding
the stylus off the menu bar used by the built-in datebook application
TODO TAGS AND ALL LINKS NOW
HIDDEN
DateBk5 now hides the tagged note field of ToDo's and also hides the links in
the note field on both appointments and ToDo's
REGISTER SOFTWARE MOVED OFF
MENUS
Removed Register Software menu item from all menus so it's now consistently
accessed from the About dialog and less obtrusive
DOWN ARROW HIDDEN IN LIST VIEW
AT END OF LIST
Now hides the down arrow in the list view when at the end of the list as a
clear indicator the end of the list has been reached.
DIAL TELEPHONE NUMBER FROM
ADDRESS DETAILS VIEW
On Palm OS 4.0 and later devices, there is now a 'D' button (Dial) in the
address details view that will popup a list of all phone numbers for that
record and then dial the selected number (if only one number, dials it
directly). This is a Palm OS function and only devices supporting the Palm OS
dial function will work with it. The only exception is that V-5.0 supports the proprietary dialing feature of the Samsung I300 phone.
Just as in Palm OS 4.0, the D button in the Addressbook details screen
pops up a list of phone numbers for the displayed contact and will then dial
that telephone number. Thanks to diligent expert Jake B. for
providing the code necessary to support this phone.
FULL SCREEN ONLY OPTION
Adds Full Screen Only option to split-screen preferences dialog. With this
option set, the window is only ever set to full screen and not split-screen
(so it toggles between open and closed, rather than cycling from close to
split to full). Exceptions are only made when you invoke a feature that
requires the use of split-screen (such as the Call/Action feature).
SNOOZE FROM BEFORE END OF
EVENT
Adds feature to snooze an alarm to some period before the END of the event as
well as the Start of the event. Instead of the checkbox in earlier versions,
there are now three pushbuttons labeled Now (i.e. snooze XX minutes from
now), Start (snooze XX minutes from before the start of this
event), and End (snooze XX minutes from before the end of this event).
The Other feature has now been made more intuitive - select Other from the popup list of snooze times and select any time from 0m to 23h55m and it then appears as the selected time at which point you tap the Snooze button to snooze that period of time (0m now makes sense in conjunction with the Start or End options.
Five new snooze periods were added to the drop-down list - 2-day, 3-day,
4-day, 1-week and 2-week.
FREE TIME SEARCH IN MONTH VIEW
Adds feature to search for and display free time in the monthly view. Allows
user to specify a need for nn hours/minutes of free time on a day and
optionally specify that it be contiguous. Can also specify what days are to be
searched and you can display the free time in all days as well. If you display
the free time in all days, DateBk5 displays the maximum number of free hours
on that day (maximum contiguous hours if you had that checkbox checked). If
the number of hours meets the minimum required, it will be displayed in green
(on color devices), black (grayscale devices) or black with a bold hour (on a
monochrome device), otherwise it will be displayed in red (color device), gray
(grayscale device) or all in a normal font (monochrome device). This view is
really a third display mode in that screen, so to restore the normal
monthly display, tap on either the time-slot or icon pushbutton at the bottom
of the screen.
REPEAT INDICATOR REMOVED ON
CROSS-OFF
When repeat ToDO is crossed-off, the repeat indicator is removed from the
crossed-off ToDo.
TODO'S CROSSED OFF ON DESKTOP
NOW ADVANCED AFTER HOTSYNC
A repeat ToDo that is crossed-off on the desktop is now automatically advanced
to the next occurrence when the ToDo database is next synchronized.
DEFAULT SELECTED IN NEW POPUP
LIST SET TO APPT
Sets the default selected item in the popup list on the New Button to
appointment when DateBk5 first loads (no item was selected in the list on
prior versions). This was a request by keyboard users of DateBk5.
NEXT/PREVIOUS RECORD BUTTONS
IN ADDRESS DETAILS VIEW
Adds Previous and Next record repeat buttons to Addressbook Record Details
view so you can move forwards and backwards through records without having to
go back to the list view. Hold the stylus down on the buttons to quickly scan
through records.
SEPARATE PURGE OF EVENTS AND
FLOATS
Adds separate checkboxes in purge dialog to separately purge completed events
and completed floats.
DOUBLE TAP SELECTS ICON
If you tap on an already selected icon in the icon selection dialog, the icon
is now selected as if the OK button was pressed (so a double-tap selects an
icon).
FLOAT ADVANCE USES STD TIME
PICKER
Float Advance Time preference option now calls standard DateBk5 time picker so
the selection of NO TIME is more obvious (rather than kludgy cancel in prior
version).
UNTIMED ADVANCE USES STD TIME
PICKER
Untimed Alarm preference in Alarm Preferences now also calls standard DateBk5 Time Picker.
WARNING IF UNFILED CATEGORY IS
HIDDEN
Adds warning if DateBk5 finds the UNFILED category is hidden (with option to
supress in future) - this avoids confusion for newbies who accidentally hide
the UNFILED category and then complain that all events have disappeared, of
that they have to tap the H to see appointments (a common problem!). This
message does not appear if the Unfiled category is hidden in a saved view.
PURGED TODO'S AUTO-CONVERTED
TO FLOATS AND STORED IN HISTORY DB
If ToDo's are selected for purge and the history database option is selected,
the ToDo's are automatically converted to completed floats and stored in the
history database.
LOCK ICON FOR PRIVATE EVENTS
Adds lock icon at end of line for displayed, private events in the day and
list views for both Appts and ToDo's. If you do not want to see this icon,
check the No {lock} preference option in More Preferences (Options
menu, Day View).
IMPROVED UI IN SAVED
VIEWS/TEMPLATE DIALOGS
UI for Saved Views and Template dialogs have been cleaned up so that
pushbuttons that are pressed first now appear on top of list. Downside is that
selection list is one element smaller now, but the intuitiveness has been
improved.
CHANGE BUTTON IN SAVED VIEW
NOW ALLOWS NAME TO BE CHANGED
Change button in saved views now allows the name of the current saved view to
be changed.
SAVED VIEWS CAN NOW INCLUDE
ABSOLUTE OR RELATIVE DATE
Saved views can now be saved to start on an absolute date, or on a relative
date which can be specified as an offset forwards or backwards in days
(suitable for day and week views) or months (suitable for month and yearly
views).
SAVED VIEWS CAN NOW
AUTOMATICALLY EXIT AFTER PRESETTING PREFERENCES
Saved views can now automatically exit after being invoked. This is controlled
by a checkbox that appears when you create or change a saved view (See
checkbox: Remove in-saved-view indicator). This could be used, for
example, when invoking a startup view with one of the mini-applets and you
don't want the saved view indicator to be lit after you launch the view.
RESET PREFS TO DEFAULT OPTION
Adds Reset to factory default option in options menu of Preference dialog so
you can reset all preferences to standard DateBk5 defaults without losing
registration code or saved views.
SAVED VIEW FOR HISTORY DB
CREATED AUTOMATICALLY
When creating the DateBk5DB Preference database from scratch (i.e. on a clean
load of DateBk5), a Saved View suitable for searching the History database is
automatically created (selects list view, history database, sets start date at
1-jan-1904)
OPTION TO MAKE ADVANCES UNTIMED
Adds option (More Preferences in day view) to make advances on events untimed.
This option also ensures that the advance does not inherit the alarm of the
target event either.
DAILY JOURNAL INCLUDES DATE IF
MARKED AS FLOAT
If the daily journal is changed to a floating event (so the same entry moves
from day to day), DateBk5 automatically inserts the Date as well as the time
when the New Journal command is invoked.
PURGE ROUTINE NOW INCLUDES
RECORD COUNT
Purge routine now reports the exact number of appts and ToDo's that were
purged out of the database.
IMPROVED
HANDLING/FUNCTIONALITY OF TAP AND HOLD
DateBk5 now handles Tap and Hold in a more intuitive fashion - after the
preset time interval has passed, the action takes place automatically - not
requiring you to raise the pen to initiate it (as was the case in prior
versions). Also, the TapAndHold time has been made consistent across all items
using it.
TAP AND HOLD POPUP MENUS IN DAY VIEW
TapAndHold on the time in the day view now pops up the date picker. A Tap
and Hold on an appointment or ToDo in the main table (not split-screen
window), now pops up a context-sensitive menu with frequently-used options
(such as copy, delete, etc.). Some people may find these popup menus
interfering with normal functions, so there is an option to disable this
feature in the Display Options dialog of the day view (uncheck the box labeled
Popup menus).
CURRENT TIME WHEN POWERED ON
DateBk5 now ALWAYS displays the time and week number when you power on your
Palm with the Datebook button (mapped to run DateBk5 of course!) regardless of
what view you were in, or whether you were in DateBk5(previously, it would
only do that if DateBk5 was in the Day View and it was powered on with the
datebook button). This is a preference option which you can disable if you
wish (see Date/Time tab in preferences).
JOG DIAL/WHEEL OPTION TO
MOVE BY DAY
The jog wheel/dial on the Handera/Clie devices can now either select events
one by one in the current day, or just move day by day. The Scroll Time
then Day option if clear, will just move days. If set, then the jog wheel
moves the insert pointer item by item in the current day. When an item is
selected, a jog push cycles between displaying the Details for the item, the
note (if any) and the link (if linked).
JOG DIAL/WHEEL SCROLLS IN
GRAPHICAL WEEKLY VIEW
The jog wheel/dial on the Handera/Clie devices can now either just move day by
day or scroll up and down by hours and then by days (based upon display
option in that view).
TIME ZONE SUPPORT FOR OS
4.0
DateBk5's timezone feature now interoperates with Palm OS 4.0 when the Synchronize
with OS/other apps checkbox is checked in the Zones tab of the
Preferences dialog. If you change the timezone in OS 4.0, DateBk5 will
automatically reset its own internal timezone by selecting the locale that
matches (only the first locale will ever be selected). It will not reset the
timezone unless it has changed, so if you subsequently select the second
locale in DateBk5, it will not get changed by this feature. The DST setting in
OS 4.0 is ignored as DateBk5's DST handling is far more sophisticated. On
exit, DateBk5 will set the correct timezone in the Palm OS and also set DST
based upon whether or not DST is currently in effect in the selected timezone.
This timezone support does not intefere with the pre-OS 4.0 timezone support
for other third party applications like Travel Tracker. Note that you must
not check this box on OS 3.5 and earlier systems unless you are using DateBk5/timezone
aware applications (like TravelTracker).
CONFIRM DELETIONS NOW A
PREFERENCE OPTION
The checkbox that determines whether or not DateBk5 asks for confirmation when
deleting items is now a preference option, so it no longer automatically
resets when you exit the program. You can still check it off in the delete
dialog, but it will now stay off until you check it back on by checking the b.
checkbox in the Appts tab of the preferences dialog.
BLINKING NOW A VISIBLE
PREFERENCE OPTION
The VIEWS tab of the Preference dialog now includes a preference setting Blink
selected day which controls the blinking in the weekly, monthly, 4-month and yearly views (rather than the invisible toggling by
double-tapping the graffiti area of prior versions). You can now, however, use
the double-tapping of the graffiti area to turn the blinking on/off on a local
basis just while the current view is displayed (to quickly locate something
etc.). This local change does not affect the global preference setting.
TAP AND HOLD ON TODO ICON
POPS UP ICON SELECTION LIST
ToDo's now respond to TapAndHold on the icon area in a manner identical to
appointments: a quick tap invokes the Details dialog, a TapAndHold will pop up
the icon selection window.
OPTIONS FOR THE NEW BUTTON
IN DAY VIEW
You can now pick any one of the ten options on the New button in the
Day View to be the default action for that button (if you TapAndHold on the
button, it will always pop up the full list of options).
DISMISS ALL ALARMS
There is now a Dismiss All Alarms item in the options menu of the alarm
dialog that will dismiss all stacked up alarms. This is mainly intended for
times when you have not used your Palm and you just want to clear all the old
alarms. It does not dismiss any pending snooze alarms that are set to go off
at a future time.
TAP AND HOLD ON TEMPLATE BUTTON SHOWS ALL CATEGORIES
The Template button normally just displays templates in displayed categories, but if you TapAndHold on the template button, then templates in all categories will be displayed.
TAP AND HOLD ON GO BUTTON SHOWS CATEGORY SELECTION LIST
A TapAndHold on the GO button will pop up a category selection list for the appointment database, so that one category can be selected for display. All other categories will be hidden. This differs from calling up the Appt Categories dialog from the Options menu which allows multiple categories to be selected and also provides access to the category profile information.
TAP AND HOLD ON MENU ICON SHOWS CATEGORY SELECTION LIST FOR ADDR/MEMO/TODO
A TapAndHold on the Menu Icon will pop up a category selection list for the currently selected database being displayed in split-screen, so that one category can be selected for display. All other categories will be hidden. This differs from calling up the Appt Categories dialog from the Options menu which allows multiple categories to be selected and also provides access to the category profile information. If the split-screen window is closed, the ToDo database category selection list is displayed (this is handy if you use ToDo's in integrated mode and have the split-screen window closed..
HIDE FLOATING EVENTS
There is now an option to hide floating events in the graphical week view (see
Display Preferences in that view). Also the option to hide untimed floating
events in the second weekly view (which didn't work quite right on previous
versions!) now applies to all floating events.
REGENERATIVE / INTERVAL
TYPE REPEAT ON FLOATING EVENTS
You can now set a regenerative/interval type repeat on floating events
(previously you could only do that with ToDo's). This type of repeat
reschedules the next occurrence of the floating event to NN days after the day
you cross it off. Until you cross it off, the next occurrence is shown based
upon the interval from when the separate reminder was generated. When you
actually cross of the item, the next occurrence is rescheduled based upon that
interval from today's date. To set this option, tap on the Day
pushbutton in the repeat dialog and check the box Reschedule From Checkoff.
In the details dialog, you will see the legend Interval for the repeat
type (instead of Daily).
SHOW/HIDE NOW A MENU OPTION
Since several users had expressed concern over the difficulty of tapping on the small H/S at the top left to hide/show events, this is now an item in the MISC menu in the day view, which you can also invoke by graffiting Command/M.
DAY BUTTON IN TIME DIALOG
A new Day button in the time dialog now allows you to set the start and end time of an event to the start and end time of the day as defined in the Date/Time tab preference dialog.
HISTORY DATABASE ACCESSIBLE FROM ALL VIEWS
There is now a menu option in all views to switch to the history database and back to the current database (in the Options menu). To merge items, you will still need to go to the Day View.
BEAMING OF OTHER DATABASES.
DateBk5 only supports beaming items from the appointment database. However, in V-5.0, if you invoke the beam command on a ToDo, Addressbook or Memo item, DateBk5 now launches that native application with the record selected in that app, so a subsequent Command/B will beam the item (so you don't have to search for the item in the native application).
NEW DATE AND TIME TEMPLATE TAGS
The tags <<date>> and <<time>> insert the current date and the current time respectively into the description and/or note fields of the template. This feature can be used to set a date into a floating event by creating a template for floating events with the <<date>> tag in the note field. As the item floats forward, the original insertion date is tracked.
CONTACT DETAILS FROM LIST VIEW NOW HAS LOG AND NOTE BUTTONS
When accessing contact details via a link in the list view, there are now Note and Log buttons as you have when accessing the contact details view from the Day View screen. To invoke a link in the list view, select the item and then graffiti the ENTER character (diagonal stroke from top right to bottom left) or press the Jog Dial on a Handera or Sony device with a jog dial.
CONTACT DETAILS NOW ALWAYS DISPLAYS LOG BUTTON
Whenever the contact details screen is displayed, the log button is also now always displayed (used to be only displayed when accessing this screen via a link). When the link button is tapped, the options that no longer apply are hidden, but you can still use the popup list to quickly insert a date/time stamped log into the note field of the contact. This is useful to record in-coming calls when there is no link available (just pull up the address book entry and tap the log button).
PROFILE BUTTON IN CATEGORY SELECTION DIALOG NOW SHOWS FONT AND COLORS
The [P] (profile) button in the category selection dialog for all databases now displays the 'p' (or digit for ToDo's) in the default font for that category and also uses the default foreground and background colors associated with that category.
ALARM APPLET GUARANTEES YOU WILL HAVE NO DUPLICATE ALARMS
You can eliminate duplicate alarms by the simple expedient of running DateBk5 after every hotsync. If for some reason this is not practical, you can install a small applet called dbAlarm which will guarantee that you have no duplicate alarms. There are two cautions, however, if you use this applet: (1) do not delete this applet from the main application screen unless it tells you that it is safe to do so (tap on the icon labeled: Tap To Delete). To make it safe to delete, uncheck the DateBk5 Handles Alarms item in the Alarm tab of the Preferences dialog in DateBk5. (2) with dbAlarm installed and enabled, you will not be able to receive alarms from the built-in datebook application unless you temporarily disable it. You can do that by going into the Beam tab of the Preferences dialog and checking the box: Receive beams from Std. Datebk. DbAlarm will be automatically re-enabled the next time an alarm goes off. You can also force it to be re-enabled by unchecking and then rechecking the DateBk5 Handles Alarms item in the Alarm tab of DateBk5's Preferences dialog.
MONTH VIEW CAN SHOW DAYS OUTSIDE OF CURRENT MONTH
An option in the View Display Options item in the Monthly view (Show days in current month only) can be unchecked to allow DateBk5 to display days outside of the current month. In that case, all six rows of the calendar are always filled with days from the prior or next month. Days are displayed in gray (or white if the background is shaded) or in a light font (Monochrome and/or devices with OS 3.3 or earlier). You can tap on the days quickly to popup a list of events/ToDo's on that day, or TapAndHold on the day to go to that day. However, the display of days outside the current month does not include the display of icons or appointments (i.e. this is still a monthly and not a six-weekly view).
HELP/INFO TIP STRINGS IN
SEPARATE DATABASE
To conserve space, all the help strings (the 'info tips' that appear when you
tap the 'i' at the top right of a window title) are no stored in a separate
database that you can install with dbSetup. Or you can choose to save the
space (around 50k or so) by not installing them. In that case, tapping on the
'i' button simply produces a note reminding you to run dbSetup to install the
help database.