General
DateBk5 only uses one icon file. However, you can copy
and paste icons easily from other collections into that one file, thereby
building your own custom icon collection with all the icons that you want to
use. If you are upgrading from a prior version of Pimlico Software's DateBk4
or DateBk3 application, you may still have the older-style monochrome icon
collection installed. It is recommended that you delete that memopad record
(the one with DATEBK3 as the top line).
If you only have one icon collection installed,
DateBk5 will always find it. If you have two or more icon collections
installed, however, you should make sure that your "working" collection has
the name Icons-DATEBK5 as that is the default name that DateBk5 will look
for. You can rename the icon file using either dbIcon (in the zip
archive) or using the third party icon editor, IconMgr.
Installing
If you are starting off for the first time, it's
probably a good idea to just install Icons-DATEBK5.prc to get familiar with how
icons work.
Other sample icon collections are stored in the Icons.zip file which in turn is stored in the DateBk5.zip archive. Start off
by unzipping the contents of the icons.zip file (the same way you originally
unzipped the DateBk5.zip file) and select the icon collection you want to
install by clicking on it. If the PRC extension is associated with the Palm
Install Tool, it will then be set up for installation. Otherwise, you will
need to extract the file, store it in a folder on your hard drive, then
launch the Palm Install tool to install it from that folder.
Using Icons
Icons are not necessarily displayed by default in
DateBk5 (they are, but only if you have a color icon file installed prior
to first launching DateBk5). In all views but the monthly view, you enable
the display of icons by going into View Display Options in the
Options menu of that view. In the monthly view, there is a pushbutton
at the bottom of the screen (with a thumbtack graphic) that displays icons.
In the day view, you can attach an icon to an event in
one of two ways:
- Tap on the item, tap on the Details button
and then tap on the Icon button and select an icon.
- TapAndHold on the spot where the icon is displayed
(or would be displayed) until the icon selection dialog appears.
Using icons from other collections
To use icons from other collections, install the other
icon collections as you would any Palm OS application (double-click or use
the Palm Install Tool). You then launch the icon editor (either dbIcon
or the third party icon editor IconMgr to copy and paste icons from
the other collection into your working collection. Both dbIcon and IconMgr
can rename the icon collection you have open. Make sure the default
collection you are working with has the name Icons-DATEBK5.
Important Compatibility Note
dbIcon included in the Icons.zip file is a simple icon
editor for handling standard density icons (i.e. for Palm devices with
160x160 resolution screens) and icon collections up to 255 icons in size. In
order to handle icon collections with high-density icons (for 320x320
resolution screens) or to handle collections up to 2,600 icons, you will
need to use the third party icon editor: IconMgr which is available
from most Palm software archives like
www.PalmGear.com or www.handango.com.
High Density Icons
High density icons can be displayed on OS5 devices
with 320x320 screens or on OS4 Clie devices with 320x320 screens. If you
select a small or tiny view, the icons are displayed at halfsize. DateBk5
first looks to see if you have a low-density version of the current icon for
display. If you do, then that is displayed. Otherwise, on an OS5 device
only, DateBk5 will automatically scale the high-density icon to half-size
(never as good as a hand-tuned half-size icon, but maybe acceptable and
obviously involves no effort). On an OS4 Clie device, you must
provide a low-density version of each icon if you want an icon displayed in
the small/tiny views.
Missing Icons
If an icon is missing (you are tracking icons by
Resource ID and deleted that icon, or you have deleted icons and that icon
index position is now past the end of file), DateBk5 will display a red box
with an X in it.
Advanced Features
If you are a more advanced user, you can take
advantage of the fact that Datebk5 can track icons by either index position
(i.e. the record number in the database), or by resource ID (a tag
associated with each icon). Tracking icons by index position is fast, but
has the downside that if you delete or insert an icon, all icons past that
point assume a different index position so any existing references to
icons in DateBk5 get unexpectedly shifted. You can also track icons by
resource ID. This is slower but has the advantage of avoiding a problem with
inserting or deleting icons because the tag (resourceID) does not change as
icons are moved around. To track icons by Resource ID, go into the main
DateBk5 preference panel (Options | Preferences in any view), tap on the
menu button or currently highlighted tab, and select Advanced Settings
from the Display Options menu and check the box to Track Icons by
ResourceID. If you use this feature, Pimlico highly recommends the use
of the third party icon editor, Icon Manager to handle the editing of
icons. This program also has the ability to reset all the resource ID's.
This is very helpful because if you start off by resetting all the resource
ID's, they will then match the existing icon indexes, so that your
existing icon assignments are preserved.
Upgrading from prior version of
DateBk5
If you are upgrading from an earlier version of
DateBk5 that was tracking icons by index position and now want to track
icons by resourceID, you must handle this carefully in order to ensure that
all your existing icon assignments are not lost:
- Go into IconMgr and use the RENUMBER
ALL ICON IDs option
- Save the database
- Exit out of IconMgr
- Launch DateBk5
- Go into Options | Preferences, tap on
menu button (or tap on currently highlighted tab), select ADVANCED
SETTINGS from Display Options Dialog and check the box TRACK ICONS BY
RESOURCE ID (Remember to save this to all your saved views and startup
view!)
- EXIT OUT OF DATEBK5
- Re-launch Datek5
Also, note that if you track icons by
Resource ID, you must ensure that all resource ID #'s lie in the range
0-2599. Any icons number 2,600 or higher will not be displayed in DateBk5.