This document contains the following sections

Version 5.1, December 14, 1996

* What is AllDay?
* Calendar Computation and Display
* Preferences
* Colors
* Holidays
* User Events
* Day Popup Menu
* AppleScript
* About Development
* System Requirements
* Installation
* Legal Stuff
* Version History
* Credits & Special Thanks

What is AllDay?

AllDay is an application for display of a yearly calendar. It computes and shows any years within the Julian and Gregorian calendar systems (see separate "About Calendars..." document). Also, it calculates the number of week in three different ways, the number of day in year and the number of remaining days in year.

A year can be displayed in either horizontal or vertical orientation; i.e., weekdays appear either next to each other or beneath each other. Weekdays are ordered starting with either Sundays or Mondays. And the application is bilingual, running either in German or in English.

AllDay computes up to 30 holidays and allows for adding any amount of other yearly recurring events (user events).

Activated holidays and user events (see below) can be displayed in separate list windows.

Calendar Computation and Display

While early versions of AllDay were based on calendar routines of the operating system, the application now works completely independent from the MacOS in terms of computing its calendars.

Although the MacOS has almost everything built in, there are missing some essential calendar abilities like holidays, week number (only US version available), and as well the whole Julian calendar system.

AllDay therefore uses basic calendar and holiday algorithms as they are also built into several operating systems. I collected these algorithms from various sources during the continuing effort of extending AllDay's features. As a result I developed my own universal C library of date utilities which is also built into AllDay.

While the algorithms are commonly available ways of computation, which were developed and published partly centuries ago already, the universal C library and certainly its functionality coming to life inside of AllDay are my own product of development.

The code of the mentioned C library is not availble to the public, however, its full functionality is separately available through my AppleScript extension (OSAX) "DatePack". DatePack extends AppleScript with all commands necessary to make full use of all functions of the library thus porting all of its features to the whole MacOS and all applications.

Computation of calendar data an its display is extremely fast due to a specially designed technique of transferring calendar data to a colored picture. This allows for a fast change of years as well as switch of other settings like language, orientation of weekdays or calendar system.

Preferences

A preferences window allows for individual settings.

Besides display of weekdays and starting day of week, the way of computing week numbers and the calendar system (Julian or Gregorian) can be chosen. The program works in either English or German language.

Highlighting of holidays, user events and today's date can be switched on and off separately.

As with Mac desk accessories (DAs) it can be chosen whether or not closing all windows quits the application.

All settings are saved along with the last window positions in a preferences file (file "AllDay Prefs" in "Preferences" folder of system folder).

Holidays

AllDay knows 30 holidays which can be indiviually switched on for display through a separate configuration window. Such holidays are highlighted in the yearly overview.

Computation of holidays is 'hard coded' and cannot be changed. For additional holidays user events can be used (see below).

Colors

Through another configuration window individual color settings can be chosen. Upon click on one of its color rectangles the Apple Color Picker is shown to allow the change of color. Foreground and background color of sundays, holidays, user events and today's date can be set.

User Events

In addition to holidays AllDay allows to enter user specific events thus enabling display of birthdays for example. Such events can be entered as holidays or as plain user events. User events are as well marked in the yearly overview.

Display of either date or week events are possible. A date events would be a birthday, for example recurring on October 16 each year. Week events instead incur each year on the same day of the same week of the same month, like the third wednesday in November for example.

Double clicking a day in the yearly overview brings up a window for entering a new user event. Upon choice of a user event from the popup menu which appears when clicking a day in the yearly overview (see below), a window for changing the chosen user event is shown.

User events are saved in a separate data document through the normal 'Open' and 'Save' functions.

Popup Menu for Day Details

By clicking and holding the mouse button while pointing to a day in the yearly overview the user can watch the day's details in a popup menu.

The menu contains the date in long notation, week number, number of days gone since January 1 and the number of days from the chosen day until the end of the year. All activated user events and holidays for this day are also shown in the menu.

Upon choice of a user event from the menu the window for changing the selected user event is shown.

AppleScript

AllDay supports AppleScript through the "Required Event Suite" including commands "Run", "Open", "Print" and "Quit".

Two other commands complete AllDay's AppleScript functionality. "getDayEvents" lists all event names for a given day. "isHoliday" tests whether a given day is a holiday.

For all AppleScript commands example scripts are available including a simple alarm function.

Additional goodies for AppleScripters: All algorithms used in AllDay are availble separately through my AppleScript extension (OSAX) "DatePack". DatePack extends AppleScript and thus the whol Macintosh system by respective commands and is available online as separate freeware package. Common sources include CompuServe (GO MACHYP) and the Internet (http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive.html).

About Development

AllDay has been developed using Symantec Think C. For documentation Symantec Think Reference (very good!) and the "Inside Macintosh" CD ROM by Apple have been used.

System Requirements

This version of AllDay should run on any Macintosh with an MC68020 or later CPU and System 7 or higher. It supports 32-Bit Color QuickDraw.

AllDay ppc runs on any Power Macintosh with at least PPC 601 processor.

Installation

Just copy the Folder "AllDay 5.0" to your hard disk, then double-click the AllDay icon to start the application.

For ready access, it is suggested to create an alias of the data document that contains your user events. Place it into your Apple Menu Folder and rename the alias to "AllDay". Whenever AllDay is chosen from your Apple Menu, AllDay is started and the user events document is opened.

If you have used an earlier version of AllDay, this version will rebuild the "Preferences" file, using default settings from the newer version.

CAUTION: When switching from any 68k version to any PPC version for the first time, the old "Preferences" file has to be removed manually. User events documents cannot be exchanged between 68k- and PPC versions.

Legal Stuff

This product is Freeware. Any commercial use (sale, publication etc.) is not allowed. Publication in magazines is welcome at any time. When sharing AllDay, the application and all of its additional documents must remain unchanged, i.e. please share only the original package. Please contact me when in doubt:

Ulrich Hilger
Avrillestrasse 5
65824 Schwalbach
Germany

CompuServe 100116,2751
e-Mail 100116.2751@compuserve.com

Internet http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Ulrich_Hilger

Please do let me know of any incompatibility you might encounter - this will help me to provide maximum stability in any future version(s) of AllDay.

Version History

Version 5.1 (12/14/1996)
* Easter Sunday is correctly displayed, when falling on March 31.
* When klicking in the yearly overview all day are displayed correctly in
the popup menu while vertical weekday display is on.
* Menu optin "New" can no longer be choesen if no window is open.

Version 5.0 (7/20/1996)
* A new AppleScript command "isHoliday" checks, whether a certain day
is a holiday.
* Calendar display now works for any year.
* Kalendar system can be changed between "Gregorian" and "Julian" (see
separate document 'About Calendars').
* Computation of week number can be switched to three different
county specific settings.
* Display of long date in day popup menu is now correct for any year.
* Display of number of day has been enhanced in the day popup menu
* English and German documentation has been improved.

Version 4.6 (3/24/1996)
* New AppleScript command "getDayEvents" allows retrieval of all events
of a given day. A new example script "Get Events" demonstrates this new
feature with a simple alarm function.
* Double clicking a day in the yearly overview brings up the window for
adding a new user event.
* Choosing a user event from the day popup menu shows the window for
changing the chosen user event.
* Attribute "show" is on by default when adding a new user event.

Version 4.5 (2/14/96)
* A german/french version of AllDay now exists due to the translation efforts of
Christophe Laporte

Version 4.5 (1/14/96)
* User events are shown either as holidays or user events (color)
* In the 68k Version, the long date is now shown correctly when bringing up a popup
menu by clicking on a day in the yearly overview.

Version 4.4 (12/31/95)
* The holiday popup menu has been extended to show information on any selected
day. It additionally contains long date, week number, number of days until the
chosen day and number of days from the chosen day until the end of the year.
* AllDay is scriptable through AppleScript. The "Required Event Suite" (run,
open, print, quit) has been implemented.
* With AllDay ppc published in parallel, a native PPC version is available.

Version 4.3 (11/25/95)
* Repentance Day ist now displayed correctly.
* All holidays and user events are being displayed in the respective pop up menu
instead of just the first of one day's holidays and user events.

Version 4.2 (8/14/94)
* Does not crash anymore upon choice of "Show User Events" menuoption while
32 bit addressing is on

Version 4.1 (4/23/94)
* When clicked in the yearly overview a marked day's name is shown in
a popup window
* The Program now knows 30 public holidays
* Preferences folder is recognized on Systems other than US or German
* Menus that open windows are as well showing the window again when
the window is hidden behind others
* Popup-Menus in the dialog for configuration of user events meet
Apple User Interface Guidelines
* Configuration dialog are now modeless. Window positions are stored
in the preferences file
* Popup-Menus in the dialog for configuration of user events are dimmed
according to the chosen event type
* Contains default colors
* Corrects some bugs of v4.0 regarding addition of user events, window and
file management

Version 4.0 (3/6/94)
* Introduces date and week type user events
* Allows to choose a separate color for display of user events in the
yearly overview
* New preferences dialog
* Holidays and user events are displayed in independently scrollable
and sizeable windows
* User can choose whether or not the application quits upon close of
all windows
* Prints user events together with holidays

Version 3.1 (12/18/93)
* Corrects some typos in the documentation and AllDay's "About"-Dialog and
in the documentation
* Contains a smaller holiday menu
* Allows printing through the standard print dialog
* Marks today's date
* Allows to change foreground- and background colors of sundays, holidays
and today's date
* Knows four new holidays (now 22)
* Routines that need Color-Quickdraw are called on Quickdraw-Macs only
* Needs only half of the RAM amont needed by version 3.0

Version 3.0 (11/7/93)
* Stores window positions in the "Preferences"-file as well
* Can now compute weekdays of years outside the range of the clock chip
* Knows up to 18 different public holidays
* Lists up to 18 holidays in a separate window
* Allows you to configure the holiday list through a separate dialog
* Marks chosen holidays in yearly overview
* Stores holiday settings in the "Preferences"-file
* Holiday functions are now accessible through new menu
* Version 3.0 is now Freeware

Version 2.3 (8/13/93)
* Corrects a memory management bug
* Stores current settings in a "Prefs" file within the
System's "Preferences" folder

Version 2.1 (4/12/93)
* Sundays will be drawn in red on Macs with 32-Bit Color
QuickDraw.

Version 2.0 (4/11/93)
* Calendar window remembers its position during most recent
session
* New "Change" menu
* Options for browsing and "Change Year" are now contained in the
"Change" menu
* Buttons at the bottom of the screen have been removed
* Choice of horizontal or vertical orientation for weekdays is now
available through "Change" menu
* Calendar table now is completely generated offscreen and then
copied onto the screen, providing faster screen updates
* Menu-choice of Sunday or Monday as the starting day for each week
* Menu-choice of English- or German-language calendar

Version 1.3 (3/8/93)
* Corrects some major bugs of Version 1.2

Version 1.2 (2/13/93)
* Initial publication

Credits & Special Thanks

Special thanks to my wife Simone for her acceptance of my "computer liaison".

A huge "Thank you!" to Steve Maller for his help and experience on debugging AllDay version 1.3 and to Christophe Laporte for his translation to french.

Thanks also to all the people who sent their comments for the sake of enhancing AllDay.


Original file name: Instructions - converted on Monday, 13 March 2000, 16:45

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