                           D A T E M I N D E R
                        (C) 1993 Dillo Software

    DATEMINDER is a simple reminder program designed to remind you of 
    upcoming events as you boot up your computer.  It is copyrighted 
    material and released as SHAREWARE... If you find it useful after 
    14 days and intend to continue using it, I urge you to register 
    the program with me at:
              
              Ray Fortner
              924 Glade Forest Ct.
              Cedar Hill, TX, 75104

    The registration fee is $7 and entitles you to product support, 
    notice of upgrades, and bug fixes (hopefully none 
    are needed!).  Please use the form below to register.  I also 
    solicit your comments and opinions on the utility of Dateminder, 
    and how I can improve it.  Thank you for supporting Shareware.

    
    ===================================================================
    D A T E M I N D E R   Version 1.0              Product Registration
    I am enclosing the $7 registration fee for:

    Name    ___________________________________________

    Address ___________________________________________

    City    ___________________________________________

    State/Prov. ________________  Zip/Postal __________

                                          _    
              Check diskette type: 5.25" |_|
                                          _
                                   3.5 " |_|
              Remit to:

              Ray Fortner
              924 Glade Forest Ct.
              Cedar Hill, TX 75104
    -------------------------------------------------------------------

    Comments: ________________________________________________________
   
    __________________________________________________________________

    __________________________________________________________________

    __________________________________________________________________

    __________________________________________________________________


    =========================Clip=here================================

    DESCRIPTION:  Dateminder is designed as an unobtrusive, simple, 
    small reminder program to help keep you from overlooking those 
    pesky little dates, birthdays, anniversarys and other items that 
    are important for you to remember.  It is NOT a full-blown 
    Personal Information Manager, and doesn't have a lot of bells and 
    whistles.  It is written entirely in assembly language for speed 
    and compactness - the actual code uses less than 12K bytes, with 
    the rest of the file size being used for data.  I do plan some 
    enhancements, depending on user support and inputs for further 
    development.


    INSTALLATION:  I developed Dateminder to be called from the 
    AUTOEXEC.BAT file at boot-up, so that you will be reminded of 
    upcoming events when your computer is started.  The best way to do 
    his is to place the files DATEMIND.COM and DATEMIND.DAT in the 
    root directory of your boot drive (normally Drive C:). To do so, 
    at the DOS prompt, copy those two files to the C:\ directory.  If 
    you choose to place them in another directory, that's fine also, 
    subject to a slight restriction, explained momentarily.

    Now open your AUTOEXEC.BAT file with a text editor and add the 
    line:
              C:\DATEMIND

    somewhere in the file.  I suggest the last line before executing 
    the DOSSHELL or WIN command.  If Dateminder is not in the root 
    directory, you will have to make  its' directory current before 
    running, so that it can find the data file.  To do this, enter 
    these lines in AUTOEXEC instead of the above (assume you put 
    Dateminder in the \DOS directory):

              CD \DOS
              C:\DOS\DATEMIND
              CD \

    Finally, if you don't want the Dateminder window to pop up if 
    there is nothing in it (i. e. there are no current reminders), add 
    the /N switch to the DATEMIND command:

              C:\DATEMIND /N

    -------------------------------------------------------------------

 COMMAND SYNTAX:  The command syntax for Dateminder is very simple:

              DATEMIND [/M] [/W] [/N]

 The switches (in brackets) are optional and have the following effects:

    /M - Causes Dateminder to start in Monthly display mode.  This is 
    the default and is normally unnecessary.

    /W - Causes Dateminder to start in Weekly display mode.

    /N - Tells Dateminder not to open display unless there are current 
    reminders to show.

    The switches are not case-sensitive and can be entered in upper or 
    lower case, in any order.

    USING DATEMINDER:  When called, Dateminder pops up a window in the 
    center of the screen (don't worry, the data underneath is saved!).  
    The window is divided into 3 sections.  The top section is for 
    program I.D.  The center section, or pane, is for data display, 
    entry, and editing, and the bottom pane is for the command menu 
    bar.

    Initially, the program is in Upcoming Events mode, with the cursor 
    in the data display pane next to the first reminder.  Of course, 
    the 1st time you start Dateminder, there are no reminders.  The 
    bottom pane tells you to press Escape to exit, F2 for the menu, 
    and F3 to toggle the "look-ahead" mode between monthly and weekly.  
    The mode is shown highlighted.  A note at the bottom of the data 
    display pane reminds you that to acknowledge an item, type an 'x' 
    beside it.  More on acknowledging items later - first you have to 
    enter some.  Following are the menu commands:

    New events:
    To enter new reminders, press F2 to get to the menu.  From the 
    menu bar in the bottom pane, press N to bring up the New Item 
    entry form in the data pane.  Data entry in this form is straight- 
    forward - type in the numeric date in Month-Day-Year form.  You 
    can use wildcard  dates for recurring events - wildcards are 
    explained later.  The cursor advances to the Event field for you 
    to enter the event you wish to be reminded of.  Use the <tab> key 
    to move from field to field.  The next two fields are optional.  
    The first, "Remind __ days in advance", allows you to specify how 
    soon in advance of the date a non-erasable reminder is displayed.  
    The default is 2 days.  The second, "Remind after acknowledged 
    (Y/N)", if answered with a Y, causes the reminder to be shown 
    continuously, even after user acknowledgment.  The default is N.  
    When ready to store the event, press Enter to return to the menu 
    screen, and the new reminder is displayed (if within the date 
    scope, monthly or weekly).

    Edit events:
    To edit existing events, press E from the menu bar.  This will 
    display a list of all events in the data file, in chronological 
    order, with the cursor next to the first one. Use the arrow keys 
    to move the cursor next to the event to be edited, and press 
    enter.  If there are more than six events in the file, use PgDn 
    and PgUp to page through the file to get to the event you want.  
    After selecting the event, it is displayed in the entry form for 
    you to change as necessary.  Press Enter when through and it will 
    be stored in its new form.  Press Escape to return to the menu bar.
    
    Delete events:
    To delete an event, press D from the menu bar.  This will bring up 
    the same list as Edit, except that it will be titled "Delete 
    item".  Choose the event to delete the same way you did in Edit, 
    and press Enter.  The event will turn red, and you will be asked 
    to confirm the deletion with a 'Y'.  Any other key will abort the 
    delete.  Again, press Escape to return to the menu bar.  A note: 
    one-time events are automatically deleted after they are past - 
    unless you didn't acknowledge them.

    Print events:
    To print a listing of currently due events, press P from the menu 
    bar.  You will be prompted to check your printer and press Y to 
    print the list.  Pressing the N key will abort the print command.

    Calendar:
    Pressing C at the menu bar brings up a calendar display in the 
    data pane.  This can be used for planning ahead, or reference.  
    Pressing the left or right arrow keys changes the month backward 
    or forward, while pressing the up or down arrow keys advances or 
    decreases the year.  The date range is from Jan, 1980 to Dec, 2099.

    WHAT IS DISPLAYED, AND WHEN:  After your events have been entered, 
    you will spend most of your time in the data display mode (the 
    cursor in the data pane).  As noted, this is the start-up mode of 
    Dateminder.  When called, Dateminder looks ahead either one month 
    or one week, depending on your command, and finds all 
    unacknowledged events, plus all events that are within the number 
    of days specified in the "Remind in advance" field, and displays 
    them in chronological order.  If there are more than six events 
    due, you can display them by using PgDn and PgUp to page through 
    the list.  An unacknowledged item is identified by a blank next to 
    its' date.  To acknowledge it, move the cursor to the blank and 
    press 'x'.  The next time the program is started, this event will 
    not appear - unless or until it is within the number of days you 
    set for advance reminding.

    As an example, let's track an event all the way through its life 
    cycle.  On October 1st, you enter the event:  "11/07/93  10:30 
    Meeting with Bob", and set the "Remind days in advance" to 5.  
    After pressing Enter to store this date, it does not appear on the 
    list just yet, as it is over a month away.  On October 7th, when 
    Dateminder is called, this event pops up in the data display, with 
    a blank next to the date.  To make it go away, move the cursor to 
    the blank and press 'x'.  The event won't go away during this 
    session, but the next time Dateminder is started, it will not 
    appear.  The next time it does show up will be on November 2nd, 5 
    days in advance of the meeting.  Now it will appear every time 
    Dateminder is started.  On Nov. 7th, the date will read "Today" 
    and you should acknowledge it again.  If you do, on Nov. 8th, the 
    event will be deleted from the file automatically.  If you don't 
    acknowledge it again, it will show up subsequently in red until 
    you either acknowledge it, or delete it yourself.

    WILDCARD DATES:  To save time and typing entering many events, 
    particularly those that recur with regularity, such as birthdays, 
    anniversaries, monthly bills, weekly meetings, etc., you can enter 
    wildcards for dates.  This way you only have to enter Aunt Nelly's 
    birthday once and it will come around again every year until Aunt 
    Nelly cashes in.  A wildcard is a '**' entered in the month or 
    year fields, or a weekday abbreviation in the day field.  There 
    are seven combinations of wildcards, shown in the examples below:

     MM/DD/YY                     Meaning
     =========                    ======
     **/12/93                     The 12th of every month in 1993
     12/25/**                     December 25th of every year
     **/15/**                     The 15th of every month, every year
     02/TU/94                     The second Tuesday of every month of 
                                  1994
                                  (Note: the 02 does NOT refer to 
                                   February)
     **/WE/93                     Every Wednesday in 1993
     01/SA/**                     The first Saturday of every month, 
                                  every year
     **/MO/**                     Every Monday, every year

    Valid weekday abbreviations are SU, MO, TU, WE, TH, FR, and SA.  
    You may enter them in upper or lower case.

    A wildcard date, after past due and acknowledged, will reset 
    itself to the next occurence and appear at the proper times.

    ERRATA:  Following are a couple of idiosyncracies in v1.0 of 
    Dateminder, and how to avoid them:

    1)  After entering new events, DON'T acknowledge them immediately.  
    This can cause a system lock-up if you are using a disk cache.  
    Just leave the new items un-acknowledged until the next time 
    Dateminder is started and there will be no problem.

    2)  If you enter an invalid date, such as one that has already 
    past, Dateminder will beep and request a valid date.  It may 
    continue to do so even after you type over the incorrect date with 
    a correct one.  If this happens, press Escape to return to the 
    menu bar, then press N to reenter the New Item mode and start 
    over.  Dateminder is particular about the date being entered in 
    the correct format: Month/Day/Year.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------
