OpieUserManual/Calendar

= Calendar =

The Calendar is a way to keep track of all your appointments, birthdays, meetings, or any other event that you would put in a calendar.

Navigation
Navigation in the Calendar is simple. Along the top are five different buttons that allow you to set the type of view, which correspond to the five items in the "View" menu. Each one (except for "Today") changes the amount of time shown on the screen. "Day" shows one day, "Week" one week, etc. Today is the same as Day, except that it automatically sets the view to the current day.

The Day view
The day view shows your day divided up into blocks representing each hour. At the top is the navigation bar, where you will see a row of buttons representing the days of the current week, and on the left and right sides of the navigation bar are arrows, which allow you to move one day in either direction. If you are on the last day of the week, pressing the arrow will bring you into the first day of the next week (or vice-versa if you are going backwards). There is also a button that lists the current day, which you can press to select a day to view from a calendar dialog.

In the main view, there is a column of buttons, each of which represents one hour. If you select one, any new appointments will automatically default to beginning at that time and ending an hour later (which you can, of course, change when you create the appointment).

Clicking on an appointment will open a menu that lets you edit, delete or beam the appointment. Beam will beam the appointment to any device supporting the OBEX protocol (PalmOS based devices, cellphones, etc). libopieobex must be installed to use this feature.

The Week View
The week view allows you to see your week divided up into columns, representing each day of the week, and rows, representing each hour of the day. In the navigation bar at the top, there are two scroll boxes, the one on the left shows the current year, and the one to the right shows which week it is of that year. To the right of both of those is a label which shows the date range for the currently selected week.

In the main view, you see the week divided up into rows and columns representing the days of the week, and hours of the day. In each cell, you will see a blue square which represents an appointment, which you can press to see details of the appointment. If you press anywhere in the free space, you will go to the day of the column that you clicked in.

The Week List View
The week list view shows you all the appointments that you have that week without graphically representing how long they are or showing the free time between them. This is convenient if you need to see a list of all your appointments, but do not need to see how your time is mapped out. The navigation bar has an arrow button on either side, allowing you to move to the next or previous week, as well as a button which gives the current week number for that year. Pressing the week number button will bring up a calendar dialog, which allows you to select the week you are viewing. Selecting a day from the calendar will bring you to the week that day is in. To the right of that is a button with a "2" in it. When this is depressed, the main view will show two weeks at a time, instead of one. The last item is a label which shows the range of dates for the currently selected week.

The main view is comprised of several rows, each of which represents a day of the week. If you have an appointment on that day, the date will be red, otherwise it will be black (the current day is blue). Clicking on the date itself will bring you to the day view for that day. Under each day is a list of all the appointments for that day, as well as their start times. If you click on an appointment, you will go to an edit dialog for that appointment, which lets you view its details. Next to each day heading is a "+" sign, clicking it will create a new appointment for that day.

The Month View
The month view looks like a normal monthly calendar, allowing you to see on what days of the month you have appointments. In the navigation bar, there are two pairs of arrows. The pair with an arrow and a vertical line will take you to the first or last month of the currently selected year, while the normal arrow buttons will take you to the next or previous month. There is a dropdown menu which allows you to select the month, and a entry field which allows you to select the year (press the up or down arrows, or enter in your own year).

The main view is divided up into a grid, where the columns are the days of the week, and the rows are the weeks (just like an ordinary calendar). The currently selected day has a bold box drawn around it, and if the day has an appointment, there will be a small blue square in the bottom right corner of it (that square will have a smaller white square if it is a recurring appointment). If the appointment is an all day event, it will be drawn as a green dot instead. When you click on the sqaure of a day, you will be taken to the day view for that day.

Adding Appointments
To add an appointment, click on the add appointment button in the toolbar at the top of the window (an image of a blank page), and a dialog will open up, allowing you to enter information about the appointment (depending on the current view, and what you may have selected, there may be certain default settings).

At the top of the window is the description field, where you can enter in a short description of the appointment, or select a common one from the dropdown list. The location field allows you to do the same. The category dropdown allows you to assign the appointment to a category, which you can use later to view only some of your appointments. The button labeled "..." to the right of that will open up a dialog where you can add, delete, or edit certain categories.

To enter a start and end time, select the date for each from the dropdown menu, and then you can either manually enter a time, or you can use the three rows of numbers to more quickly enter it in. To use the fast input method, first click in the text entry field of the time you want to edit, then you need to select the hour. The first two rows are the hours, click whichever one you want. The third row of numbers are the minutes, in units of five. When you select the minutes field for the start time, it will automatically set the minutes field for the end time to the same thing, but you can change this by selecting the end field and giving it its own minutes field. Because of this, it is fastest to set the start time first and then the end time. There is also an "all day" checkbox, which will make the appointment take up the entire day.

Underneath this you can set the time zone of the appointment from the dropdown list. To change the available time zones, click the world icon, and it will open the City Time application. Refer to its documentation for changing the time zones. If you want to have an alarm go off, check the "alarm" checkbox, and then set the number of minutes before the appointment that you want the alarm to sound. If you set the dropdown list next to that to "silent" you will only be given a visual alarm, whereas if you set the alarm to "Loud", there will be an alarm sound as well. Note: opie-alarm must be installed for alarms to work.

To set whether the appointment repeats, click the "Repeat" button and a new dialog will open up. At the top is a row of buttons, which lets you set how often the appointment repeats. Selecting one of these buttons will change the interface below, to represent the available options for that type of repetition (selecting "None" will turn off repetition if you turned it on and no longer want it). When you are done, click "ok" in the upper right to select that type of repetition, or "x" to set it back to what it was (none if it is a new appointment).

Finally, you can add notes to the appointment by clicking the "Notes..." button which will open a dialog with a text entry field for adding notes. Press "ok" to accept the changes to the notes, "x" to cancel.

When you are done setting up the appointment, click "ok" in the top right of the window, or "x" to cancel adding the appointment.

Editing Appointments
How you start editing an appointment varies depending on what view you are in, but they will all open the same dialog. The dialog is the same as the Add Appointment dialog, except that the fields will already be filled in with the information that the appointment contains. Clicking "ok" will keep your changes, "x" will revert them to what they were before you edited them.

Finding Appointments
To find a specific appointment, click the find button in the toolbar (small green magnifying glass) and it will open a find dialog. Here you can enter the text you want to search for, as well as the category you want to search for, as well as the start date, and whether you want the search to be case sensitive. Click "Find" to find the next appointment that matches your criteria.

Beaming Appointments
To beam an appointment to another device using the IrDA and OBEX protocols, you must first install the IrDA Applet and enable IrDA with it (see Chapter 33). Then select the appointment that you would like to send in the Day View, and select Beam from the menu that appears. Opie will then send the appointment to any waiting device.