Daily Reminders

Vers 3.0

By David Grund Sr.

Table of Contents.................................................................................................................. 3

About the Program................................................................................................................ 4

Program Installation............................................................................................................... 5

Program Operation................................................................................................................ 6

Main Screen.......................................................................................................................... 7

Edit a Reminder..................................................................................................................... 9

Check a Reminder............................................................................................................... 13

Add a Reminder.................................................................................................................. 14

Delete a Reminder............................................................................................................... 15

Reminder Types.................................................................................................................. 16

Modification History............................................................................................................ 17

About the Program

Daily Reminders is a reminder program. It is different from all other reminder programs that I have ever used in that it does "intelligent" rescheduling.

Have you ever scheduled an oil change for every three months, and then you were two months late? When you told your program that you finally got the oil change done, it rescheduled it for the next month, because you told it “every three months”. That is useless.

There are four basic types of reminders. Those other reminder programs or PIMs handle them all the same way, and that is where their deficiency lies. This program handles them uniquely. An explanation is provided later.

Note that Daily Reminders is not designed to notify you of reminders at certain times throughout the day. That would blur its purpose, and make the program unnecessarily tough to use. Besides, that’s the job of my Alarm Clock program (shameless plug).

Like everything I write, I wrote Daily Reminders because I had a strong need for a program like this. I could find nothing that did “intelligent” rescheduling, whether shareware, freeware, or commercial.

I use this program on a daily basis. This way, I can stay on top of any bugs that crop up, and I am in tune with any developments that need to be made. Besides, I felt that it would be a terrible shame not to share this program with the world (hence the documentation).

I have not wasted a lot of time putting in all kinds of little features and functions that very few people, if anybody, will ever use. That results in bloatware. This program is small and fast.

I will entertain ideas for enhancements, bug reports, suggestions, comments, etc. Please contact me at support@davegrund.com. Technical support is available for free via e-mail.

Program Installation

Daily Reminders is manually installed.

1) Create a directory (folder) for the sole use of Daily Reminders.

2) Copy the distribution file, DLYREM30.ZIP into that directory.

3) Unzip that file using your favorite unzipping program.

4) After all of the files are expanded, MOVE DLYREM30.ZIP to a diskette or somewhere else for safe keeping, out of that directory.

5) Create a Windows shortcut to the program, with no command line parameters. Put this shortcut with all of your other Windows applications. This is the one you will use to call the program up on demand.

6) Create another Windows shortcut, with one command line parameter: CHECK. Put this shortcut into your startup group. This way, the program will apprise you of all current reminders every time you start your system.

The program does not use the Windows Registry, and there are no DLL’s to install. If you wish to uninstall (sob), simply delete the directory and its contents, and the uninstall is clean and complete.

Program Operation

Daily Reminders can be started with or without a command line parameter.

If you start the program without the command line parameter, the program will display the main form. It is from there that all of your work starts.

Daily Reminders can be started with the parameter “Check” (no quotes). When this is done, the program will check to see if any reminders are due today. If so, it will a “Current Reminder” screen for each reminder it finds due. See the documentation for details.

The program can contain a maximum of 1,000 reminder records.

The program will check to see if you are trying to read a previous version of the data file. If it detects a previous version, a message will appear, and the program will stop. (Data files from Version 2 and Version 3 are identical in format, so these do not apply).

When writing this manual, a certain amount of Windows knowledge on the part of the user is assumed. For example, it is assumed that the user knows that if the “b” is underlined on a button, he/she can press Alt-B instead of clicking that button.

Main Screen

Upper Left Corner: Future versions of the program may allow you to specify the name of the datafile. But in the current version, the name of the file is DailyRem.DAT.

Version: The program version number appears on the right side on the same line as the form title.

Form grid: This grid shows three fields from each reminder: text, date, and notes. Double-clicking on ANY reminder will act as if the “Edit a Reminder” button was clicked.

Sort By Date: This button allows you to sort the reminders in the grid by the reminder date, in ascending order.

Sort By Text: This button allows you to sort the reminders in the grid by the reminder text, in ascending order.

Edit a Reminder: Clicking this button will start the “Edit Reminder” dialogue. Documentation of that dialogue can be found later in this manual.

About: Clicking this button will display the About Box.

Check Reminders: When you click this button, the program will check all of the reminders to see if any are “due” If so, a “Current Reminder” screen will appear.

Add a Reminder: This button will allow you to add a reminder.

Acknowledge: This button allows you to acknowledge the highlighted reminder.

Print Current

Reminders: This button will make a hardcopy list of all of the current reminders; that is, all of the reminders that are “due”. This function will start the standard Windows print dialogue.

Delete This

Reminder: This button will tag the reminder that is highlighted for deletion. (It is permanently deleted later)

Exit: Of course, this button will quit the program.

Edit a Reminder

There are four different Edit screen snapshots, since the layout and presence of controls differ.

Reminder Text: This can be any free-form text.

Start Date

End Date: The start date is the date that the reminder will take effect. The end date is date that the reminder will expire. These are drop-down boxes. If you click on the down arrow on the right side, a monthly calendar will appear. Alternatively, you can change the date inside the box. The day of the week changes automatically.

Events are tagged for deletion when they expire.

Reminder Type: This tells the program exactly what type of reminder this is, and designates how recurrence works. See the section on Reminder Types for a full explanation.

Frequency: This tells the program how often the reminder is to be activated.

Notice Days: This tells the program how many days before the start date to start presenting this reminder.

Reminder Notes: This is an area for free-form text. It appears on the dialogue box when the reminder is presented.

Frequency

Interval: This field appears only for certain Frequency Codes (every “n” days, weeks, etc). It tells how many durations of the named frequency the program should bear.

The check marks in SUN, MON, TUE, etc, indicate which days of the week that this reminder will become due. It is valid only for frequencies of “n times per week”.

The 31 check boxes represent the days of the month that this reminder will become due. It is valid only for frequencies of “n times per month”.

Check a Reminder

The program will go through the data file, and one-by-one, present each reminder that comes up due.

Acknowledge: Clicking this button will cause the reminder to reschedule, based on the information supplied (reminder type, frequency, etc). After pressing this button, the program will pause for about one second. This is to prevent inadvertent extra clicks, which will cause a remind to acknowledge extra times.

Print: Print this reminder on ONE sheet. This can be used to fold up and stick in one’s pocket.

Edit: Edit the reminder

Ignore: This button simply allows you to postpone a decision on the reminder. The reminder will be passed up for now. It will not be rescheduled.

Stop! No More! This allows you to quit the program, and not have to go through all the rest of the reminders that the program may find.

Add a Reminder

Most of the fields have been explained earlier in this manual.

At this point, the reminder is sitting in memory, waiting for you to decide what to do with it: Add it Now, or Cancel (and make it go away).

Delete a Reminder

Most of the fields have been explained earlier in this manual.

At this point, the program is waiting for you to decide what to do with it: Delete it now or Cancel the delete operation.

Reminder Types

Reminders are presented when the program checks for current reminders, whether by the user pressing the appropriate button, or by passing the word "Check" on the command line when starting the program.

When a reminder is acknowledged, it is rescheduled (or deleted, based on the dates).

There are four basic reminder types. They differ in the way they are rescheduled.

1 Event Reminder ("important" birthday, anniversary)

2 Event Notice ("non-important" birthday, anniversary, day of note)

3 Task Reminder (to-do, like change oil in car)

4 Money Reminder (like pay the mortgage, make car payment)

1 Event Reminder

This is a "nag" event: it will continue to appear until it is either acknowledged, or the end date is reached.

An example of this type of reminder is birthdays/anniversaries of family members.

2 Event Notice

This is a "no nag" event: it will appear only on the day that it is scheduled to.

Examples of this type of reminder are:

Birthdays of celebrities

Things that happened in the past, on this day

Take a daily vitamin. (In this case, if you miss one, you don't want to take two to catch up).

Typically, you don't want to know about these things after the day of their importance. (If you do, change it to #1, Event Reminder.

3 Task Reminder

This is a "nag" event: it will continue to appear until it is acknowledged.

An example of this type of reminder is: Change the oil in the car.

4 Money Reminder

This is a "nag" event: it will continue to appear until it is acknowledged.

An example of this type of reminder is: Pay the rent. Typically, with this kind of reminder, all occurrences must be acknowledged individually. If you miss one, it still must be handled.

Modification History

Vers Date Change

1.0 01/24/1999 Initial release

2.0 07/10/2001 Major modifications (too many to list). First shareware release.

3.0 11/15/2002 1. Increased the font on all of the screens from 8- to 10-pitch.

2. Add a delay after the Acknowledge button is pressed

3. Dates that have advance notice are displaying as the date minus the number of notice days, instead of the original date. That was corrected.