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[previous article] [next article]ECN users with Sun accounts have yet another reason to be excited. A Calendar Manager has just been installed on OpenWindows. This tool allows you to schedule appointments and events and to view a day, week, month, or year at a time.
This article will first discuss the different ways to view your calendar. Then it will address the process of entering and editing appointments. But first we must get into OpenWindows. . .
Type: " /usr/openwin/bin/openwin"
to access OpenWindows while logged into a Sun machine. (Note: do not attempt this while in the SunView environment. It won't work.)
Once you're in OpenWindows (it may take a few minutes), press the right mouse key to call up the Workspace menu. Choose Programs and then slide the mouse across and choose Calendar Manager from the second menu. A calendar icon will appear on the screen. Move the mouse to the icon and (1) press and hold the right mouse key then choose Open from the Window Menu or (2) double click on the left mouse button. You should get something like this:
Notice that the current date on the calendar is in a double box. You can move this double box to any other date in the month by moving the mouse to that square and pressing the left mouse key. Watch what happens when you double click on a square:
This is called the day view. Here you can see more detailed information about your appointments. Now if you choose week under the view menu (use the right mouse key), you will see something like this:
Notice the grid in the lower left corner. When you enter an appointment, the Calendar Manager automatically blocks out the time allotted to it.
Finally, let's look at the year view. Choose year under the view menu. You will see a calendar for 1991. The Calendar Manager contains calendars for the years 1970 - 1999.
The three buttons in the upper right part of the window- Prev, Today, and Next- are referred to as the navigation control buttons. You can click on Prev or Next to move forward or backward one time frame, which depends on whether you are using day, week, or year view. For example, if you are in month view, and you click on next, the window will show the next month. Clicking on Today brings you back to wherever the present day is.
Now that you understand what the calendar looks like and how to get around in it, let's discuss the process of entering appointments. First we must call up the Appointment Editor Window. Double click on the day of your appointment (in either week or month view). The window will appear:
Now follow this 5 step process to enter an appointment:
Type any information about the appointment that you want to remember on the lines following What: Each line can hold 255 characters, so feel free to put in all the information you desire.
If you can't seem to type anything there, it's probably because you didn't select the window. In this case, you need to move the pointer to the Appointment Editor Window and press the left mouse key. The top strip of the window will turn dark, and then you should be able to type the information in the window. Whenever you don't seem to be able to write in the window that you want to, check that the window is selected.
Move the pointer to the button next to Start. Press on the right mouse key to call up the time menu and choose the hour that the appointment starts. If it does not start on the hour then slide the mouse to call up the second menu, and choose the minutes part of the time. If your "appointment" is something like "Nicole's Birthday" or "Russian Lit paper due" i.e. something with no time associated with it, then select None from the menu.
The Calendar Manager automatically sets the end time of the appointment for one hour later than the start time. If you need to change that, then simply call up the time menu using the button next to End, and choose the desired ending time for your appointment in the way just described.
Change AM and PM if necessary by clicking on the box that is appropriate.
If your appointment is repeated on a weekly (or monthly, daily, biweekly, or yearly) basis, then click on the appropriate box next to Repeat. Under the collection of boxes you can tell the Manager how long you want the appointment repeated. To do this you can either choose a number in the menu by pressing the button next to Repeat, or you can click the left mouse key on the text field next to the button and type in the number of weeks (or months, etc.) that you need the appointment repeated.
Choose the way you want to be reminded of the appointment. Calendar Manager provides four ways of reminding you of your appointment: Beep, Flash, Open, and Mail. Beep and Flash cause the calendar icon to beep and flash. With Open, a window containing information about the appointment will pop up. Finally, if you choose Mail, a mail message will be mailed to the email address that you specify.
To choose any of these options, click the left mouse key on one (or more) of the four boxes by Reminder. Then you can decide how much in advance you would like to be reminded of the appointment. If you want to change the time that appears in the window, type a number in the appropriate text field.
Click on the Insert button at the bottom of the window. The appointment will then appear in the day, week, and month views.
To delete an appointment, bring up the Appointment Editor window for that particular date. Select the appointment that you want to delete by clicking the left mouse key on that appointment in the scrolling list in the upper right part of the window. Then click the left mouse key on the delete button at the bottom of the screen.
To edit an appointment that already exists in the calendar, call up the Appointment Editor Window for the particular day, select the appointment from the scrolling list, and then simply change the information that you need to change.
To close the Calendar Manager, move the pointer to the top strip of the Calendar Manager window and press the right mouse key. If you choose Close, the window will disappear and the calendar icon will be shown at the bottom of the screen. Then, if you want to use the Calendar Manager again, you only need to double click on the icon to call it up. If, on the other hand, you do not want the icon there, choose Quit from the menu.
To leave OpenWindows completely, press the right mouse key somewhere on the workspace (not in a window) to call up the workspace menu. Then choose Exit.
Calendar Manager has many other features that are not explained in this article. For example, there are ways of examining other people's calendars. Also, you can get really snazzy-looking printouts of the various views. The information in this article is enough to get you started in the Calendar Manager. But if you want to learn more, you can read about these and other options in chapter 4 of the Reference Guide to OpenWindows (ECN #747).
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