Remembering Tomorrow   One problem ... Two solutions ...    by John Collett ---------------------------------------------------------- | This is either : An ARexx tutorial dressed up | | to look like something useful | | | | Or : Something which could be useful | | pretending to be an ARexx tutorial | ----------------------------------------------------------  <> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <>   The Problem  I have tried programs such as 'Badger' and 'Nag', but have not adopted any of them as a permanent feature of my setup because they don't provide exactly what I want. I normally use my Amiga every day, at any time of the day, but when, at certain times of the year, the workload in my regular employment gets heavier than average, it may well be the evening before I get round to switching on the machine. In the busy season, it is tomorrow rather than today that I need to be reminded about. One clumsy method of achieving that is to write entries in the data file in such a way that they always refer to the next day. In the end, I decided to write my own program, one that would : 1 Work at startup. 2 Work only once a day. 3 Remind me about today and tomorrow. 4 Do nothing if the relevant file of reminders contained no entry for those days. 5 Be readily available at all times (2 notwithstanding). 6 Be easy to use.  Two Solutions  I've written two very similar versions, for non-owners and owners of HyperBook respectively. The first is an ARexx program which can be run from startup and from CLI (or from an icon if that's how you do things). The second, written in ARexx and HML (HyperBook Macro Language), also runs at startup, or it can be run from a click in a menu list. This is the one I have adopted for regular use, because, as described in MD32, I always have HyperBook running as my custom-designed WorkBench equivalent. Before we look at the code in any detail, one or two preliminary observations may be helpful.  Dates  The date() function in ARexx can take up to three arguments. For just the first argument (as in date('n'), which is the default), 12 different values are possible : b, c, d, e, i, j, m, n, o, s, u, w. The letters stand for Base, Century, Days, European, Internal, Julian, Month, Normal, Ordered, Standard, USA, and Weekday - and that's all I'll say about most of them here. The default 'n' for Normal yields dd mmm yyyy, as in 21 Sep 1993. The only other one used in the coding below is 's' for Standard, that is, yyyymmdd, as in 19930921. The second and third arguments of the date() function need to be used if a date other than today is to be specified. If the second argument is a date in standard format, then 's' is required as the third argument, and the function returns the requested format for that date. For example, date('n',19930921,'s') yields 21 Sep 1993. Only 's' or the default value 'i' are allowed for the third argument, which means that you can specify a date other than today only in the 'Standard' form as just described or as 'Internal' (the number of days since 01/01/1978 (?), the conventional Amiga start date). A lot more could be said about the versatile date() function, but the preceding lines are enough to explain the use we'll be making of it below.  File 1 : To contain all your reminders  An imaginatively named file, 'datelist', needs to be constructed to hold whatever it is you want to be reminded about. I put mine in the 'S:' directory, but one of the beauties about ARexx is the ease with which it can be adjusted. You can easily name 'datelist' whatever you like and store it wherever you like, as long as your program specifies it accurately. In 'datelist', any line which starts with a four-character numeric string, mmdd, as in 0921, is the beginning of an entry for a date. That particular type of date entry has much to commend it, since we are interested in 'a date other than today', namely, tomorrow. To get at that, we need to use the three-argument version of the date() function, and in particular want to be able to 'add 1' to today's date, even if it's the last day of the month, and get a sensible value in return. This little patch, which adds five days, one at a time, starting at Feb 26, shows what I mean : Its output day = 19930225  --> 0226 do 5  | 0227  i = right(date('s',day,'s'),4) | 0228  day = day + 1  | 0301  say i  --------------------------- 0302  end  Add 1 to Feb 28, and (in 1993) you get March 1. The year needn't bother us for our input and output (though I do use it in a cosmetic way in the program), but obviously the four-character mmdd entry and its ease of conversion are useful for a program which always wants to know about today's and tomorrow's date. The arrangement of entries in 'datelist' can be like this : 0921 This four-line note will appear on Sept 20 and 21. On its first appearance it will remind me about what I have to remember for tomorrow. On its second, it will be about today. 1005 A reminder I need for October 5. It'll first appear on October 4. 1101 A single line dated November 1 1225 Xmas Day. If the file contains no relevant entries, the Reminder program exits without any visible effect.  File 2 : To inhibit further runs on a given day  ARexx contains the statef() function, which returns this kind of string : FILE 2853 3 ----RWED 5611 888 1457 com | | | | | | | | Type (FILE or DIR) ---------- | | | | | | | Size in bytes -------------------- | | | | | | Size in blocks ----------------------- | | | | | Protection bits ---------------------------- | | | | Creation date in days since 'Internal' date ------ | | | Creation time in minutes since midnight --------------- | | Creation time in ticks (1/50 sec) within the minute ------- | File note, if any --------------------------------------------- I use this, parsing out the creation date element and ignoring the rest, to find out whether or not the Reminder program has already been used today. Each time it runs, the program creates a tiny (empty) file 's:today', but before it does that, it checks the creation date of any existing file of that name. If that date is today, the program exits (unless an additional argument has been used - see below). If the 'today' file does not exist (the first time used) then it is created, in 'S:', and this is the only demand the program imposes on your system other than the 'datelist' which you have to put there yourself.  Availability after startup  If installed, the program will run at startup, and exit immediately if it has already run today or if it has no entries for today or tomorrow. What if you want to run it again today? From CLI, the command 'rx Reminder' (no quotes) will run it, and if you add any argument whatsoever to that command, e.g. 'rx Reminder 1', then it will not exit, even if it has already run today. It will still produce nothing, of course, if there are no relevant entries.  Size and position of output  The console window which this version produces will be wide enough to accept the longest line of its output (minimum 200 pixels, to accommodate the date heading), and deep enough to display everything it has to. It will be centred horizontally, with its top at 60 pixels down, though it would be easy to centre it vertically if you wanted to.  Removal  When you have read your reminders, press Return or click on the window's close gadget. Here is the full text of the program, and a few explanatory comments.  /* Reminder */  /* Version 1 ARexx Program Opens its own console window */  /* Reasons to exit immediately :  Store exists, and holds today's date  And : No argument was added to the 'rx' command */ store = 's:today' if exists(store) then do parse value statef(store) with a a a a day a a a  /* The 'a's are dummies. We only want 'day' */ today = date('s') if ( date('s',day,'i') = today ) & (arg() = 0) then exit end  /* Recreate 'store', with today as creation date */ op = open(td,store,'w') ; cl = close(td)  /* Set up four-char 'today' and 'tomorrow' variables */ today = right(date('s'),4) tomorrow = right(date('s',date('s')+1,'s'),4)  /* Initialisations */ year = left(date('s'),4) longest = 200 ; linecount = 0 ; str1 = '' ; str2 = ''  /* Get both day's entries from 'datelist' */ op = open(dl,'s:datelist','r') ; if op = 0 then exit call DateEntry(today) ; if entry ~= '' then str1 = entry s = seek(dl,0,'b') /* Back to start for second scan */ call DateEntry(tomorrow) ; if entry ~= '' then str2 = entry cl = close(dl)  /* Work out window position and size */ if str1 ~= '' | str2 ~= '' then do h = (linecount + 2) * 9 ; w = longest + 32 ;lft = (630 - w)%2 params = lft ||'/60/' || w || '/'|| h  /* Open window.  Display dates and entries for either or both days */ window = open(con,'con:' || params ||'/Reminders/CLOSE') if str1 ~= '' then do t = writeln(con,' Today ' || date('n',year || today,'s')) t = writeln(con,'9b'x || '32m' || str1 || '9b'x || '31m') end if str2 ~= '' then do t = writeln(con,' Tomorrow ' || date('n',year || tomorrow,'s')) t = writeln(con,'9b'x || '32m' || str2 || '9b'x || '31m') end  /* Wait for Return key or a click on Close gadget */ out = readch(con) end /* end of "if str1 ~= '' | str2 ~= ''" */ exit  /* A function to obtain today's and tomorrow's entries */ DateEntry: do until eof(dl)  /* Look for dated entry in 'datelist' */ entry = readln(dl) date = left(entry,4) if date = arg(1) then do  /* Get at least the one line */ linecount = linecount + 1 ; entry = substr(entry,6) longest = max(longest,length(entry)*8) more = '' do forever  /* Until another dated line (or eof) is found */ linecount = linecount + 1 ; more = readln(dl) if ( datatype(left(more,4),n) | eof(dl) ) then leave longest = max(longest,length(more)*8)  /* Concatenate into one string containing linefeeds */ entry = entry || '0a'x || more end /* of 'do forever' */ leave end /* of 'if date' */ end /* of 'do until' */ return entry ----------------------------------- /* Reminder */ /* Version 2 ARexx and HyperBook */ The following description of the Hyperbook version of Reminder will cover only those aspects which are not the same as in Version 1. Only patches of code are provided here, but inserting them as required to replace parts of the above script is fairly straightforward. HyperBook scripts may contain macros. Those macros may be activated by key or mouse actions, or by several other more subtle means. If there is a macro called 'PageEntryMacro' it will be executed whenever a new page is entered. It can either carry out some action which you want to happen on every page, or it can check the page number concerned and be selective in what it does. My version runs the Reminder program on page 1 only, under the same conditions as described for Version 1. Page 1 contains a 'List' which holds my day-to-day menu, and one of its entries is 'Reminder'. If I click on that list item, the Reminder program will run irrespective of any earlier run the same day. if CurrentPage() ~= '1:' then exit   DoAnyWay = 0 ; it = initiator()  if it ~= '' then  DoAnyWay = (GetType(it) = 'Item') & (GetItemText(it) = 'Reminder') After the 'today' check :  if ( date('s',day,'i') = today ) & (DoAnyWay = 0) then exit  Initializations and the reading-in of any entries via the DateEntry() function are all as in the CLI version. The parameters for the window become the width, height, and position for a HyperBook 'Note' which displays the reminder texts, and the 'Action' set for the 'Note' is to delete itself. You just have to click on it when you've seen what you want to see, and it disappears. There are two approaches to the creation of the 'Note' in which the text is displayed. If you use the CreateNote() function, the new note inherits the 'Text control' and 'Spacing' attributes of any previously made note, whatever they happen to be. If, like me, you prefer to have tighter control over the details of the appearance of the reminder note, an alternative method is to store a sample note somewhere on page 1, and then make a clone from it:  newnote = Clone(arg,'0:')  I'll spell out in a bit more detail one way of doing that : - Make a HyperBook 'Note' - Put the word 'Sample' in it for easy identification - Ascertain its 'objnum' :  obj = SearchText(':','Sample')  - Using the built-in editors, set every detail of its appearance (colour, shadow, style, and spacing) exactly how you want them to be for your reminders. - Drag the 'Sample' note away into a corner, out of the way, and make it invisible : call SetVisibility(obj,0)  - At any time you can make a Clone of that note (preferably in the bin) with :  newnote = Clone(obj,'0:')  The clone will have exactly the same attributes as the sample, and be ready for the macro to insert the required text and assign its size and position as required. Unlike the '60 pixels down' of the CLI version, my HB version places the reminder note centrally at the foot of the screen. Instead of the "Open window" patch in Version 1, by which point, remember, the size and position parameters have been defined, the HyperBook version can have something like :  obj = SearchText(':','Sample')  note = Clone(obj,'0:')  call ScaleToSize(note,w,h)  call SetPosition(note,lft,245 - h)  call InsertText(note,str1 || '0a'x || str2,0)  call SetActionRexx(note,'call HML_Delete(initiator())')  new = Relocate(note,':') /* From the bin to the page */  end exit  --------------------------- One year I forgot my wife's birthday. I think I have slightly reduced the chances of that happening again. Hamilton, New Zealand May, 1993 ---------------------------  <> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <>