Ides Calendar

The author and Lithic Software Corporation assume no liability for the use of the Ides Applet. It is distributed without any warrantee of any type.

This applet and the accompanying images may not be distributed for profit or on CD without the express written consent of the copyright holder. The applet and documentation are Copyright 1998-1999, Lithic Software Corporation, all rights reserved. Images copyright John Keogh (keo@lithic.com). For updates go to:
http://www.lithic.com/java/java.html

This readme covers the following topics:
Using Ides
Parameters
License
Changes from version 1.2
Changes from version 1.3
Help/Consulting

Using Ides:
To use the calendar, create images that are uniformly sized. Earlier version of Ides required that you use 220X140 images, but the current version accepts any size image, but each month should be the same size. Name them january.jpg, february.jpg, march.jpg, (this can be modified (see below)). The pictures that came with the package are included for demonstration, please replace them with your own images when you are ready to use Ides publicly. Load the pictures in the same directory as the applet class files, then use the tag below in your html code. If the applets and images are located in a different directory than the web page, you will need to include a codebase modifier. If you use an image for the background that the calendar is drawn on, it should be the same size as the calendar (if it is another size, it will be resized prior to rendering).

You can modify the parameters (see parameters), but if you are new to HTML and Java, you may want to just leave them as they are.

An example HTML file, ides.html, is included for demonstration. To begin, you may want to examine the tag and parameter in that file, then make modifications after you have seen the way that it works. The parameters are discussed below.

When you upload this or any applet, you need to use binary mode rather than ASCII mode. Binary mode is the default mode for a lot of FTP clients, so generally just upload as normal. The parameters are discussed below.

Parameters:

The parameters are briefly discussed below.

<APPLET CODE="ides140.class" width=330 height=380>
The width and height can be adjusted to accomodate the size of the images that you are using, or the amount of space that you have available on your page. The width should be the width of the images or calendar (these generally should be the same size, but you can make one or the other wider, if one is wider, use it for this calculation) plus 10. So if your images are 320 wide, the width should be 330.
The height is the calendarheight plus the imageheight plus 20.

<PARAM NAME=day1 VALUE="Description for the first day 1/18/2001 java/java.html">
<PARAM NAME=day2 VALUE="Description for the second day 2/18 .">
<PARAM NAME=day3 VALUE="Another description 10/18/1999 software/charm.html">
The days must be contiguous, ie day1, day2, day3, day4 ....
The format is:
description date url
Note that the date must be separated from the description by a single space, and the url must be separated from the date by a single space. If there is no link, use a dot (.) as the url, as in the example above for day2. If the date is recurring on the same date each year, do not include a year. The date format is d/m/yyyy. dates should not use leading zeros (ie, don't use 01/01/2000 for January 1, 2000, use 1/1/2000 instead).

<PARAM NAME=root VALUE="http://www.lithic.com/">
Added to each link that does not start with "http". If all the links will be full urls, use "." here.

<PARAM NAME=target VALUE=".">
Three possibilities. Use "." to point the current browser at the link. Use "new" to create a new instance of the browser and pass it the URL. In a frames environment you can use the name of a frame as the target (be sure to NOT name the target frame "new"). So if your target frame is named "show", use "show" as the target.

<PARAM NAME=Sun VALUE="Sun">
<PARAM NAME=Mon VALUE="Mon">
<PARAM NAME=Tue VALUE="Tue">
<PARAM NAME=Wed VALUE="Wed">
<PARAM NAME=Thu VALUE="Thu">
<PARAM NAME=Fri VALUE="Fri">
<PARAM NAME=Sat VALUE="Sat">
These are the names of the days. If you use a language other than English, you can substitute the appropriate three letters from your language for the defaults.

<PARAM NAME=January VALUE="January">
<PARAM NAME=February VALUE="February">
<PARAM NAME=March VALUE="March">
<PARAM NAME=April VALUE="April">
<PARAM NAME=May VALUE="May">
<PARAM NAME=June VALUE="June">
<PARAM NAME=July VALUE="July">
<PARAM NAME=August VALUE="August">
<PARAM NAME=September VALUE="September">
<PARAM NAME=October VALUE="October">
<PARAM NAME=November VALUE="November">
<PARAM NAME=December VALUE="December">
These are the names of the months. If you use a language other than English, you can substitute the the month name from your language for the month name given above.

<PARAM NAME=JanuaryImage VALUE="january.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=FebruaryImage VALUE="february.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=MarchImage VALUE="march.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=AprilImage VALUE="april.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=MayImage VALUE="may.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=JuneImage VALUE="june.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=JulyImage VALUE="july.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=AugustImage VALUE="august.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=SeptemberImage VALUE="september.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=OctoberImage VALUE="october.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=NovemberImage VALUE="november.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=DecemberImage VALUE="december.jpg">
These are the names of the images that will be loaded for the corresponding month. The images must be in the codebase (if you upload everything to the same directory, and do not change the applet tag, that is the codebase). You can change them, but they should be a file name, do not use a URL. To ensure reliable loading, these images should not be very large.

<PARAM NAME=About VALUE="About">
<PARAM NAME=Next VALUE="Next">
<PARAM NAME=Previous VALUE="Previous">
<PARAM NAME=Current VALUE="Current Month">
<PARAM NAME=loading VALUE="Loading Image...">
These values are used to supply the text for the navigation button, and for the text that is displayed when the images are loading.

<PARAM NAME=weekstartsonmonday VALUE="false">
Most Europeans start the week on Monday, so they would set this to true. Americans start the week on Sunday, so leave it false. Everybody else, set appropriately for your locale or audience.

<PARAM NAME=wrapyear VALUE=".">
If you want to set the calendar to only display a certain year, set this to that year (for example, use VALUE="1999" to show only 1999). Set this to ".", as shown, to display a perpetual calendar.

These let you set the font for the header (month and year) and calendar (days). The permissible values for style are plain, bold, italic, and bolditalic (case sensitive). If the font you refer to is not available on the viewing system, it will substitute TimesRoman 12 point plain. You should try to use common fonts, for example:
Arial
TimesRoman
Dialog

The imagewidth and image height secify the width and height of the images shown above the calendar. If the images you use are a different size, they will be resized prior to rendering. The calendarwidth and calendarheight are the width and height of the calendar. The calendar will be rendered best is the calendarheight is evenly divisible by 8 and the calendarwidth is evenly divisible by 7 (the example above isn't, but the effect is rather subtle, the drawing of the lines is off by one pixel in one of the rows and one of the columns).

<PARAM NAME=backcolor VALUE="F0F0F0">
<PARAM NAME=calendarimage VALUE="back.jpg">
<PARAM NAME=calendarback VALUE="F0F0F0">
<PARAM NAME=text VALUE="000000">
<PARAM NAME=lines VALUE="909090">
<PARAM NAME=bright VALUE="EEEEEE">
<PARAM NAME=dark VALUE="505050">
The backcolor is the color of the applet background. The calendarback is the color of the calendar background. The lines, bright, and dark parameters are used to draw the lines on the calendar, and to make important dates appear raised. The text parameter is used to set the text color. The calendarimage is used if there is a background image. If there is no background image, use a "." as the value. The file size of the background image should be as small as possible, as the calendar will not render completely until it is downloaded.

The colors must be in hex format, as shown. If you need some help with this format, try the hex color calculator (for Windows 3.1/95) located at:
http://www.lithic.com/software/free.html

If you make a mistake, the default colors of black or white will be used for the lines and background.

License:
Ides must be licensed before being used publicly on the web (please do test ides on the web prior to buying it, but on a test URL).

License information is available online at:
http://www.lithic.com/ordering/ides.html

Changes from version 1.2
Version 1.4 is substantially different than earlier versions of Ides. In response to user requests, the way that the dates, descriptions, and links are added has been changed to make creation and maintenance easier. Additionally, the height and width of the calendar and images need to be specified, this gives the designer more freedom as far as sizing the calendar is concerned. If you are upgrading, you should read the entire parameters section above and review the included ides.html file, then read the section below on changes from version 1.3.

Changes from version 1.3
Two changes from 1.3 to 1.4. One change wass the addition or a wrapyear parameter, which permits the end user to create a calendar that only displays a given year. The other change involves the position of the navigation buttons. Because many people suggested that the buttons be bigger, and because there is space available at the bottom right of the calendar, the buttons were moved to the bottom right.

To upgrade from version 1.3, be sure to add the following parameter (substitute a four digit year if you like):
<PARAM NAME=wrapyear VALUE=".">
and make the appropriate changes to the CODE= part of the applet tag.

Help/Consulting
For General questions, contact John Keogh at keo@lithic.com. Consulting, help with the parameters, customizing, and programming are available for a fee from Lithic Software Corporation. To contact Lithic Software, email to consulting@lithic.com