month(1) NAME month - a visual monthly calendar and time/event browser SYNOPSIS month [-d] DESCRIPTION Overview Month displays a calendar of the current month of the current year, with the current day highlighted. It then allows the user to browse to any month/day/year he chooses, and to schedule and recall events for a day or for some regular repeating series of days. Screen Areas There are four distinct areas of the screen. The days area where the days of the month are listed in calendar format, the months area where the months of the year are listed, the years area where a sequence of years are listed, and the schedule area, which may be blank and occupies lines 19-24 on the terminal. (lines below 24 are not used) Commands Quitting You may type 'Q' almost any time to quit. This will update your event database if you have made any changes. Your event database is a file called ".month" in your home directory. Control-c or Control-\ can be used any time for immediate abort and no event database update. Any time you quit in any of these ways, you will be informed of whether your event database has been updated. Cursor motion 'h', 'l', 'k', and 'j' are used to move the cursor left, right, up and down respectively within a screen area. In some cases, explained later, 'j' and 'k' will not work, and a or is used to move between fields in a wrap-around fashion. Selection and are used to select items/commands at the cursor position. Direct entry of numbers The user may type the number of a desired month, day, or year whenever the cursor is appropriately positioned. This is true in all screen areas. is used to abort the function. Scrolling numbers In the schedule area, numbers may be scrolled forwards and backwards with the and keys respectively. This is the only way to change hours and minutes. Time browsing 'm', 'd' and 'y' are used to move into the months area, the days area or the years area respectively. This is only when time browsing in these three panes. To get to a particular month or year, move to the appropriate area and onto the desired month or year, and select it. () Years may be scrolled a year at a time by using the scroll areas marked by '<<' and '>>'. Attempting to move passed these areas will scroll by one year, selecting them scrolls by ten years. The last month of the previous year, or the first month of next year, may be obtained by selecting the area above January or below December respectively. The cursor is the positioned for immediate return via a subsequent selection. 'n' and 'p' can be used to go to the next or previous month, day, or year, depending on which screen area you are in. 'M' is used to mark a specific date. You will be prompted for an identifier which is a single digit between '0' and '9'. Once a mark has been set at a certain date, you may jump to that date from any other date with the command below. 'G' is used to go to a previously set mark. You will be prompted for the mark's identifying digit. ';' is used to go directly to the last date you viewed which was in a different month than currently displayed. Use the same command again to return to where you were originally. 'T' is used to go directly the actual, real current date, which is the date initially displayed upon startup. Overviewing a day 'O' will fill the schedule area with a read only view of your day according to your event database. Four six-hour grids appear showing which hours of the day have been pre-scheduled. The cursor must be placed on the day to be viewed with this function. Overviewing a month 'A' will mark all the days on the calendar that have at least one event posted. This feature is especially useful before scanning; described next. Scanning events 'S' will cause a sequential list of events for the current day to be displayed in the schedule area. The events for any given day may be scanned, deleted, or modified. After displaying each one, the prompt "[n,p,d,e,q]" is put up and will respond to these character commands: 'n': go to next event 'p': go to previous event 'd': delete this event 'e': edit this event as during a posting described below 'q': quit the scan and return to calendar : same as 'q' Every event scan 'E' will display, one at a time, absolutely every event in your event database. The prompt "['n','q']" is displayed and will respond to these character commands: 'n': go to next event 'q': quit the scan and return to calendar : same as 'q' Posting an event 'P' is the command used to post an event. The cursor is placed into the schedule area with a host of information displayed. To discontinue, use or select CANCEL. The cursor first appears on the first line of the schedule area. This line gives the starting date for the event, and when it shall occur. The user may move into the starting date and change the month, day and year by scrolling with and , or by directly typing it. The other fields in this first line may be moved onto and selected. will move the cursor to the next line which contains the time at which the event occurs. 'h' and 'l' move between the hours and minutes fields which may be scrolled. The AM/PM indicator changes as the hours scroll across 12:00 boundaries. will move the cursor to the next line which gives the duration of the event, and it is edited in the same fashion. moves the cursor to the next line which is a one line description of the event, to be typed whenever the cursor is placed here. moves to the last line in the schedule area which allows the user to select ACCEPT or CANCEL. Selecting ACCEPT will put the event into the user's event database, after being asked if he really wants it to be. Selecting CANCEL aborts the process. returns to the first line. Event scheduling When and how often will an event occur? This information is contained in the first line of the schedule area. The date entered there is the starting date for the event, that is, the event will not be recalled until that date. This date is best entered by browsing to it, placing the cursor in the days area on the desired day, and then type 'P' to post the event, in which case the desired date automatically appears as the default, but may be edited. In the following examples, only the fields that need to be selected are mentioned, all others should be turned off. (not highlighted) Examples: March 5, 1990 (once only) 3/5/1990 Every Tuesday and Wednesday m/d/y every TueWed The 7th of each month m/7/y monthly Each July 4th 7/4/y yearly The 2nd and last sunday of each month m/d/y monthly every 2nd last Sun The 1st and last friday of each year m/d/y yearly every 1st last Fri Every other thursday m/d/y every 2nd Thu Note, this will include the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc. thursday, starting from the specified m/d/y Miscellaneous 'L' stands for lunar, and causes a picture of what the moon will look like at 11:00PM on the day on which the cursor is placed. '^L' or '^R' will redraw the screen. OPTIONS Specifying the -d flag causes a background daemon to be born that will wake up at 15 minute intervals during the current login session, check your event database, and print a message to your terminal with a bell if it finds an event that is 15 minutes, or less, away. It will do this check upon invocation, then wake up on every 15-minute clock division until killed or you log out. CAVEATS/BUGS Very few attempts have been made to prevent the user from browsing through negatively numbered years or years with more than four digits in them, the latter causing the years area to get messed up, but remains functional. In rare cases, events with a starting date before the year 1753, will not be recalled correctly. FILES $HOME/.month