======================================================================== (c) Martin N Dunstan (mnd@dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk) March 30th, 1997 ======================================================================== The input file consists of either blank lines (lines which nothing or just spaces and tabs), untimed event lines or timed event lines. Untimed Events: An untimed event line is the simplest - it consists of the date of the event followed by white space (one or more spaces and/or tabs) and then the description of the event. An example using dd/mm/yyyy format is: 25/12/1997 Christmas day in 1997! To make the program more useful the year can be abbreviated: 25/12/07 Christmas day in 2007! and even left off: 25/12 Christmas day this year. If the year is abbreviated to two digits then years 70-99 correspond to the years 1970 to 1999 while 00-69 corresponds to the years 2000 to 2069. If the year is not given as in the last example above then the current year is assumed. Indeed, if the month is missing as well then the current month is used. Thus if today is 23/5/2016 then the following entries represent the same day: 23 Today! 23/5 Today! 23/5/16 Today! 23/5/2016 Today! Timed events: If the start of the event description appears to be a time or a duration (two times separated by a dash) then the program produces a timed day entry for the event. If the time or duration contains mistakes then the program assumes it is part of the event description and an untimed event is produced as described in the previous section. Timed events can use a mixture of 12 hour and 24 hour clock formats although only the colon (":") can be used as the separator. If the 12 hour clock is used then the time should end with "am" or "pm" (capitals or lower-case) and the minutes can be omitted (provided the time separator is also omitted). If the 24 hour clock is used then both the hour and the minutes must be provided. Durations consist of two times separated by a dash and each can be in either time format. If the second time is earlier than the first one the program assumes that the even crosses midnight. Due to a bug in Agenda this program will consider the event to stop at midnight. If the second time is omittted the program assumes the event continues until midnight the same day. If there should be any error in the time format the program assumes that the time is actually part of the event description and an untimed event is produced. Some examples of timed entries are: 1/4/97 8.30 Leave for work (invalid time format). 2/4/97 9am-1pm Morning at work. 2/4/97 13:00-2pm Lunch break 2/4/97 10pm- Sleeping! 3/4/97 9pm-3am Overnight party! Note that the first one contains an invalid time separator and will be entered as an untimed entry. Hints: * Make sure the program always has logging turned on if you are converting files in "ignore" or "auto-fix" mode and check the logfile afterwards to see what happened if any errors occurred. * Run in "ask user" mode - usually there would be no errors and thus no need for user intervention. If any errors do appear then it is probably quicker to fix them during conversion rather than do it later in Agenda. * If you already have a \TXT directory which you use to keep other text files in try using the "Create new list" option from the "Special" menu on the system screen. Refer to the Psion User Guide for details. Frequently asked questions: Q) How can I control the settings of the Agenda files produced by Txt2Agn (e.g. diamond list, printing)? A) Use Agenda to load \APP\TXT2AGN\TXT2AGN.AGN and change any settings you want. Make sure the file is saved and quit Agenda. The next time you use Txt2Agn the new settings will be used. An alternative method is to open an Agenda file which has already been configured and use the "Merge" option in Agenda. Q) Why can't I enter dates after the year 2069 or before 1970? A) This is due to limits imposed by the Psion OS. Dates outside this range will be considered to be an error. Q) Why doesn't auto-fix mode work very well? A) It is extremely difficult (impossible generally!) to correctly guess what date the user actually meant. Thus the program simply works back to find the first valid date prior to the illegal one. Hence 12/13/98 is guessed as being 12/12/98 and 31/09/04 is guessed as 30/09/04. Q) Can I use four figure years such as 1997 instead of 97? A) Yes but you are only allowed years between 1970 and 2069. Q) How can I change the date separator from "?"? A) You can't - perhaps in a later version! Q) How can I change the time separator from ":"? A) You can't - perhaps in a later version! Q) Why does an event begins one day and ends the next appear to stop at midnight? A) There is a bug in the Agenda program which prevents entries spanning midnight (try creating one in Agenda yourself). A future release of this program might create two entries, one ending at midnight on the first day and the other starting at midnight the and continuing into the next day. Q) How can I quit from the program once it has started? A) From the main dialogs you can leave the program by pressing the Escape key. If the program is actually creating the Agenda file or processing the input file Escape will pause the program and give you the chance to quit. If you really need to stop the program urgently hold down the Psion key and press Escape. If this fails choose "Kill Application" from the "Apps" menu on the system screen. If you use any of these emergency exits you should remove the Agenda file that was being created as it will be corrupted and might crash the Agenda program if you try to use it inadvertently. ======================================================================== (c) Martin N Dunstan (mnd@dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk) March 30th, 1997 ========================================================================