Pelican Software Inc. P.O.Box 741072 Houston Tx. 77274-1072 (713) 773-2803 - Notepad Project Viewer - The Notepad project veiwer is not a standalone application, but works as a Plug-In with Notepad. To use it follow these instructions. Read on for more info about the program. Installation Instructions: ------------------------- 1. If you don't have the Plugins.app or Plugsins.opa file installed on your Series 3, install it first. It comes with Notepad. 2. Copy the NPPV.opo file to your Series 3's \Note\Plug\ directory. 3. Run the Plugins application on the Series 3. 4. Choose the "Install" choice in the Plug-ins application to add a program to Notepad's menu. You will asked to find the application that you want to install. 5. Find the Nppv.opo file in the \Note\Plug\ directory that you just copied to your Series 3 and press Enter. This will add the Nppv program to Notepads menu under the Plugins option. Notes: This Plug-In only shows the projects in the Notepad file you are currently viewing. The next version of Notepad will have this built in, and will plot all projects. The Plug-In is being released to get a little excitement going for Np4.6 (Np 4.5.1 is the current version at the time of this writing.) What does the Project Viewer do? This program is a full screen viewer in a Calendar type format for all Notepad projects. It is not however just a viewer. You can move the cursor from project to project, and press Enter to edit the project, delete to close it, tab for half screen viewer. How to use it? The Project facilities were added to Notepad in v4.5F. When this option was added to Notepad it wasn't doing everything it needed to do. The structure was there but the fuctions were not. The Project Viewer is hopefully the missing link to this feature. This Plug-In version of the Project Viewer however is not as fully functional as the version that will ship with Np4.6. Sorry, but it was not possible. Hopefully this will just make it more exciting to get 4.6. There will be no cost to registered users as usual. Here's how to use it: Any note that you attach a project date to will show up in the Project Viewer. In this Plug-In however the Project Viewer will only see projects in the currently open Notepad. (future version will see all projects.) Projects show up in the Viewer as time slots below the day of it's intended completion. The Project Viewer will show up to 5 projects due on every day of the month. If you have more than 5 projects due in one day, it will not show. (can't imagine more than 5!) Of course by projects I don't mean appointments. If you use it this way, you have the disadvantage of not being able to see more than 5 for each day. Notepad can handle daily events through the Alarm Server, and lists of Todo's with priorities. Of course you can use the Viewer in any way you like. Running the Viewer: After installing the Viewer and choosing the Nppv option in the Plug-Ins list, you will see a message saying "Reading projects...". The time this takes will vary according to how many projects you have in the open notepad, and the number of records in the notepad. It is quite fast, as I spent lots of time optimizing the techniques used in this program. When the program was first completed it took about 10 seconds to list the projects from a notepad of about ten items. Now it takes 3 seconds or so. Even with many projects it will display them to the screen very fast. This turned out to be one of the toughest programs to write for Notepad, and I think you'll see why. Not many programs in Opl look like this program, and the ones that do run very slow. There was no easy way to create the screen and be able to move through time slots, updating records as you go. The highlighted day shows the current day. Key commands: The help key will show all key commands. Note that after updating a note you'll need to choose the screen redraw option to see the updated project info. Bug Reports: Anyway, I'm very happy with it so far, and I hope you will be too. Please report any bugs to my Email address on Compuserve 70713,1407, or on Cix at mesposito. Future built in version: The version built in to Np4.6 will be able to show all projects in all notepads and expanded files in the Viewer. Here's how it will do it. When you add a note and attach a date for completion, it will be copied to a project data file, which can be on any drive. This data file contains the note itself, the date of it's completion, and the name of the file it belongs to. Later when you go into the project viewer you won't need to have any particular notepad open since the viewer knows which notepad each project came out of, or belongs to. At any time while in the Viewer you can update any project's date, or delete any project. The Viewer will open the notepad where the project resides and update the note. This all happens in a split second, so there is no slow down. My reason for pointing this out is so the users can see what kind of use they'll be able to get out of this new feature. I think after using for a short while myself that it will provide the much needed graphic view for projects. They need to be viewed in such a way as to relate to the calendar. The Project Viewer tries to accomplish this. Hopefully it'll do a lot more in the near future. Notepad Registration: To register Notepad from Compuserve type in "Go Swreg", and go through the menu options to find "Notepad", and read the payment agreement. Thanks, Mark Esposito Pelican Software Inc. (713) 773-2803 (Until 7/1/93) New number to come.