Alarm Server 3.3/3.3a Pelican Software Inc. P.O.Box 741072 Houston Tx. 77274-1072 11/8/1993 - Nov 8, 1993 Some comments in this file are directed to Notepad users since this product is distributed with Notepad. If you use the Alarm Server as a standalone app, just skip over Notepad comments. ABOUT THE SERVER - The Alarm server is a stand alone application that runs separate from Notepad, or any other software from Pelican Software Inc. It is fully functional without registering or paying anything to Pelican Software Inc., but I would hope that if you like it and use it, you would be willing to register Notepad for $35. On Compuserve it can be done by typing "Go Swreg" at the command prompt. The Alarm Server is a great productivity tool, and is the result of many hours of programming and testing. The filename is Aserver.opo. To install it just copy this file to any \Opo directory and run it. If you are using Notepad 4.6 or higher, it will be launched automatically from Notepad. S3a version: Rename the file Aserve_a.opo to Aserver.opo before copying to any \Opo directory on the Psion S3a. The Alarm Server seeks to provide a better method of queueing alarms to the Series 3 operating system. The Pelican Software Alarm Server, (as opposed to the built in alarm server of the S3), can snooze an alarm and let you go do something else. The machine is fully usable while this alarm is snoozing, and the snooze time is selectable by you. This way if you're not ready to handle an alarm, you can decide to snooze the alarm for 30 minutes, (or whatever), and take care of it the next time it rings. ********** Series 3a version ************** First, be sure to rename the file Aserv_a.opo to Aserver.opo before copying it to the S3a \Opo directory. The Alarm Server 3.3a version makes use of the built in sounds of the S3a. You now can save an alarm with any of the default sounds, which are: . Rings . Chimes . Fanfare . Soft Bells . Church Bells . Silent Now that's not all. You will also have access to all .wve files that are located in any \wve directory on any S3a drive. (LOC::) If you choose a wve file and then later remove this file, "Rings" will be substituted as the default. The S3a version also now has a Calendar on the left side of the screen. Use the tab key to bring up the Calendar as the main window. The diamond key will of course move between viewing modes. The calendar months can be changed without going to the Calendar view mode. Use the right/left arrow keys to adjust by month. To change year you'll need to go to the Calendar view mode. The Help key will always show some kind of help. The edit mode is no longer the tab key in the S3a version. Use the diamond key to get into the edit mode. While in the edit mode, press Enter to begin editing an alarm. ************************* END S3a Version Notes ************************* REPEATING ALARMS - The Alarm Server also handles repeating alarms. There are many options for repeating an alarm. Here's a list of the possibilities: REPEATS: EXAMPLES: -------- --------- 1. Yearly :great for birthdays/yearly events 2. Monthly by date :same date each month. Aug31 repts to Sept30 3. Monthly by day :3rd fri of month;5th may be 4th next month 4. Monthly (last day) :Always last day of month 5. Weekly :Same day and time each week 6. Daily :Same time next day 7. Workday :Same time next Workday 8. Restday :Same time next Restday 9. Every (x) days :User defined days 10. Every (x) hours :User defined hours; good for 1 1/2 days.etc.. Now this looks fairly simple and it is. What you see is what you get. But there is a method behind how they work in certain situations. METHOD: All repeating alarms repeat based on the original time and date recieved. What this means is that when an alarm is specified as being a repeating alarm, the time and date for the alarm is saved to file. If at any time the time and date are changed by using the snooze or the reset option from within the Alarm Server, this data does not change. If it did change, the repeat information would change too. In most cases this is not what you want when you hit the snooze button. (you can still snooze and reset repeating alarms, but the original time and date are saved also.) Example: You have a yearly alarm set for a family members birthday, and it rings to tell you to give him(her) a call. For argument sake lets say it's set to ring at 9:30pm. Well at 9:30 it rings and you hit the snooze button, and again at 10:30, etc... The next time it rings, it's after 12:00(12hr format) and now is the next day. If the Alarm Server was to reset the repeat based on the new time, it would ring a day late the next year, at 12:30am. This situation can be applied to all alarms and this is why repeating alarms are all based on their original time and date. Now there is a way to change this: In order to change this, use the Show/Reset option in Notepad, or the edit option in the Alarm Server. In these cases, it is assumed that you want to change the actual time for the repeat to be based on. SETTINGS (Psion) There is a settings menu where you can make some adjustments and customize the program a bit. Here is a listing of the options. 1. Snooze Minutes 2. Tomorrow time 3. Auto sort in Edit mode 4. Bounce back to previous app 5. Define Snooze key (,,) 5. Sound for Off Hotkey (S3a version only) SNOOZE MINUTES: Choose the number of minutes you want the snooze button to snooze the current alarm for. TOMORROW TIME: Tomorrow time applies to the Reset button called "Tomorrow". This allows you to reset an alarm to a specified time the following day. This option is only available at the time when the alarm rings. AUTO SORT IN EDIT MODE: Auto sort will tell the Server to sort the alarm.dat file at two times. 1. When pressing the diamond key to go into edit mode 2. When updating an alarm in edit mode BOUNCE BACK TO PREVIOUS APP: This option decides whether or not the Alarm Server will always exit after an alarm has rung. Sometimes if you are working inside the Server, and alarms are going off, it's nice to have the Server NOT dump you out to the system screen. This is the reason this option was added. DEFINE SNOOZE KEY: This lets you decide what keypress will snooze after an alarm rings. Some might like to be consistent with the built in alarm server's for snoozing. It's easier in the dark. That's it for settings. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Functions of the Alarm Server ----------------------------------- A - Jump to Agenda B - Battery status C - Cancel Sound off timer H - About Alarm Server J - Jump back to Client (if client has sent his own pid to the Alarm Server) N - Jump to Notepad O - Off S - Set Sound T - Jump to Time app 0 - Jump to spy Psion - Settings Psion - Quit Esc - Jump to system Enter - Enter new alarm Del - Cancel current alarm Shft - Cancel today's alarms Tab - Edit mode (S3 classic) Tab - Calendar (S3a version) Right/left arrow - change month on calendar (S3a version) Up arrow - Show alarms due today Spacebar - show current alarm text in a bigger window SET SOUND ON/OFF: ( key ) Setting the sound On or Off will set the sound globally on the Series 3, not just for the Alarm Server. Alarm Server 3.3 will remember your settings so that when the sound is turned back on they will be restored as they were before. This option is really an emergency off switch. ( In a meeting and can't be bothered by alarms coming out of your pocket every few minutes.) ON/OFF TIMER FUNCTION: When setting sound on/off you can select Timer as an option. If you select Timer you can turn the sound off for a specified period of time. The sound will turn back on when the time is up. When set, the alarm icon is displayed in the main screen. Note also that this timer is an absolute timer and will wake up the machine when the specified time is up so the sound can be turned back on. Of course, it wont be able to if an alarm has subsequently gone off and the S3 is waiting for you to clear this alarm. Use the C key at any time to cancel the timer and turn the sound back on. Alarm Server 3.3 Its function is to queue alarms from Notepad, Banker, or Personal alarms. All alarms will work like the built in Series 3 system alarms. All alarm info is stored in the "M:\Note\Set\alarm.dat" file. How does it work? The Alarm Server runs as a separate app, (Aserver.opo) and runs in the backround, for the most part. As you set alarms, messages are sent to the Server that there is new alarm information that needs to be looked at. When the Server receives this message, it does one of two things. 1. Queue the alarm, if there are none already queued. 2. If the Server already has an alarm queued, it checks to see if there is a newer alarm now than the one that is currently queued, (which would be cancelled), or the current alarm information may have changed. Maybe you had an alarm set to go off at 3:00, but now you want it to ring at 5:00. Notepad: In Np you would press Psion to reset alarm. After resetting the alarm Np will send a message to the server that alarm info has changed. All functions in Np that affect alarms send messages to the Alarm Server. For this reason it is important that the Server is running. What if the Server is not running? If the Server is not running the alarm info will still be saved to file, (M:\Note\Set\alarm.dat), but the alarms will not ring since they are not being queued to the Alarm device driver. They will ring however as soon as the Server is started. (which may be too late!) How do I start the Server? There are three ways to start it running. To make it easy, when you start Np, the Server will be launched automatically. The second way is to use the new hotkey in Np which is the key alone. This prompts you to start the Alarm Server, if for some reason it didn't start when Np started, or it was shut down to free up memory, or whatever. The third way is from the system screen under the opl icon. (if you copied the Aserver.opo to your \opo directory.) The Aserver.opo must be in one of two directories. 1. Any \Note\Set directory or 2. Any \Opo directory I recommend keeping it in the \Opo directory since you will use it as a separate application at times. This way it will be easy to start running manually, since it will show up under the Opl icon. HOW IS THE ALARM SERVER USEFUL ON IT'S OWN: The Alarm Server is not a dumb backround program. It has full editing capabilities built into it. Adding new alarms is a very nice feature. Maybe you want to add a quick alarm, but Np is not running. You can go to the Server application, press Enter and add an alarm. It will not show up in Notepad as a note, but you will get your alarm. Editing alarms with the Editor (Diamond key) In the Edit mode you will see a scrollable list displaying all alarms in the Alarm.dat file. Editor key commands Enter = Edit alarm S = Sort alarm.dat Help = command list Delete = Delete an alarm from alarm.dat These functions are self explanatory. Enter to begin editing. Sorting will reorder alarms by date, although not by time. Delete will delete any alarms except the currently queued alarm. The current alarm can be deleted from the main screen by pressing the Delete key. Cancelling alarms All alarms can be cancelled. The alarm that is currently queued can be cancelled (deleted) by pressing the Delete key in the main Alarm Server screen. Any other alarm can be cancelled in Edit mode by pressing the delete key while highlighting the alarm you wish to delete. *** Note *** If you want to reset an alarm, don't cancel it. Go to the Edit mode, press Enter and reset the info for the alarm. Notepad Hotkeys There are two hotkeys in Notepad that link to the Server. 1. = Start the Server 2. = Jump to Alarm Server(and back) The Jump to Server is a very nice convenience that makes it seem like the Server is really part of the Np application, which it is not. This way you don't have to press the system icon to change applications to get to the Server. Using the hotkey you jump to the Alarm Server and using the same key you can jump back to Np, Banker or whatever client the Alarm Server was enterred from, as long as the Client sends it's Pid to the Server. For more info on this, contact Pelican Software Inc. Notepad functions that affect alarms 1. Set alarm 2. Remove alarm 3. Show/Reset alarm 4. Deleting a note with an alarm Option to cancel alarm. 5. Editing a note with an alarm The alarm message will update. *** Warning *** Please note that if you exit the Alarm Server while in an open dialog, the Server will not be able to snooze an alarm when it expires. It will also cease to queue any new alarms. As a safety precaution, the editor will go back to the main display after about 5 seconds of inactivity. The help mode will do this also. Even the Battery status will exit itself after a few seconds. Open dialogs problem The Alarm Server is written in such a way that it needs to be free to handle the alarms. That means that if an alarm expires, if you have a dialog open, where it says... "Alarms disabled" the Alarm Server wont be able to queue the next alarm, because it is waiting for you to finish with the dialog you are in. To make sure this doesn't happen too often, all dialogs that could be written using custom dialogs are done so. For example, the Battery status looks like the Battery status in the System screen, but it doesn't use the built in dialogs function, and thus will close itself after a few seconds. The Editor also will close after a few seconds of inactivity. There are other dialogs that won't close themselves and these are the ones you don't want to leave open and exit the Alarm Server. 1. Cancel dialogs 2. Add an Alarm 3. Yes/No questions, like Sort Y/n? The simple answer to this is just make sure you close any dialogs in the Alarm Server before exiting to another application. Credits Please report any bugs or unusual happenings to: Mark Esposito 70713,1407 or Pelican Software Inc. P.O Box 741072 Houston Tx. 77274-1072 (713) 242-8928