Psion Series 5 Fix Agenda Alarms Macro
Version 1.0
by Brian Wilson

If you synchronize your Psion Series 5 (or 5mx) with Microsoft Outlook, you may be as frustrated as I am with the default alarm sound that the brain-dead Psi-Win program uses when transferring new appointments from the PC to the Psion. Chimes has got to be the cheesiest and most embarassing alarm sound there is on the Psion - whenever it goes off, I feel like one of those hopeless geeks who has their cel phone play the William Tell Overture when it rings.

Well, here's the fix. I used TwiddleBit's Agenda2 OPX to get at the Agenda file, and wrote a macro program that will scan the appointments in your Agenda file, find anything with Chimes as the alarm sound, and reset it to use Signal instead.

Installation:

You need to have Macro5 installed in order to make use of this macro file. You can get Macro5 at http://www.psionking.com/macros5.htm#macro. Download it and follow the installation instructions.

You also need to have TwiddleBit's Agenda2.opx installed. I've included it in the zip file (as an embedded zip file). Open it and follow the installation instructions.

Drop the Fix Agenda Alarms.opo file into your Macros directory.

In Macro5, pick a key location and assign the file Fix Agenda Alarms.opo to that key.

If you use HotKeys, you can assign the macro file to one of those hot keys instead of or in addition to your Macro5 key. You can get HotKeys at http://www.psionking.com/macros5.htm#hotkeys.

Limitations:

* At present, the macro only knows how to open the c:\Documents\Agenda file. It won't look for any other file names.

* The macro currently only searches for the Chimes alarm sound, and only replaces it with the Signal alarm sound. If you have a different favorite alarm sound, you're out of luck.

* There's a problem with Agenda2.opx where it will cause an error if it attempts to update an entry with an embedded object. I haven't figured out a way around this yet (maybe someone else will tell me how to do it), so if it bombs when you run it, look for an alarmed entry that uses the Chimes sound and has an embedded object and fix it manually, then rerun the macro. Alarmed entries that don't use the Chimes sound are skipped, so they can have embedded objects and not raise an error.

* Agenda2.opx requires closing the Agenda file before writing. The macro will reopen your Agenda file after it runs, so be patient before you start trying to mess with your agenda file after starting the macro.

* I've tested this macro with my own Agenda file and use it religiously. However, I can't be held responsible for any damage it does to *your* Agenda file, so please make a backup before running it for the first time.

* If the very next alarm in your Agenda uses Chimes, it will not disappear from the Time application when Agenda exits. The macro will replace its alarm with a Signal alarm, but when the file reloads, the Signal alarm will be inserted after the original Chimes alarm. You either have to go to the Time application and remove the Chimes alarm manually (use ctrl-n to see the next alarms, then del to delete), or put up with hearing Chimes and then Signal go off in succession for that particular appointment. Agenda only loads the very next alarm into Time, and since it doesn't delete the old one when it exits, the changed alarm looks like a new alarm and it just adds it instead of replacing it.

<editorial> Now if I could only get Psi-Win to copy the meeting location from Outlook, I'd be in business. Who wrote that crap, anyway? Don't they realize that all the Psion features in the world mean little or nothing in comparison with the seamless connectivity of the Palm devices? If Psion would fix this, they could compete much better against Palm and CE. I love my Psion, but I hate Psi-Win. </editorial>

Contact:

You can e-mail me at fixalarm@sobranisoft.com if you have any questions or suggestions. If enough people express interest (or provide interesting incentives), I'd be willing to add support for user-selectable agenda files and target and replacement alarm sounds.
