Alarm Enhancer, Version 5.20 Copyright Alan H. Clifford, 1997/98. Enhancer is a program for the Psion 3A, 3C and Siena CONTENTS 1. What it does. 2. Quickstart for new users. 3. Using Enhancer. 3.1 Rescheduling Alarms. 3.2 Setting the Silent Alarm Beep. 4. Installing Enhancer. 4.1 New installation. 4.2 Upgrading from version 5.11, 5.12 or 5.13 4.3 Upgrading from version 5.01. 4.4 Upgrading from version 5.0. 4.5 Upgrading from version 4. 4.6 Upgrading from version 3.3. 5. The Configuration file. 6. Intercepting the Off key. 7. The Information screen. 8. Caveat. 9. The Configuration Program. 9.1 Installing the configuration program. 9.2 Using the configuration program. 10. Files. 11. Freeware/shareware. 12. Registration. 13. Sunday morning trial registration. 14. Thanks. 15. Contacting the author. 16. Latest version. 17. Disclaimer. 1. WHAT IT DOES You're working on, for example, a spreadsheet and an alarm goes off. You press Esc to cancel the alarm and you are presented with the Enhancer dialog screen. Here, with just one extra key press, you can reschedule an alarm for 5 minutes time (configurable), or reschedule for other durations or for a specific time and date. You are then back in your application and can continue working. Psion alarms repeat for a considerable length of time if left unattended. Enhancer has an option to sound a single beep when a silent alarm goes off. 2. QUICKSTART FOR NEW USERS - Copy Enhancer.opa to the \app directory - Install Enhancer.opa using the System Screen install menu - Run Enhancer - In the dialog, select the entry for your machine and select 'Yes' for "Intercept off key?" - Press enter. Enhancer is now running. - Press the System key to put Enhancer into background - When the alarm goes off, press Esc to "Clear Alarm" - The Enhancer dialog is now displayed. Press Enter to reschedule the alarm for 5 minutes. Or press Esc to abandon the alarm. 3. USING ENHANCER 3.1 Rescheduling Alarms. After an alarm goes off, press the ESC key. You are presented with the Enhancer dialog. There are three defaults set up: 5 minutes, 10 minutes and a date and time intially set up for half an hour in the future. Pressing ENTER will reschedule the alarm for 5 minutes. Or choose one of the other options or edit one of the options and press ENTER. ESC will abandon the alarm. An alarm created by Enhancer may be cancelled via the "View next alarms" option in the Time application. Enhancer remembers up to 4 alarms. If 5 alarms go off without you attending to them, Enhancer will lose the first one. 3.2 Setting the Silent Alarm Beep The Silent Alarm Beep is invoked by prefixing the alarm message text with the "beep character" (the default beep character is hash) and setting the alarm sound to "Silent". For example, in your Agenda you may have an entry entitled: #Strategy meeting with the alarm set to Silent. When this silent alarm goes off, Enhancer will beep just once. 4. INSTALLING ENHANCER 4.1 New installation. Copy Enhancer.opa to the APP directory (or a directory of your choice) and install using the system screen install option. Optionally, copy the configuration program, Enhancfg.520, to the same directory (see below for more information about the configuration program). The first time Enhancer is run, a dialog allows you to specify the machine as 3A, 3C, Siena or 3C (alternate) and whether or not to intercept the OFF key (see below). Press ENTER and a small configuration file (Enhancer.50B) is created in the APP directory. Enhancer is now running. Press the System key or an application key to leave Enhancer running in background. (Note on machine types: The Psion 3C with German ROM 5.23F needs to be configured as 3C (alternate)). If Enhancer is closed down, for instance, after a backup, when Enhancer is restarted it reads the configuration file and starts running. 4.2 Upgrading from version 5.11, 5.12 or 5.13 If version 5.11, 5.12 or 5.13 have been installed previously, copy Enhancer.opa and Enhancfg.520 to the APP directory. Enhancfg.511, Enhancfg.512 and Enhancfg5.13 can be deleted. 4.3 Upgrading from version 5.01 If version 5.01 has been installed previously, copy Enhancer.opa and Enhancfg.520 to the APP directory and run the program. The configuration data, including registration details, in the old configuration file (Enhancer.50A) will be copied automatically to the new configuration file (Enhancer.50B). Enhancer.50A can then be deleted. The old configuration program, Enhancfg.501 can also be deleted. 4.4 Upgrading from version 5.0 If version 5.0 has been installed previously, copy Enhancer.opa and Enhancfg.520 to the APP directory and run the program. The configuration data, including registration details, in the old configuration file (Enhancer.005) will be copied automatically to the new configuration file (Enhancer.50B). Enhancer.005 can then be deleted. The old configuration program, Enhancfg.opl can also be deleted. 4.5 Upgrading from version 4 If version 4.X has been installed previously, the configuration file Enhancer.004 can be deleted. Copy Enhancer.opa and Enhancfg.520 to the APP directory. 4.6 Upgrading from version 3.3 If version 3.3 has been installed previously, copy Enhancer.opa and Enhancfg.520 to the APP directory and uninstall and reinstall in order to pick up new icon. 5. CONFIGURATION FILE The configuration file, Enhancer.50B, is normally created in the same directory as Enhancer.opa. However, if Enhancer.opa is on a flash disk, the configuration file will be stored in loc::m:\enhancer\enhancer.50B. 6. INTERCEPTING THE OFF KEY This means that the OFF key no longer directly turns off the Psion. Instead, when the OFF key is pressed, Enhancer checks the alarm data and then Enhancer turns off the Psion. 7. THE INFORMATION SCREEN It is intended that Enhancer is left to work in background but the information screen does provide some information concerning the status of the application. However, the format of this screen may change in future versions of Enhancer. 8. CAVEAT In practical use, the following limitations should not cause any problems. But please be aware of them. If several alarms are set for the same time, Enhancer will only pick up one of them. Enhancer functions by reading the next alarm from the Time application's memory space and sets a timer to go off 2 seconds before the alarm. This reading occurs on switch on, when Enhancer comes to the foreground or background, on a (check) timer and, if the OFF key is intercepted, when the Psion is switched off. The (check) timer re-reads the alarm data 10 seconds before the auto-off time or at user configured shorter intervals or, if auto-off is not active, every 59 (or as user configured) seconds. Consequently, if the auto-off is set to, for instance, 10 minutes and an new alarm is set for 5 minutes, Enhancer may not pick it up. If the OFF key is not trapped and an alarm is set in, say, the Time application and the Psion is immediately switched off, Enhancer will not pick up the alarm. Alarms set in the Agenda application can take several seconds to reach the Time application's list. If the Psion is switched off immediately after setting an alarm in Agenda, neither Time nor Enhancer may pick it up. Only one application can intercept the OFF key. If another application has already intercepted the OFF key, Enhancer will not be able to do so. Enhancer reads directly from the Time application's memory space and the locations of data are different on the different Psions. The locations of the data may be different on other Psions so it is unlikely that Enhancer will be able to find the data on Psions other than the 3A, 3C or Siena. The day and time of the next alarm is displayed underneath the Enhancer icon on the System screen. This only updates when the System screen updates its lists. Pressing the System key will force an update. Enhancer uses the date format set on your Psion - DDMMYY, MMDDYY or YYMMDD. If this is changed whilst Enhancer is running, Enhancer must be stopped and restarted to use the new format. Although an entry in Agenda can be 254 characters in length, only 160 are passed to the Time application. Consequently, when checking this text for changes, Enhancer can use only 160 characters. 9. THE CONFIGURATION PROGRAM Press the Menu key in Enhancer and the configuration program will run (or will come to the foreground if it is already running). Use the menus (see below) to register and configure Enhancer. Once configured, the configuration program (Enhancfg.520) may be deleted if desired. Please note that the configuration options only work if Enhancer is registered so, if you do not register Enhancer, you should delete Enhancfg.520 to save disk space. Instead of using the Menu key, the configuration menu hot keys can be used to run the configuration program (except Psion...X which terminates Enhancer). If Enhancer (Enhancer.opa) is terminated whilst the configuration program (Enhancfg.520) is running, the configuration program will be closed down automatically. 9.1 INSTALLING THE CONFIGURATION PROGRAM Copy Enhancfg.520 to the same directory as Enhancer.opa Please note Enhancfg.520 is not required for Enhancer to run and is only useful if the program is registered. 9.2 USING THE CONFIGURATION PROGRAM Press the Menu key (or a hot key) while Enhancer is in the foreground. This will display the various configuration options in a menu structure, as described below. 9.2.1 Configure, Snoozes (Psion...S) This option displays a dialog allowing you to set the default snooze periods to your chosen values. The standard (unregistered) defaults are 5 minutes, 10 minutes and half an hour. The first two snooze values can be set to a number of minutes, the third can be set to a number of days, hours and minutes in the future. Additionally, each of the three snooze times can be set as Default or Sticky. If set to Default then this value will always be shown in the Enhancer dialog when an alarm is to be rescheduled. If set to Sticky then any value you type in (in the reschedule dialog) will be remembered for the next reschedule event. The values set to Sticky in Configure, Snoozes become the starting values when Enhancer is run. 9.2.2 Configure, Silent Alarm Beeper (Psion...B) This option displays a dialog allowing you to set the Silent Alarm beep character, the beep duration and the beep pitch. A button is available to test the sound. 9.2.3 Configure, Check Timers (Psion...C) These options allow you to set the Check Timer to your chosen intervals. The default (unregistered) value is 59 seconds when auto switch off is disabled. If auto switch off is enabled, checking takes place before the Psion switches itself off. A shorter interval can be set. 9.2.4 Configure, Progress Information (Psion...P) On the 3A and 3C, the information window can be displayed to the right of the dialog window. This can be set to on or off. Please note that if this setting is changed whilst an Enhancer dialog window is displayed, the new setting will not take effect until another alarm goes off. When Enhancer detects that the first alarm scheduled has changed, by default it sounds a two tone beep. This can be disabled. Enhancer displays the alarm time on the System screen instead of a file name. This can be disabled if required. The display of the progress information text messages can be suppressed 9.2.5 Setup, Machine (Psion...M) This option allows you to select the machine on which Enhancer is running. Options are 3a, 3c, Siena and 3C (alternate). This is the similar to the dialog presented when Enhancer is run for the first time. 9.2.6 Setup, Off Key (Psion... O) Allows you to enable or disable Enhancer's ability to intercept the Off Key. Options are Yes or No. 9.2.7 Special, About (Psion...A) Displays Enhancer version details. 9.2.7 Special, Register (Psion...R) Allows the input of your Registration Name and Registration Code. Both must be entered as supplied as the code is an encrypted version of the name. Please see REGISTRATION (below) for details of how to obtain your code. 9.2.8 Special, Exit Configuration Exits the configuration program and returns to Enhancer. If changes have been made to any configuration option(s) it will prompt the user to save the configuration. Pressing Enter will save the configuration changes. Pressing Esc will discard the changes. 10. FILES Enhancer.opa The Alarm Enhancer program. Enhancfg.520 The configuration program. Enhancer.50b The configuration data file (created by Enhancer). Enhancer.txt Documentation (this file). History.txt Alarm Enhancer's development history. File_id.diz Short description for BBS file lists. 11. FREEWARE/SHAREWARE Enhancer is functional and can be used without payment. Registation of Enhancer adds the following: - The time and date of the original event are displayed in the Enhancer dialog. - More of the message text is shown. - On the 3A and 3C, the Enhancer dialog expands to show even more of the message text. - On the 3A and 3C, the Information window can be displayed on the right hand side of the screen when the dialog window is displayed. - The default times can be set to other than 5, 10 and 30 minutes. - "Sticky" times can be used instead of the default times. For instance, if you chose to reschedule an alarm for 15 minutes, the next time Enhancer is used, 15 minutes will be displayed as the inital choice. - When checking for a new alarm, as well as the time and disabled status being checked, changes to the message text and the alarm sound are also checked. - The Silent Alarm beep character, duration and tone can be changed from #, quarter second and 300. - The "check" timer used when auto-off is inactive can be set to other than 59 seconds. - The "check" timer used when auto-off is active can be set to a shorter time than the remaining auto-off period. - If more than one alarm has gone off, this is indicated to the left of the running clock in the dialog window. - The display of progress messages can be suppressed. - The display of the alarm time on the System screen can be suppressed. 12. REGISTRATION The registration price is 5 UK pounds. Sterling cheques or equivalent value in cash in any convertible currency are accepted. Please enclose your name and address (or preferably, your email address) and send to: Alan Clifford, 7 Broke Court, Merrow Park, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 7HQ, United Kingdom. You will receive a registration code by email or post card. 13. SUNDAY MORNING TRIAL REGISTRATION. Alarm Enhancer can be registered on a trial basis on Sunday mornings with the following code: Name: Unregistered Code: 123456789 14. THANKS Thanks are due to Clive D. W. Feather for the Psionics files, to Zhava Glaser, Michael Wild and Dirk Straka for suggestions and testing and to Mark Smalley for suggestions, testing and assistance with the documentation. 15. CONTACTING THE AUTHOR The author can be contacted at: Email: alan@coprolite.prestel.co.uk alan@donor2.mail-only.com Fido: 2:440/4.6 Mail: 7 Broke Court, Merrow Park, Guildford, Surrrey, GU4 7HQ, United Kingdom. 16. LATEST VERSION. The latest version of Alarm Enhancer can be obtained from: Internet: http://www2.prestel.co.uk/coprolite/ Fido: Download or freq from Donor/2, 2:440/4, 01483 717905 (international: +44 1483 717905). 17. DISCLAIMER Alan H. Clifford provides this program "as is" and makes no representation or warranty that this software is fit for any particular purpose.