.KEYWORD datebook
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Datebk3 pushes Date Book into the future
.OTHER
.SUMMARY For a mere $20, you can put your Date Book on steroids. That’s the shareware fee for DateBk3, a program that adds more than fifty new features to the Date Book application including categories, floating events, icons, new views, and more. In this detailed review, Jeff Carlson, author of The Palm III & PalmPilot Visual QuickStart Guide, takes you inside DateBk3 and shows you how you can have a much more powerful Palm computer. There’s also a special treat, a fascinating story, at the end of this article — but you’ll have to read the article to find out the secret.
.AUTHOR Jeff Carlson
When was the last time you saw a silent movie in a theater? It’s likely you haven’t seen one in years, or maybe never. Although the old "moving pictures" are entertaining and often fascinating to watch, today’s movies offer much more than their black-and-white predecessors. With vibrant color, wider screens, and THX-enhanced sound, how can we possibly go back to the film style of a century ago?
A similar progression is happening on the Palm platform with the Date Book application. Although useful and solid from the moment you turn on your Palm device, the built-in Date Book can feel like one of those old movies after you’ve installed Pimlico Software’s Datebk3, a $20 shareware add-on program with more features than you can shake a stylus at. Datebk3 adds functionality that should have been included in Date Book, such as categories and enhanced calendar views, while also packing in items that will complement your existing time management system, like scheduled To Do items and floating events.
As powerful as Datebk3 appears to be, keep in mind that it’s not a direct replacement for the Date Book application. Instead, Datebk3 relies on Date Book’s database to store your appointments, adding its own features by sitting on top of Date Book. Any special features introduced by Datebk3 are held in a separate database tied to the original. This way, your information is synchronized with your Windows PC or Macintosh without requiring additional conduits or desktop software.
It’s also important to know up front that Datebk3 is one of the larger applications available for the Palm organizer, taking up 247K; for Pilot or PalmPilot Personal owners, previous versions of Datebk3 are available that require less memory to run.
That said, if you can spare the memory, download and install the latest version (currently 3.0f, though it may be updated by the time you read this, as the author is good about releasing bug fixes and responding to user feedback). Then follow along as we tour some of Datebk3’s impressive features.
I recommend setting Datebk3 as the application that’s activated by pressing the plastic Date Book button on the front of your Palm computer: go to the Prefs application on your Palm device, and choose Buttons from the popup menu in the upper right corner of the screen. Tap the pop-up menu next to the Date Book icon (the first one on the left), and select Datebk3. From now on, pressing the Date Book hard button will launch Datebk3.
.H1 A six-sided view
After you install Datebk3, you may be surprised to see the standard Date Book day view. However, a quick glance at the view buttons in the lower-left corner reveals that Date Book’s three formats have been replaced by six. The standard day, week, and month views are still there. In addition, there are some new formats available.
A new week view with text (instead of the graphical bars used by the week view we’re used to) can be seen in Figure A.
.FIG A You can get a good idea of what’s planned with Datebk3’s text-oriented week view.
Datebook also has a full year view, as shown in Figure B.
.FIG B Here’s Datebk3’s full year view.
A new list view that displays the text of upcoming events, skipping days that contain no appointments, is shown in Figure C.
.FIG C Here’s what Datebk3’s has planned for you (although you should try to avoid blowing up your computer).
Tap one of the buttons to activate a view, or press the plastic Date Book button to switch between views. If you don’t want to shuttle between them all, you can select which ones are activated by the button. Select Preferences from the Options menu, then highlight the views you want activated by the hardware button by choosing the Button Uses option (I find that the year view draws too slow for my taste, so I’ve selected all of the views except for that one). You can also choose which view will be displayed by default when you access Datebk3 by specifying the Starting View option.
You probably noticed that there seem to be more preferences for Datebk3 than in all of your other applications combined! You can tailor how the program operates in the Preferences and More Preferences screens, controlling standard Date Book features like Start and End Times, as well as the ability to choose Hide End Times to reduce the amount of space taken up by appointment descriptions.
.H1 Icons
"Oh look," I first thought, "pretty little pictures. How quaint." In order to help you organize your events visually, Datebk3 offers the ability to assign icons to records that will show up in the standard week view; the month view (when the Icon button is selected); and the day view (if you have the Icons checkbox selected in the More Preferences screen). It wasn’t until I began reading enthusiastic posts from users on the Palm computer newsgroups and mailing lists that I went back for a second look.
Setting up icons is a little awkward, since the icons themselves aren’t built-in to the program. They exist in a Memo Pad file called DATEBK3 and look at first like gibberish, as shown in Figure D.
.FIG D This is the apparent icon gibberish stored in a Memo Pad record.
Datebk3 accesses this file when it’s launched; the numbers and letters crammed next to the equal sign are hexadecimal representations of which pixels to activate within the 8-pixel-square space used by the icons. Having the file exist outside of Datebk3 means you can create your own icons and edit them into the existing list. The icon code is converted into recognizable images, as shown in Figure E. See the Datebk3 Custom Icon Warehouse for more icons, plus links to icon editors and other icon repositories.
.Fig E The apparent gibberish looks like real icons when used in Datebk3.
.H1 A Category of one’s own
Categories are an integrated part of all Palm OS applications — except Date Book. Datebk3 finally gives us the ability to assign categories to events. Now, for example, you can easily discern between the meetings you need to attend, and the ones you could easily avoid without getting into trouble. Another use for categories is to distinguish between events that are with your family and those for your job
From any view, tap the Menu icon and choose Select Category from the Options menu (in the day view, you’ll find it under the Cat. Menu), or write Command-G in the Graffiti area. You’ll be presented with the Select Categories screen, as shown in Figure F.
.FIG F Highlighted categories are visible when you return to the Datebk3 calendar views.
Initially, only the Unfiled category is available, so tap the Edit button to access the familiar Edit Categories screen and create the names of your new categories. As with the other Palm applications, you’re limited to a maximum of 15 categories. Click OK to return to the Select Categories screen, where you’ll find new boxes for each category. If you want to assign an icon to each category, tap the box to the left of the title and select an icon from the Icons and Descriptions screen, then tap OK.
Titles that are highlighted will be visible in the Datebk3 views. If you return to the regular Date Book, all appointments will be visible unless they’ve been set up as Private records and you have selected Hide Private Items in the Palm OS Security application. Once you’ve set up your categories and made them visible, you can apply them to appointments by selecting the event, tapping the Details button, and tapping the Category selection box. Note that an icon chosen specifically for the event using the Icon button will override whatever icon is associated with the category.
.H1 Schedule your To Do items
Although I make regular use of my Palm computer’s built-in To Do List, the one thing I can’t do is schedule a To Do item. So, although I may have "Pick up documents" on my list, I may be out of luck if I needed to pick up the documents precisely at 3 p.m. Datebk3 gets around this limitation through the use of Floating Events, which will shift to the following day until marked as done.
To create a Floating Event, enter a new record as normal at the time you wish to begin it, then tap the Details button. You’ll notice three options beside Type: Appt., Float, and Done. Highlight Float and tap OK. In the day view, the event appears with a circle at the far-right. Because it’s still based on a normal appointment, you can set an alarm and time duration. When you’ve completed the task, tap the circle to insert a checkmark and change its status to Done.
Another helpful addition to Datebk3 is the ability to create and display regular To Do items within many of Datebk3’s calendar views. From the Record menu in the day view, select New Todo in Todo DB (or write Command-T); a familiar checkbox To Do item will appear at the top of the day’s events. If you switch to the To Do List application, you’ll see that it appears there as well (like Date Book, Datebk3 accesses the underlying To Do database). If you want to hide the To Do items you’ve created in Datebk3, select Hide/Show Todo’s (Command-W) from the Options menu. This way, you may never even need to launch the To Do list in the future.
.H1 You too can be a journalist
The benefit of having a detailed time-management system is the flexibility it allows, especially for people who take frequent notes throughout the day. Although you could just as easily create a new Memo Pad record to jot down your thoughts, sometimes it can be difficult to go back to it later: did you file it as "Meeting Notes", or "Conversation with Doug"?
If you know, however, that you wrote it during the meeting Wednesday afternoon, the Journal feature of Datebk3 would make it easier to go back and find your remarks. By selecting New Journal Entry (Command-J) from the Record menu, Datebk3 will create an untimed event with an attached note, as well as timestamp your entry. Creating a new journal entry later in the day adds to the existing note.
.H1 Get in Your (Time) Zone
Version 3 of Datebk3 introduced a solution that has been vexing travelers and business people since the Palm computer first emerged: multiple time zone support. This is especially helpful when you have to deal with far ranging locations such as New York and Hong Kong, allowing you to easily schedule a meeting or conference call and know what the local time will be.
Like the icon feature, Datebk3 uses an outside text file in the Memo Pad to get its time zone information. With the file timezone.txt in Memo Pad, go to the Preferences screen and tap the selection box beside Home Zone. Choose your current time zone from the list, shown in Figure G, then tap OK. If you’re scheduling a meeting located in another time zone, you can specify that the record "lives" in the other zone by selecting from the Time Zone option in the Event Details screen. It will appear in the day view with two times attached: your current home time, and the time reflecting the other time zone.
.FIG G Get into your zone by choosing from the list above.
When you travel to another time zone, select Set Display Time Zone (Command-Z) from the Options menu to select your new current zone. After updating your system’s clock, you’ll see that every event is indicated by two times to indicate the current and home time zones.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.H1 Take time to make time
There are even more features available in Datebk3 that I didn’t have room to cover here, which gives you an idea of how extensive the program is, and what a difference it is compared to the standard Date Book. You’ll find that it’s worth your time to explore what it can do. Datebk3 brings to the Palm platform the same kind of progression as the jump from early films to the modern blockbusters "gracing" movie screens today.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Pay Your "Gorillaware" Fee
In the software world, it’s the rare developer who can support himself on sales of shareware alone. Pimlico Software owner C. E. Steuart Dewar, however, isn’t keeping a dime from his $20 shareware fee. Instead, the money generated by Datebk3 will be directed toward the future guests of Dewar’s home: up to 20 Western Lowland Gorillas.
Dewar and his wife, Jane T. R. Dewar, are building Gorilla Haven on their 275 acre property in the North Georgia (Blue Ridge) mountains of the United States. Working with international zoos and wildlife preserves, the Dewars will provide a secure temporary holding facility for gorillas awaiting permanent zoo housing, and to help ensure the welfare and genetic diversity of the species. Now in construction, the haven is expected to begin hosting its first gorillas in the year 2000.
Although Gorilla Haven will not be a public attraction, the Dewars have begun offering educational opportunities (such as setting up a local "field station") and welcome questions and comments from the Gorilla Haven Web site.
.H1 Product availability and resources
Visit the Datebk3 Page at http://www.gorilla-haven.org/pimlico/datebk3.htm.
Visit Pimlico Software at http://www.gorilla-haven.org/pimlico/.
Gorilla Haven is located at http://www.gorilla-haven.org.
Datebk3 Icons can be found at http://www.jeton.or.jp/users/robin/pilot/icon-e.html.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.ee6c7e9
.END_KEEP
