Coobots 1.0

Coobots

Version 1.0

Copyright  2001 Guy Quedens
1217 Circle Lane, Bedford, TX 76022-6761
email: gquedens@hotmail.com



I Introduction 1
II Main Screen 2
III Menu 3
IV Configuration Options 3
V Suggestions 4
VI Q & A 4









I: Introduction

“Necessity is the Mother of Invention”

When I got my Pocket PC, I loved it… except for one small thing. I wanted to be able to see, at a glance, whose birthdays were on the horizon. Pocket Outlook  allowed me to enter birthdays for my contacts, but doesn’t display them all conveniently in any one place. Thus, was born the desire for a simple program that would dig through the database and pull out imminent birth dates.

But why stop there? Since the contacts database also allows the storage of a person’s anniversary and spouse’s name, I decided to include that in my little program as well.

Since I was on a roll, and as birthdays and anniversaries are both “all-day events,” I thought it might be nice to see such all-day events from the calendar database. For example, “Memorial Day”, “Valentines Day”, and so on are generally considered “all-day events.” So, I decided to include this category as well.

So, there you have it. A need and a solution. I hope you find this program to be useful.

II: Main Screen



The “Main Screen” of Coobots is where all upcoming events are displayed in chronological order. Along the left side is the month and day of the event, followed by a two-letter event code and then the event itself.

The event code is one of three possibilities:

“AD” signifies an “All-Day” event
“AN” signifies an anniversary
“BD” signifies a birthday

The text of an All-Day event is taken from the “Subject” of the event’s calendar entry.

The text of a birthday entry is taken from the contact’s “File As” field. It is usually the persons last name followed by first name. The persons age is calculated and displayed.

The text of an anniversary entry is taken from several fields. First is the contact’s “File As” field. Following (if available) is the contact’s spouse’s name and is enclosed in brackets ( [ ] ). Finally, the number of years for that anniversary is calculated and shown.

Note that “number of years” shows how old the person WILL BE if their birthday is after today. It shows how old they ARE if the date is today or occurred in the past.


III: Menu

Coobots has only one menu with four items: “Refresh”, “Options…”, “About…”, and “Exit”.

“Options…” causes a screen to be displayed that allows you to control what data is selected for display.

“About…” displays a program title screen.

“Refresh” is probably the most confusing aspect of Coobots. In essence, it completely reloads the main screen from the database. In most cases, this is not necessary as each time you start Coobats from the “Programs” screen icon, the screen is automatically refreshed and populated.

However, if you leave Coobots running and switch to the calendar or contacts program and add or update an item, it will not be immediately reflected on the Coobots display. Should you make such a change and wish to see it immediately appear, you will need to tap the “Refresh” menu selection.


IV: Configuration Options

This is where you tell Coobots what you would like to see on the main screen.

Within the “Item Categories” group, check or un-check an item to turn it on or off. At least one item must be checked.

Within the “After today” group, choose the time period that indicates how far in the future you would like to see.

Within the “Prior to today” group, choose the time period that indicates how far in the past you would like to see.

Choose “OK” when you are finished. Your changes will be saved. If you do not wish to save your changes, select “Cancel.”


V: Suggestions

1. An unfortunate shortcoming of the contacts database is that you can enter only one birthday for a given contact. So, if you want to enter dates for your brother, his wife, and their six kids, you will need to create eight separate entries. While this can clutter up your contacts database, you are able to categorize each contact. I have a category called “Relatives of Contacts” where I lump anybody who is related to a “main” contact. In this manor, they all don’t show up in my “Personal” category.

2. If you have a husband and wife entered individually in your contacts database and wish to record their anniversary, only indicate that date on one of the records and leave the other record blank. Otherwise, “Coobots” will display the event twice.





VI: Q & A

1. Q: Uhh, what, exactly, is a “Coobots”?

A: “Coobots” is a silly fictional-friends name (along with Skagalli and Tageek) my daughter came up with. When I was searching for something to call this program, I considered all kinds of “serious” names like “Pocket Birthdays”. Then, it struck me! Just call it “Coobots.” So, there it is: “Coobots.”

2. Q: Does “Coobots” alter or update my contacts and/or calendar entries?

A: No! “Coobots” is a “read-only” program. The only thing it saves (in an area called the “Windows Registry”) is your option selections.

3. Q: Are any languages other than English supported?

A: Not at this time.

4. Q: I would prefer to see the European notation for dates ( dd/mm ).

A: That is left as a future enhancement


coobots.zip [1.47 Mb] (Count: 1)