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PC-SIG Diskette Library (Disk #1900)
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Information about “BIG EVENT”
BIGEVENT warns you 10 days in advance of special events on your social
calendar such as birthdays, anniversaries and special days of the year
such as Mother's Day. After all, it's your memory -- not your heart --
that needs a hand. You enter all your special events in a text file
according to a special program format. Once the data is entered, every
time you turn on your computer it will tell you which events are coming
up soon.
BGEVNT.DOC
BigEvent (c) 1989 by
Friendsware of Friendswood
PROGRAM SUMMARY
---------------
BigEvent is a shareware utility program designed to warn you
10 days in advance of special events on your social calendar
such as birthdays, anniversaries and special days of the
year such as Mother's Day. Now there is no more reason to
forget to send your mother a card on Mother's Day or her birthday.
BigEvent PROGRAM OPERATION
--------------------------
To obtain maximum benefit from BigEvent, you need to have it run
from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. This is a file on your hard disk
or floppy which will automatically execute each time your computer
is turned on. To have BigEvent run automatically, simply edit the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file to add the line:
bgevnt bgevnt.dat
In the file 'bgevnt.dat' you put your "events". The format of
this file is shown in the SAMPLE.DAT file included on this
disk. A line from that file is shown below:
column 1
| column 10
| |
07/14/26 b Uncle Harold Smith: 2735 39th St. Lubbock, TX 79422
| |
| |
spaces must be in columns 9 & 11
You enter the date in mm/dd/yy form beginning in column 1,
a space, an 'event symbol' (either 'a' or 'b' or 'x') in column 10,
another space, and then the message you want to see on the screen
which corresponds to the date. BigEvent interprets the 'a' as
anniversary, the 'b' as denoting birthday, and the 'x' as any
other big event. Be sure to leave one space after the event
symbol since BigEvent uses this field to cancel message
notifications under certain conditions. Your data file can
have any name you want and be in any directory you wish.
Furthermore, you can run multiple data files by simply adding
more instances of the BigEvent invocation in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
You can make your own data file in 2 ways. One is to use the
utility program on this disk called MKDAT. This will build
your data file and prompt you for each element of the data
file. This program is not, however, a general purpose word
processor or text editor.
The second way to make your own data file is to use an editor or
word processor which will put 'hard return' or 'hard new-line'
characters at the end of each entry. Some editors which work this
way are EDLIN, SIDEKICK, any of the Borland language editors such
as the ones found in TURBO C, TURBO BASIC, and TURBO PASCAL and
most word processors which allow you to write or export files as
ASCII data files. (Refer to the user's manual for your word
processor for more information on how to make files in ASCII
format.)
In its default mode, BigEvent will warn you from 10 days before
the event up through the day of the event. Suppose you send
Uncle Harold his birthday card on the very first day the message
comes up. Thereafter, you might not want to see that birthday
message every day for the next 10 days. (This may depend largely
on your feelings about Uncle Harold.) You can turn off the
warning in two ways.
* One way is to edit your data file and add a '-' character in
column 11 immediately after the event symbol in column 10.
For example, 07/14/26 b is modified to become:
07/14/26 b- when you no longer want to see
Uncle Harold's birthday message.
* Another method is to set an auto-cancellation option on the
command line for BigEvent. To do this, you invoke BigEvent
from the AUTOEXEC.BAT file with an optional argument thus:
bgevnt bgevnt.dat c8
In this example, the auto-cancellation feature ( denoted by the
letter 'c') is set and the warning interval is 8 days. Now
when you acknowledge a notice, you can cancel further warnings by
entering a 'c'. Once you have passed the event date in this mode,
the cancellation character '-' is automatically removed so that
the event is rearmed for next year.
AUTOEXEC.BAT FILE EXAMPLES
--------------------------
EXAMPLE 1:
An XT compatible computer with no hardware clock, a monochrome
monitor, and 2 floppy drives. The data is in file 'mydata'
which is normally in drive B:. The date and time commands allow
you to set the date so that BigEvent knows what day it is starting
from. Your AUTOEXEC.BAT would include the lines:
echo off
date
time
bgevnt b:\mydata
echo on
EXAMPLE 2:
An AT compatible computer with a hard disk drive "C:", a built-in
hardware clock, EGA video controller and color monitor. Make sure you
have a CONFIG.SYS file in the root directory which contains the line:
device = ansi.sys
This is needed in order to have the color function properly.
ANSI.SYS is a file which comes with DOS. For this system, it is not
necessary to have date and time statements since the date and time
are automatically set from the hardware clock when the machine is
turned on. If the program file is in the root directory of C:
and the data file is in a directory called C:\DOCS then your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file would contain the line:
bgevnt c:\docs\mydata
In order to have the auto-cancellation feature you would add a 'c'
to the end of the line:
bgevnt c:\docs\mydata c
In order to cut the notification interval down to a week, you would
modify the line to read:
bgevnt c:\docs\mydata c7
If for some reason you wanted to force the messages to be monochrome
even though you have a color monitor and controller, you would modify
the invocation to be:
bgevnt c:\docs\mydata c7m
The order of the characters AFTER the data file name is not important.
The program checks for the letters 'c', 'm', and an integer value.
It is only necessary that all control characters are listed together
with no intervening spaces.
DATA FILE SUGGESTION
--------------------
It is not necessary to sort your data file as all entries are
checked each time the program runs. However, for your own
readability, you can build the file in any order and then run the
DOS SORT command thus: SORT < MYDATA.DAT > MYDATA.DAT to create a
sorted data file. The 1st '<' character tells SORT that it will
get its input from the file MYDATA.DAT. The '>' character tells
SORT to output the sorted data to a file named MYDATA.DAT.
IN CLOSING
----------
BigEvent(tm) is a shareware program. Shareware is a marketing
technique which allows you to try a program before you buy it.
Therefore, you don't wind up buying programs you won't use.
If this program is of use to you, you are expected to buy it.
Buying the program entitles you to a registered version of
the program.
The registration fee for BigEvent is $10.00. The registered
version of the program differs from the unregistered version
in that you can customize the colors used to display the event
message and you can turn off the music if you desire. If you
have tried to run BGCNFG on the unregistered version you have
seen that it does not modify the program file BGEVNT.EXE. It
will however, modify a registered version.
Should your registered program disk prove to be defective,
return it to Friendsware of Friendswood for replacement.
Friendsware of Friendswood offers no other warranty for this
product.
Friendsware of Friendswood specifically disclaims all other
warranties, expressed or implied, including but not limited
to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a
particular purpose. In no event shall Friendsware of Friendswood
be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage,
including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential
or other damages.
Please direct all inquiries concerning BigEvent to:
Friendsware of Friendswood
PO Box 1162
Friendswood, TX 77546-1162
ORDER FORM
BigEvent is an excellent gift for those people with computers who
are always forgetting your birthday or special day. Consider getting
them a copy with yours.
First registered copy...................................$10.00
_______ additional registered copies @ $5.00 /each......$__________
Total............$__________
All copies will be shipped together
to:
Name:_______________________________________________________
Address:____________________________________________________
City/State:___________________________________ZIP:__________
Make checks payable to: Friendsware of Friendswood.
Texas residents please add 7% sales tax. First class mail and
all handling charges are paid by Friendsware of Friendswood.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
| |
| Friendsware of Friendswood |
| PO Box 1162 |
| Friendswood, TX 77546-1162 |
| |
-------------------------------------
FILE1900.TXT
Disk No: 1900
Disk Title: Big Event
PC-SIG Version: S1
Program Title: Big Event
Author Version: 10/11
Author Registration: $10.00
Special Requirements: None.
BIGEVENT warns you 10 days in advance of special events on your social
calendar such as birthdays, anniversaries and special days of the year
such as Mother's Day. After all, it's your memory--not your heart--that
needs a hand. You enter all your special events in a data file
according to a special program format. Once the data is entered, every
time you turn on your computer it will tell you which events are comming
up soon.
PC-SIG
1030D East Duane Avenue
Sunnyvale Ca. 94086
(408) 730-9291
(c) Copyright 1989 PC-SIG, Inc.
GO.TXT
╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ <<<< Disk #1900 BIG EVENT >>>> ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ To start program, type: BGEVNT (press enter) ║
║ ║
║ To print documentation, type: COPY BGEVNT.DOC PRN ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Directory of PC-SIG Library Disk #1900
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory of A:\
BGCNFG EXE 10420 10-11-89 9:24p
BGEVNT DOC 9483 10-10-89 8:07a
BGEVNT EXE 13298 10-11-89 9:00p
BGREAD ME 1848 10-10-89 8:15a
DEMO BAT 742 6-13-89 8:17a
FILE1900 TXT 1629 12-27-89 6:46p
GO BAT 38 1-01-80 1:37a
GO TXT 540 12-27-89 5:45p
MKDAT EXE 15970 9-22-89 11:41p
SAMPLE DAT 380 7-03-87 1:02p
10 file(s) 54348 bytes
102912 bytes free