Introduction

Assistant is, as the name implies, Your Personal Assistant, a multipurpose program that will make your day at your PC a pleasure. Assistant has many functions, some of which are:

• A Calendar with a daily note pad, reminders of birthdays and other important dates and liturgical events, all of which can be modified to meet your your needs.
• An Alarm Clock to remind you of your appointments and other events, e.g. of television or radio shows. Also you may have the Alarm Clock automatically start other applications.
• A Diary, Appointment Book, Telephone Message pad and Project Calendar with a possibility to link documents to each event.
• A Phone and Address Book with buttons to dial the person, send him e-mail or visit his home page, again with a possibility to link an unlimited number of documents to each person.
• An Idea Bank for making immediate notes of your brilliant ideas as soon as they pop up into your mind. The ideas are grouped under categories and naturally you can link documents to them too!
• A Database for your other documents with keyword search possibility. This with the previously mentioned document linkage methods will help you enormously in keeping track of your word processor documents, spread sheets and other files. Even documents on the Internet may be entered by prefixing them with "http://" . You come up with a keyword and the document is immediately found and can be opened in the appropriate application for reading, printing or updating!
• An enhanced Desktop for your most used applications. A hundred buttons reserved for your hundred needs.
• A simple Money Manager to keep track of your expenses, bank accounts and cash.
• A Calculator with 255 renamable memories and five foreign exchange buttons. You select which currencies you need conversion for and the exchange rates are easily updated.
• A Clock Display, both Analog and Digital, big enough to read from across the room is also available.

Install Notes

If this is the first time you install Assistant, the only thing you have to do is to click on ASSIST.EXE. It will install Assistant in a directory named Assist under your Program Files. It will also make the necessary entries in your Start Menu. After the installation you may make shortcuts to your desktop and/or Task Bar if needed.

If you have used an earlier version of Assistant you should select File -> BackUp Assistant and hit the "BackUp All"-button. before installing the new version. Then you should delete "Assistant.ini".

If the new version Assistant reports File Access Error 47, mail all your old *.tps files to . I'll convert your database and mail the files back to you. It is also recommended to select: File -> Rebuild Keys in your new Assistant after version change.

The Shareware Concept

This program is distributed as ShareWare.

ShareWare is commercial software distributed in an unconventional manner.

Microcomputers copy information very easily. Instead of trying to frustrate this through copy protection, ShareWare takes advantage of it to reach as many users as possible at the lowest cost. Anyone may copy a ShareWare program and distribute it to whomever they desire, provided they do not charge a fee or alter it. ShareWare isn't free. Serious ShareWare is as polished as any conventional commercial product, and represents just as much programming effort. If you use it regularly, the authors expect compensation.

However, unlike conventional distribution, ShareWare allows you to evaluate the product before you decide to purchase it. The price is often lower, as well, because there are no advertising, packaging, or distribution costs.

But it can only work with your support. If you are still using a ShareWare product after a couple of weeks, then it is obviously worth something to you, and you should send a contribution.

Registering  Assistant

By registering Assistant you get rid of the annoying reminder screen and you will get future updates free of charge. There also will be help available via e-mail.

This is how:

1. Send 30 to Sampo Bank in Finland, account number 800020-5177828 or in cash (no checks please) to:

                        S.Andreas Saarvuo
                        Västerlånggatan 24 C 85
                        FIN-20100 Åbo
                        Finland

2. Open the About Assistant window and hit the Register button or select File -> Register Assistant from the Menu. Fill all appropriate (yellow) fields and save by hitting the OK button. This will create a file by the name of AssReg.txt and put the contents also to the clipboard.

3. Send an e-mail to and paste the contents of AssReg.txt as the message body or include AssReg.txt as an attachment to the message.
If you sent your contribution through a bank, it might be advisable to give the reference information in this mail: Amount and date sent, through which bank, number of the receipt e.t.c.

4. I will send your Registration Code back to you as soon as I have received your contribution.

5. Open the About Assistant window and hit the Register button or select File -> Register Assistant from the Menu. Fill in the Registration Code and hit OK. Close Assistant and restart it. Your Assistant is now registered to you.

Become a Reseller:

If you want to become a Reseller, just send me an e-mail. You will get 30% provision on each copy of Assistant you sell.

AssHelp.txt

You may edit this temporary help file to suit your needs. If you do, pls e-mail a copy to sas(a)iki.fi too!

I would also be very grateful for any comments, corrections translations e.t.c. <G><G><G>
 
 

MAIN WINDOW

Menu

File

Print Setup

Standard Windows function

Configure - F12

Tolling the hour, half and quarter:

You may select sound files (wav) for one or all these three functions. Missing file will silence the function.
Select and/or test by button.

Wallpapers

You may select wallpaper for main window, toolbar, all input forms and all browses. Select and/or test by button.

Daily Notes Path

Select where to keep your daily notes text files. The Filenames format will be
YYYY-MM-DD Weekday.txt, e.g. 2000-04-05 Wednesday.txt.

Countdown

Date & Time for the Y2k Clock

The three checkboxes:

Digiclock: Open Date & Time display at start.
Calendar: Open Calendar window at start.
Log: Writes log entries of main events in Assistant.log situated in Daily Notes Path.

The Radio Buttons:

Open Assistant Maximized at start
Open Assistant iconized in Tray.
Normal

Daylight-Saving Time

Windows has a rudimentary function of handling DLS "automatically" that will work for most users but there are a couple of snags: It will do the change from/to DLS only when you next boot the computer and even then it will stop loading, showing a message that the change has been made, This won't do if e.g. you use your computer as an alarm clock waking you up in the morning. Assistant does the change automatically at the right time (in most countries at 3.00 a.m.). If the computer or Assistant is not running during the night, the change will be done next time you start Assistant. The dates and times are stored in a file called Assistant_DLS.tps that is created in the root directory of drive C so even if you run more than one Assistant (in different directories with different users) on the same computer, this file will be shared.

If you use this option of Assistant, please remember to deactivate the corresponding function in Windows: "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes".

Note!

You may use this function also on your laptop when traveling. You can preset your computer to adjust the clock when crossing time zones depending on your itinerary.

Browse DLS:

Show dates and times for changing from STD Time to DLS Time and back.
Hit Insert, Change or Delete

Adding or Changing a DLS:

Right Click on Date to pick date from the Calendar
Move Clock at Time defaults to 3 am
Move Clock defaults to 1 hour
Plus/Minus defaults to '+' in Spring and '-' in Autumn.

BackUp Assistant

BackUp will copy either ALL files (including the program itself) or just the database files (*.tps) to a subdirectory YYYY-MM-DD where YYYY = year, MM = month and DD = day. This way it is easy to delete old backups and/or move them to floppies or other backup media.

Sort Alarms

Renumbers Alarm Records

Sort Memorials

There may exist up to ten Memorials per day numbered 0 - 9. This number corresponds to display order. To change display order, give each entry 0 - 9 a new number. Please note that any conflicting numbering results to an error message.

Sort Feasts

There may exist up to ten Feasts per day numbered 0 - 9. This number corresponds to display order. To change display order, give each entry 0 - 9 a new number. Please note that any conflicting numbering results to an error message.

Rebuild Keys

Recommended after installing a new Assistant version or if sort order in some browse seems corrupt.

View Log - F10

If you have configured Assistant to log main events, you may view (and edit) this log file.

Exit - Alt-F4

Close Assistant

Registers

Users

Browse Users

Lists all users allowed to use Assistant. If one or more defined, Assistant will ask for password at start and deny access for anyone without a correct password.

Note that the database files are encrypted preventing anyone peeking into your private data.

Add, Change or Delete User

At Insert the Name defaults to the Windows user name.

Password may be 1 - 8 characters. When entering either here or at login, only asterixes will be shown to prevent anyone looking over your shoulder to see your password. Do NOT loose your password! To make sure you did enter it correctly, pls type it again. Even deleting an user, the password must be entered correctly.

Exchange Rates

Browse Exchange Rates

Change Exchange Rates

The Calculator has five buttons reserved for currencies. Here you may define which exchange rates you need for your calculations and set their values.

Alarms - Alt-F3

Alarms Browse

Lists all Alarms. Date, Time, Warning time (i.e. how long before the actual event the alarm begins to display and sound). Under M there might be either M(essage) or an A(ction). Under D there mght be a digit or a N indicating if the alarm is repeating or not: 0 = Daily, 1 - 7 on Sundays, Mondays, .. Saturdays, 8 = Weekdays or 9 = Weekends.

Adding, Changing or Deleting an Alarm

Choose: Message or Action

Choose Date: Right Click for Calendar, Up/Down arrows will change the date by one day, Shift-Up/Down by one week, Alt-Up/Down by a month and Ctrl-Up/Down by one year.

Choose Time: Up/Down arrows will change the tate by one minute, Shift-Up/Down by five minutes, Alt-Up/Down by ten minutes and Ctrl-Up/Down by one hour.

Select Warning Time: i.e. how long before the actual event the alarm begins to display and sound or the program to execute.

If Message Chosen:

Type in Sound file or pick one by using the button at right end of the field.
Type in Message.
Select Repeat or Not.

If Action Chosen:

Type in command to execute (program to start) or pick one by using the button at right end of the field Type in Parameters for the program.
Select Repeat or Not.

Birthdays

Birthday Browse

Shows all birthdays entered. The Birthdays will be displayed on given dates in the right upper corner of the Calendar display.

Adding, Changing or Deleting a Birthday

Choose Date: Right Click for Calendar, Up/Down arrows will change the date by one day, Shift-Up/Down by one week, Alt-Up/Down by a month and Ctrl-Up/Down by one year.

Client Number: If you have the person already in your Names/Addresses database you may use the button at the right of this field to pick the name to the next field.

Line: Change this number if you already have a Birthday on the same date.

Daily Notes

Browse Daily Notes

Add, Change or Delete Daily Note

Select Date: Right Click for Calendar, Up/Down arrows will change the date by one day, Shift-Up/Down by one week, Alt-Up/Down by a month and Ctrl-Up/Down by one year.

Type in your Note.

Memorials

Memorial Days

Lines may be added, changed or deleted in this browse.

Feasts

Browse Canonical Feasts

Lines may be added, changed or deleted in this browse.

Special Days

Browse Special Days

Date
Calc: To, From or Both
Name of the Day
Before: Number of days before the date to display in the right upper corner of the Calendar display.
After: Number of days after the date to display in the right upper corner of the Calendar display.

Edit QuickMemo

This is the place for special data that may be retieved instantly, e.g. your own telephone, cellular or fax number that people calling you often ask but you never remember ... <G><G><G>

Accounts

Browse Accounts

Insert, Change or Delete Account

Select type from Bank, Income or Expense.
Under type Bank, add also Credit Cards and don't forget Cash.
Under type Income, add accounts for all different sources of income.
Accounts for Expenses should be as many as you want to follow your expenses for.
Select a number (01-99) for the Account. Number 99 should be named 'Other' or similar as 99 will not be displayed on the chronological browse. The number will affect sorting order of the accounts.
Type a Name for the account. Current Amount is read-only.

Assistant

Diary - F11

There are 5 types of Diary/Memo entries:

1. Phone

Make notes of your telephone conversations and/or telefaxes.

On the General tab:

Date, time, subject of the conversation, caller or who you called and optional client info if you e.g. have been talking with your reseller.

On the Memorandum tab:

Make notes of the conversation.

On the Documents tab:

If there are some documents related to the conversation e.g. the telefax received/sent, you may couple the documents to the record here for easy and fast retrieval.

2. Project

On the General tab:

If you are working on projects, you may enter here date and time for beginning and end of the time you spent on this project today. Assistant calcutates the time (hours and minutes) used for different projects e.g. for billing purposes.

You may make a short memo describing the work done this time.

On the Documents tab:

If there are some documents or other files related to the project, you may couple the documents to the record here for easy and fast retrieval.
 

3. Note

On the General tab:

You may enter general notes e.g. keeping a diary.

On the Documents tab:

If there are some documents or other files related to the note, you may couple the documents to the record here for easy and fast retrieval.

4. Meeting

On the General tab:

Make notes of meetings or events to come that you'll have to participate. Assistant will place a line of each in the Daily Notes shown on the Calendar and you can also  have Assistant to make an alarm some minutes before the meeting to remind you of it.

On the Documents tab:

If there are some documents related to the meeting or event, you may couple the documents to the record here for easy and fast retrieval.

5. Extra

I use this e.g. to make notes of tv programs I wish to record on my video.
 

Addresses - F4

Names Browse

Click the Red Telephone for making the call.
Click the Satellite Antenna for surfing to the persons Home Page.
Click the Letter Box for sending E-Mail.
Click the Clipboard for copying the date to the Clipboard.
Click the Printer for a Report.
Click the Sticker Printer for picking this person for printing stickers.

Ideas - Think Tank - Alt F2

Ideas - Think Tank

This is for making notes of Ideas you get when doing something else to be realized in the future. The Ideas are grouped in user definiable categories.

The Categories are listed alphabetically.

Under each Category you may insert an unlimited number of Ideas and under each Idea you may insert an unlimited number of Idea Details, with a short note and you also may couple related documents or other files to each Idea Detail for fast and easy retreival.

Browse Documents - F9

Document Categories

Documents or other files not necessarily related to Address Book, Think Tank or Diary entries may be entered under an unlimited number of user definiable categories.

Documents

Type in Document Path or pick one with the button at the right of the field.
Type in the Description.
Type in the Application (Program) to open the Document with or pick one with the button at the right of the field. Leaving this field empty, the Document is opened with the Program associated in Windows to this type of document.
Add, Change or Delete Keywords.
Use the Open Document Button to open this Document.

Keyword Search - F8

Browse all Documents by Keywords.
Use Open Document Button to open the Document.

!         Note that you may also associate an unlimited number of Files
!         of any type to all Diary Note types, All Names & Addresses and
!         Think Tank Idea records in addition to the Document Categories.
!         This should make your life a lot easier by providing several
!         new ways to keep track of your documents, work sheets and other
!         files.

Applications - Programs - F7

Browse Programs

Add, Change or Delete a Program (Application)

Give a Name for the Program.
Optionally select a Button Number (001 - 100) for Start Applications window. Note, that there is no check on the Button Numbers (except that the number is between 1 and 100). It is up to you not to use the same number twice!
Type in a Description.
Type in Program Pathor pick one with the button at the right of the field.
Type in Start Path or pick one with the button at the right of the field.
Type in Parameters (if any) for the Program.
If you selected a Button Number, you may type in an icon name with path or pick one with the button at the right of the field, otherwise the default icon for the application is used.
Use the Open Document Button to immediately open this Application.

Money Manager

Browse Expenses/Income

Insert: Add a Transaction

Select Account type from Expense, Income or Bank (inc. Credit cards & Cash)
Select Account number. Click the button to choose.
Select Account number to charge or credit.
Type in the amount and a legend.
The button with the money bag enables you to quick insert new accounts when needed.

Quick Memo - F2

View AssMemo.txt

Edit AssMemo.txt.

This is the place for special data that may be retieved instantly, e.g. your own telephone, cellular or fax number that people calling you often ask but you never remember ...<G><G><G>

Calendar - F3

Select Date: Right Click for Calendar, Up/Down arrows will change the date by one day, Shift-Up/Down by one week, Alt-Up/Down by a month and Ctrl-Up/Down by one year.
Buttons for Previous Day, Today and Next Day.
Button for Editing the Note in the Left Top Corner.
Button for Creating and/or Editing a Daily Note text file in the directory specified during the Configure session. The filenames format will be YYYY-MM-DD Weekday.txt, e.g. 2000-04-05 Wednesday.txt.

Calculator - F6

The Calculator is about standard except that it has 255 Memories with user definiable names and makes a text file CalcTape.txt recording all your calculations.

The Calculator also has five buttons reserved for currencies. You may define which exchange rates you need for your calculations and set their values in Registers -> Exchange Rates.

Projects - Alt-F5

Projects Browse

Use the Calculator Button to calculate hours used totally, this year, month and week.

Adding, Changing, Deleting a Project.
 

Mailing Labels - Alt-F6

In the Mailing Labels Browse you may Edit and Delete field data.
The Update Button retrieves the most recent data from the Names/Addresses database.
The Printer Button opens the Setup Labels window.

Select Label Sheet from four most common types.

Begin with label allows you to use a partially used Sticker Sheet by selecting which label to begin printing with (count from left to right, up to down).

Time Display - F5

Display Date & Time and next Alarm.

Analog Clock - Ctrl-A

Countdown

Y2k Clock displays:

The time and date to count from/to (See Configure),
Years, months, days, hours, minutes & seconds
Days, hours, minutes & seconds,
Hours, minutes & seconds,
Minutes & seconds,
Seconds.

Edit (Standard Windows functions)

Cut
Copy
Paste

Window (Standard Windows functions)

Tile
Cascade
Arrange Icons

Help

About Assistant

& how to contact Author

Help

Display AssHelp.txt

Edit Help

Edit AssHelp.txt

Icons:

1st Icon: Exit

2nd Icon: Diary & Memo

3rd Icon: Think Tank - Ideas

4th Icon: Documents

5th Icon: Find Documents by Keywords

6th Icon: Start Applications

This window is an user configurable "desktop" for your most frequently used programs. There are 100 hidden buttons, 5 tabs with 20 buttons on each that become visible as soon as you install the applications to them. See: Start Programs F7

7th Icon: Names & Addresses

8th Icon: Quick Memo

9th Icon: Calendar

10th Icon: Money Manager

11th Icon: Browse Alarms

12th Icon: Calculator

13th Icon: Display Time & Date

Display Date & Time and Iconize all other windows.

14th Icon: Y2k Clock

15th Icon: About Assistant

16th Icon: Alarm On

If present indicates that one or more alarms are due during next 24 hours. Status bar zone 2 will show more info.

Status line:

Zone 1: Next DLS Time Change Date
Zone 2: Next Alarm
Zone 3: User Name
Zone 4: Current Directory Path
Zone 5: N if Numlock is On
Zone 6: C if Caps Lock is On
Zone 7: S if Scroll Lock is On
 

You may edit the temporary help file AssHelp.txt to suit your needs. If you do, pls e-mail a copy to sas(a)iki.fi too!

I would also be very grateful for any comments, corrections translations e.t.c. … <G><G><G>
 
 

VCS

Andreas

http://www.iki.fi/sas/

+358-50-518 5320