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A Case Study - the calendar application

The calendar application is a simple, plain ASCII file based, date planner and reminder. It is just meant to be an example of how to build real-world applications with the mechanisms, views and tools described in the previous chapter. Anyway, if you like it, just feel free to use it.

All data is stored and read from an ASCII file that can be specified by the biss.calendar.DefDateFile property setting in the calendars configuration file ~/.java/biss.calendar (default is 'dates.dat').

How it looks like

The calendar application is started by executing the command

0pt []tex2html_wrap1159 java biss.calendar.DateBrowser

or, in case you also want to start a background thread watching your dates to expire, by the command:

0pt []tex2html_wrap1159 java biss.calendar.DateWatchDog

The following is a brief description of its main views and how they can be used.

DateBrowser

The DateViewer is the Dialog view to add, modify and remove dates.

The Modify, Insert and Remove buttons refer to the selected date, the Store button saves all dates to disk. Most actions are also available from the BarMenu:

View
select day / week / month viewmode

Date
modify / insert / remove selection

Print
prints a WYSIWYG copy of the ItemPane to a postscript file ( name mangled from selection date and viewmode e.g. tt16.01.1997.ps) that can be used by any postscript previewer / printer ( nice quality, have a look at it ! )

Store
save all dates to disk

Options
 

Goto...
opens a prompter to enter the date to jump to

Clone
launches another DateViewer on the same date

CleanUp
removes all entries.

Help
not yet implemented ( will show something like this)

Note that in this beta version, all date and time entries must be specified in European format ( 24 hours tex2html_wrap1158hh:mmtex2html_wrap1159 time, e.g. 16:33 and tex2html_wrap1158dd.mm.yyyytex2html_wrap1159 date, e.g. 16.01.1997)

 figure362
Figure 4.1: DateBrowser

DateWatchdog

Once you are familiar with the usage of the DateBrowser, you should use the DateWatchdog application instead, which is a combination of the DateBrowser and a background thread watching its alarm dates. The check interval can be specified by the biss.calendar.WatchDelay property setting ( default is 5 minutes). The DateController view is used to launch a DateBrowser (via Edit button) or to exit the application ( close views and watcher thread).

 figure367
Figure 4.2: DateController

When the Watchdog detects pending alarm dates a notification dialog like this comes up:

 figure371
Figure 4.3: Watchdog

To view, edit or remove an alarm date, select the entry from the ItemPane and push the Edit button to open a DateViewer on it. Most probably you expect the alarm entry to be processed now, so uncheck the DateViewers alarm Checkbox for that entry, store the modification to disk and close the dialogs. If you do not, the next check will bring up the alarm again.


next up previous contents
Next: BISS AWT International License Up: No Title Previous: Packages

James Hughes
Sat Jun 7 10:31:42 EDT 1997