
                                Calibre
                                
                      Version 3.00 17th August 2008
                             Ray Favre 2008
                         (Authored with Dr Wimp)

This text Manual is extracted from the Impression Publisher master
copy and so loses much formatting and all the screenshots.

Formatted versions of the Manual are available in Impression
Publisher, Ovation Pro and HTML and are free to download from
http://www.rayfavre.me.uk/dwapps.html



Licence: This application is Freeware, but if the end product (i.e. a printed calendar) is used for commercial purposes please read the more detailed licence near the end of this Manual.



If you are upgrading from the previous !Calibre (Version 2.00) then please note that Version 3.00 will accept all previously saved files.

The recommended upgrading method is to copy your existing Defaults and UserRes folders to somewhere safe before installing this new version. Then:

(a) your Calendar files ( filetype &1CC, calfile) can be added to or substituted for the newly supplied items in the UserRes and/or Defaults folder - but ensure that the newly-supplied Format10 calendar file remains in the Defaults folder. 

Calendar files from Version 2.00 will load successfully but you are recommended to resave them immediately because the new font checking facility - see later - will only be active for calendar files saved from Version 3.00 onwards.

(b) your Version 2.00 RLD files can be substituted/added - as appropriate - to the UserRes.RLDs directory.

(c) your old picture files can be copied/substituted at any time into the appropriate UserRes.Pics folders.

Any Choices and Window positions files from Version 2.00 will load successfully but you are strongly recommended to re-save them immediately as some window additions and changes have been made.



!Calibre is an application for designing and printing calendars.

The application presents several default calendar examples, each with a different format for the all-important date area. The user can then produce customised alternatives to these defaults (and/or replace the defaults) using the very flexible controls provided.

As the format differences concern only the way in which dates and/or days are spatially arranged there is very little restriction on the size or artistic design of the end product.

In all formats, up to three separate graphic areas can be defined and used independently (for pictures and/or text).

Additionally, nearly all formats can show ordinal dates, moon phases and user-defined Red Letter Days.

As supplied, !Calibre uses English for the month and days text, but the language can be changed by the user (via the iconbar menu) and several options are included.



(For the new user, it is suggested that you now install and run !Calibre - and take an initial look through the provided examples in the different formats - comparing them with the descriptions below. This will help with the assimilation of the different formats)


Currently there are nine formats offered, as follows:

Format 1 - a commonly seen 1-month-per-page layout where the dates are arranged in a 7 column  5 row grid with the days as a single horizontal row above (usually) the date grid. In months where the last few days cannot fit onto the fifth row they are wrapped round to the start of the first row. The month and year are shown in separate areas. Optionally, week numbers can be added to the left or right of each row of dates.

Format 2 - as for Format 1 except the date grid is 7 columns  6 rows and wrapping of dates is unnecessary.

Format 3 - as for Format 1 except that the date grid is turned at right angles to become 57 and the days appear in a vertical column to the left (usually) of the date grid - and the optional week numbers are above or below each column of dates.

Format 4 - as for Format 3 except that a 67 date grid is used.

Format 5 - a 1-month-per-page layout of 2 columns  16 rows, where the date and day both appear in each grid box. The 1st of the month always starts in the top left box and dates 1-16 always appear in the left-hand column. The dates from 17th to the end of the month form the right-hand column, with the last one or more boxes remaining empty, depending on the number of days in the month. Separate month and year areas are definable as in Formats 1-4. Week numbers are not applicable to this format.

Format 6 - a 1-week-per-page layout, often used as a family calendar with each family member having their own designated column of empty boxes in which to write their events. The dates and days both appear together in a single column of 7 boxes down the left-hand side (usually) of the area of blank boxes. This blank area is user-configurable with up to 6 separate columns - each one of which can be headed with a user-defined name. Separate month and year areas are definable as in Formats 1-4. Optionally, a single week number can be added.

Format 7 - this is a straightforward Year Planner chart with 12 vertical columns for the dates in each month and a single column of (repeating) days down the left-hand side (usually). 

Format 8 - this is a straightforward Year Calendar with each month shown as a complete 76 mini-grid (i.e. each month similar to a mini-version of Format 2). The 12 months can be arranged on the page as 34, 43, 26 or 62. Week numbers can be added as an option.

Format 9 - a 1-month-per-page layout, often used as a family calendar with each family member having their own designated column of empty boxes in which to write their events. The dates and days both appear together in a single column of up to 31 boxes down the left-hand side (usually) of the area of blank boxes. This blank area is user-configurable with up to 6 separate columns - each one of which can be headed with a user-defined name. Separate month and year areas are definable as in Formats 1-4.

Format 10 - a sideways version of Format 7 i.e. a Year Planner chart with 12 horizontal columns for the dates in each month and a single row of (repeating) days along the top (usually).


In nearly all the formats the degree of available user-customisation is very high indeed. For instance, the calendar size and position on the paper; the date, day, year, month area sizes and positions, fill colours (including transparent), grid/outline colours (also including transparent); the text fonts, font sizes, text offsets (horizontal and vertical) - are all user-definable.

Similarly, the size and position of up to 3 graphics areas are user-definable and loaded pictures (independent for each area) are automatically scaled to their defined areas. Further, if the user chooses to overlap a picture with another element of the calendar, the picture can be shown/printed either on top or underneath. (Any or all of the graphics areas can be used to show additional custom text in a drawfile - included with, or instead of, pictures.)

The user also defines, in a simple way, any Red Letter Days to be used and, for each calendar design independently, these can be given their own date/day/boxfill and text fonts/colours, so as to contrast with the normal choices. Red Letter Days can also have additional text defined.

For printing, options are provided to print a range of years/months/weeks and alternate calendar sheets if required, as well as inverting the calendar and changing the position of them when 2- or 4-pages-per-sheet are chosen. It is also easy for the user to put the same or different pictures on different calendar pages (independently for up to 3 picture areas).

A printing preview facility is provided and this is particularly useful for checking that the correct pictures are associated with the correct year/month/week when a range of calendar pages is to be printed.

In formats 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8 the user can opt for the weeks to start on a Sunday instead of Monday.


INSTALLATION

See note above about saving Defaults and UserRes folders from Version 2.00.

The downloaded application can be un-zipped and saved to any hard-disc location.

!Calibre is supplied with a default calendar design file for each Format.

All the defaults can be altered by the user, if required.

For showing the moon phases, the master list of moon-phase dates is held in the Defaults folder. This must not be deleted.

In the same folder there is a copy of the moon-phase font CalMoon. It should load automatically if left there - but it can be added to your normal font pool if you would prefer a permanent presence. (Iyonix users should read Tips also.)





START-UP & OVERVIEW

Double-clicking on the application icon will run the application and install an iconbar icon in the usual way.

If you do not have a printer driver loaded a warning will appear to encourage you to do so. You do not need to quit the application to load a printer driver.

Clicking with <select> on the iconbar icon will open the main display window with (as supplied) the default calendar design for Format 1 showing - probably at 40% scale. If the configured paper size of the printer driver is smaller than the overall calendar size the calendar may not display in its correct position and a warning will appear telling you this, so that the printer driver can be changed (no need to quit the application to do this).

A Toolpane window also appears, attached to the left hand side. The screen-shot below shows this.



The recommended first step for anyone new to !Calibre is to look at each of the available calendar formats by selecting, in turn, each of the Format radio icons in the centre of the Toolpane. At each format choice the corresponding supplied default calendar design file will be loaded and displayed.

When doing this, it will also be seen that the initial display is for the current year and month (and the current week, but this will be greyed out in all but Format 6).

Further, although a design might show one or more defined picture areas (indicated by a rectangle with diagonals and a number) there will be no pictures displayed initially.

For any displayed calendar format, using the year/month/week nudger icons in the Toolpane will change the displayed year and/or month and/or week as desired - and as appropriate to the format. The earliest year available is 1999 and the highest year is 2050.

The scale of the display is easily changed via nudger icons or from a menu of preset values. The scale initially shown for any calendar is part of the saved design. (Please note that the displayed scale and has nothing to do with the size of the printed output - see later.)

It is important to note that each of the supplied default calendar designs is merely a particular example of the format, and the user has wide flexibility to customise designs and save them. In particular, the supplied calendar designs are deliberately restricted to using the common RISCOS fonts to ensure all users can view them as designed. Your own designs can expand beyond these.

Once saved, calendar design files can be easily re-loaded at any time from a menu - or, if required, by dragging in.


Start week on Sunday

Normally, !Calibre uses Monday as the first day of the week. But in some Formats there is an option button in the main toolpane allowing the user  to change the first day of the week from Monday to Sunday. (This option is not available in Formats 5, 6. 7 and 9.)


Customisation

The customisation of the calendar design is mainly carried out via a number of subsidiary windows accessed by clicking the Editdesign... button in the Toolpane.



Red Letter Days

!Calibre gives the user full control over Red Letter Days (RLDs) i.e. individual dates that the user wishes to be highlighted in some way. Commonly, the user will wish to use RLDs for marking Public Holidays (and !Calibre can add the English ones automatically, if required) but as up to 150 RLDs can be applied to any one year there is scope for many other uses e.g. religious days, birthdays, anniversaries etc. (As supplied, the maximum number of RLDs per year is 64 but this can be changed via the iconbar menu.)

RLDs are divided between permanent RLDs (which will appear in all years) and one year only RLDs (which will appear only in one designated year). The user will normally use a mixture of the two types.

Lists of RLDs can be compiled via the EditRLDs... button in the main Toolpane - and once an RLD list has been saved as a file in the recommended way it becomes immediately effective with any format. The user can, of course, switch the display/printing of RLDs on/off at will - and also switch on/off any RLD added text, if required.

Multiple RLDs can be defined for the same date and options are provided for how these are to be shown.



Printing

When the user wishes to print a calendar design, access to the printing set-up window is via the Printset-up... button in the main Toolpane.

Apart from the fact that you can only print the design which is currently loaded, printing is an independent process and the user can choose to print a range of calendar pages and copies. For example, using a month-per-page format, the user may wish to print the twelve months of a year - perhaps with a different main picture for each month but the same second picture on each month. Considerable flexibility is provided here.

A further printing option is to print 2 or 4 calendar pages per sheet of paper, for which scaling is applied automatically. This offers interesting options for printing small calendars e.g. the popular calendar in a CD case.

Additionally, calendars can be inverted and, for 2 or 4 calendar pages per sheet of paper, their positions on the sheet can be altered.

Also, individual sheets and alternate sheets of the chosen print run can be printed.

Whichever printing options are chosen, a printing preview option is available. This is helpful for stepping through a print run to check that all is in order before committing to paper.


The stacking order of items

The order in which the various elements on the calendar are displayed/printed determines their stacking order if the user chooses to introduce overlapping elements in the design. The different formats exhibit slightly different stacking orders.

The calendar outline is always rendered last, so will always be on top of everything. On the display it will then be obvious when any other element is outside the calendar area. When printing, the user has the choice of switching the calendar outline on/off and it is assumed that the only reason for choosing to print it will be to show post-printing cutting lines - for which its full visibility on top would seem sensible.

The order of other elements depends on the format being used. In Formats 6 & 9 the order has been chosen deliberately to ensure the single column of days/dates is above the blank area. This gives extra design flexibility.

In other formats, the relationship between the day & date areas is less important to the design options.

In all cases, the background (boxfill) colour is always rendered before any text, and the outline/grid after the text.

Ignoring the graphics areas for the moment, the Year and Month elements (in that order) are rendered after the above items and will therefore always appear on top of the date/day/weeks if overlapping occurs. Again, their respective boxfill colours will be rendered before the text - and the box outline after the text.

The pictures, by user choice, can either be rendered before the date/day/week elements or just before the calendar outline. So they can be either right at the bottom or right at the top of all other elements - except for the calendar outline. This choice can be made individually for each picture and their respective frames will follow the user-choices if a picture area is activated but no picture is actually displayed/printed.

The combination of the stacking order and the transparent boxfill options (see later) provides many opportunities for creative designs.


A SUGGESTED GENERAL PROCEDURE FOR CALENDAR DESIGN

A good general sequence, leaving out many of the details, is:

1) Decide the format required and display its default design. Note that the display indicates the printing margins of the currently loaded printer driver/paper combination.

(The following assumes that the chosen format is in the range 1-5: there are some differences with other formats.)

2) Click on Editdesign... in the Toolpane, which opens the Edit calendar design window as in the screen-shot below



The right-hand side of this window has a number of radio icons corresponding with the different design elements of the calendar. Clicking, in turn, on each radio icon changes the sub-pane on the left to show the current values relevant to the chosen element in the displayed design, and the controls to alter them e.g. size, position, text font text position etc, as appropriate.

All measurements are in millimetres, except for font sizes which are in points.

3) If it is not already selected, choose the top radio icon i.e. Calendar size/position, to show the pane containing the overall calendar size and position measurements of the currently displayed calendar on the currently configured printer paper - exactly as in the above screen-shot.

4) Decide the finished calendar size for your new calendar - and change the width/height values as necessary (using the nudger icons and/or normal writable icon editing).

As you do this, note that nothing changes on the display - but the Savedesign... button has been disabled (as has also the Start printing button in the print set-up window and the Print sheet and Print all buttons in the printing preview window - see later).

Click on the Update button to incorporate the changes into the screen display i.e. the new overall calendar outline is shown - which may, in turn, have affected the position of some of the other elements. (Note that the display window title bar now contains an unsaved data asterisk - and the Savedesign..., Start printing, Print sheet and Print all buttons are again enabled.)

5) Decide how this new calendar outline is to be placed on the paper and alter the hor/vert justification radio icons and/or the hor/vert offsets accordingly.

For horizontal justification the choices are Left (L), Centre (C) or Right (R). For vertical justification the choices are Top (T), Centre (C) or Bottom (B). The offset for that direction is ignored if Centre is chosen - otherwise they are (in this sub-frame) the offsets from the appropriate edges of the paper e.g. hor offset is from right edge of paper if R justification is chosen.

Change the values as required and click on Update to effect them.

6) On the right of the Edit calendar design window, select the Date area radio icon and decide how large the main date area is to be and where it is to be placed on the calendar. This time the offsets are relative to the edges of the chosen calendar area. Change the values and click on Update to effect them.

The user has full freedom over the date area size and position, and the resulting grid of identical date boxes (e.g. 35 of them in Format 1) will fill the chosen date area size automatically. Thus you could choose to have the date area occupying most of the calendar page (giving date boxes large enough to write short messages in) or to have the area small (to produce a desk calendar, perhaps).

In Formats 6 & 9 the main Date area becomes the Blank boxes area and the date text appears in the single Day/Date column instead.

7) Scroll the sub-pane to reveal the controls to choose the date text size, font and position noting that the text offsets are now relative to the sides of the individual date boxes. Again, click Update to see the changes.

8) Visit, in turn, the editing sub-panes for the Days, Month and Year etc. and alter them as required. Note that, depending on the actual format chosen, there are small differences to how sizes and positions are handled.

For example, in Formats 1 & 2 the days are in a single row of boxes above the date grid. The height of this row and its vertical separation from the date grid can be altered, but the width of the days boxes is, of course, fixed at the same width as the date boxes. Conversely, in Formats 3 & 4 the days are in a single column to the left of the date area - and this time it is the width of the days area that can be altered freely.

Note that the text form of the months and days can be chosen to be Full, Shorter or Shortest i.e. January/Jan/J and Monday/Mon/M. (The user can decide exactly which text is used in each case - see later.)

9) Decide whether pictures are to be added (up to 3 per page) and size and position the areas accordingly. They will appear on the display as rectangles with diagonals plus a number. To display an actual picture drag a drawfile or JPEG to the required picture area or to the corresponding Pale Yellow icon near the top of the main Toolpane, labelled Pic 1, Pic 2 and Pic 3.

Pictures will be scaled to fit the picture area and you can choose to maintain their original aspect ratio or not - via the Keep AR option button.

Dont forget that any picture area can contain text in a drawfile in addition to, or instead of, graphics. e.g. picture captions can easily be used in this way.

10) Choosing the colours of the various elements is normally handled directly by clicking any button over the appropriate part of the displayed calendar. Thus, to choose colours for the date area (i.e. boxfill, date text and outline colours) a button is clicked while the pointer is within the date area - with a sub-menu tree covering all the separate elements. Depending on the actual format, the date and days boxes and the date/day text can be coloured individually or as whole rows/columns etc. The button click needs to be made within the required box/row/column in these cases. The best policy here is to suck it and see.

The following screen-shot shows the colour menu tree available after clicking over one of the date area boxes in Format 1.




Once a colour has been chosen and the OK button pressed in the Colour Picker window, the colour change takes place immediately without the need to use the Update button - and, again, an asterisk will appear in the display window title, if not already there.

11) If appropriate to the chosen format, decide whether the weeks are to start on a Monday or a Sunday and, if the latter, click to tick the Start week on Sunday option icon. Any date/day box and/or text colours you have chosen will be shifted to retain their correct relative places. (Note that if this option icon is ticked and the format allows Week numbers, the Show Week numbers option icon at the top of the Week numbers editing sub-pane will be unticked automatically and the option disabled - see later also.)

12) Saving the changed design is straightforward, but is left until later.


The above sequence is intended as an initial rough introduction to the design process. As can already be seen, most of the editing sub-panes are very similar to each other and once the general actions have been tried they are more or less the same for all. 

It will be noticed that some options (e.g. Week numbers, Names) are not available with all formats, and some parts within the sub-panes are disabled in some formats. Similarly, the text of some of the labels in the sub-panes changes and also the text against the radio icons.

Red Letter Days, Ordinal dates and Moon phases are best described separately and they are covered later.

THE DISPLAY WINDOW & CHANGING COLOURS

The available work area of the main display window is automatically sized to accommodate the configured printer paper size at the maximum available scale (400%) in either portrait or landscape orientation. However, its visible size will be less than the available area.

When loading a new calendar file, the visible window size will initially automatically show the whole calendar if the specified display scale (i.e. the scale value saved as part of that particular calendar file) is less than a user-configurable value - 60%, as supplied. If the specified display scale is higher than this the initial visible window size will be the same as if it had been the user-configurable value (e.g. 60%) and not all of the calendar will be visible. (After this initial opening, of course, the user can change the visible window size and view any part of the calendar area with the toggle, adjust buttons and/or scroll bars)

The calendar is displayed on a representation of the configured printer paper (in White) complete with any non-printing borders shown (as a Dark Grey surround). There is also a small margin in the window at the top and left of the paper merely for cosmetic purposes: it never appears in print..

User interactions directly with the display window are concerned only with changing the colours of the various displayed elements. In general, clicking with any button over any element will lead to a menu tree allowing the colours relevant to that element to be changed. The only exception to this is that the colours for Red Letter Days are handled in one of the Edit calendar design window sub-panes - see later.

The precise menu tree options for changing the colours depends on the format. For example, in Formats1-4 the colours of the date and/or day text and their respective boxfill colours can be changed on an individual box basis - or the colour can be applied to a whole row or column, or all boxes made the same.

Contrast this with Format 5 where the colour choices are more appropriately applied to Every same day e.g. every Tuesday in the same colour.

In Formats 7 and 8 - which display a whole year to a page - the choices are necessarily more limited but separate colours for the different elements are still available.

For background/box-fill colours and outline/grid colours the option to choose no colour is provided. Effectively, this makes the area/line transparent and anything beneath it will then be visible.

For a few elements - the week text colour, the ordinal dates colour, the moon phase colour, the calendar outline colour and the picture area outline colour - access to the colour-changing menu is by clicking <menu> over any part of the display window not occupied by another element. (In Format 8 the week colour is accessible from two menus, but this is purely for user-convenience.)

When any Colour Picker window initially opens, the colour currently applied to the element concerned will be displayed in the Colour Picker window.


If any element overlaps another area then the one above will take precedence with the mouse pointer i.e. the colours in, say, an individual box in the date area will not be able to be changed if the Month box or Year box is hiding it. So, if you intend to superimpose the Month box and/or Year box on top of other areas it is best to keep them out of the way until the colours of these other areas are completed.


The only other practical point worth noting when changing colours is that the display necessarily has to be redrawn after every colour selection. This is not an issue with most formats, but in the very busy Formats 7 and 8 the redrawing can take a few seconds each time (depending on the speed of your machine).


THE TOOLPANE

This pane mainly controls which calendar and format is loaded and displayed and which year/month/week it is showing. It also gives access to the other main operations.




Loading a different calendar file

As already introduced, the default calendar for any format can be loaded at any time using the Format radio icons. On any calendar loading, if the configured paper size of the printer driver is smaller than the overall calendar size the calendar may not display in its correct position and a warning will appear telling you this, so that the printer driver can be changed (no need to quit the application to do this).

The top (writable) icon shows the name of the currently loaded calendar, as contained in its file. (This is not the file leafname.) When preparing a new calendar the writable icon is used to give the calendar a new name, if required, prior to saving it.

If the user has already saved custom calendar files in the UserRes.Calendars folder, a list of them (showing both leafname and calendar name) will be available by pressing <select> over the menu icon to the right of the writable icon. Selecting from this menu will load the file directly.

Whenever an attempt is made to load a new calendar file (or to quit the application) when there is an unsaved data asterisk showing, a warning will appear giving the opportunity to cancel the loading.

When a different calendar file is actually loaded - whether by using the format-changing radio icons or by using the calendar file menu - any currently displayed pictures will disappear.

Introduced in Version 3.00, on the loading/re-loading of any calendar file (which has been saved with Version 3.00 or higher) there will be a font check made to ensure that all fonts required by the design are currently available on the users computer. This check takes place even on start-up. See Section 'Font checking' later.

Displaying pictures

Below the calendar name are a group of icons showing which picture areas are activated in the particular design, and whether or not they have a picture loaded, and how the pictures will be scaled to fit the areas.

The three option icons KeepAR determine, respectively, whether a picture is scaled to fit the area fully or scaled whilst keeping its original aspect ratio (width/height ratio). The Showpics option simply turns the display of any loaded pictures on/off.

Dragging a drawfile or a JPEG file to one of the displayed picture areas or to one of the (enabled) Pale Yellow icons labelled Pic1, Pic2 or Pic3 icons will cause that file to be loaded and displayed immediately in the corresponding picture area. This action will change the text and outline of the corresponding Pale Yellow icon to Red - to show that a picture is loaded. 

Alternatively, pressing <menu> over an enabled Pale Yellow icon will show a list of any picture files saved in the corresponding sub-directory of the UserRes.Pics directory - from which they can be loaded by menu selection if required. These menus also allow the pictures to be unloaded and thus cleared from the display (not deleting the file).

Display scale

Below these is the control for the display scale (which is repeated, for convenience, in the Edit calendar design window - either can be used). The nudgers can be used for fine adjustments, whereas pressing <select> over the main icon will bring up a menu of preset scales which can be selected in the usual way. There are arbitrary limits on the available range of the display scale: it is 10-400%.

Changing the displayed year/month/week

Below this is the set of controls altering the shown year/month/week on the displayed calendar. On start-up the calendar will always show the current year/month/week, but after that the loading of a new calendar will show whatever year/month was previously set - although the week value may change (see below).

A Today button is provided to return the display to the current date quickly.

The year/month/week controls are progressive e.g. increasing the month from December will change it to January and the year will increment correspondingly. In Format 6 the equivalent action occurs from one month/year to another as the weeks are changed.

The only small point to note is that when in Format 6, changing the year or month directly will normally change the displayed week to that in which the selected month starts - except if that happens to be the current year/month, when the actual current week will be first shown. However, if a change in the week value also causes the month to change then the week number will continue to stay in sequence.


Start week on Sunday

This has already been introduced. Its action on the display is immediate and date/day box-fills and/or text colours will shift to retain their correct relative places. The icon will be disabled in Formats 5, 6, 7 and 9.

Note that if the format supports the use of Week numbers, ticking the Start week on Sunday option icon will automatically untick and disable the Show Week numbers option icon in the Week numbers editing sub-pane - see later also.


Other actions

Below the format-changing radio icons are two related option icons; the ShowRLDs and withRLD added text option icons. The former simply switches on/off the display/printing of any Red Letter Days (see later) - and the latter allows any RLD added text (also see later) to be switched on/off separately. The latter option icon is disabled if the former option icon is unticked.

Identical pairs of these option icons are also provided in the Edit RLD lists window, the Red Letter Days editing sub-pane and the Edit permanent RLD list window (see later) - and they all stay in sympathy.

The remaining buttons in the Toolpane are the Editdesign..., Savedesign..., EditRLDs... and Printset-up... buttons, which are the subject of separate sections later. 

EDITING SIZES, POSITIONS, FONTS ETC.

Customising calendar designs to the way you want them to look is mainly a combination of using the tools accessible from the Edit calendar design window, plus selecting the colours in the main display (as already described) - and choosing your RLDs.

The Edit calendar design window (briefly introduced earlier) is opened by clicking the Editdesign... button. Initially the window will look like this.





The Update button has already been introduced, but it needs to be added that many (but not all) of those various design-altering actions in the calendar design sub-panes which have instant effect (e.g. the Day text form radio icons - see later) also include the effect of the Update button i.e. any un-incorporated changes will be captured at the same time.

The Display scale group of icons is a repeat of those in the main Toolpane. Either can be used and both stay in sympathy.

The Sideways option icon puts the design into landscape mode. The paper is turned sideways and the printing margins altered accordingly. A sideways calendar is designed in exactly the same way and will be printed in landscape mode (if 1page-per-sheet is chosen).

The Calendar format icon merely reflects, for convenience, the format of the currently displayed calendar.

Below this, the column of radio icons on the right determine which element of the calendar design is to be addressed and, accordingly, which editing sub-pane is displayed on the left. Some of the sub-panes need to be scrolled or expanded to get to reveal their full extent.

With few exceptions, all the sub-panes involve similar user actions and they will be taken in turn below.

All measurements are in millimetres (or points, for font sizes).

It is also worth noting that offset values can be negative as well as positive which gives greater flexibility. For example, pictures could deliberately print outside the calendar edge to be trimmed - or the row of days boxes in Format 1 could be placed below the date area. This feature is very useful in Formats 6 & 9 where the single date/day column can be placed over the blank area to achieve specific design aims.

Calendar size/position

The sub-pane - on display in the above screen-shot - has been introduced already.

Date area

This sub-pane is shown below (in its expanded form).




Apart from the greyed-out area in the centre, this is a fairly typical design sub-pane. The Dark Blue labelling above a framed area describes the elements being addressed in that frame. So, here, the top area alters the date area by setting its overall width/height and offsets with respect to the calendar area.

The offsets are ignored if Centre (C) justification is chosen. Otherwise the offsets refer to the distance from the appropriate edge of the calendar area e.g. distance from the right edge if Right (R) is chosen. For vertical justification the choices are Top (T), Centre (C) or Bottom (B).

The bottom area controls the date text font/size and position within each date box and the offsets and justification settings are interpreted as before - except that they are now relative to the individual box sides.

All of the above changes need the Update button to bring changes into effect.

The central greyed-out area only becomes enabled when Format 8 is chosen i.e. a 1-page-per-year calendar showing all 12 months as mini-months in 76 date blocks. The four radio icons then determine the layout pattern of the mini-month blocks within the overall user-chosen date area. Thus, 34 means the 12 months are arranged in equally-sized blocks, 3 across and 4 down. Clicking these radio icons has an immediate effect on the display.

When in Format 8 it will also be seen that those items concerned with changing the date text position within boxes are disabled, because they are not user-changeable in this format - and there are various other disabling/enabling instances throughout the calendar design editing sub-panes depending on the format being worked on.

It is worth noting at this point that the Date area label on the radio icon producing this sub-pane is changed for some formats and the sub-panes role changes a little correspondingly. Thus, in Format 5 the radio icon is labelled Days/Dates and the sub-pane then controls the area and position of the main grid of boxes which carries both the Date and day text. The Date text is still controlled here, and the Day text is controlled in the Days sub-pane.

Then, in Formats 6 and 9, the radio icon has the text Dates/Blank boxes and the main date area controls are now used (and labelled) to size and place the grid of blank boxes which is the key feature of Formats 6 and 9. But the Date text (which in these formats appears in the same boxes as the Days text) is still controlled from the bottom framed area of this current sub-frame.



Days

This sub-pane is shown below.



The icons in this sub-pane are the subject of much disabling/enabling action as the calendar format is changed: some of its text labels are also changed.

In several formats the days of the week are shown in a single row or column of boxes adjacent to the date area. This row/column always has its width/height (respectively) necessarily set to the width/height of its associated date area, but its other dimension is user-changeable - as is the vertical/horizontal separation of the row/column from the date area. Thus, the top framed area of this sub-pane controls the free dimension of the row/column and its separation.

The bottom framed area concerns the font/size of the days text and how it is placed in the days boxes - exactly similar to the date text controls described earlier.

The middle framed section has three radio icons (with immediate effect) for choosing the form in which the days text will appear e.g. either as Monday or Mon or M (if the supplied English is used).

In Format 10, where the days appear in single row, there may be no choice but to use one of the shortened forms of day text because the width of the days boxes is set by the date area size. A similar, but less stringent, factor may occur with the single column of days in Format 7.


Week numbers

This sub-pane looks like the screen-shot below - and it is not accessible in those formats which do not have the option of showing week numbers.

Please note that the designation of Week numbers is internationally recognised and based on weeks starting on a Monday. Thus, in !Calibre, choosing to start weeks on a Sunday means that using Week numbers then becomes inconsistent - see below for consequences.



The option button at the top simply switches on/off the display/printing of Week numbers.

The framed area has the, by now, familiar controls over how the Week numbers will appear and where they will be placed. For obvious reasons, Week numbers need to be visually associated with their corresponding dates and in Formats 1-4 this means that the Week numbers will be in a column or row adjacent to the date area and the text of this sub-pane will change to reflect the user-choice available - which is the separation distance of the Week numbers from the date area and at which end of the row/column of dates it should appear. The font/size is also a user-choice.

The week text justification is only available in Formats 1, 2 and 8 (where the Week numbers are in vertical columns). The horizontal justification is then with respect to the chosen separation distance, and normally it looks better to use Right justification when the Week numbers are on the left - and vice versa.

The Week number always appears in brackets.

As has already been mentioned, when the Start week on Sunday option is ticked, the Show Week numbers option icon in the Week numbers editing sub-pane will be automatically set to unticked and disabled - and, if present, Week numbers will therefore disappear from the display/printing.



Month

The editing sub-pane for the Month changes according to the Format being edited, but is otherwise straightforward. For Formats 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 & 9 the following sub-pane will appear.



Its only feature needing explanation is the Use a month box option icon at the top.

This is provided because it is possible that some users may wish to use a pictorial representation containing the month name(s) i.e. using one of the three available picture areas for the months. In this case the month box can be suppressed altogether.


In Formats 7 & 10 the top of the sub-pane is replaced as below, because the 12 months are used in a single row or column - the labels change as necessary.




In both cases, there is a practical point to watch concerning the size of the month box(es). When using the full month text form check that your month box size is large enough to take the longest month e.g. September in English. (In Format 7 the only option may be to use the shortened month names because the width of the month boxes is set by the date area size. Similar, but less stringent, restrictions may apply for the single month column in Foramt 10.)

Further, if using Format 6 there will be frequent occasions when a week spans a change of month (and sometimes a year also). For these weeks only - whatever text form is chosen for the month normally - the month text will be changed to the Shorter form with both months included e.g. Aug/Sep. The month box needs to be large enough to cope with this.


Year

This sub-pane is straightforward and appears as below.



Again, an option icon is provided in case the user wishes to use a pictorial representation of the year.

When using Format 6, as has already been noted above for the month box, the last week of a year may well need to show both years involved. The form then used is 2007/08 and the year box size should be made large enough to accommodate this change.



Names

This sub-pane is only available when Format 6 or 9 is used.




In Formats 6 and 9 - the 1-page-per-week and 1-page per-month family calendars - there is a grid of blank boxes and, from a design viewpoint, this blank box area substitutes for the date area in other formats, as already mentioned in the description of the Date area sub-pane. This is reflected in the text change shown above for the second radio icon, which now reads Dates/Blank boxes instead of its more usual Date area (or Dates/Days in Format 5).

The first control in this current sub-pane therefore allows the user to choose how many blank area columns there will be e.g. how many family members will be using the calendar. Changing the number of columns (there is a maximum of 6) gives an immediate response on the display and the blank area grid adjusts automatically to fill the user-chosen blank area size with the chosen number of columns - each of the same width. There are, of course, always 7 rows in Format 6 and 28-31 rows in Format 9 (depending on the month). A single row of names boxes to head each column is similarly recalculated.

Beneath this are writable icons to allow user-choice of the Names appearing in the names boxes at the top of each column. If there are less than 6 names columns then writable icons will be disabled correspondingly. The Update button is used to activate name changes.

Below that are two familiar framed areas which control the names boxes height and separation from the blank boxes area, plus the font/size and justification of the names text within their boxes.



Picture area(s)

This sub-pane has three identical framed areas, one for each of the possible picture areas. The top framed area - for Picture Area 1 - is shown here.




The framed area is, by now, self-explanatory: the justifications are relative to the edges of the calendar.

The top two option buttons determine whether this particular picture area is to be used and whether it is to be rendered underneath or on top. Underneath means everything else will be on top of it. On top means that only the Calendar outline (if shown/printed) will be above it.

These choices can be made independently for each of the three possible picture areas.

Where two or more pictures are chosen to be at the same level the lowest picture area number is rendered first - so that the highest picture number will be above the other picture(s).


Red Letter Days appearance

This sub-pane determines how any RLDs will look in the particular calendar design. It has a unique feature because it provides for the selection of the RLD colours, which cannot be handled in the usual way. The sub-pane looks like the following screen-shot.



The top of the sub-pane repeats the Show RLDs and with RLD added text option icons from the Toolpane and already described there.

The panel below that allows the user to choose how any RLD added text will be shown if any date has more than one RLD defined for it. (The RLD added text is part of the RLD list saved independently from the calendar design - see Red Letter Days (RLDs) later.)

In these cases the order in which the separate RLD text items appear is determined by their order in the RLD list files, but there is also a choice of layout. To help demonstrate this the screenshots below all use the same order of the items: Easter Monday, Dogs Birthday, Cats Birthday but with different layout choices.


On same line. In this case the multiple added text items are concatenated with a back-slash (\\) separator.



Stacked up




Stacked down




The limit to the number of multiple items is set only by the restriction that the total length of the string (as in the On same line screenshot above) must not exceed 255 characters - which includes the back-slash separator(s). This restriction applies to whichever layout choice is made. (There is probably a more potent restriction in practice because the RLD added text really needs to fit within the date box ........)

Note that RLD dates and days are always in the same fonts/sizes as the normal dates and days: it is only their colours which can be made different.

Thus, the text controls in the bottom framed area concern only any RLD added text, which can be in a separate font/size and colour.


In the small white-background rectangle near the middle of the sub-pane there is shown a sample Date (21), sample Day (Monday) and sample added text (Birthday) and each are in their current fonts and RLD colours but, because of the limited space, their sizes in this sub-pane are all at a standard 12 point rather than their true sizes - which latter will be shown on the main calendar display.

The white-background rectangle acts as the focus for choosing the RLD colours. Pressing <menu> anywhere in this rectangle leads to a, by now, familiar-looking menu tree for choosing the colour of the RLD date text, day text, any added text and date/day boxfill. The action is then entirely similar to !Calibres main colour selections.

To avoid any confusion, if the RLD box-fill colour is chosen as White the top right corner of the focus rectangle changes colour to provide the necessary contrast. It will also be noticed that the option to make the RLD box transparent is not provided.

Finally, there may well be a wish to have an RLD design which alters the colours of the text items but leaves the box-fill colour as whatever is normal. This option is provided for in the first sub-menu leading from the Boxfill menu item. Selecting the first sub-menu item Use normal colour puts a tick against this item and any RLD box will then continue to have its normal fill colour. If this option is chosen the small coloured rectangle in the top right part of the White box will appear with an outline plus diagonals. Using the Colour Picker window leading from the second sub-menu item will, of course, untick the first item again as soon as a specific RLD box-fill colour is chosen.


Ordinal dates

Ordinal dates are simply the number of days since the beginning of the year. They thus run from 1-365 (366 in leap years) through the year.

This sub-pane is not available in Format 8.




This sub-pane is handled in exactly the same way as similar sub-panes. The only point to note is that the ordinal date is in addition to the normal date and so care needs to be taken in its positioning in order to avoid overlaps. Dont forget to check with the longest ordinal date on display i.e. December.

An example screen-shot with ordinal dates showing is given below.







Moon phases

This sub-pane, which is not available in Format 8, allows the four moon quarters - as shown below - to be displayed/printed on appropriate dates:









The moon symbols are provided by the font CalMoon which is contained in the Defaults folder and loaded automatically on start-up. (You can, if you prefer, add this font to your permanent pool instead. See Tips, later.) Thus, the size of the symbols as well as their position can be chosen by the user in the usual way in the above sub-pane.

The only refinement is that there is also a choice of line thickness i.e. the thickness of the circular perimeter when it appears against an un-filled part of the symbol.

As mentioned briefly before, the colour of the moon symbol can be changed in the usual way from the menu which appears if <menu> is clicked on the main display window outside one of the defined calendar areas.

It should be noted that the dates on which the moon phases appear are contained in the file MoonQuarters inside the Defaults folder. (This must not be deleted.) They are appropriate to GMT (UTC) and cover the range of years corresponding to !Calibres year limits 1999-2050. They are believed to be correct and have not been derived by using an average moon cycle.

An example screen-shot with moon-phases showing is below.





General design editing points

As the display is usually being used at less than 100% scale the displayed fonts are themselves scaled in the display and it might be prudent to check at least part of the display at 100% prior to printing. This applies particularly to Formats 7 & 8.

Also please remember that if your calendar designs are to be sent to other people as files they may not have all the fonts you have used. !Calibres font checking facility will pick this up on loading but the recipient might need to change your design.

SAVING A CALENDAR DESIGN

The Savedesign... button opens a small window offering the choices for saving a new calendar design.




The choices are straightforward and take effect when the Continue button is pressed, which will open a normal Save box.

With Save as a new calendar file chosen, the Save box writable icon will contain the full path to the UserRes.Calendars sub-directory - with the next available leafname automatically included.

Save by overwriting loaded calendar file will open the Save box with the full path of the currently loaded calendar file shown.

Save by overwriting default calendar file for this format will open the Save box with the full path of the default file for the displayed format.

Because !Calibre automatically enters the appropriate full save path into the Save box, the saving action is best actioned by clicking the OK button in the Save box. This will ensure that the UserRes and Defaults directories are managed efficiently.

In all cases where an existing file would be overwritten a final warning is given before the saving action proceeds.

Whenever a calendar file is saved in this way the new file automatically becomes the currently loaded file - and any displayed pictures are retained on the display.

A saved calendar design includes all the measurements, offsets, justifications, text fonts/sizes, and colour choices, as well as the various options within the design editing sub-panes. The scale of the display is also saved for the initial view on loading that design.

Although picture area sizes etc. are saved, information on the actual pictures to be used is not saved, as one design might be used for several different sets of pictures.

Although the saved files have a unique file type (&1CC calfile) they are textfiles in an application-specific style, which varies between the formats. They look like this in the Filer.




The saved calfiles are best left strictly alone: the numerous explanatory text in them is for my benefit!

PRINTING AND PRINT PREVIEW

Apart from the fact that the calendar design being printed must be loaded as the displayed calendar, printing is independent of the display. In particular, pictures are handled in totally different way.

A design which is un-saved i.e. has an asterisk in the display title bar, can be printed but - as already seen - the Start printing button (and similar buttons in the printing preview window) will be disabled if changes have been made to the design and the Update button has not subsequently been clicked.

Printing is controlled from the Printing set-up & options window accessible by pressing Print set-up... at the bottom of the main Toolpane.

The first set of icons at the top of the window allow the user to pick a range of calendar pages to be printed. The values initially shown for the start and end of the printing range will be set by the displayed year/month/week to (hopefully) something sensible. The user can then alter them as required - and there are checks to ensure that the end of the range cannot be earlier than the start of the range.

In most formats there is one-month-per-page and a typical print run would be for the 12 pages from January to December of one year (not necessarily the displayed year/month). However, in Formats 7, 8 & 10 which have one-year-per-page, perhaps only one year would be printed but perhaps several copies. And finally, Format 6 would require 52 (or 53) pages to cover one year.

Whichever format is active the year/month/week choices are enabled/disabled to match the need.

Beneath them is a set of icons to choose the number of copies and below that is a single option choice to Treat copies as pages - which needs to be interpreted in relation to the following three radio icons offering 1,2 or 4 pages per sheet.

In most cases it is expected that the user will wish to print the designed calendar full size i.e. one calendar page per sheet of configured printer paper - where a calendar page is exactly what is seen on the main calendar display. In such cases there is nothing more to be said: each page will be printed singly with as many copies as required, and the state of the Treat copies as pages option is immaterial.

However, through the good graces of the Dr Wimp package, !Calibre offers two additional options of printing the designed pages at reduced sizes on each sheet of the configured printer paper, either 2-pages-per-sheet at 70% size (sideways) or 4-pages-per-sheet at 50% (upright). If either of these options is chosen the Treat copies as pages option can be significant.

If the user chooses to print 2 calendar pages at 4-pages-per-sheet with 2 copies of each, then with the Treat copies as pages option unticked the printed output will appear as two identical sheets of paper each containing just 2 calendar pages on each sheet i.e. half of each sheet will be empty. If the exercise is repeated with the Treat copies as pages ticked the output will be just one sheet with two copies of each calendar page on it - because each copy is then treated by the print processing as if it is a new calendar page.

This trivial example illustrates the point but it becomes more important as the number of pages and the number of copies increases. In general, it is best to keep the Treat copies as pages option ticked at all times.

When using the 2 or 4 pages-per-sheet choices please be aware that it is the whole designed page which is reduced but the paper print margins on the output sheets are still the real ones. This means that effective reduction needs made-to-be-reduced designs if parts are not to be lost in the print margins. Having said that, the options are most useful for producing small calendars without too much paper wastage. (In addition, it can save some time by previewing a print run at, say, 4-pages-per-sheet even though the actual printing will be at 1-page-per-sheet. For example, the actual picture sequence can be more quickly checked this way.)

Beneath these are two option icons altering the appearance on the sheet. When using 2 or 4-pages-per-sheet, Change cal order rotates the positions of the individual calendar pages on the sheet. With 2-pages-per-sheet this merely swaps the two calendar positions. With 4-pages-per-sheet the effect is to rotate the positions anti-clockwise once (only once): the result is that, particularly with sideways designs, the calendars can be made to appear in a more natural sequence on the sheet.

The Invert cal(s) option inverts the calendars individually in their respective positions on the sheet. Care may need to be taken if the printing paper margins are not symmetrical, otherwise the printed version may clip areas when inverted.

The use of both the above two options gives considerable extra printing flexibility.

Beneath this are three option icons which need little extra comment. Font blending is a process which is not supported by all printer/printer driver combinations. When it is supported it improves the appearance of text superimposed on graphics. However, if this option is ticked when Font blending is not supported then some very unwanted effects can occur - including invisible text and changed colours.

The Print calendar outline and Print picture area(s) outline options are offered because some users may find them useful on occasions, but normally they would be unticked.


The bottom framed area controls if and how pictures are chosen for printing.


For the three radio icons:

Nopics is obvious.

Printdisplayedpicsonly does exactly what it says and if you choose a range of pages to print then each one will have the same picture(s) - and AR option choices - as those currently showing on the main display.

The Printpicsusing: choice enables three writable icons showing the full directory path of directories from which pictures will be extracted automatically in a simple but flexible way.

Essentially, for each picture area independently, the application looks in the appropriate named directory for drawfiles or JPEG files and takes them one at a time (in alphabetical order) for each calendar page for as many pages chosen by the printing range.

If there are more pages than filed pictures then the process repeats from the first picture again - and this proceeds independently for each active picture area. Thus, for example, if the range chosen in Format 1 is January to December for one year and there are Picture Areas 1 and 2 active, the picture directory for Picture Area 1 might have 12 pictures in it (say, a different scene for each month) and the directory for Picture Area 2 might have only 1 picture in it (say, company logo). The printed output would then have Picture 1 different on each calendar page but Picture 2 the same on each calendar page. Clearly there is considerable flexibility here.

The three KeepAR options have the same effect as already described in the main display Toolpane. However, in this present window the options apply independently to the printed output only, irrespective of the display Toolpane settings,

The directory names shown by default are already created as sub-directories in the UserRes.Pics directory and it is easiest to put your pictures there as needed. However, to use other directories just drag them to the writable icons as required - or edit the icons in the usual way.


If you wish, printing of the whole selected range and copies can be started immediately by clicking the Start printing button at the bottom of the window.


There is, however, a further facility reached via the Preview button. This opens the Printing preview window which has a small toolpane attached, as in the following screen-shot.



This window previews one printed sheet at a time. Depending on your choices in the Printing set-up window, one printed sheet may contain 1 calendar page at 100% print scale; or up to 2 calendar pages at 70% print scale; or up to 4 calendar pages at 50% print scale. The Orange icon shows the total number of sheets to be printed for the current settings in the previous Print set-up & options window.

The first sheet, as you would expect, will always show (at least) the first calendar page of the chosen range to be printed.

The preview does not reproduce the full-colour calendar page(s) shown in the main display window. Rather it concentrates on depicting accurately, in solely Black on White, the positions of the various elements on the printed paper by the use of outline grids - plus the correct year and month of each calendar page and. (importantly, if used) the correct picture(s) for the particular page(s) on the sheet.

Please note that the outline grids for all elements will be shown on the preview even if the actual design has chosen None for the grid outline colour. This reinforces the concept of concentrating on the positions.

No RLD information, nor moon phases etc. are shown in the preview.

Calendar and/or picture area outlines will be shown if selected in the Printing set-up window.

As stated above, the toolpane to the left of the window shows the total number of sheets required for the chosen print range and copies - and the user can step through each sheet using the nudger icons.

To better appreciate the preview process the following screen-shot may assist.




It shows the preview window for Sheet 2 of the print options selected in the Printing set-up window on its Right. Here, a complete year of a Format 1 calendar has been chosen i.e. from Jan 2008 to December 2008, with 1 copy of each page and the calendar and picture area outlines are to be shown.

4-pages-per-sheet has been chosen, giving a print run of 3 sheets. Pictures from stored folders are to be used and there happens to be only 5 pictures in the folder for Picture Area 1 and 2 pictures in the folder for Picture Area 2.

As Sheet 2 is the current selection, calendar pages for the months of May-August are correctly shown - with May showing the 5th picture from the Picture Area 1 folder and the 1st picture from the Picture Area 2 folder (following the picture cycling rationale expalined a little earlier).

Note also that the scale of the preview display can be changed from the icons at the top of the small toolpane. This is of particular benefit for checking accurately that, say, the calendar outline is within the print margins when 2 or 4-pages-per-sheet is being used. (Deliberately to prove the point, the calendar outlines are not wholly within the printable area in the above screen-shot, so you might need to check it at a higher preview scale and then adjust things in the main design.)

If you are using Format 6 then the Week number and the dates also appear in the calendar page previews, to ensure that different pages can be distinguished in this format.

The preview facility also easily shows the effect of the Treat copies as pages option by stepping through the sheets - and also sometimes by the different number of sheets needed if 2 or 4-pages-per-sheet is chosen.


It is important to note that the preview sheet will always automatically orient itself so that the calendars are shown upright, even when sideways and/or inverted printing will occur. Therefore, to make it clear exactly what the printer will present, the preview sheet will always show a Red stripe indicating the top of the paper sheet from the printers viewpoint i.e. the first edge of the paper feeding into the machine.

The screen-shots below give examples with the Red stripe along the Right edge and also the Bottom edge - with the calendars viewed in an upright position. Compare all the following with the layout of the previous screen-shot and note the relative positions of the first and last months on the sheets for different selections indicated.

Sideways design, Change cal order unticked, Invert cal(s) unticked:




Sideways design, Change cal order ticked, Invert cal(s) unticked:





Sideways design, Change cal order ticked, Invert cal(s) ticked:





Upright design, Change cal order unticked, Invert cal(s) ticked:





Before committing to printing it is always worthwhile using the preview to step through the whole print run to check that each page is as you expect e.g. to check the picture sequence, or that the size of the year and month boxes are OK for the longest text needed, as has already been mentioned.

The Preview window also offers the opportunity to print just the shown single sheet, or all the odd-numbered sheets, or all the even-numbered sheets - as well as, as with the Print set-up window, all sheets.


In summary, the print preview window is intended to show, sheet by sheet, which calendar page will appear on which printed sheet and which picture(s) will accompany it. Sufficient year/month/week identification for each page is provided and the accurate printed positions of the various elements is shown. However, the full detail to be printed is shown only on the main design display - which itself can always be stepped to a specific page for examination.



If you choose to print the whole print run - either by clicking Print all in the Preview window or Start printing in the Printing set-up window - the Printing progress window opens, as below.



This window is fairly self-explanatory: it offers a guide to where the printing is at. Note that if 2 or 4 pages-per-sheet is chosen and the Treat copies as pages option is ticked, there will be no copies recorded in the lower pair of icons.

The bottom button allows the printing to be aborted before it is complete. As usual, this action will not stop any printing of data already sent to the printer.

If, from the Preview window, you click on Print sheet, Print odd sheets or Print even sheets the Printing progress window will not open.



Finally, it is worth noting that at the end of a print run the main design display is (necessarily) re-drawn if that window is open. In Formats 7, 8 &10 - which are very busy from a display viewpoint - it can sometimes be helpful to close the main display window before starting to print. thereby making it a little quicker for the user to regain control.

RED LETTER DAYS (RLDS)

!Calibres RLDs feature gives the user the opportunity to further customise the output by showing user-chosen special dates in a way which visually contrasts them with the normal.

RLDs are held in files within !Calibres UserRes directory. An important point is that the RLD files - which set the RLD dates and any associated added text - are independent of the specific calendar design. How the RLDs appear in any particular calendar is part of that calendars saved details (accessible from the Red Letter Days radio icon in the Edit calendar design window) but the actual user-chosen RLD dates (and any extra text to be added) are held in a separate file (or files) and are thus available to all designs..

!Calibre offers three ways of specifying RLDs:

- by choosing options to auto generate some popular permanent events which occur each year, some of which may have dates that vary e.g. Easter;

- by preparing a list of permanent dates which are required to recur each year on exactly the same date e.g. Birthdays; 

- by preparing a list of dates applicable only to one calendar year.


Whichever of the above method(s) is/are used - and they will normally all be used - the RLD dates will be picked up automatically for display/printing. The three methods are listed above in the order in which it is recommended that they are used when setting up your own RLDs initially.


There is a limit to the total number of RLDs allowed in any calendar year. As supplied, the limit is 64 - but this can be altered up to a maximum of 150 from the Choices item in the iconbar menu (see later).


Access to the windows used to manage RLDs is via the Edit RLDs... button in the main toolpane. Clicking this button brings up the following window.



This window shows a list of all the active permanent RLDs for the currently displayed year (which is 2009 in the above screen-shot).

The list is in two parts: the top (shaded) part shows those RLDs generated automatically in response to any selected options in the Auto items panel above the list; and the bottom (unshaded) part shows additional permanent RLDs entered and saved by the user. The bottom part of the list is user-editable in the usual way.

Note that the above list does not have a year column, because these items are intended to recur each year.


There is only one saved file for these permanent RLD items: it is a text-file called perm1 in the UserRes.RLDs.PermRLD folder, and this file must not be deleted. The file contains the state of the Auto items options plus the bottom (unshaded) list of items.

Clicking the Save new permanent list button will, after a warning, overwrite the existing perm1 file.


The Auto items options need explaining:

Ticking Always add New Years Day means that January 1st will appear as an RLD in every year. Further, in Format 6, it will also appear automatically in the last week of  any year where there is an overlap with the following year.

Ticking Always add Easter Sunday means that Easter Sunday will appear as an RLD in every year.

Ticking Always add Christmas Day means that Christmas Day will appear as an RLD in every year.

Ticking Always add all English PHs means that all the standard English public holidays (Bank Holidays) will automatically appear in every year - and if the event that triggers a Bank Holiday falls at the weekend then both the event and the Bank-Holiday-in-lieu will be shown. E.g. if Boxing Day falls on a Saturday then Christmas Day, Boxing Day plus Monday 28th December will all show as RLDs. Similar in lieu actions occur for New Years Day and Christmas Day as appropriate. Thus, the consequential shaded list may change from year to year if this option is ticked. (An example of this can be seen in the above screen-shot for 2009, where an extra Public Holiday is listed for 28th December because Boxing Day falls on a Saturday that year.)

Further, for Format 6 only (and in a similar fashion to New Years Day described above), if the Christmas/Boxing Day days-in-lieu situation in a particular year demands it, appropriate days will automatically be repeated in the overlap week with the first few days of the following year.

Note also that as Christmas Day and New Years Day are English Bank Holidays they will always appear if this option is ticked, irrespective of the state of the separate Always add New Years Day and Always add Christmas Day options.

Conversely, as Easter Sunday is not an English Bank Holiday it will only appear as an auto RLD if the Always add Easter Sunday option is ticked.

Ticking Always add BST dates means that the dates for clock-changing for the beginning and end of British Summer Time will always be shown. (These dates are standardised in, at least, Europe and so are applicable more widely than in UK.)

Note that clicking any of these options has an instant effect and it will automatically overwrite the options part of the perm1 file. In contrast, clicking the Save new permanent list button will overwrite the whole perm1 file i.e. with both the options state and the current contents of the editable (unshaded) items.


The text shown in the auto (shaded) area can be edited by the user. Clicking the Edit auto RLD text... button will open the following window.



This window is straightforward and needs little explanation. The writable icons show the text currently saved in UserRes.RLDs.PermRLD.autotext and this file must not be deleted.

Clicking Save new list will overwrite the autotext file after a warning. Up to that point, if you want to discard any changes you have made, the current autotext file can be re-loaded into the list by clicking on the Reload active list button.

Editing the autotext file offers a further opportunity for showing RLD added text in any language.


Returning to the earlier Edit permanent RLD list window, the user-editable (unshaded) list below the auto items can be used to enter any further permanent dates (and associated text) that the user wishes to appear every year e.g. birthdays.

Again, where appropriate, items will automatically be repeated in the end of year overlap for Format 6 only. (As supplied, and showing in the screen-shot, two deliberate overlap contenders are included in the un-shaded list - with the text Overlap1 and Overlap2 respectively. You can easily check that one or the other is duly repeated in end of year overlaps.)


The maximum number of permanent RLD items allowed (i.e. the shaded plus unshaded items) is determined on start-up - and is always shown by the available number of items in the window. As supplied, the limit is 32 items. This number can be changed via the Choices window - see later - but !Calibre needs to be re-started for any change to take effect. The size is not allowed to be less than 16 items to ensure that at least all auto items can always be accommodated.

There is also, for Format 6 use only, a limit set for the maximum number of RLDs which can be in the overlap between months. As supplied, this is 16  - which would make a very crowded calendar if all used! Nonetheless, it can similarly be increased from the Choices... item.


Before leaving this window it is worth noting the top Left of the window repeats the Show RLDs and with RLD added text option icons already described for other windows and which stay in sympathy with them.



Finally, there remains the one year only RLDs. Click on the Edit one year only RLDs... button to get the following window.



On opening, this window will show the contents of the active one year only RLD file (if one exists) i.e. an already-saved RLD file which applies only to the year on display. The Pale Yellow icons initially carry the path of the active file.

To work in this way, saved one year only RLD files must be in the UserRes.RLDs.RLDlists folder, which they will be if saved in the recommended way, see later. If there is more than one such file applying to the year on display then the first file will be active and shown.

If there is no such file then the writable icons will be empty and the other items will indicate that no file is available.


Preparing a new one year only file or editing an existing one is simply a matter of adding/deleting/amending the writable icons in the usual way. The Clear and Clear all buttons are self-explanatory.

When the list is complete, make sure the year to which it is to apply is as required and then save the list - by clicking either the Save as extra list or Overwrite list file shown below or Overwrite active file button, as appropriate. (Some of these buttons will be disabled if the action is inappropriate.) This will bring up a normal Save box with its writable icon containing the full path to be saved - and clicking OK is the recommended action. (Note that when saving as an extra list the leaf-name offered will always be the next available in the series rldlist_xx.)

Once saved in this way the file becomes immediately available and will be picked up automatically by !Calibre whenever the year on display (or year being printed) is the appropriate - assuming that it is the first appropriate file.

As already stated, there is no problem in creating and storing more than one one year only RLD list for the same applicable year: all that will happen is that !Calibre will only use the first one that it comes across i.e. the file with the lowest number, assuming that the rldlist_xx naming is maintained. It would therefore be entirely feasible to create two lists for a year (perhaps for different countries or for different calendar designs) and force the adoption of one or the other by temporary file renaming.

To cater for the special case of Format 6 - where the display of the first or last week of a year may need to show some days from the adjoining year - a one year only RLD file applicable to one year can contain dates in adjacent years.

So, for instance, if January 3rd 2010 is one of your one year only RLDs, you would, of course,. include it in the RLD file for year 2010. But if you also want it to show in Format 6 on the last week of 2009 (Week 53) then you would add 3rd January 2010 to your one year only RLD list for the year 2009. A similar arragement can be carried out for ,one year only RLDs in late December. The supplied one year only RLD lists exhibit this feature - and this is the reason why a Year is needed for each entry in the list. (Unlike the automatic handling of the overlap for permanent RLDs, any required overlap items from the one year only items must be entered separately - as just described. An example is shown by the January 2009 entry in the 2008 year list in the screen-shot.)


!Calibres RLD files of the one year only kind have a unique file-type (&1CB rldfile). They look like this:




The one year only RLD editing window is also used for adding/editing additional RLD lists e.g. one year only lists for different years. Once saved in the recommended way, all such lists immediately become available to view or edit by clicking the menu icon to the Right of the icon labelled RLD list file shown below:. Selecting from this list will load the file into the writable icons - without altering the active list.

Appropriate editing and saving actions can again be taken, if required, or the active list can be re-displayed by clicking the Show active list button.


Remaining with the previous screen-shot, the top Left of the window repeats the Show RLDs and with RLD added text option icons already described for other windows and which stay in sympathy with them.

As supplied, up to 32 one year only RLDs can be defined for any calendar year, but this limit can be increased from the Choices item in the iconbar menu - but you will then have to re-start !Calibre to bring this into effect.


General points about RLDs

In the columns of writable icons headed Added text (optional) the text should be kept brief to ensure it fits into the space available on the calendar(s) and, to this end, a limit of 32 characters per entry is in-built.

When saving an RLD file an item with a blank entry in its Left-most icon (i.e. the year value in the one year only list, or the month value in the permanent list) will cause the item to be ignored. However, an empty value in the subsequent month or day icons will be corrected to 1. Leading zeros will be added as necessary.

It does not matter in which date order the items are entered in the list or if there is more than one entry for the same date. However, if you choose to use more than one item with the same date (in the same list) then the relative order of such items in the list will determine their order shown on that date. (See Red Letter Day appearance above with its screen shots - and also note the length restriction for multiple RLD items on the same date.)

Because the active RLDs apply to one calendar year, a new active RLD list is generated every time there is a change in the displayed year. However, when printing - which needs to take place independently of the display - a new RLD list will be generated (behind the scenes) for each calendar page.

If you attempt to use an RLD list with more items than the maximum values set at start-up then !Calibre will warn you of this and load as many as it can. If you get such a warning it is strongly recommended that you correct the problem immediately, because the warning will be repeated every time the list is loaded - which means at each displayed year change and each format change - and for printing the warning will occur for every page printed. This can be very inconvenient.ICONBAR MENU

!Calibres iconbar menu looks like this:



The first menu item is straightforward.

Selecting Help brings up the text-only version of this Manual. On the web-site - see the Contacts section later - fully-formatted versions of the Manual (with screen-shots) are available for download in Impression, Ovation Pro and HTML formats.

Choices... leads to the following window



The top framed area allows the user to choose which calendar format is to be shown on start-up - the default calendar for that format then being loaded for the initial display.

The next framed area allows the user to choose what maximum display scale is to be set for showing the whole calendar on initial loading of a design. If the (saved) display scale of a design is less than or equal to this value then its initial visible display window will be sized to show the whole calendar. If the (saved) display scale is higher then the initial screen will be sized as if the scale was this set value, so that not all the calendar will be seen initially.

The third framed area allows the user to decide the maximum number of RLDs per calendar year - up to 150 - and how many of these is to be set aside for the permanent RLDs. In addition, and independently, the maximum overlap RLDs can be set - although it is unlikely that this will need changing.

The fourth framed area simply sets the initial scale for the print preview display.

The fifth framed area allows the user to change the language appearing on the displayed/printed calendar. The range of languages available - see separate section later - is determined by which languages are included in the Defaults.Languages folder. Clicking <select> on the menu icon to the right of the Pale Yellow icon will bring up a menu of all languages currently stored. Making a selection changes the calendar immediately. But note that this does not, in itself, change the start-up language: the Save settings button needs to be pressed to do that - see later.

The sixth framed area allows the user to choose the initial setting of the font blending option in the Printing set-up and options window. After start-up, changing the option in the Choices window and/or in the Printing set-up and options window are independent of each other. So the user can change the font blending option at will before any print job without affecting the start-up setting in the Choices window - and, similarly, changing/saving the option in the Choices window will not affect the current setting in the Printing set-up and options window.

The seventh framed area allows the user to choose the substitute font. The change will take place immediately and will affect any uses of the substitute font which take place after the change. (Note that if you save the Choices settings - see next - with a substitute font which is not available when you next start !Calibre, then the font Trinity.Medium will be used - as it is always available on all machines.)

Clicking Savesettings saves a small file, called StartUp, directly to the Choices$Write directory of your computer - in a directory called Calibre - where it will then be picked up automatically on subsequent start-ups. The StartUp file is not essential and default values will be used in its absence.


The Savewindowpositions menu item can be quite important for using !Calibre in a user-friendly fashion. Selecting this menu item saves a set of files directly to the Choices$Write directory of your computer. They are saved to a sub-directory called WindowPositions - also inside the Calibre directory mentioned above.

The set of files records the current visible sizes and scroll settings of all the movable windows and these will be picked up automatically when starting !Calibre subsequently.

Because of the live nature of the main calendar display and its role when designing/amending it can be important to ensure that other windows do not overlap it unnecessarily - in particular the Edit calendar design, the Edit RLD lists, the Save options and the Printing set-up windows.

It is therefore a good idea to ensure that these other windows open clear of the calendar display, and somewhere to the left of it is often the favoured position.

So, early on in your use of !Calibre just open the windows in turn, move them to where you want them - re-sizing/scrolling them if you wish - and then select the Savewindowpositions item on the iconbar menu.

The WindowPositions folder is not essential and default positions will be used in its absence.

(The Printing progress window position cannot be saved in the above way. As supplied, it will open at the bottom left of the screen. If this is not satisfactory then please open the Templates file in a window templates editor, open the progress window, move it to where you want it and save the Templates file afresh. The new position will then be available when you restart !Calibre.)


The Choices$Write directory of your computer can be opened for viewing and access directly from the iconbar menu - see next.


The three iconbar menu items below the line i.e. Open UserRes folder, Open Choices folder and Open Languages folder are for user-convenience: they simply open the UserRes, Choices$Write and Languages directories/folders for user examination and access.



FONT CHECKING

For calendar design files saved with Version 3.00 onwards automatic font checking is carried out everytime a calendar design file is loaded/re-loaded - even at start-up.

If the checking finds that any of the fonts called for in the design are currently not available (i.e. do not appear on the font menu at the time of loading the file) then the following window will open.




This window highlights the offending font(s) by enabling the icons - and offers solutions for proceeding. Here, only one, the font for week numbers, called NoSuchFont is a problem  The disabled entries show fonts which which are no problem because they are currently available on the users machine. (The blank font means that the format of the label design being loaded does not use the shown feature - here, the format does not involve Names.)

To resolve the issue the user can either:

(a) use the menu icon to the right of the highlighted font to show a font menu from which a different font can be chosen for each offending font independently; or

(b) use the clearly labelled button to change all offending fonts to the current substitute font - see Choices... menu item from the iconbar menu; or

(c) use the clearly labelled button to stop the loading and revert to the previous calendar.

If either of the first two solutions is taken then the Overwrite file and re-load button needs to be clicked to effect the change(s).

There is also a another option: if you simply double-click (or drag to the iconbar) another calendar design file, then a new file-loading sequence will override the window. (But dont forget, that new file may also have offending fonts ..... in which case the window will appear again, with appropriate changes.)

There is an important variation on the above arrangements if the start-up default file suffers from an offending font or fonts. In that case, the labels in the above window will change and the Ignore and revert to previous calendar button will not be available - for obvious reasons. Additionally, the iconbar icon will be disabled. Thus it will then be mandatory to resolve the issue by changing the offending font(s), followed by using the Overwrite file and re-load  - or by double-clicking on a different calendar design file.

Please note that these font checking arrangements will only work with calendar design files saved with Version 3.00 onwards - although files from earlier versions may still load. It is for this reason that it is strongly recommended that you load, save and re-load all old calendar files immediately.






USER-CHANGEABLE ITEMS

Apart from the start-up Choices, already covered, two further items can be changed by the user:

a) Language. As supplied, !Calibre uses the English Month and Day names but also offers French, German, Spanish and Dutch equivalents. They are all held in separate Messages text files - each called monthsdays - in their respectively named directories/folders within the Defaults.Languages folder. As seen above, this folder can be opened directly from the iconbar menu.

Within each monthdays file there are six lists: the Full month names; the Shorter month names; the Shortest month names; the Full day names; the Shorter day names; and the Shortest day names.

If you wish to use another language - or choices of different texts in the same language - then all you need to do is to add additional directories/folders to the Defaults.Languages folder and create a monthdays file for each in your favourite text editor.

It is essntial to follow the format of the file closely and only customise the text after the colons : in each entry. For this reason it is much safer to copy one of the supplied files and alter that to your wishes. Clearly, you can also edit any of the supplied files in the same way if you wish.

In English, as supplied, the parts of the monthdays file corresponding to Shorter and Shortest use the normal 3-letter and 1-letter abbreviations e.g. Feb, Tue, F, T etc. but the user can make his/her own choices here. The abbreviated text can be any length and both Shorter and Shortest could be exactly the same if preferred.

b) Interactive help text. As supplied, interactive help is in English and the text is in the file Defaults.InterHelp.HelpMess. Provided that the provided strict Messages file format is maintained, this file could be translated into other languages.



TIPS

Printing. Before printing to hard copy it is often sensible to check that all is well by printing a few sheets as a sprite output using !Sprinter (freeware by David Pilling) - or by printing to a PDF output and viewing on a PDF reader (see below also).


Text captions. Dont forget that a !Draw document can accept text (in whatever font/size/colour you wish - and it can also be rotated). Consequently, with up to three graphics areas definable in any !Calibre calendar design, there are many opportunities to add custom text, either to pictures or by using one of the picture areas exclusively for this purpose.


Drawfile output. If you would prefer to have your printed output as a drawfile (perhaps for enlarging via the !DrawPrint freeware application) then the solution is straightforward:

1) arrange for a PDF printer to be active on your iconbar. There are several ways to achieve this e.g. Steve Fryatts freeware !PrintPDF;

2) print in the normal way from Calibre;

3) view the resulting PDF output file in a PDF viewer e.g. the freeware !PDF (from Colin Granville et al) or RiScript.

4) save from the PDF viewer as a drawfile.


Large calendars. On a similar theme to the above, if you configure a PDF printer to have a very large paper size then you will be able to design and print correspondingly large calendars -  taking the output to a commercial printer for the finished product.


Moon font. The CalMoon font used for the depiction of the moon phases is - using standard RISCOS procedures - automatically loaded at start-up and deleted again on quitting. This works properly on the vast majority of machines. However, a small minority of Iyonix users have experienced difficulties with this.

In these cases the simple solution is to load the CalMoon font permanently on your machine and REM out the line starting with FontInstall in !Calibres !Run file. There may then be a need to re-start your computer.



FINAL COMMENTS

I am grateful to those who have already offered ideas for improvements and reported bugs.

Please - please! - continue to comment to ray@rayfavre.me.uk


Thanks are due to Jacques Haubrich for providing the CalMoon font to meet my wishes - and also for the Dutch language information.

Thankyou also to John Rickman for the Spanish language information.

www.timeanddate.com is the source of the moon phase data, for which I am very grateful.

A special thankyou is due to Bryan Clarke who bravely proof read the previous version of the Manual and sent me the corrections - which I carefully incorporated before amending it to produce the current version (and no doubt introduced new errors!).


I would welcome receiving users own designs - either as candidates for including with !Calibres distribution or just for my interest. (I would also welcome printed versions, with a view to using them at Shows as examples of what can be achieved.)

I would also welcome hearing of users experience of using !Calibre with A3 printers and PostScript printers.



LICENCE

The !Calibre application itself is freeware.

However, if a printed calendar designed with !Calibre is used for commercial purposes (e.g. used as advertising material, or sold) - then:

1) the phrase Designed with !Calibre www.rayfavre.me.uk should be visible somewhere in the printed calendar at no smaller font size than 4pt (it is easily included as part of one of the calendars graphics); and

2) if any calendar is sold at least 5% of its selling price should be sent to any charity.






CONTACTS

Web-site:	http://www.rayfavre.me.uk

	http://www.rayfavre.me.uk/dwapps.html

	(directly to applications for downloading)

	http://www.rayfavre.me.uk/drwimp.html

	(directly to Dr Wimp package)


Email:	ray@rayfavre.me.uk

RELEASE HISTORY

********************

Version 3.00 - 17th August 2008


Added extra calendar format. (Format 10, a sideways equivalent to Format 7.)

Introduced automatic font checking on calendar file loading.

Added extra printing options: invert pages; alternate sheets; alter sheet positions in 2 and 4-pages-per-sheet cases.

Added options to control picture aspect ratios independently in the three picture areas.

Incorporated font blending and substitute fontoptions into start-up choices.

Added interactive help.


********************

Version 2.00 - 22nd March 2008


Added comprehensive printing preview facility


Enhanced and modified Red Letter Day arragements.


Rationalised much coding


(Updated Manual and !Run file correspondingly.)


********************

Version 1.40 - 12th January 2008


Added option to include ordinal dates.


Added option to include moon phases.


Brought icon shading and unsaved data asterisk into better consistency.


Corrected JPEG sizing/scaling for JPEGs using other than 90dpi.


Corrected auto print set-up values in Format 6 when first/last month spans a year end.


Ensured memory allocation will cope with icons created for editing up to 150 RLDs in one year.


Upgraded to use Dr Wimp Version 4.80.


(Updated Manual and !Run file correspondingly.)


********************

Version 1.31 - 17th December 2007


Corrected a bug which could occur if displayed pictures were changed many times. This did not affect printing.


********************

Version 1.30 - 20th November 2007


Added ability to use user-defined different languages for calendar month/day text - and removed need for abbreviated month/day text to be fixed number of characters.


Added ability to have more than one RLD added text item on same date, with options for how they are to appear.


Added iconbar menu options to open for view the UserRes, Choices and Languages directories.


Changed display/printing order in Formats 6 & 9 to allow Date/Day column and Names row to appear on top of blank boxes area - for better design flexibility.


Corrected window templates to ensure all icons show full text in System Font.


Corrected Year/Month/Week settings in Printing set-up window when print range spans year end.


Changed JPEG rendering SWI (in DrWimp library) to overcome JPEG printing problem with some versions of !Printers.


Minor changes to window templates.


(Updated Manual and !Run file correspondingly.)


********************

Version 1.20 - 28th August 2007


Added extra calendar format - Format 9, a 1-page-per-month family calendar.

Improved RLD lists false date error trapping.

Stopped day/date colour menus opening in unused day/date boxes (Formats 5 & 9 only).

Tidied !Run file.


********************

Version 1.11 - 16th August 2007


Corrected bug in Version 1.10 which would not deal with a Choices file saved from earlier versions.

Corrected wrong leafname sometimes offered when saving.


********************

Version 1.10 - 15th August 2007


Added option to start weeks on a Sunday instead of Monday.

Added option to show Red Letter Days without its added text.

Added option to use more than 32 Red Letter Days per calendar year.

Added warning if, on loading, the size of a calendar is larger than the configured printer paper size.

Improved immunity to incorrect user-actions.

Fixed bug occurring when Format 5 was chosen as start-up format.

Several minor coding improvements.


********************

Version 1.00 - 1st August 2007


First release.


********************

********************

