path: root/help/C/usage-calendar.sgml

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<chapter id="usage-calendar">
  <title>Managing your Schedule</title>

     <para>
      This chapter will show you how to use the Ximian Evolution
      Calendar to manage your schedule alone or in conjunction with
      others.
     </para>

    <sect1 id ="usage-calendar-view"> 
    <title>Ways of Looking at your Calendar</title>
    <para>
       The toolbar offers you four different views of your calendar:
       one day, five days, a week, or a month at once. Press the
       calendar-shaped buttons on the right side of the toolbar to
       switch between views. You can also select a range of
       days&mdash; three days, ten days, a fortnight if you want
       &mdash; in the small calendar at the upper right.
    </para>
    <para>
       The <guibutton>Prev</guibutton> and <guibutton>Next</guibutton>
       buttons will move you forward and back in your calendar pages.
       If you're looking at only one day, you'll see tomorrow's page,
       or yesterday's.  If you're looking at your calendar by week,
       month, fortnight, or anything else, you'll move around by just
       that much. To come back to today's listing, click
       <guibutton>Today</guibutton>.
    </para>
    <para>
       To visit a specific date's calendar entries, click
       <guibutton>Go To</guibutton> and select the date in the dialog
       box that appears.
    </para>

  </sect1>
  <sect1 id="usage-calendar-apts">
    <title>Scheduling With the Evolution Calendar</title>
    <para>
      Of course, you'll want to use the calendar to do more than find
      out what day it is. This section will tell you how to schedule
      appointments, set alarms, and determine appointment recurrence.
    </para>
    <sect2 id="usage-calendar-apts-basic">
      <title>Creating appointments</title>
      <para>
    To create a new appointment, select
        <menuchoice>
      <guimenu>File</guimenu>
      <guisubmenu>New</guisubmenu> 
      <guimenuitem>Appointment</guimenuitem>
    </menuchoice>
    or click the <guibutton>New</guibutton> button on the left end
    of the toolbar. The <interface>New Appointment</interface>
    dialog will pop up with the usual menu bar, tool bar, and
    window full of choices for you.
      </para>
      <tip id="new-appointment-shortcut">
        <title>Shortcut</title>
        <para>
           If you don't need to enter more information than the date
           and time of the appointment, you just click in any blank
           space in the calendar and start typing. You can enter other
           information later with the appointment editor.
        </para>
      </tip>

      <para>
        Your appointment must have a starting and ending date &mdash; by
        default, today &mdash; but you can choose whether to give it
        starting and ending times or to mark it as an <guilabel>All
        day event</guilabel>. An <guilabel>All day event</guilabel>
        appears at the top of a day's appointment list rather than inside
        it.  That makes it easy to have appointments that overlap and fit
        inside each other.  For example, a conference might be an all
        day appointment, and the meetings at the conference would be timed
        appointments.  Of course, appointments with specific starting and ending
        times can also overlap.  When they do they're displayed as
        multiple columns in the day view of the calendar.
      </para>
      <note>
       <title>Multiple Simultanious Appointments</title>
         <para>
           If you create calendar appointments that overlap,
           <application>Evolution</application> will display them side
           by side in your calendar.  However,
           <application>Evolution</application> cannot help you do
           multiple things at once.
         </para>
      </note>
      <para>
         You can have as many as four different
         <guilabel>Alarms</guilabel>, any time prior to the appointment
         you've scheduled.  You can have one alarm of each of the following types:
          <variablelist>
           <varlistentry>
        <term><guilabel>Display</guilabel></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            A window will pop up on your screen to remind you of
            your appointment.
              </para>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry> 
        <term><guilabel>Audio</guilabel></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            Choose this to have your computer deliver a sound
            alarm.
              </para>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><guilabel>Program</guilabel></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            Select this if you would like to run a program as a
            reminder.  You can enter its name in the text field,
            or find it with the <guibutton>Browse</guibutton>
            button.
              </para>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><guilabel>Mail</guilabel></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>
             <application>Evolution</application> will send an
             email reminder to the address you enter into the text
             field.
              </para>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
    </variablelist>
        
      </para>
      <para>
         <guilabel>Classification</guilabel> 
          and only applies to calendars on a
         network. <guilabel>Public</guilabel> is the default category,
         and a public appointment can be viewed by anyone on the calendar
         sharing network.  <guilabel>Private</guilabel> denotes one
         level of security, and <guilabel>Confidential</guilabel> an even 
         higher level.
      </para>
      <para>
        <application>Evolution</application> lets you categorize your
    appointments, which can help if you lead a busy life.  The bottom
    section of the <guilabel>Appointment</guilabel> tab is where your
    categorization is done.
      </para>
      
      <tip>
      <title>Adding a New Appointment Category</title>
    <para>
     You can add a new category to your category list by clicking on
         <guibutton>Edit Master Category List...</guibutton> and single-clicking
     on <guilabel> Click here to add a category</guilabel>.
    </para>
      </tip>

      <para>
     The purpose of categories is to let you view all appointments which have
     similar activities.  To do this, change <guilabel>Any field contains</guilabel>
     to <guilabel>Has category</guilabel> and enter your category at right.
      </para>

      <para>
    Clicking on the <guibutton>Categories</guibutton> button opens up the category
    list.  To associate a category to an appointment, simply click the check box. 
      </para>
      <para>
    Once you've selected your categories, click <guibutton>OK</guibutton> to
    assign these categories to the appointment.  The categories you selected are now
    listed in the text box to the right of the <guibutton>Categories...</guibutton>
    button.
      </para>

      <para>
        The <guilabel>Recurrence</guilabel> tab lets you describe
        repetition in appointments ranging from once every day up to once
        every 100 years.  You can then choose a time and date when the
        appointment will stop recurring, and, under
        <guilabel>Exceptions</guilabel>, pick individual days when the
        appointment will <emphasis>not</emphasis> recur. Make your
        selections from left to right, and you'll form a sentence:
        "Every two weeks on Monday and Friday until January 3, 2003"
        or "Every month on the first Friday for 12 occurrences."
      </para>

      <para>
    Once you're done with all those settings, click on the disk
    icon in the toolbar.  That will save the appointment and close the
    appointment editor window. If you want, you can alter an appointment
    summary in the calendar view by clicking on it and typing. You
    can change other settings by right-clicking on the appointment then
    choosing <guimenuitem>Edit this Appointment</guimenuitem>.
      </para>
    </sect2>
    <sect2 id="usage-calendar-rsvp">
      <title>Sending an RSVP with the Calendar</title>
      <para>
    <application>Evolution</application> can be used to setup group appointments
    and help you manage RSVPs.
      </para>
      <para>
    When you setup a gathering, you can specify people to come in numerous
    positions, such as chair.  They are sent an email which lets them
    easily reply to you with their response.  If they aren't sure if they
    can attend, they can always reply to the mail later.
      </para>
    </sect2>
<!-- ############UNIMPLEMENTED FEATURES ###################

    <sect2 id="usage-calendar-apts-group">
      <title>Appointments for Groups</title>
      <para>
    If you have your calendar set up to work with other
    calendars over a network, you can see when others are
    available to meet with you. 
      </para>
      <note>
    <title>Unimplemented Feature</title>
    <para>This feature is not yet implemented.</para>
      </note>

      <para>
    In addition, you can use <application>Evolution</application>
    to mark a meeting request on another person's calendar.  To do
    it, click <guibutton>New</guibutton> in the calendar toolbar,
    or select <menuchoice> <guimenu>File</guimenu>
    <guisubmenu>New</guisubmenu>
    <guimenuitem>Appointment</guimenuitem> </menuchoice> to bring
    up the <interface>new appointment</interface> window.  Then describe
    the appointment as you would any other.  Before you click
    <guibutton>OK</guibutton>, (INSERT DESCRIPTION HERE...).
    <application>Evolution</application> will automatically send
    email to each person on the request list, notifying of the
    time and date of the meeting you have requested with them.  In
    addition, it will mark the appointment on your calendar and on
    theirs as tentative, rather than a confirmed, appointment.
      </para>
      <para>
    To mark a tentative appointment as confirmed, click once on the
    appointment in the <interface>calendar view</interface> to select
    it, and then choose <guimenuitem>Appointment
    Properties</guimenuitem> from the <guimenu>Settings</guimenu>
    menu.  In the <interface>Appointment Properties</interface> dialog
    window, click the "tentative" button to De-select the
    appointment.
      </para>
    </sect2>


    <sect2 id="usage-calendar-apts-privs">
      <title>Scheduling privileges</title>
      <para>
    There are several levels of scheduling privileges.  You
    can set whether people can see your calendar, whether they
    can request meetings or appointments, and whether they can
    create appointments.  This section may have to be deleted,
    because I don't know if we are going to support privileges
    at all.
      </para>
    </sect2>
 ########## END UNIMPLEMENTED FEATURESET ############ -->

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="usage-calendar-todo">
   <title>The Task Pad</title>
    <para>
       The Task Pad, located in the lower right corner of the
       calendar, lets you keep a list of tasks separate from your
       calendar appointments.  Tasks are colored and sorted by priority and
       due-date (see <xref linkend="config-prefs"> for more
       information), and are included with calendar data during
       synchronization with a hand-held device.  You can use the list
       in a larger format by choosing the <guibutton>Tasks</guibutton>
       button in the shortcut bar or in the folder tree.
    </para>
    <para>
       To record a new task, click the <guibutton>Add</guibutton>
       button below the list.  <application>Evolution</application>
       will pop up a small window with five items in it:
     
        <variablelist>
      <varlistentry>
      <term> <guilabel>Summary:</guilabel></term>
      <listitem>
            <para>
              The description you enter here will appear in the To Do
              list itself.
          </para>
      </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
    
    <varlistentry>
      <term> <guilabel>Due Date:</guilabel></term>
      <listitem>
        <para>
            Decide when this item is
            due.  You can either type in a date and time, or select one from
            the <guibutton>Calendar</guibutton> and time drop-down menus.
          </para>
      </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    <varlistentry>
      <term><guilabel>Priority:</guilabel></term>
      <listitem>
        <para>
             Select a level of importance from 1 (most important) to 9
              (least important).
            </para>
      </listitem> 
    </varlistentry>
    <varlistentry>
      <term> <guilabel>Item Comments:</guilabel></term>
      <listitem>
        <para>
              If you wish, you can keep a more detailed description of
              the item here. For example, you can note that a task is
              in progress, and display how close it is to completion.
            </para>
      </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
      </variablelist>
    </para>
    <para>
       Once you've added a task to your to-do list, its summary
       appears in the <guilabel>Summary</guilabel> section of task
       list.  To view or edit a detailed description of an item,
       double-click on it, or select it and click
       <guibutton>Edit</guibutton>.  You can delete items by selecting
       them and clicking on the <guibutton>Delete</guibutton> button.
    </para>
    <para>
      The list of tasks is sorted in a similar way to the list of
      email messages in <application>Ximian Evolution
      Mail</application>.  Click once on the message headers to change
      the direction and type of sorting, or right-click to add or
      remove columns from the display.
    </para>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="usage-calendar-multiple">
    <title>Multiple Calendars</title>
    <para>
       <application>Evolution</application> permits you to have and
       maintain multiple calendars.  This is useful if you maintain
       schedules for other people, if you are responsible for resource
       or room allocation, or if you have multiple personalities.
    </para>
   
    <example>
      <title>Keeping Multiple Calendars</title>
      <para>
        Keelyn, the office manager for a small company, has one
        calendar for her own schedule.  On the local network, she
        maintains one for the conference room, so people know when
        they can schedule meetings.  Next to that, she maintains a
        calendar that reflects when consultants are going to be on
        site, and another that keeps track of when the Red Sox are
        playing.
      </para>
    </example>
    <para>
      To create a new calendar, select 
      <menuchoice>
    <guimenu>File</guimenu> <guisubmenu>New</guisubmenu>
    <guimenuitem>Calendar</guimenuitem>
      </menuchoice>.
       You can place the calendar in any calendar folder and access it
       from the folder view.  Alarms, configuration, and display for
       each calendar are separate from each other.
    </para>
    
  </sect1>
</chapter>