The Reminders Window

When you first open PreMinder you will see three main windows. The large calendar window lets you see information in different views such as 'monthly' or 'weekly'. Below it is the Reminders window, which provides a view of information for a single day, and which allows you to edit the information for that day. The window on the left is the Edit Events window, which has controls for adding things like repeating events. To start with we will focus mainly on the Reminders window, which is the starting point for adding things to do, notes or events for a specific day.

As you read this article, click on the numbered squares to pop up a screenshot of the part of the software the text relates to.

In many calendar programs, when you want to add some information you are presented with a lot of complex options that you need to set straight away before you can write your reminder. With PreMinder, the idea is that you can just click once on the day you want to note something for, and start typing. Any more complex options for an event can be added later if they are required.

Let's try adding some text for a day. Choose a day in the Calendar window above the Reminders window and click on it. In the Reminders window below, that day's date appears in the date display in the top left and the insertion point starts flashing in the main field in the middle 1. You can now start typing anything you want. In the main field you can have different fonts, colours and styles in your Reminder messages. Select some text by dragging over it with the mouse cursor. In the top-right of the window you will see three dark grey pop-up menu buttons 2. If you click on the one on the left a palette appears. When you click on one of the colours, the selected text in the field changes to that colour. The second menu is a text menu, which lets you choose a new font for the selected text, or a style such as bold, italic or underline, or a new font size. If you choose the 'Inspector' option at the top of the menu, a small floating palette appears. This lets you change selected text in the Reminders window in a similar way. You can set the style of text to be plain, bold, italic or underline with the buttons in the top left, and you can set the alignment of text to be left, centre, right or full with the buttons in the top right. You can type a new font name in the font field, which will auto-complete, and you can alter the font size in the bottom field or by dragging the slider at the bottom.

At the bottom of the Reminders window is a slider 3 and in the bottom right are two metal arrow buttons. Click on the right arrow to go to the next day after the currently displayed day. Click on the left arrow to go to the previous day before the currently displayed day. The slider is divided into twelve sections, one for each month of the current year. As you drag it, it will scrub through each day of the currently displayed year. When you reach the end of the slider, use the right arrow button to jump to the first day of the next year.

The Reminders window lets you enter information for the day in a freeform manner. Want to schedule an event? Just start typing a time in the main field in the middle 1. If you type:

9am-11am meeting with Brad.

You will notice that PreMinder automatically recognises you have typed a start and end time for a meeting and it adds the information to the schedule on the left hand side of the window. Try changing the times to see the different ways you can write event times that PreMinder will still recognise:

9-11am
9am-11
9.30-11.30h
11.30-4pm

PreMinder automatically adds text for the auto-event up to the first full stop or return character it finds. If we want to to make this event more formal, for instance add some options to it like an alarm or maybe have it repeat on different days, then we need to extract it from the general text for this day and make it a standalone event. It's easy to do this. Select the text '9am-11am meeting with Brad.' In the Events field on the right-hand side of the window you will see a small plus button on the right hand side 4. Click this to remove the selected text from the general reminders field in the middle and add it as an event in the Events field on the right hand side of the window 5. PreMinder automatically recognises the times it finds in the event and sets the start and end times.

Tip: If you want to create a new event from scratch, make sure there is no text selected in the central field, and click on the plus button on the right hand side of the reminders window 4. You will see the 'Edit Event' field is blank. You can add information to your event, including times which will be automatically recognised. When you are done, click on the green tick icon to save your new event. If the event times were recognised successfully you should see your event appearing in the schedule on the left of the window.

In the schedule the event colour changes to the colour of the text 6. The slight limitation with events as that each event can only have one colour, one font, one text size and one text style, not various colours or text styles throughout the text as a general reminder message can have. However, standalone events can be set to repeat on different days and can also have alarms. Click on your event in the right hand field to edit it. You will notice that the the text of the field changes to only contain the event you are editing, and the title of the field becomes 'Edit Event'. All of the event text becomes selected. If you type a new set of start and end times, these will be recognised automatically as the new times for the event. You can change the colour of the event using the colour menu in the top right of the window, or the font and style using the text menu in the top right of the window 2. The plus icon to the right of the 'Edit Event' title has changed to a green tick icon. When you have finished editing this event, click on the green tick icon. All of the events for the day will once more appear in the events field.

Once you have created a standalone event, you can set it to repeat or have alarms. Full options for this in PreMinder are found in the tall, narrow window with a large date at the top, which appears by default on the left hand side of the screen. This is the Events window, and is covered in the Events section. Go to the top of this web page and click on the glossy Events button or click here.