ProjectForm

One Project's Data

Begin date: Must be a valid date. It cannot be set to "no date".
End date: Can be a valid date or set to "no date".
Priority: Must be one of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 with 1 being the highest priority and 5 the lowest.
State: This must be one of your defined states.
Category: A category for the project. For example I have some projects under the "Palm OS" and some under the "School" category.
Private flag: This flag determines whether the project is "private" or not. Private projects will not be shown or will be masked if you have set the security options of your PDA appropriately.
To-Do list: This is the list of to-do items for a project. These items are stored separately from the other data for the project, in a database that has the project name plus the string "PRJT".
Memo: Each project has one memo associated with, which may be up to 4K long. There are plans for future versions to allow a list of memos for each project, just like the list of to-dos.

Since all this data does not fit on one screen, there are three "pages" that separate that data, which are discussed in the following sections.

All three pages have a Done button which brings you back to the projects list. Under the title of the form you will find three rectangles reading General, ToDo and Memo. Tapping one of these brings you to the appropriate page. Note that the menus differ on each page. If you have a hardware button set to launch Projects you can press this button again to get back to the project list instead of tapping the Done button. This works on all three pages.

The title of a project will always read "Pr:" plus the name of the project. The name may be shortened if it does not fit on the screen.

General Page

General Page GUI

As you can see, on the GeneralPage there are controls for begin and end dates, which may be set by tapping on the selector triggers or using the small horizontal arrows. Duration is expressed in number of days, and is the difference between the begin and end dates. One of these three values is always locked (the check box at the right border), so you cannot alter its value. Changing one of the other (unlocked) values will automatically update the third remaining value. The priority can have one of five values with 1 being the highest priority. You can change the state of a project here, too. Further you have the possibility to set the category of a project. Last but not least you can mark a project private, which means that it will be shown as masked or hidden depending on the current security settings on your PDA.

Menu items on the General Page

Rename: This menu item provides you with the opportunity to give a new name to the currently opened project. Note that the name must be unique and cannot exceed 27 characters in length.
Delete: When this menu item is actived a confimation dialog will appear asking you whether you really want to delete the whole project. Note that after deletion of a project you cannot restore it. There is no backup! So be careful with this command.
Duplicate: This offers you an opportunity to create an exact copy of a project. You'll need to enter a different name for the copy. Although it may seem useless to have two exact copies of a project, this way you can create a template project and reuse it for new projects.
Beam: This allows you to beam an entire project to another Palm OS device.
Clear End Date: Will set the end date to " - " and duration to zero.
About: ... displays the About dialog.

ToDo Page

With a few exceptions, the ToDoPage behaves much like the built-in To-Do application. For a detailed description read the Palm OS documentation of that app.

Things that differ ...

Projects allows you to sort to-do items by hand. If you set the sort order to Manual (launch Preferences... menu item) there will be two arrows beside the Details... button. While an item is selected you can use these arrows to move the selected item up and down in the list.

If you have a color enabled PDA and Projects has been compiled with the CONFIG_COLOR flag (see About dialog) "past due items" will be drawn red.

Much like the built-in application, Projects provides a "Details" dialog for to-do items. Both dialogs are equal except of one thing. In Projects you can export (copy) an item into a different project or into the built-in to-do list, as well as into the Datebook application (as an untimed event). In the "Details" dialog you will find a button reading Exp. (for export). If you tap this button a list of available projects will appear. Choosing an entry from this list will copy the item into the appropriate database. There are three special entries, one for the To-Do and two for the Datebook application. If you export an item into Datebook with the "Datebook DueDate" its due date will be used for the Datebook entry. If the item has no due date set, the current date will be used. By using the "Datebook ToDay" entry, the item will be copied into the datebook under the current date regardless of the due date of the item.

As of version v1.8.1 you can also have the ToDo Page show you the category of an item when viewing "All" items. Whenever the category is not shown there will be a very small column, only 5 pixel wide, which contains only a "dot". Tapping into a cell of the category column will produce a pop-up list where you may set the category of the appropriate item on the fly. This has been implemented to avoid having to launch the Details dialog each time you want to set a category for an item.

Menu items on the ToDo Page

Delete Item...: The currently selected to-do item will be deleted after a confirmation.
Attach Note: This menu item attaches a note (if there isn't already none) to the currently selected to-do item, and pops up the note view.
Delete Note...: ... will delete the note of the currently selected to-do item. You need to confirm this action.
Purge...: This item works slightly different as in the built-in To-Do application. Instead of deleting all items marked "complete" it removes only those of the current category. Only if you have the "All" category selected and perform "purging", will all items marked "complete" for that project be deleted.
Beam Item: To beam an individual To-Do item use this menu item. Note that the receiving device must have Projects installed, too.
Beam Category: To beam a category of To-Do items choose 'Beam Category'.
Rescan ToDos: If you feel that the ToDo information displayed on the project list is not correct, perform this action. This item will count all items, perform some computation and update the ToDo information. There is a good reason for this function. Since the database format of the Projects to-do list is equal to the built-in To-Do list, you have the ability to synchronize a project database outside with the Palm Desktop software and even modify it. When modifying the database outside of Projects, the ToDo information is not updated. After performing the Rescan function ... things are set right again.
Edit menu: These are the default copy/paste menu items you can find in every application that deals with text.
Font...: Lets you set the font that will be used for text on the ToDo Page.
Preferences...: Opens up the preference dialog, where you can set the sort order of to-do items and determine which columns should be shown on the page.
Phone Lookup: Let's you look up and insert a phone number from the Address book.
About: ... displays the About dialog.

Memo Page

The MemoPage offers you a chance to associate a written text as a whole, with the project. The text may be up to 4K (4096) characters long. There is nothing special about this page. However in future, this page may change into a catalog of Memos (something like the built-in Memo application).

Menu items on the Memo Page

Delete Memo...: ... will ask you whether you are sure you want to delete the whole text, and wll remove it upon confirmation.
Import Memo...: Will give you the opportunity to insert text from the built-in Memo application. It works much like Phone Lookup.
Export Memo: When this item is been selected the text on this page is copied to the built-in Memo application.
Beam Memo: Choose this menu item to beam the memo of the project to the Memo application to another device.
Edit menu: These are the default copy/paste menu items you can find in every application that deals with text.
Font...: Lets you set the font that will be used for text on the Memo Page.
Phone Lookup: Let's you look up and insert a phone number from the Address book.
About: ... displays the About dialog.