BABYL OPTIONS: Version: 5 Labels: Note: This is the header of an rmail file. Note: If you are seeing it in rmail, Note: it means the file has no messages in it.  1,filed,, Received: by ATHENA-PO-2.MIT.EDU (5.45/4.7) id AA28416; Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:40:22 EST Received: from E40-355-1.MIT.EDU by ATHENA.MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA24053; Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:40:18 EST From: dkk@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Received: by E40-355-1.MIT.EDU (5.61/4.7) id AA29857; Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:40:15 -0500 Date: Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:40:15 -0500 Message-Id: <8912102240.AA29857@E40-355-1.MIT.EDU> To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU In-Reply-To: Ken Duda's message of Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:07:30 -0500, <8912102207.AA07753@MONEY.MIT.EDU> Subject: Re: You guessed it (no! not again!) *** EOOH *** From: dkk@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Date: Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:40:15 -0500 To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU In-Reply-To: Ken Duda's message of Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:07:30 -0500, <8912102207.AA07753@MONEY.MIT.EDU> Subject: Re: You guessed it (no! not again!) > Hi! I haven't been getting any feedback on appts... is anyone using > it? Has anyone found any bugs? Does anyone want me to add anything? > Does anyone care? Is anybody out there??? AAAAAaaaaaagghh!!!! I'm still using the old appts. (Actually, it's my own hacked up version...) When the semester ends, I will enthusiastically change over to the new (your) version. Thanks for all the work you're putting into it. I think this has been one of our weakest points, and one that is more easily remedied than most (ie: a good wysiwyg editor/formatter). Keep up the good work. You'll be hearing more from me within a couple of weeks, I'm sure.  1,filed,, Received: by ATHENA-PO-2.MIT.EDU (5.45/4.7) id AA28647; Sun, 10 Dec 89 18:06:30 EST Received: from E40-008-8.MIT.EDU by ATHENA.MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA24573; Sun, 10 Dec 89 18:06:22 EST Received: by E40-008-8.MIT.EDU (5.61/4.7) id AA03352; Sun, 10 Dec 89 18:06:19 -0500 Date: Sun, 10 Dec 89 18:06:19 -0500 From: Mark W. Eichin Message-Id: <8912102306.AA03352@E40-008-8.MIT.EDU> To: Ken Duda In-Reply-To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:07:30 -0500 <8912102207.AA07753@MONEY.MIT.EDU> Subject: Re: You guessed it (no! not again!) *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 10 Dec 89 18:06:19 -0500 From: Mark W. Eichin To: Ken Duda In-Reply-To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:07:30 -0500 <8912102207.AA07753@MONEY.MIT.EDU> Subject: Re: You guessed it (no! not again!) Hi... you might not know me, I graduated in February and was a SIPB member and watchmaker before that. I've been watching your descriptions of "appts", and want to suggest that even if you hear nothing, don't lose heart, you sound like you're having a lot of fun hacking at this! As for calendars: my first "SIPB project" (right after Simson gave me my charon account) (and [highly successful] attempt to learn C) was to take the existing SIPB "memo" program and hack a calendar dump out of it. One of the hard parts was converting "scheduled warnings" into "when it happens" for the calendar... I had it print the calendar in 132 column mode on the LN01 printers (so it was 132 col by 66 line, landscape mode) at one month per page (we didn't have widely available PostScript then.) I learned a lot about range arithmetic (since I had to basically take a "day" timespan and loop over the memo file looking for things which intersected it at all). As for a non-printed interface, look at "xcal" (X11 contrib directory on expo, last I looked) and see if you can find anyone with a Sun that has used "calendartool" which has a neat way of doing a single day (you basically have one line per hour, and click-and-drag the mouse over the span you want to schedule.) Happy Hacking... _Mark_  1, filed, answered,, Received: by ATHENA-PO-2.MIT.EDU (5.45/4.7) id AA29699; Sun, 10 Dec 89 20:01:03 EST Received: from HODGE.MIT.EDU by ATHENA.MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA26277; Sun, 10 Dec 89 20:00:59 EST From: aaron@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Received: by HODGE.MIT.EDU (5.57/4.7) id AA11295; Sun, 10 Dec 89 20:00:53 EST Date: Sun, 10 Dec 89 20:00:53 EST Message-Id: <8912110100.AA11295@HODGE.MIT.EDU> To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU In-Reply-To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU's message of Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:07:30 -0500 <8912102207.AA07753@MONEY.MIT.EDU> Subject: You guessed it (no! not again!) *** EOOH *** From: aaron@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Date: Sun, 10 Dec 89 20:00:53 EST To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU In-Reply-To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU's message of Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:07:30 -0500 <8912102207.AA07753@MONEY.MIT.EDU> Subject: You guessed it (no! not again!) I tried to use it, but it gave me an "error sending message" in the window where I started it. At the very least it could put error messages in the console window. Besides, I wanted it to send me a message, not give me an error. This was, however, on a PMAX, (not PVAX), so that could have been part of the problem, although I tried to zwrite myself immediately afterwards and it worked fine. Perhaps more informative error messages are in order. In addition, it seems like if it's 3:05 in the afternoon and I say "add 4:00 reminder 1.15 - go to meeting", it should do the right thing, but I think it currently requires that I say 16:00. Fix this. You might even consider have times default to times you think people will be wanting messages. If I say 4:00, I probably mean afternoon, but 10:00 probably means morning, etc. Besides, if it's not what they meant, they can always delete that appointment and set up another. Just a suggestion. Still cool, though. 2 -- A ron From amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Tue Dec 12 19:57:07 1989 From: amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Date: Tue, 12 Dec 89 08:51:06 -0500 To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU In-Reply-To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU's message of Tue, 12 Dec 89 03:41:37 -0500 <8912120841.AA01522@PORTNOY.MIT.EDU> Subject: Calendar feature appts: WARNING: Time without AM/PM entered. I assume 4:00 AM. From jh@VENUS.MIT.EDU Tue Dec 12 20:15:38 1989 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 89 14:31:04 EST From: Joe Harrington To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU In-Reply-To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU's message of Sun, 10 Dec 89 17:07:30 -0500 <8912102207.AA07753@MONEY.MIT.EDU> Subject: You guessed it (no! not again!) Cc: jh@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Reply-To: jh@ATHENA.MIT.EDU I guess most people aren't using appts because: 1. even once it's stable, it will only be used by some subset of people in sipb, plus many more generic athena users. 2. it's very far from stable now. What you need is a few people to be your testers -- 3 or 4, say -- and keep in constant communication about new versions, what features they like or you want, how things are working, etc. with them. Once you have this in place, do a design review. This is a general meeting open to anyone and advertized to the sipb at least, where anyone can come and look at your initial spec and the implementation you have so far, discuss it, and give you ideas both on features and details of implementation. Do this for 30 minutes before or after a SIPB meeting, right in the office (arrange with Rob). Then go back to another round of implementation and testing, hold a final review, implement that, and then freeze it so that this version at least is stable. This is the system that most professional software producers (including Athena) use, and it works very well. Nobody's going to rely on a program which changes daily, and no one is going to use a program they can't rely on. This is not a criticism of your program at all, it's just an observation from many years' experience, and I think most sipb people you ask will agree. You've got a potentially publishable piece of software on your hands, so give it the professional treatment it deserves. --jh-- 1,, Received: by ATHENA-PO-2.MIT.EDU (5.45/4.7) id AA05827; Tue, 19 Dec 89 00:01:14 EST Received: from OLIVER.MIT.EDU by ATHENA.MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA11583; Tue, 19 Dec 89 00:01:20 EST From: aaron@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Received: by OLIVER.MIT.EDU (5.61/4.7) id AA21419; Tue, 19 Dec 89 00:01:05 -0500 Date: Tue, 19 Dec 89 00:01:05 -0500 Message-Id: <8912190501.AA21419@OLIVER.MIT.EDU> To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: appts *** EOOH *** From: aaron@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Date: Tue, 19 Dec 89 00:01:05 -0500 To: kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: appts I often need more than one reminder to do something. It would be nice if appts gave the option of having multiple sends of the same reminder when there is a delay between the reminder time and the time of the event. For example, add tomorrow 1:00pm reminder 1.30.5 - Go to class! where the .5 means every 5 minutes or something like that. It's unclear what the syntax or functionality should actually be, but it would be nice. I am just now noticing that appts actually sends two reminders. One at the specified time (30 minutes early) and one at the actual time, but it would be nice to have more. Thanks, -- Aaron