What's New In Version 6.1a (Maintenance Release)

New features in V-6.1a (Free upgrade for registered 6.0 Users)

• You can now optionally hide the status bar (See More(2) Adv. Settings) on newer PalmOne devices or other devices that support the standard Palm OS API for hiding the status bar. This gains one or two lines of additional display in most views. Tap within a couple of pixels of the bottom of the status bar to toggle its display (or on the edge of the screen if you are in landscape mode).
• Adds Find/Highlight Text function to Options Menu for memos and attached notes in appointments, ToDo's or contacts. Replaces Restore.. button with Find... button (Restore is now a menu option under OPTIONS menu). Brief Tap on button will resume search throughout text if there are more matches. A Tap&Hold will always bring up the find dialog to enter a new text string. Shift-Period (pressed at the same time) on Treo and other keyboard-only devices will perform the same function a brief tap on the Find button.
• Now supports Anniversaries in the latest version of the PalmOne Contacts Database and provides separate preferences for icon, font and color. Also includes meta-tag <AnniversName=yyyy> which allows you to provide the text to be displayed for the anniversary (for example: <AnniversName=S & P's Wedding> ).
• Now supports display of Location field in Today View (you can set for 1, 2 or all lines to also display the location field on the line below - go into Options | View Display Options, tap on the top line selector and then on Show Location Field's popup list).
• Alarms are now handled by the smaller DateBk6-resources.prc file which allows you to put the main DateBk6.prc file on an external memory card and still have DateBk6 handle alarms.
• Changes Type of DateBk6-resources program so it's visible in the Palm menus (but not in the launch screen), so it can be explicitly beamed and deleted (previously it was completely hidden).
• Adds advanced option (See More(3) Adv. Settings) to avoid generating a DateBk6 style category tag if that is the only special attribute for an appointment - may be appropriate for some users with newer PalmOne devices that handle categories.
• Now displays all the MEETING information set by the Outlook Conduit (in Details Dialog see new icon that appears just below category information - also the icon appears at the end of the line in the Day View if a meeting is present). Note: Reply/Reply-ALL buttons will set up the email, but not currently launch the Email Application).
• Provides compatibility between the way Palm's proprietary Calendar app handles timezones and how DateBk6 handles timezones. Changes made in either app, or on the desktop, are now properly reflected in all three places. There is an option to avoid this compatibility (See More(3) Adv. Settings) - by default, DateBk6 will provide this compatibility.
• Provides an option for compatibility between the way Palm's proprietary Tasks app handles repeats and alarms and how DateBk6 handles repeats and alarms. Changes made in either app, or on the desktop, are now properly reflected in all three places. This preference option is not set by default (See More(3) Adv. Settings).
• Now displays age/anniversary in the Day Details view of the second weekly view with text.
• Adds new option to split-screen menu: Top/Bottom Of List: if the list is currently displaying the first page, it moves to display the last page of the split-screen list, otherwise it displays the first page. This can also be used to shift the focus to the split-screen for devices that do not have a Treo-Style center button to shift the focus.
• Adds new note field meta-tag: with the form: <FixedTime> in the note field of a template. When used, this will always insert the template at the template's fixed time, regardless of whether or not a time slot was selected at the time the template was inserted.
• Adds three new meta-tags for note field for templates: <ForceInsert>, <ForceDetails> and <ForceReminder>. These meta-tags will override whatever pushbutton was selected when the template was selected. For example, a Reminder type template can now have <ForceReminder> so it will always bring up the duration dialog regardless of which pushbutton was selected. <ForceInsert> can be used in a view other than the DayView to always insert a template using the default time of that template (Normally, the details dialog would appear if the view is not the Day View).
• Adds 20 minute option for snooze interval.
• Menu/Period in the Day View now invokes the link function as if the Link pushbutton had been tapped (convenient for keyboard users). This option is in the MISC menu in the Day View.
• Adds options in Today View to display up to the next 2 weeks or 4 weeks of appointments.
• Adds option to have alarms sound on the first advance day and every day up to the due date on ToDo's.
• DateBk6 now detects changes to the calendar and Tasks databases made outside of DateBk6 and optimizes the sort and global find accordingly (previously, only changes due to hotsync were detected)
• Left on the 5-way navigator in the Today View now goes to yesterday in the day view (previously this did nothing - seems like a useful function, since Right goes to today in the Day View).
• Adds menu item and support for option-option-backspace in Today view to toggle status of appointments as well as Floats and ToDos.
• Adds new meta-tag for templates (<ScheduleIn hh:mm> or <ScheduleIn mm>) which will cause the template to be inserted at some future time from now (useful for preset alarms like parking meters, etc.) The value can be negative as well as positive.
• Now retains position in ToDo List in both split-screen and integrated mode when an item is rescheduled to another day (used to refresh the list and reset to the top).
• Adds solid line at noon in graphical weekly view to make it easier to distinguish morning from afternoon appointments.
• Adds ability to display text of ToDo's in the monthly view (in V-6.0 only appointments were displayed).
• Avoids losing position in Todo list (integrated or SplitScreen) when an item is rescheduled to a new day and the option to display that day is not set.
• Shift/Period in Day View with a ToDo selected now pops up the date reschedule list.
• Pressing (or graffiti'ing) the letter 'g' in the Today View with an item selected will now go directly to the Day View with that item selected in that view (similar to Tap&Hold function).

New Utility Just Posted:

Pimlico Software has just released a new utility, DbFixIt, which can scan any Palm OS database for various kinds of errors and then repair them without losing any valid data. Information on this new and useful utility is available from the DbFixIt web page: http://www.PimlicoSoftware.com/dbfixit.htm. If you are encountering problems such as an application crashing when it tries to read a certain record, or the conduit hangs and won't finish, or an application is unexpectedly retrieving the wrong record, this could well be due to a corrupt database and DbFixIt is the only program that can correct these kinds of problems. There is also a known bug in the Palm Contacts application which can cause the contacts database to balloon to extraordinary sizes with junk data (one user's contacts database was 45Mb in size(!), but DbFixIt quickly removed all the junk, reducing the file size down to about 700k, thereby freeing up over 44mb of storage, and without losing any of the contact information).

Important Note:

Note that DateBk6 now requires two prc files to be installed. Due to size limitations in the Palm OS development tools, the program had to be split up into two separate modules. DateBk6 has a new registration system. Registration codes from DateBk3 or Datebk4/5 will not work with Datebk6. The upgrade to DateBk6 from DateBk5 may be free to users who purchased DateBk5 or a Datebk5 upgrade on or after January 1, 2005 (but they do have to be able to use the automated upgrade system for which no assistance is given).

BLOBs

DateBk6 now handles BLOBs in the newer PIM databases. Because of this, you may see all kinds of BLOB errors that you never saw in 6.0 - this is not a bug in V-6.1, but rather an indication of some corruption (often benign) that should be cleaned up. Either do a hotsync with the desktop overwriting the handheld for the calendar database, or use the new copy of dbScan (or better - use DbFixIt) in the AdvancedStuff.zip file, launch it, tap on Other button, and select Calendar DB BLOB Check from the Options menu. This feature will remove all improperly formatted BLOBs from the calendar database. This is done automatically by DateBk6 when upgrading from 6.0 or any earlier version of DateBk, but if an older version of 6.1 had ever been installed for testing purposes, this automatic cleanup might not have been invoked.

Downgrading back to DateBk5:

If you decided you want to downgrade to DateBk5 either temporarily or permanently, be sure that you do not have the startup view set to the Today View as that did not exist in DateBk5 and can under some circumstances cause a reset if DateBk5 is reading DateBk6's preferences. Either restore your original DateBk5DB preferences or delete the DateBk6DB preference database if you encounter any problems downgrading. Note that there is also a feature in DateBk6 to remove all the special tags that it has placed in the note field of appointments (Remove All Tags - in the Options menu of the main preference panel). Do not invoke this feature unless you are definitely removing DateBk6 as otherwise, you will lose all the special attributes that you assigned to events with Datebk6. Note that use of this feature is only to address a cosmetic issue - the tags in the note field have no affect on any other program.