Windows is slowly evolving into a complete computing system in the
sense that it contains everything that a user with simple needs could
want. It has long had a word processor, text editor, graphics editor,
web browser, email client, media player, and backup program. What’s
missing? On the security side, it’s essential to have a bidirectional
firewall and antispyware tool, and Vista has both of those. Also, all of
us need some way to track appointments and to-do lists, so we need a
calendar application; Vista now comes with one of those, too, called
Windows Calendar, and it’s actually not bad for an operating system
freebie. It has a nice, clean interface, and it does all the basic jobs
that a calendar should:
Create appointments, both one-time and recurring Create all-day events Schedule tasks, with the capability to set a priority flag and a completed flag Set appointment and task reminders View appointments by day, week, or month Publish and subscribe to calendars using the iCal standard Import Calendar (.ics) files Create multiple calendars
To start Calendar, use any of the following methods:
Select Start, All Programs, Windows Calendar Press Windows Logo+R (or select Start, All Programs, Accessories, Run) to open the Run dialog box, type wincal, and click OK In Windows Mail, select Tools, Windows Calendar, or press Ctrl+Shift+L
Figure 1 shows an empty Calendar window.
As you can see, Calendar is laid out similar to a day planner or desk calendar. There are five main sections:
| Date | This
area shows one month at a time (usually the current month). You use the
Date area to change the date displayed in the Events area. Dates for
which you have already scheduled appointments or meetings are shown in
bold type. Note that today’s date always has a red square around it. | | Events | This
part of the Calendar window at first shows one day at a time, divided
into hour-long intervals (each of which is subdivided into half-hour
segments). The appointments and meetings you schedule will appear in
this area. | | Details | You use this area to add, edit, and view your appointments and tasks. | | Calendars | This
area displays a list of your calendars. Most people use just a single
calendar, but you might want separate calendars for, say, business use
and personal use. | | Tasks | This area lists the tasks you have set up. |
1. Navigating Dates
Calendar always opens with today’s date
displayed. However, if you want to work with a different day, the Date
area makes it easy. All you have to do is click a date, and Calendar
displays it in the Events area. If the month you need isn’t displayed in
the Date Navigator, click the left-pointing arrow beside the month to
move backward one month at a time. Similarly, click the right-pointing
arrow to move forward one month at a time.
For larger moves, you can use the text between
the arrows to navigate to a different month, year, or even decade. The
text between the arrows is a series of links that enable you to zoom out
on the dates. Here are the steps to follow:
1. | Click the initial Month, Year text to display a list of the months in the current year. The link text changes to the current year.
| 2. | Click
the month to which you want to jump. If the month isn’t in the current
year, click either the left and right arrow to decrement or increment
the year, or click the Year text to see a list of the years in the current decade. The link text changes to the current decade.
| 3. | Click
the year to which you want to jump. If the year isn’t in the current
decade, click either the left or right arrow to decrement or increment
the decade, or click the Year - Year text to see a list of the decades in the current century.
| 4. | Click the decade that contains the year you want.
| 5. | Click the year that contains the month you want.
| 6. | Click the month.
|
Here are two other techniques for changing the date:
To move to today’s date, either select View, Today or click the Today button. To
move to a specific date, select View, Go to Date (or press Ctrl+G) to
display the Go to Date dialog box. Enter the date you want in the Date
text box, or drop down the box to display a calendar and click the date.
You can also use the Show In list to select a different view (see the
next section). Click OK to display the date.
2. Changing the Calendar View
By default, Calendar uses the Day view in the
Events area, which shows a single day’s worth of appointments and
meetings. However, Calendar is quite flexible and has several other
views you can use. Here’s the complete list:
| Day | Select View, Day (or press Ctrl+Shift+1). | | Work Week | Displays Monday through Friday for the current week. Select View, Work Week (or press Ctrl+Shift+2). | | Week | Displays Sunday through Saturday for the current week. Select View, Week (or press Ctrl+Shift+3). | | Month | Displays the current month. Select View, Month (or press Ctrl+Shift+4). |
Tip
By default, Calendar uses Sunday as the first
day of the week, and Monday as the first day of the work week. To change
these days, select File, Options. In the Options dialog box, use the
First Day of Week and Start of Work Week lists to specify the days you
prefer. Click OK.
3. Scheduling an Appointment
Calendar helps you keep track of your life by letting you create three kinds of items:
| Appointment | This
is the most general Calendar item and it refers to any activity for
which you set aside a block of time. Typical appointments include a
lunch date, a trip to the dentist or doctor, or a meeting. You can also
create recurring appointments that are scheduled at regular intervals
(such as weekly or monthly). | | All-Day Event | This
refers to any activity that consumes one or more entire days. Examples
include conferences, trade shows, and vacations. In Calendar, events
don’t occupy blocks of time. Instead, they appear as banners above the
affected days. You can also schedule recurring events. | | Task | This
is a specific chore, action, or project that you want to accomplish.
Examples include paying a bill, completing a report, and learning a
language. Tasks generally have a start date and a due date, and you can
set up Calendar to remind you when the task is due. |
The next few sections show you how to create appointments, all-day events, and tasks.
Creating an Appointment
Here are the steps you need to follow to set up a basic appointment:
1. | Navigate to the date on which the appointment occurs.
| 2. | Select
File, New, Appointment. (You can also press Ctrl+N or click New
Appointment.) Calendar creates the new appointment and displays it in
the Details area, as shown in Figure 2.
Note
Calendar creates the new appointment in a
block that includes the current time. For example, if it’s currently
3:15 p.m., Calendar creates a new hour-long appointment that runs from
3:00 to 4:00. To create the appointment at a specific time, right-click
the time in the Events area and then click New Appointment.
Tip
By default, Calendar creates new
appointments that are one hour long. If most of your appointments use
some other length, you can configure Calendar to use a different default
length. Select File, Options to display the Options dialog box. In the
Appointments group, use the Default Length list to select the length you
prefer (15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 2 hours).
| 3. | Click the title (“New Appointment” is the prosaic default) and then type a new title that describes your appointment.
| 4. | Use the Location text box to specify the location (such as a room number or address) for the appointment.
| 5. | If you have more than one calendar , use the Calendar list to select the one you want to use for the new appointment.
| 6. | If
the appointment has an associated page on the web (such as a SharePoint
site) or on an intranet, type the address in the URL text box.
| 7. | Use
the two Start controls to set the date and time that the appointment
starts. Use the left control to change the date, and use the right
control to change the time.
| 8. | Use
the two End controls to set the date and time that the appointment
ends. Use the left control to change the date, and use the right control
to change the time.
Tip
You can also use your mouse to set an
appointment’s start and end times. To change the start time, click and
drag the top edge of the appointment in the Events area; to change the
end time, click and drag the bottom edge of the appointment.
| 9. | Use
the Notes box to type anything else you can think of regarding the
appointment: a longer description, talking points, a few good jokes, and
so on.
|
The steps above enable you to create a simple
appointment. I discuss more sophisticated appointment
features—specifically, recurrence, reminders, and attendees—in the next
few sections.
Creating a Recurring Appointment
If you have an appointment that occurs at a
regular interval (say, weekly or monthly), it’s a waste of your precious
time to enter these as separate appointments. Fortunately, you don’t
have to do that because Calendar lets you schedule a recurring
appointment. For example, if you create a weekly appointment, Calendar
fills in that appointment automatically on the same day of the week at
the same time for the duration you specify.
To schedule a recurring appointment, follow these steps:
1. | Either create a new appointment or click an existing appointment.
| 2. | Use
the Repeat list to select one of the following recurrence patterns:
Every day, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly. You can also select Advanced to
pop up the Recurrence dialog box, shown in Figure 3.
| 3. | If
you’re using the Recurrence dialog box, type a value in the Repeat
Every text box and select an interval (Days, Weeks, Months, or Years) in
the list beside it.
| 4. | If you chose Weeks or Months, Calendar adds controls to the dialog box to help you clarify your selection:
For the Weeks interval, Calendar
displays seven buttons, one for each day of the week. Click the button
that corresponds to the day of the week you want the appointments
scheduled. For the Months interval,
Calendar displays several option buttons, the text of which depends on
the day and date of the initial appointment. Figure 8.8 shows the recurrence options for a January 23, 2007 initial appointment.
| 5. | Select one of the following options to set a limit on the recurrence:
| Forever | Select this option to schedule the appointment indefinitely. | | Number | Select this option to schedule the appointment for a specific number of | | of Times | occurrences. Use the text box to type the number of occurrences you want. | | Until | Select
this option to specify the date of the last appointment. If the date
you specify is after an occurrence (for example, if you are scheduling
weekly appointments on Tuesdays but the date you specify falls on a
Friday), Calendar schedules appointments up to the date that is closest
to the one you specified. |
| 6. | Click OK.
|
Adding a Reminder
If you’d like Calendar to remind you that your appointment is coming up, follow these steps:
1. | Either create a new appointment or click an existing appointment.
| 2. | Use
the Reminder list to specify how soon before the appointment the
reminder should be displayed. You can also click On Date to have the
reminder appear at a specified date and time.
|
When the reminder time comes the program displays a dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 4. You have four ways to deal with the reminder:
| Snooze | Click
this button to have Calendar display the reminder again in five minutes
(or whatever time you choose in the Click Snooze to be Reminded Again
In list). | | Dismiss | Click this button to close the reminder permanently. | | Dismiss All | Click this button to close all the displayed reminders permanently. | | View Item | Click this button to display the item in the Details area. |
Tip
By default, Calendar does not set up a
reminder for new appointments. If you set a reminder for most of your
appointments, you can configure Calendar to use a default reminder
interval. Select File, Options to display the Options dialog box. In the
Appointments group, use the Default Reminder list to select the number
of minutes, hours, days, or weeks you want to appear by default in the
Details area when you create a new appointment.
Inviting Attendees
If you want other people to attend your appointment, Calendar can send them an email invitation. Here are the steps to follow:
1. | Either create a new appointment or click an existing appointment.
| 2. | Specify the attendees by using either of the following techniques:
For people who aren’t in your
Contacts list, use the Attendees text box to type each person’s email
address, pressing Enter after each one. For
people in your Contacts list, click the Attendees button to display
your Contacts list. For each person you want to invite, click the
person’s name and then click To. When you’re done, click OK.
| 3. | Click Invite. Calendar creates a new email message addressed to the attendees. The Subject line is INVITE: Appointment, where Appointment is the title of your appointment. Attached is a file in the iCalendar (.ics) format, which includes the specific of the appointment.
| 4. | Add message text, if required, and then click Send.
|
If the recipients use calendar programs that
support the iCalendar format, they can open the attachments to
automatically add the appointment to their schedules.
Creating an All-Day Event
As I mentioned earlier, an allday event is an
activity that consumes one or more days (or, at least, the working part
of those days). Some activities are obvious all-day events: trade shows,
sales meetings, corporate retreats, and so on. But what about, say, a
training session that lasts from 9:00 to 4:00? Is that an all-day event
or just a long appointment?
From Calendar’s point of view, the main
difference between an appointment and an all-day event is that an
appointment is entered as a time block in the Events area, but an
all-day event is displayed as a banner at the top of the Events area.
This means that you can also schedule appointments on days that you have
all-day events.
A good example that illustrates these
differences is a trade show. Suppose the show lasts an entire day and
you’re a sales rep who will be attending the show. You could schedule
the show as a day-long appointment. However, what if you also want to
visit with customers who are attending the show? It’s possible to
schedule conflicting appointments, but having that day-long appointment
in there just clutters the Events area. In this case, it makes more
sense to schedule the show as an all-day event. This leaves the Events
area open for you to schedule appointments with your customers.
Follow these steps to schedule an all-day event:
1. | Either create a new appointment or click an existing appointment.
| 2. | Activate the All-Day Appointment check box.
| 3. | Specify the Start and End dates for the event.
|
Creating a Task
It has become a time-honored tradition for the
responsibly forgetful among us to write down reminders of things to do
and upcoming activities. The idea behind Calendar’s Tasks list is to
give you an electronic equivalent of these to-do lists.
Here are the steps you need to follow to set up a task:
1. | Select
File, New, Task. (You can also press Ctrl+T or click New Task.)
Calendar creates the new task and displays it in the Details area, as
shown in Figure 5.
When you create a new task, the details appear in, you guessed it, the Details area.
| 2. | Click the title (“New Task” is the default) and then type a new title that describes your task.
| 3. | If you have more than one calendar , use the Calendar list to select the one you want to use for the new task.
| 4. | If
the appointment has an associated page on the Web (such as a SharePoint
site) or on an intranet, type the address in the URL text box.
| 5. | Use the Priority list to select the importance of the task: Low, Medium, High, or None.
| 6. | Use the Start control to set the date that the task begins.
| 7. | Use the Due Date control to set the date that the task is due to be completed.
| 8. | If
you’d like Calendar to remind you that your task is due, click Reminder
and use the drop-down list to specify how soon before the appointment
the reminder should be displayed. (You can also click On Date to have
the reminder appear on a specified date.)
| 9. | Use
the Notes box to record anything else you can think of regarding the
task: specific actions to perform, task resources, suggested ways to
procrastinate, and so on.
|
When you’ve completed the task, let Calendar
know by activating the Completed check box in the Details area.
(Alternatively, click the check box beside the task in the Tasks list.)
Tip
By default, Calendar
keeps completed tasks in the Tasks area until you delete them. If you’d
rather not delete tasks, you can reduce clutter in the Tasks area by
having Calendar hide the tasks automatically once a specified time has
elapsed after completion. Select File, Options to open the Options
dialog box. In the Tasks group, use the Number of Days Before Hiding
Completed Tasks list to select the interval after which Calendar will
hide tasks. Click OK.
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