Taurus CalendarMaker - v1.1.0 Release Notes

Taurus CalendarMaker v1.1.0

The following release notes are applicable to the above version of Taurus CalendarMaker. The copyright notice is applicable to any version of CalendarMaker unless stated otherwise.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Taurus FamilyTree is a trademark of Taurus Software. Java is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other product names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

All references to Taurus Software directly refer to the non-profit freeware/shareware software development unit run from the UK by myself. Any conflict with names of companies inside or outside of the UK is unintentional and should be disregarded.

Platform Support
Taurus CalendarMaker is provided in binary form as a set of platform independant Java class files, and as such should run on any platform with a Java compliant virtual machine. Many of the features of latest version of Swing are used for the Graphical User Interface. You will therefore require at least the following for CalendarMaker to run:

A Java 2 SDK 1.4 compliant virtual machine

Installation (Windows)
Windows™ users have the option of downloading calmaker_win32_110.zip. This contains one file, calmaker_110.exe, which is an InstallShield installer that will install the program and create the necessary Start Menu entries to run the program. This is an "all-in-one" installer which contains the program, the optional images and the source code.

NOTE: As it adds several megabytes to the download, the Microsoft™ Windows Installation engine (MSI) has NOT been included as part of the installer. It needs to be already installed on your machine in order to use this installer. All but the earliest versions of Windows should have it. If in doubt, select Start->Run... and type msiexec. This should pop up a window containing the version number - if not, you don't have it.

If you don't wish to use the installer, or don't have the MSI engine, you can download the ZIP files and follow the instructions for Other Platforms. The ZIPs are slightly smaller than the installer to download.

To use the installer, double-click calmaker_110.exe and click through the wizard using Next. If you wish, you can change the install location and what is installed. Most users will want the Typical option, but if you wish to install the source, you need to select Custom.

If CalendarMaker is installed using the installer, it can be removed later using Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel.

Installation (Other Platforms)
Unpack the downloaded calmaker_bin_110.zip file containing CalendarMaker into a suitable directory (e.g. C:\CalMaker). If you want some images to start working with, then download and unzip calmaker_images.zip into the same directory (this does not stop you using your own images later). Note that these images are heavily compressed to save space - if you want better quality versions of the images, then most of them can be downloaded from the Photography section.

If you wish to install the source, download and unzip calmaker_src_110.zip into the installation directory.

Running
If Windows users installed using the installer, then they simply need to select Start->Programs->Taurus CalendarMaker->CalendarMaker. If you will be using large images, it is better to pick @run.bat from the same menu, as this allocates more memory to the application.

Windows users not using the installer, simply need double-click @run.bat in the installation directory and CalendarMaker will start and display one of the two templates.

Unix (including Linux) users need to cd to the installation directory and type ./run.sh. Again CalendarMaker will start and display one of the two templates.

Mac users need to enter the command contained in the file run.mac.

Example Calendars
CalendarMaker comes with four example templates (three calendars and a coversheet) and some images, so you can get going right away. By default CalendarMaker creates a simple table calendar template. You can create other templates using the File->New menu. For example, you can create a simple list calendar template by selecting File->New->List Calendar.

Your own Calendars
You are not limited to the example calendars. There are two ways in which you can create your own. Either customize the existing templates with new images and/or by changing their fonts amd colours, or create your own template from scratch.

To learn more about CalendarMaker, why not follow the short online tutorial.

Keyboard Commands and Shortcuts
CalendarMaker can be operated without the use of a mouse. All menu options and property editor fields can be accessed using Alt + mnemonic, with the appropriate letters being underscored (if you are using 2K/XP, then read the note below). In addition to this, many menu and toolbar options have shortcuts:

Key Combination	Action
`Ctrl + D`	Clear Selection (De-select all).
`Ctrl + O`	Open an existing template.
`Ctrl + N`	New blank template.
`Ctrl + P`	Open the Print dialog.
`Ctrl + S`	Saves the current template.
`Ctrl + Left`	Previous month.
`Ctrl + Right`	Next month.
`Delete`	Deletes the selection.
`Enter`	Opens the Property Editor.

In addition, when a bean in the template is selected, and the editing area has focus, the following keys can be used to manipulate the bean:

Key Combination	Action
`Cursor-keys`	Move the bean slowly.
`Alt + Cursor-keys`	Resize the bean slowly.
`Shift +` above	Speed up moving/resizing.
`Ctrl +` above	Lock aspect-ratio when resizing.
`Ctrl +` drag	Lock aspect-ratio when resizing.

Some property editors also support the use of the keyboard. Both the Anchor and Fill editors on the GridBag layout page allow the cursor-keys to be used to move the focus around (wrapping if necessary), whilst Space is used to select the focused button. This also works with the Justification editor on the Title beans properties page, and on the palette of the Web tab of the color picker dialog.

Note to Windows 2000 and XP Users
In JDK 1.4, Swing honours the "Hide keyboard navigation indicators until I use the Alt key" setting from the Display Properties + Appearance tab + Effects... options. If you wish to use keyboard navigation, either turn this off, or simply press the Alt key and the usual underscores will appear. One aim is to make CalendarMaker fully operable via the keyboard to aid users who have difficulty in using a mouse.

Note to Users of Screen Reading Software
CalendarMaker has been written to provided basic support for Screen Readers. In order for this to work, you may need to install Sun's Java Access Bridge, available from Sun's java.sun.com website.

Last updated 6th March 2003
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