What's New in Version 3.0 (Oct. 2000)

Now Able to Schedule, Reschedule and Delete Repeating Meetings!

PIMple can now handle repeating meetings! It can schedule repeating meetings and reschedule them. The nicest thing about the way PIMple reschedules them is that it does it unlike any other PDA (Palm OS, WindowsCE and yes, even our beloved Newton!). It reschedules them the way you'd expect it to! (see Rant below).

These are the enhancements to PIMple in this version:
1. Able to schedule repeating meetings and events.
2. Able to reschedule one or all future instances of a repeating meetings and events.
3. Delete one, all or all future repeating meetings. See the bottom about repeating events.
4. Change a regular meeting or event into a repeating one and vice versa.
5. On the popup schedule you can now tap on "No appointments scheduled" to open a new meeting slip. Tapping on "You have nothing to do" opens a new todo slip. (These items are shown if a date has no appointments and/or no todos).
6. The Find meeting/event slip will save an display the last text entered.

I'm quite pleased with this version of PIMple and I hope you will be too!

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For some interesting insight on repeating appointments, please read on.


Rant: How PDA's handle repeating meetings!

None of the PDAs I have tried handles rescheduling all future items well. Neither do any third party PIMs - Except a Newton equiped with this version of PIMple!!
I teach violin lessons. Each student comes once a week on a specified day and time. Due to some other activity, a student often will need to change all of his/her future lessons to a different day and/or time. So let's say Grace's lesson was on Mondays at 3pm and now needs to be on Tuesdays at 4pm.

Try this on any PDA: Schedule Grace's old lesson time as a weekly repeating meeting. Go to some future lesson of Grace's and try to change All Future meetings to her new time. Sounds simple, right? Give it a try - it just doesn't work!
You end up having to stop Grace's meeting to a week earlier, then create a new repeating meeting for her new time. And you also have to clean up all those rogue meetings that were created trying to reschedule the item! For me this is the most aggravating thing to do when I use my Newton (or Palm, or WindowsCE)! The PalmOS sort of handles this but it isn't intuitive.

Well, the new version of PIMple FINALLy resolves this. I've been wanting this feature on my Newton since day one of getting it (back in the MP110 days)! I can't tell you how much easier rescheduling students have been since adding this feature.
Here's how to reschedule all of Graces future lessons:

1. Bring up the appointment you want the changes to start from.
2. Select a new date and/or time. Don't forget to change the ending date if you are moving the appointment to a different day.
3. Tap the "Change" button. 
4. Up pops a slip from which you may choose "One" or "Future". Tap "Future" and that's it! 

But you say, "That's almost exactly what I did in the Dates app or other PIM!" The difference here is that PIMple reschedules the appointment the way you'd expect it to: All future really means All future, whether you change the date, time or both, even the repeat type (every day, every week, etc.).


What PIMple does when rescheduling a repeating meeting

When you change a repeating meeting in PIMple, it will ask you to do it for one meeting or all future meetings. For all future meetings, PIMple will:

1. Set the meeting to stop at its previous date.
2. Create a new repeating meeting with the same criteria as the original.

Basically what you had to do before, but in one feel swoop and the process is completely transparent to the user. PIMple also tries to retain info such as meeting notes, invitees, location. The new meeting is not related to the previous meeting in any way - it is an entirely new repeating meeting.
Due to their linking features, I don't know how this works with third party PIMs such as MoreInfo or Dateman. If anyone out there can try it out let me know how PIMple fares!


What PIMple still can't do

1. PIMple cannot rechedule repeating items such as "every Monday and Thursday" , so any items that you use the "other" repeating option cannot be rescheduled correctly. Deleting works OK.
2. Still unable to delete one instance of a repeating event that was previously rescheduled. Don't know why! Deleting all is OK.
3. No linking features - Keep it Simple!
3. No Calls in the agenda list.


Contact Information

Please feel free to send any comments, questions or problems concerning PIMple to:
Way-Chung Wong
firstvln@earthlink.net

Visit Byte-Size software on the web at
http://members.aol.com/bytesizeww