Copyright (C) David Matthews 2003
Contact details at top of source files
Pooter is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License which can be found in the file COPYING or obtained from the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Pooter implements a contacts manager, diary, notes and appointments
recorder in java; it is intended for the person with a life, rather
than the business user - I don't have appointments every half hour each
day and don't want the functionality to record them. When I write a
letter or send an email I want my personal information management program
to interface with the word processor and email client of my choice,
not its choice. Pooter can also direct your choice of browser to a web
site that offers sms facilities supplying it with a mobile number, (or
it can pass the number to a pearl script) to send text messages.
Pooter has a degree of internationalisation; you can choose from Dutch,
English, French and German or easily create your own language file for
Pooter to use. It supports multiuser installation on Gnu\Linux and Windows
2000 and XP.
The cross platform 'vanilla' version, formerly packed separately for Windows and Gnu/Linux, is now a single release packed with an installer for either operating system.
There are 2 new releases for Gnu/Linux, a version that uses the Simple Look And Feel program to give gnome or kde appearence and a character-mode version (chooter), that uses the charva windowing toolkit. These are released as Slackware packages and alternatively, with installers.All versions have been tested with the official Sun 1.4.2 and 1.5 JVMs and
have no other dependancies; the Gnu/Linux releases are packed with the windowing
toolkits that they use. It is the intention to reintroduce support for Kaffe
when this project makes its next release.
Run the installer by clicking on it in Windows 2000 and XP (not 9x) or running java -jar <installer.jar> in Gnu/Linux and Windows 9x using a terminal emulator or MSDos box.
The Slackware packages should be installed using the normal tools on a Slackware
system. They can be installed on a rpm or deb based system simply by putting it in the root
directory ( ie "/" not "/root" ) and as root, doing tar "zxvf pooter-x.x.x-noarch-1.tgz."
On any system other than Slackware 10.0, the pooter.sh or chooter.sh script in /usr/bin will need editing to specify the path to java. There is a script to uninstall the programs in /usr/lib/pooter/utils for use on rpm and deb based systems.
This is free software, but it has been extensively tested and it is believed to be stable, usable and useful. If any problems are experienced I will try to help. However as you will see from the warranty notice in 'COPYING' and the info reached from the programs Help menu, it comes with no guarantee or warranty of any kind; you use it entirely at your own risk. I recommend keeping a backup copy of the vCard and Calendar.db files and any files you create in the Diary-keeping module. The application stores these in the Diary sub-directory. These files are located in ~/.pooter on Gnu\Linux and C:\My Documents\Pooter on Windows.
If you installed from an installer, you should have desktop shortcuts. Pooter
can also be started using the pooter.sh script on Gnu\Linux (run from your
home directory), or by copying the Pooter.bat batch file to My Documents in
Windows and clicking it. On Gnu/Linux, look for the shortcuts in a Dektop
directory if you don't use kde.
Shortcuts can be made manually in Windows as follows:-
Right click the Pooter.bat file/create shortcut
Drag the shortcut to the desktop
Right click this desktop link/Properties/Program (or ShortCut)Tab
Edit the working directory to %HOMEPATH%\My Documents
Select run minimised
Check Close on exit (only on Win 9x)
Click Change icon and browse to the icons sub-directory where you installed
Pooter
Click All file types and select the Pooter.bmp bitmap file
Click OK/Apply/Ok
In Gnu/Linux the method varies with your desktop system (kde, gnome, windowmaker etc), but it should start the pooter.sh script, which will either be in /usr/local/bin, /usr/bin, or your home directory. You can use <Pooter installation directory>/icons/Pooter.png as an icon.
The four seperate modules can be reached by either clicking the buttons in
the left column or by selecting them from the view menu.
Possible problem -
Pooter refuses to start and displays a message
that it is already running.
Reason - only one
instance of Pooter will run at once, to
ensure that new entries are not lost by closing an instance which is
not up to date. On start up Pooter creates a lock file "lock" in its base
directory (~/.pooter or My Documents\Pooter) and removes it when it shuts
down. If you shut down your computer without first closing Pooter, this file
is not removed.
Solution - simply remove the lock
file; in Gnu/Linux it will be a hidden file.
CALENDAR
The Calendar module starts by presenting a calendar for the current month
with the current day emphasized. As the mouse pointer passes over, the days
of the month, they become highlighted. If you click the mouse, the displayed
day changes. The month and year buttons can be clicked to alter these. Appointments
will be displayed and can be entered, saved or deleted. Those dates for which
appointments have been recorded are highlighted in a contrasting colour .
CONTACTS
The Contacts module presents you with a list of your contacts in surname,
first name format. You may click on one to display it, or click the new button
to add a contact. With the later option, you complete the form, (both name
fields are mandatory) and click add. The first option displays all the contacts
details; you may edit or remove it and you can also access your favorite external
programs from here.
Once you have configured Pooter (see below) it will cooperate with your other
programs. If you have a suitable email client the email program will start
up as a new mail form with the address already inserted. Note that your external
programs will also start at any time from the communicate menu. If the word
processor is started from the contact details display, the name and address
are copied to the system clipboard, from where you can paste into your letter
or envelope. If you have a letter template, your word processor should be
able to start with this in place.
Contacts details are saved as vCards, so Pooter can exchange this data with
other programs and will probably be able to import data. If you want to move
your vCards to Pooter copy (keeping a backup) the file to the Pooter directory
and rename it as vCard. Any data that Pooter does not deal with (eg contact's,
spouses', birthday) will hopefully be ignored without error. Some vCards have
a lot of ';' field delimiters that may cause problems. I recommend you first
create a single vCard in Pooter, view it in a text editor and edit your existing
data to this style . WARNING Pooter overwrites the vCard file each time changes
are made and makes no backup. That stuff about the contacts spouse will be
lost.
DIARY
The Diary module stores records for each day in separate files in the Diary
directory; entries for each year and month are stored in their own subdirectory.
Calling this module displays a list of years for which there are entries.
Click a year and month to view the actual entries, then an entry to view it.
You can edit or remove existing entries and use the New Entry button to create
one. Note that if you save a file it will have the date specified in the date
field; this defaults to the current date for new entries, but can be edited.
The program will allow one entry for every day for well over your lifespan,
but be aware that each entry made creates a new file and uses up a small amount
of disk space.
NOTES
This module is similar in use to the Diary module, but entries are stored
by a title that you give the note instead of by date. Give your new note a
title simply by editing the Title field. You can link notes by giving them
the same titles, you will not overwrite earlier entries in this way as they
will automatically be renamed title1, title2 etc. The entries you create are
stored in the Notes directory as individual files.
Your notes can optionally include an internet address in the Link field, which will be opened when you press the browser button.
Pooter will work out of the box, but to make full use of it you need to configure
it. Select Configure Pooter from the View menu and set the default module
from the pull down list, ie the module you want to see when Pooter starts.
You can choose one of the four languages provided, or easily create a file
for your own language (see below). Note that at the time of release the French
and Dutch translations were not quite complete. You can select the style (look
and feel) that you wish to use, but not all the styles offered may actually
be available on your version of Java. If you do select an unavailable style,
a message will warn you of this and a default will be used. You can avoid
seeing this message at start up by choosing a different style.
Use the file chooser buttons or type in the commands that start your word
processor, email and SMS programs. Examples of this in Gnu/Linux are kword
LetterTemplate.kwd, kmail and konqueror http://www.sms2email.com/. In windows
Outlook Express will start with something like c:\program files\outlook express\msimn.exe.
As far as I am aware, windows email clients like Outlook Express and Thunderbird
can not start with a new message form and the Start with message box should
be left unchecked. In this case the email address of your contact will be
ready on the systems clipboard. Gnu/Linux users should press this button to
have their client start a new message form with the email address pre-inserted
(the Sylpheed program is the one exception I am aware of).
If you are using a browser for web-based sms, you should depress the Paste
number button to have your contacts mobile number on the clipboard. If you
have a sms program such as smssend, you may be able to pass the number straight
into the program, script or batch file; you can try leaving the box unchecked.
You can specify a browser to open web pages recorded in the Notes module. Any of the entries can be left empty if you do not want to call external programs from Pooter.
When done press Save then shutdown and restart for your configuration to take effect.
It is hopefully no longer necessary to adjust font sizes and sizes of text windows; each style should provide the correct settings. If things are not quite right, the following settings can be adjusted in the Pooter.cfg file. Starting from the 2nd numerical entry, the figures you see in this file set the size of the font of the main buttons (and thus their width), height and width of the Calendar text window, the font sizes for the entries you input and the height and width of both the Diary and Notes text windows.
Pooter stores these in /usr/local/Pooter/language or /usr/lib/pooter/language and C:\Program Files\Pooter\language. To create a new language file simply translate from one of the four existing ones and send me a copy. Note that the first line must be a comment, you should use words with 9 characters or less for entries 2 to 4 and one entry must start with a "!" (you'll see it).Use a plain text editor, not a word processor and save the file in the language directory under the language name. Pooter will automatically discover it when you select View\Configure.
This non-graphical version runs in a kde konsole or xterm and also on a setup that has no XWindows; apparantly the charva toolkit does not play well with the gnome terminal, which the author of charva describes as buggy. It works fine on older hardware, which has insufficient RAM or too low screen resolution for the Gui versions
You may need to adjust your konsole settings; I use Medium font, Schema konsole default and Size 80x24(VT100). All this can be done in konsole's Settings menu.
The bundled version of charva was compiled with java 1.4.2; if you have another version, you may need to fetch the source and recompile. Chooter will run quite independently of its Gui brother, but can also be installed along side it and will happily share the data files. Since there are separate config files, you can for instance setup Pooter to use kmail and Chooter to use Mutt.
Unlike the gui version, there is no inline help or info/error messages. If you try to do something it doesn't like, it will quietly ignore you.
You can operate Chooter with a mouse if the environment supports this, but it can also be conveniently controlled with a keyboard only. There are a few notes to help with this on the opening screen, also have a look at the info above, although it mainly applies to the Gui version, it should help give the general idea.
Configuration of Chooter must be done manually, by editing ~/.pooter/chooter.cfg. The program creates a default file which contains instuctions; its pretty straightforward, but again, a look at the info above will also help. You can only use external applications with Chooter when it is running in konsole/xterm, not if there is no Xserver.
Conceived and begun by David Matthews
The Simple Look And Feel (Slaf) was written by Guillaume Desnoix
The Charva windowing toolkit for java was written by Rob Pitman
Some helpful design suggestions were made by Robin Rawson-Tetley, who wrote
SwingWt