Ical Change Log

Table of Contents

• Unreleased Changes
  • June 28 snapshot
  • June 1 snapshot
  • March 16 snapshot
  • November 7 snapshot
  • October 19 snapshot
• Version 1.9
  • Version 1.9b2
  • Version 1.9b1
• Version 1.8
  • Version 1.8b3
  • Version 1.8b2
  • Version 1.8b1
• Version 1.7
  • Version 1.7b1

Unreleased Changes

• June 28, 1995 snapshot
  • No longer works with Tk 3.6 and older versions
  • Fixed for Tcl 7.4/Tk 4.0.
  • Some incompatibilities were introduced
    • ical_action does not take a view argument
    • Added item-select and item-unselect hooks
    • Removed dayview-focus and dayview-unfocus hooks

• June 1, 1995 snapshot
  • Install contributed files as well
  • Added contributed script for displaying ISO week numbers
  • Added -print option for generating postscript from command line
  • Added -date option to control starting date for windows/listings
  • Item hiliting is set to "never" when done.
  • Catch errors when trying to reset focus after dialog.
  • Make time range parsing smarter.

• March 16, 1995 snapshot
  • Repeating items now start from current date.
  • Todo/done items are sorted appropriately.
  • Added searching code.
  • More robust handling of bad color names.
  • Postscript previewer now runs in background.
  • Made wbeep reset the screen saver.
  • Added dialog for editing item properties.
  • Fixed printing code to handle long lines gracefully.
  • Item cloning now duplicates all item options.
  • Meta-n used to cyle thru items as well as tab key
  • Added todo-item-done hook.
  • Added fontSize option to use smaller fonts.
  • Added rule to build bundle with shared Tcl/Tk libs.
  • Make item copying preserve todo status.
  • Bug fixes in remove-include of dirty calendar.
  • largeHeadingFont is smaller.
  • Help display has a pointer cursor.
  • Notice items now widen themselves to use all available space.
  • More robust appointment resize/move handling.

• November 7, 1994 snapshot
  • Allow todo items to be marked as done.
  • Added "about ical" menu entry.
  • Allow keyboard shortcuts for scrolling around help window.
  • Arrow keys can be used to change dates when no item is selected
  • Tab key cycles through the items for the current day
  • Escape/Control-g unselect the current item (if any)
  • Allow multiple calendars to be opened correctly.
  • Added regression tests.
  • Calendar file writing code is more robust.
    • Handles symbolic and hard links cleanly
    • Handles non-writable directories

• October 19, 1994 snapshot
  • Allow tcl code to get and set item options.
  • Fixed bug in notice unselection on window close.
  • Use "-lnsl" if available. (This is useful on Solaris?)
  • Allow call to "<item> weekdays" with empty week day list
  • Week day editing dialog double-checks with the user if all week days are unselected.
  • Over-kill fix for unpredictable alarm countdown bug.

Version 1.9

User-Visible Changes since version 1.8

• Changed default color scheme.
• Improved handling of appointment text that does not fit in available area.
• Added more kinds of repeating items.
• Added "Todo" items -- these propagate automatically to today every day.
• Added emacs style editing of items.
• Added on-line help.

Customizability changes since version 1.8

• Added documentation of some of the internals (see doc/interface.ps). This will be useful if you want to customize ical, or if you want to write scripts to manipulate ical calendars.
• Load $ical(library)/site.tcl at startup time if available.
• Changed the Tcl class system to support single inheritance.
• Added more hooks

  	dayview-focus
  	dayview-unfocus
  	dayview-set-date
  	alarm-fire
       

Installation changed since version 1.8

• Ical can optionally be built as a single executable that contains all required tcl/tk files. This allows people to copy ical binaries around from one machine to another without having to install Tcl/Tk, or without worrying about the location of ical's ".tcl" files. Use the following method to build a standalone executable.

  	make ical-bundle
       

• The ical library directory now includes the version number. Therefore different versions of ical will not trounce each other anymore.

Changes since version 1.9b2

• Changed f2h to look for sed in more directories than just /bin.
• Made selected item background lighter to have better contrast between foreground and background.
• Add "-lc" flag when using shared linking with g++ on DEC OSF1. This prevents an undefined symbol error at run-time.
• Renamed "Annual" menu entry to "Annually".
• -geometry option was being ignored.
• Added "-iconposition" option for placing icon.
• Removed duplicate definition of dialog_run.
• Changed the Tcl class system to have better support for subclassing.

Version 1.9b2

• Bug fixes
  • Fixed bug in "contrib/timeofday.tcl".
  • Fixed bug with Monday-First option in "dg_wdays.tcl".
  • Fixed bug in proc name for "delete-word".
  • Call "wm geometry" within "catch" to handle geometry spec errors.
• Interface changes
  • Made default "itemOverflowColor" a little darker so that it interacts better with the selected item foreground color.
  • Truncate appointment text so that it fits within the available area when the appointment is not selected.
  • Changed colors to use a gray background by default.
  • Load $ical(library)/site.tcl at startup time if available.
• Various cleanups
  • Cleaned up alarm generation code.
  • Cleaned up item selection code.
  • Turned change log into html document.

Version 1.9b1

User-Visible Changes

• Repeating items
  • Added more ways for monthly repetitions
  • Cleaned up Repeat menu
  • Added dialogs for complex repetitions
  • Item listings now contain more detailed repeating item descriptions
• Added "Todo" items -- these propagate automatically to today every day
• Added emacs style editing of items.
• Added on-line help.
• Overflowed appointment text now has a background.
• Added documentation of some of the internals (see doc/interface.ps). This will be useful if you want to customize ical, or if you want to write scripts to manipulate ical calendars.
• Contributed code
  • Added contributed script "icaladdlines"
  • Added contributed code "timeofday.tcl"
• The "pollSeconds" option has been split in two -- "pollSeconds" and "saveSeconds". The first option controls the frequency of re-reads. The second option controls the frequency of saves. By default "pollSeconds" is bigger than "saveSeconds".
• The file selector was changed to not display ~ files by default. The "children" list was also made a little wider.
• Added more hooks dayview-focus
  dayview-unfocus
  dayview-set-date
  alarm-fire
• Adapted the ruler demo from the Tk demo set for selecting a set of alarm times.
• Added "Delete Selection" menu item.

Internal Changes

• Ical can optionally be built as a single executable that contains all required tcl/tk files. This allows people to copy ical binaries around from one machine to another without having to install Tcl/Tk, or without worrying about the location of ical's ".tcl" files. Use the following method to build a standalone executable.

  	make ical-bundle
    

• The ical library directory now includes the version number. Therefore different versions of ical will not trounce each other anymore.
• Lots of internal changes. These will allow easier creation of calendar management scripts and ical customizations. Plus some outright bugs were fixed. The Tcl code cleanups are:
  • cleaned up menu creation
  • cleaned up dialog code
  • cleaned up key binding mechanism
  • moved most code out of DayView into "actions.tcl".
  • removed obsolete use of "pack"
  • added inheritance support to object system
  • made a subclass of ItemWindow to allow moving/resizing
• C++ code cleanups
  • C++ code now does permission checking and sets modified flags and generates triggers on item/calendar modifications. This drastically simplified the tcl code for manipulating calendars and items.
  • added routine to collect all non-hidden items
  • Removed calendar slot from items.
  • Removed "length" sub-command for notices.
  • cleaned up date/time parsing code and moved into C++

Bug fixes

• handle invocations when the HOME environment variable is not set
• Fix hangup that occurs on repeat_check/yes with fast typing into an item
• Removed memory leaks
• Do not use "gethostid" unless it really works. (It was causing core-dumps on some HP machines.)
  
• Supply "gethostname" routine for machines that do not have it. (Solaris is the only problem reported to me.)

Version 1.8

• Handle color allocation errors so they don't look like bugs.
• Handle infrequent Tcl syntax errors after reading a calendar file.
• Added "item-create" hook that is called on item creation in calendar window. Use this to customize the initial state of new items.
• Allow hilite field to be extensible with more values.

Version 1.8b3

• Added a "catch" in dialog handling code to ignore the frequent grab errors.
• Added hook mechanism --
  • ical-startup
  • ical-exit
  • dayview-startup
  • dayview-close
  • item-create
• Removed vertical-layout options. It is probably used very rarely and is easy to set-up via a hook in ~/.tk/ical/user.tcl.

  	append-hook dayview-startup {view} {
  
  	    pack .$view.al -side bottom
  
  	}
    

Version 1.8b2

• The calendar view automatically switches to the next day at midnight. (But only if the view is displaying the current date.)
• Added script "icalexpire" to the contrib directory. This script moves expired items from the user's calendar into an archival calendar. Use it if ical uses too much memory or takes too much time starting up because there are too many expired items in your calendar.
• Reduced per-item memory requirements.
• Added date/time/time-range/item parsing routines to library.
• Added code to import the current selection as a new item. The item parsing code is used to guess the date and times for the new item.
• Added script "icaladd" to the contrib directory. This script reads an item from the standard input and adds it to the user's calendar. The date and times for the item are extracted from the standard input if possible.

Version 1.8b1

• Added highlighting options for items.
• Changed shut up button to say "No More Alarms"
• Cleaned up man-page formatting (thanks to john@civil.su.oz.au)
• Include user name in printouts
• Changed startup code so that more things get initialized when the ical shells start up. Therefore the tcl startup scripts need less junk. It also makes it easier to build various converters and other scripts that manipulate calendar data.
• Added a "contrib" directory.
• Added a script "ical2calendar" to convert from an ical calendar to an old-style calendar file.
• Made "dialog_wdays" obey Monday-first option.

Version 1.7

• Various bug fixes
• Item text now word-wraps automatically. An unfortunate side-effect of this change is that explicit new-lines in old items may make the items have excessive new-lines.
• Notices automatically expand and shrink as the text changes. Appointments will optionally not allow text changes that would result in overflow.
• More user preferences can be set while ical is running.
  • default alarm intervals
  • default early-warning behavior
  • the time range displayed in the appointment window
  • height of the notice window
  • width of displayed appointments and notices
  • whether or not appointments allow text overflow
• Dragging with the left mouse button held down in an appointment or notice sets the X selection.
• The "Insert Selection" entry in the Edit menu can now be used to "paste" the current X selection into an appointment or notice. The key "^y" invokes this operation.
• On monochrome displays, item selection is indicated by changing the border width of the selected item instead of reversing the colors. This change was made because reversed colors interacted badly with overflow text and X selections.
• Added command line options "-fg" and "-bg".
• The menus have been rearranged a bit.
• Added a print dialog to control printing.

Version 1.7b1

• Various bug fixes
• Support for Tcl 7.0 and Tk 3.3. Ical no longer works with older versions of Tcl and Tk
• Uses GNU style build process. Installers just need to type "configure" and "make".
• Ical is more careful about the fonts it picks. If a required font does not exist, it tries to find another similar font. Eventually it falls back to "fixed". You can also change from one font family to another very easily -- use the "Ical.fontFamily" resource. See the man page for more details.
• Menus behave like most non-motif applications (unless tk_strictMotif is set to true). I put in this change because most people in my lab hate the motif-style menus that stay popped up even after you release the button.
• Users can now change the interval at which ical polls its calendar files. This can help if you are on a slow machine.
• Added "-popup" option for generating a nice item listing on an X display. You can put "ical -popup" in your ".xsession" file and get a little item listing window whenever you login.
• Items now have an "owner" field to indicate who created them.
• You can interactively change alarms for each appointment.
• Backspace now deletes the last character (just like the Delete key)
• If you delete an item you do not own, it does not actually get deleted. It just gets hidden from your view.
• You can now control am/pm printing, and whether a week starts with a monday as opposed to a sunday.
• Support for eight-bit characters.