Help, and some FAQsTable o' Contents
top Will Caladder Work for Me?I'm a Windows user, and I love Firefox. I understand, though, that there are a large number of (misguided) people who use Internet Explorer as well. So, through initial development, I designed Caladder for Firefox while making sure it also worked in IE. The compatibility chart below is mostly blank, so if you have tried to use Caladder in a space I have a ?, send me an email at caladder [at] mattlag [dot] com and tell me if it works or not.
Yes*: Fully functional, but lacking some aesthetic features.
top Getting StartedThe best way to get to know Caladder is to jump in.How do I edit a day?Click a date to bring up the Day Edit box - type in your text for that day, then change the background and text color and size with the controls at the bottom of the box. You can either directly enter a HTML Hex color, or text size, or use the text-size preset buttons. If you don't know the HTML Hex color you want off the top of your head, click on theDo you fancy yourself a HTML Guru? You can even use basic HTML in the Day Edit box - things like <br>, <hr>, <a>, <u>, <i>, <b>, <ul>/<ol>, maybe even full <div>s with style elements as well. Try it out and see, some of these things may end up blowing things out of proportion - but hey, it's your thing. I would recommend staying away from tables, as Caladder is based on a single table layout. I know for sure that trying to write "</tr>" in a day box will throw major wrenches in the works. You get the idea. How do I change the color of [whatever]?In the upper right hand corner of the Floating Weekbar, there is an area that says "Preferences". Click this and the Preferences Panel will come up. There are places to input HTML Hex colors for each color in Caladder. Not quite sure what Hex color to pick? Click theHow do I change the title of my Caladder to something else?In the upper right hand corner, click "Preferences". The first field in the Preferences window is the Caladder's title. Change it to whatever you want and hit "Save". This title will show up in a few places: your Caladder window will be named this, it will show up in the space just before January 1st, and it will show up in the Status Bar along the bottom of your browser.top If you can change any color, why do you offer "Light" and "Dark" Caladders?The answer is kind of technical. The truth is that there are two colors you can't edit via the Preferences Panel. *Gasp* I know. These colors are the Default Text Color and the Default Background Color. Each "Day" in Caladder is actually a HTML Table cell, with a Date and a Content div stacked on top of eachother. Each individual Content div stores text color, background color, and text size information for that particular day. But, these values have to start out as something - hence the two different standard color schemes. When you change the colors of Caladder through the Preferences Panel, those are "Global" colors - not related to any particular day. In order to make it possible to change Default Day colors, Caladder would have to look at each individual day one at a time, and decide if it should overwrite your text/background color choice with a new default color combo. This would be very difficult.So it's not possible through the user interface. But, if you have some HTML skillz, open Caladder with Notepad and scroll down to the bottom where you'll see the "daytable". Do a massive Find/Replace on the style= code for each day, and you can change all the default-styled divs to whatever you want. top Browser RequirementsStyleCaladder uses CSS and JavaScript to style itself (ie - make itself look pretty). If you have CSS turned off (which is hard to do, usually it's on by default) - or you have JavaScript turned off (this is more likely, but still the default is 'on'), Caladder will not be able to function. If you open Caladder and you see something like this:Jump to: JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecPreferences Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday and other stuff, you probably should check to see if "Scripts Are Enabled/Disabled" in your browser's options. SecurityCaladder uses a variety of File System commands to re-write itself whenever you save information. In Internet Explorer, this is called "Active X", and in Firefox I think it's just called "File System Somethingorother". IN MOST CASES LETTING WEBSITES WRITE FILES TO YOUR COMPUTER IS VERY VERY BAD. As in "delete all files on your computer" bad, or "write nasty virus to your computer" bad. If you are ever surfing online, and you get a request to run a .exe file, or a request to "Run a Dangerous Script", almost always the answer is "Heck No".Having said that, Caladder is not a nasty file. The only file it changes on your computer is itself, and it never touches any of your other files. This is a big reason I'm releasing this as "Open Source" - so that people can see that it's harmless. At any rate, your browser will probably get mad at you the first time you open Caladder. It will warn you about dangerous scripts, or maybe it just won't run any script at all, and you'll get weird stuff as exemplefied above. You will have to have your options set to allow Scripts and Active Objects and File System Objects in order for Caladder to run. top What's up with...... the name 'Caladder'? Is it a typo?No. It isn't a typo. I needed to call this something when I released it to the public, and that's what I thought of. Because the weeks are stacked on top of each other, they look like a ladder - which kinda can be squashed with the word 'calendar'. Caladder. Get it? Okay, so maybe not the absolute bestest name ever. If you can think of something better, I'm all ears.... the weird icon/symbol/¤ thing?The ¤ symbol is technically the "international generic currency symbol". I've never seen it used before. Ever. And I even have had a fair amount of international style money cross my hands in my various travels. Because Caladder is only a single file, it can't have any images associated with it. And because I wanted Caladder to have a recognizable icon, I was stuck with the strange symbols that are built into fonts. ¤ seemed like a cool enough one that nobody ever used. It's the same deal with the Color Chooser icon (top Bug Reporting / Technical ContactRemember that this was originally designed for my own personal use, and that bug fixes and technical issues will be sorted out as I have time. That being said, I'd like this to be as robust and bug-free as possible, so drop me a line if something doesn't seem right.Email caladder [at] mattlag [dot] com top Plans for Future VersionsNothing for now! Caladder 4.2 is a huge step forward, and will probably last through 2008. If you have some feature that you are dying to have, drop me an email and I'll see what I can do:Email caladder [at] mattlag [dot] com caladder [at] mattlag [dot] com ¤ |