How to Install Icons for use in DateBk5

General

DateBk5 only uses one icon file. However, you can copy and paste icons easily from other collections into that one file, thereby building your own custom icon collection with all the icons that you want to use. If you are upgrading from a prior version of Pimlico Software's DateBk4 or DateBk3 application, you may still have the older-style monochrome icon collection installed. It is recommended that you delete that memopad record (the one with DATEBK3 as the top line).

If you only have one icon collection installed, DateBk5 will always find it. If you have two or more icon collections installed, however, you should make sure that your "working" collection has the name Icons-DATEBK5 as that is the default name that DateBk5 will look for. You can rename the icon file using either dbIcon (in the zip archive) or using the third party icon editor, IconMgr.

Installing

If you are starting off for the first time, it's probably a good idea to just install Icons-DATEBK5.prc to get familiar with how icons work.

Other sample icon collections are stored in the Icons.zip file which in turn is stored in the DateBk5.zip archive. Start off by unzipping the contents of the icons.zip file (the same way you originally unzipped the DateBk5.zip file) and select the icon collection you want to install by clicking on it. If the PRC extension is associated with the Palm Install Tool, it will then be set up for installation. Otherwise, you will need to extract the file, store it in a folder on your hard drive, then launch the Palm Install tool to install it from that folder.

Using Icons

Icons are not necessarily displayed by default in DateBk5 (they are, but only if you have a color icon file installed prior to first launching DateBk5). In all views but the monthly view, you enable the display of icons by going into View Display Options in the Options menu of that view. In the monthly view, there is a pushbutton at the bottom of the screen (with a thumbtack graphic) that displays icons.

In the day view, you can attach an icon to an event in one of two ways:

  • Tap on the item, tap on the Details button and then tap on the Icon button and select an icon.
  • TapAndHold on the spot where the icon is displayed (or would be displayed) until the icon selection dialog appears.

Using icons from other collections

To use icons from other collections, install the other icon collections as you would any Palm OS application (double-click or use the Palm Install Tool). You then launch the icon editor (either dbIcon or the third party icon editor IconMgr to copy and paste icons from the other collection into your working collection. Both dbIcon and IconMgr can rename the icon collection you have open. Make sure the default collection you are working with has the name Icons-DATEBK5.

Important Compatibility Note

dbIcon included in the Icons.zip file is a simple icon editor for handling standard density icons (i.e. for Palm devices with 160x160 resolution screens) and icon collections up to 255 icons in size. In order to handle icon collections with high-density icons (for 320x320 resolution screens) or to handle collections up to 2,600 icons, you will need to use the third party icon editor: IconMgr which is available from most Palm software archives like www.PalmGear.com or www.handango.com.


High Density Icons

High density icons can be displayed on OS5 devices with 320x320 screens or on OS4 Clie devices with 320x320 screens. If you select a small or tiny view, the icons are displayed at halfsize. DateBk5 first looks to see if you have a low-density version of the current icon for display. If you do, then that is displayed. Otherwise, on an OS5 device only, DateBk5 will automatically scale the high-density icon to half-size (never as good as a hand-tuned half-size icon, but maybe acceptable and obviously involves no effort). On an OS4 Clie device, you must provide a low-density version of each icon if you want an icon displayed in the small/tiny views.

Missing Icons

If an icon is missing (you are tracking icons by Resource ID and deleted that icon, or you have deleted icons and that icon index position is now past the end of file), DateBk5 will display a red box with an X in it.

Advanced Features

If you are a more advanced user, you can take advantage of the fact that Datebk5 can track icons by either index position (i.e. the record number in the database), or by resource ID (a tag associated with each icon). Tracking icons by index position is fast, but has the downside that if you delete or insert an icon, all icons past that point assume a different index position so any existing references to icons in DateBk5 get unexpectedly shifted. You can also track icons by resource ID. This is slower but has the advantage of avoiding a problem with inserting or deleting icons because the tag (resourceID) does not change as icons are moved around. To track icons by Resource ID, go into the main DateBk5 preference panel (Options | Preferences in any view), tap on the menu button or currently highlighted tab, and select Advanced Settings from the Display Options menu and check the box to Track Icons by ResourceID. If you use this feature, Pimlico highly recommends the use of the third party icon editor, Icon Manager to handle the editing of icons. This program also has the ability to reset all the resource ID's. This is very helpful because if you start off by resetting all the resource ID's, they will then match the existing icon indexes, so that your existing icon assignments are preserved.

Upgrading from prior version of DateBk5

If you are upgrading from an earlier version of DateBk5 that was tracking icons by index position and now want to track icons by resourceID, you must handle this carefully in order to ensure that all your existing icon assignments are not lost:

  1. Go into IconMgr and use the RENUMBER ALL ICON IDs option
  2. Save the database
  3. Exit out of IconMgr
  4. Launch DateBk5
  5. Go into Options | Preferences, tap on menu button (or tap on currently highlighted tab), select ADVANCED SETTINGS from Display Options Dialog and check the box TRACK ICONS BY RESOURCE ID (Remember to save this to all your saved views and startup view!)
  6. EXIT OUT OF DATEBK5
  7. Re-launch Datek5

Also, note that if you track icons by Resource ID, you must ensure that all resource ID #'s lie in the range 0-2599. Any icons number 2,600 or higher will not be displayed in DateBk5.