VBirthday Deluxe 4 Manual

• VBirthday Deluxe 4 Overview
• Collecting events
• Today plug-in
• Today plug-in options
• Browser options
• Edit events
• Delete events
• Import/Export events
• Installation
• Uninstalling
• Troubleshooting/Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Activation

VBirthday Deluxe 4 is intended to remind you about annual events you always want to remember. You will not forget the birthday of your friend and the anniversary of wedding of your brother. Simply bring in all your events to the database and VBirthday Deluxe 4 won't forget about them!

VBirthday Deluxe 4 consists of two parts:

• VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser
• VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in

The two programs are tightly integrated with each other to provide an easy to use interface for you.

The First program (VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser) shows all your events as the list. It makes finding required birthdays fast, shows how many days until the birthday of your friend and how old they will be.

The Second program (VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in) places on your Today page a new section that shows upcoming events during the period chosen by you. It is possible to set a period not only some days in the future, but also in the past.

If there is no event during the indicated period, VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in displays the line «No events from «date1» to «date2»», where «date1» is the date of the last occurred event, «date2» is the date of the following event (by the way, very convenient function).

VBirthday Deluxe 4 gathers events from three sources:

• Your Contacts database
• Your Appointments database (Calendar)
• Own VBirthday Deluxe 4 database

Thus, you have three ways how to keep your holidays.

However, there are events which we keep in our bases, but we don't want them to be reminded. For this situation in VBirthday Deluxe 4 the attribute of event «Included in reminder» can be stipulated. Simply switch off this attribute (see below) and event will be remote from the list of reminder (however, it can be returned in it any time).

VBirthday Deluxe 4 stores the data in it's own VBDB format. The file is stored in «\My documents\VBirthday\VBirthday.vbdb». You can copy the file or make backup copies by any possible means.

VBirthday Deluxe 4 gathers events from three sources:

• Your Contacts database
• Your Appointments database(Calendar)
• Own VBirthday Deluxe 4 database

Here are the necessary conditions that events from these sources would be included in database:

Contacts database

From Contacts database all contacts with the birthday or/and anniversary fields completed are selected.

Appointments database (Calendar)

From Appointments database all events having the following attributes are selected:

• All day recurring
• Occurs yearly

The Type of event (anniversary/birthday) is determined on the set of keywords indicated in browser options (Options->Anniversaries/Options->Birthdays). If none of the keywords are found then the event is assigned the «other» type.

There are situations when the same event, for example - birthday, is registered in two databases at once in Contacts database and in Appointments database. Unfortunately, standard Outlook database does not contain the information permitting unambiguously to connect such duplicated records. To eliminate duplication in VBirthday Deluxe 4 the following searching algorithm is applied. Entries in the contacts database and appointment database are considered to be the same event if:

• Their dates coincide
• They have identical (anniversary/birthday/other) type
• First name, middle name, last name from Contacts database are present in subject from Appointment database, or the company field of Contacts database is equal to the subject field of Appointment database.

To get access to options of VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in you need to do one of the following:

• Select «Options» item from opened popup menu of VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in.
• Select Settings->Today from the Start menu of your Pocket PC, then select VBirthday Deluxe 4 plug-in and press the button «Options...»
• Select «Today page» and «Today page-2» plug-in tabs in Browser option

Today plug-in options take two pages. You can find the following options on The First page:

• «Lookup events in ... day(s)» - the period that the VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in shows events from
• «The maximum lines on page» - maximum number of lines to display on the Today page
• «Summary line» - the line above the events list, that indicates the quantity and the type of events from the interval shown. For example, «2 birthday(s)»
• «Bold today events» - show "today" events in bold print
• «Hide if no event» - set this checkbox if you want the VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in to be "hidden" if there are no events in the specified period.
• «Show next event» - if there is no events in the indicated period, the program will seek the first closest after this period event
• «Age/years» - if you set this checkbox then the specified age of the event will be shown in parenthesis.

• «Days to event» - if you set this checkbox then the number of days until the event will be shown in square brackets. If event has already passed, the number of days will be specified with the «-» sign
• «Use words for "today", "tomorrow", ...» - if the event has "today" date then "Today!" will be shown instead of date, etc.
• «Icons» - if you set this checkbox then icons will be shown near events on the Today screen.
• «VBirthday Icon» - you can choose the icon to use in Summary line.

To open the the second page of today plug-in options select «More...» button on this page.

The Second Today plug-in options page contains the following options:

• «Show name as» - what data to show
• «Date format» - format in which dates in VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in will be displayed
• «Year in date» - this option allows to select what year to be displayed in date - year of event or current year

• «Font size» – font size that will be used for displaying of the information in the VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in
• «Show age» - specifies what age to show in the field year/age - two variations are possible:
  • «Coming age» - the age which will be in the indicated date
  • «Actual age» - current age of event

VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in shows only events collected by VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser.

Do not forget after installation VBirthday Deluxe 4 start VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser that scans your databases for birthdays, anniversaries and other happy days.

To active the popup-menu, simply tap on today plug-in.

The menu with the following sections will be opened:

• «VBirthday browser» - starts the VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser
• «Rescan database» - makes the VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser rescan all of the databases
• «Options...» - opens the VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in options dialog
• «Help» - opens this help
• «About...» - displays information about the program (the name, version number, email and web address)

If you tap the displayed event in the today plug-in, three more menu items will appear:

• «Open...» - opens the event in VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser
• «Create a Task» - creates Task connected with this event
• «Create an Appointment» - creates Appointment connected with this event
• «Show info» - shows the information about this event, either from contacts database or from the appointments database depending where the event was taken from.

The Options for the VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser contain following tabs:

• General - general settings
• Anniversaries - keywords for anniversaries
• Birthdays - keywords for birthdays
• Display - output information
• Icons - icons
• Files - file with additional icons
• Today Page - today page plug-in settings
• Today Page-2 - today page plug-in settings

Let us look at the tabs in detail:

General

The «General» tab contains the following settings:

• «Direct database access» - turn on/turn off direct access to Contacts/Appointment databases for faster databases access.

• «Import from Contacts database» - this checkbox defines whether the data will be imported from Contacts database.
• If this sub-checkbox «Keep previously founded events» is switched on, the events collected from Contacts database will be kept in VBirthday Deluxe 4 database.
• «Import from Appointments database» - this checkbox defines whether the data will be imported from Appointments database.
• If this sub-checkbox «Keep previously founded events» is switched on, the events collected from Appointments database will be kept in VBirthday Deluxe 4 database.
• «Remove keywords from subject» - this checkbox specifies whether it is necessary to delete a keyword from subject. It is set by default.
• «Ignore Middle name» - when the event in Contacts database is the same as in Appointment database, VBirthday Deluxe 4 ignores Middle Name in Contacts database, if this sub-checkbox is switched on.
• «Language» - language selection

Anniversary

Birthday

«Birthday keywords» - add/delete keywords that will identify events in the appointments database, if the subject of the event in the appointments database contains one of these words then the event type will be set to «Birthday».

Display

The «Display» tab has the following settings:

• «Show name as» - in this
drop-down list you can select the name format
• «Date format» - the event date format
• «Year in the date» - specifies what year stands in date column - two variants are possible:
  • «Original year» - year in which this event has taken place
  • «Current year» - year of the nearest occurs of this event
• «Font size» - it is possible to select a font size for mapping
• «Show age» - specifies what age to show in the field year/age - two variations are possible:
  • «Coming age» - the age which will be in the indicated date
  • «Actual age» - current age of event
• «Fields to be shown» - here it is possible to set, what columns will be shown in browser
  • «Date» - column with date
  • «Days to the event» - column indicating how many days to the following event
  • «Age/Year» - age of event
• «Show Age/Year in Name field» - if this checkbox is switched on, the age of event will be added in the field Name in brackets
• «Truncate First Name by first space» - if this checkbox is switched on, First Name will be truncated to the first word only.

  The Example of operation of this option: the name «Bruce Walter Willis» will be shown in browser as Bruce Willis, that does not reduce self descriptiveness (so it is clear who you are talking about), but allows to use small Pocket PC screen better.

Icons

On this tab you can set which icons are to be used by the VBirthday Deluxe 4  by default.

Simply press on the icon which you want to change and the icons choice window will open. Choose an icon and press «OK» button.

Files

VBirthday Deluxe 4 enables to use additional file with icons. The file should be GIF, JPEG or PNG format. Icons in the file should be ranged horizontally one by one. You can use several lines in one picture, but in this case you should use icons that have the same height as icons in your Pocket PC. VGA-screen models should have 32x32 icon size, the other models - 16x16 icon size.

If the file with icons contains only one line, you can use "Scale icons to required size" special option. In this case if you, for example, have VGA Pocket PC and file with 16x16 icon size, VBirthday Deluxe 4 automatically scales icons to 32x32 size.

You can see if the additional icons are in use in "Library info" field.

There are three possible ways to open the event editing form:

• To double-tap on the event you want to edit.
• To tap&hold on the event you want to edit. After the Popup menu appears select the «Edit...» item.
• To select «Open...» item from VBirthday today plug-in.

The form of editing has the following fields:

• Type of event - this drop-down list in the left upper corner allows to choose the type of event from four possible types:
  • «Anniversary»
  • «Birthday»
  • «Holiday»
  • «Other»
• «Date of event»
• «First name»
• «Middle name»
• «Last name»
• «Company»
• «File as»
• «Icon» - this field determines what icon is associated with event: if for this option «Default» is selected for this event default icon of this event type will be used. In other case the icon which is selected by the button located in this field will be used.
• «Don't show age/year» - if the option is switched on, the age of this event will not be shown.
• «Included in reminder» - if this option is switched off, event will not be output in VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser in the mode «filtered view» and will not be considered VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in.
• «Stored in:»
  • «VBirthday database» - if this checkbox is switched on, the copy of this event will be saved in own database. In this case, if the name, date and type of event in Contacts and/or Appointments databases were changed then this would not change this event. Changes in these databases will create new events responding to the new information.
  • «The List of sources of the information» - in this list sources which contain this event are listed. It may be any combination from Contacts database, Appointments database, and VBirthday database. If double-tap or tap & hold on this list, appropriate Contact or Appointment will be opened.

If you want to delete some event you need to remove all sources of this event, that may be in Contacts database, Appointments database and VBirthday database.

If the event needs to be taken away only from the reminding list, but not from the database, the best way is to use the «masked events» special feature.

There are two ways to delete event:

1. Tap&hold on the event you want to delete and select «Delete...» item.
2. Select «Delete...» menu item while editing the event.

The dialog with the following items will be open:

• contact name
• event type (Birthday/Anniversary/...)
• event date
• deleting methods («Mask this event»/«Primary delete event»)
• the list of information sources

If you select «Mask this event», the event will be «masked».

If you select «Primary delete event», the event will be permanently deleted from the indicated sources.

The program enables to import/export events from/to VBirthday database.

Import/Export uses comma-delimited (.CSV) format, that could be open by MS Excel.

.CSV file format: (the fields are separated by «;»)

1. Date
2. "File as..."
3. "First Name"
4. "Middle Name"
5. "Last Name"
6. "Company"
7. Event type: A - Anniversary, B-Birthday, C-Holiday, D - Other
8. Number of associated icon (if 0, then default icon is used)
9. Don't Show Age flag - «TRUE» or «FALSE»
10. If the contact is stored in own database - «TRUE» or «FALSE»

Import:

Export:

There are two variant of export: "Export all events" and "Export from own Database only".

In the first case, all database events are exported. In the second case, only VBirthday events are exported (i.e. not imported from Contacts/Appointments Databases events).

Select "Tools->Export->Export all events" or "Tools->Export->Export from own DB only" from the main menu and choose the file to import data.

The whole process is completely automated.

The installation process is described in detail below.

On the PC you start «VBirthdayDeluxe4Setup.exe» file. First it outputs the information about the program, then the license agreement. If you agree with the license agreement, installation proceeds. Necessary files will be copied on your Pocket PC. After that the installation program will display a message on the screen saying: «Congratulations! VBirthday Deluxe 4 has been successfully installed on your Pocket PC unit. Don't forget to read help! Thank you for using our programs! © Xoddy, Inc». This now means that the installation process has successfully completed. To close this window press «OK» button. If you want to read help beforehand, press «Help» button in this window.

To uninstall the program it is necessary to make the following:

1. To go on the page «Remove programs» (Settings-> System-> Remove Programs).
2. To select «VBirthday Deluxe 4».
3. To press «Remove» button.
4. After that the uninstalling program will ask whether it is necessary to delete VBirthday databases and VBirthday settings from yours Pocket PC. We recommend you to select «YES» if you simply upgrade and «NO» if you completely delete VBirthday Deluxe 4 from your Pocket PC.

The activation is needed for the program to be continued after 15-days evaluation period.

The Serial code is required for the activation. You can buy it at http://www.xoddy.com/.

To start activation, the activation dialog should be opened. There are three ways to do it:

• Select «Activation...» item from «VBirthday Deluxe 4 Today plug-in» popup menu
• Select «Tools->Activation...» from «VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser» menu
• Press «Activation...» button on the nag-screen when you start evaluation version of «VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser»

While activating, the Activation Code is generated. It enables «VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser» to function on your device. The activation includes the following steps:

1. Getting of «Serial Code» while purchasing the program
2. Getting of «Device ID» for your PDA
3. Getting of «Activation Code» for your PDA on the company web site («www.xoddy.com/activation.cgi»)
4. Entering of "Activation Code" in the «VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser»

«VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser» activation dialog has two ways of activation:

• «Automatic»
• «Manual»

Automatic activation mode:

This mode is intended to make the activation easier. If your PDA connected to the Internet (for example, you put it in cradle connected to the Desktop PC connected in tern to the Internet) , the program will automatically get the Activation Code for your PDA using your PDA Device ID and Serial Code you get while purchasing «VBirthday Deluxe 4».

To activate the program in this mode you need the following:

1. Select the «Automatic» mode
2. Enter Serial Code you get while purchasing the program in the «Serial Code» field
3. Press «OK» button

Manual activation mode:

In this mode you need to get the Activation Code through our site «www.xoddy.com/activation.cgi».

To activate the program in this mode you need the following:

1. Select the «Manual» mode
2. Connect to the Internet and go to «www.xoddy.com/activation.cgi» page
3. Select «VBirthday Deluxe 4» in «Product» field on the page
4. Enter the code from the Activation dialog on your PDA in«Device ID» field
5. Enter Serial Code you get while purchasing the program in the «Serial Code» field
6. Press «Get Activation Code» button
7. Enter the code you got in «Activation Code» field in Activation dialog on your PDA
8. Press «OK» button

1. Q: I have duplicated records of the same event

   A: Because this event is recorded in two bases (contacts and calendar).

   For example, you have in contacts the record «Bruce Willis» with the filled field «birthday: 05/19/1995». Outlook on your PC automatically creates record in calendar base with filled field Subject: «Birthday Bruce Willis», date «05/19/1995», attributes «All day recurring» and «occurs yearly».

   VBirthday has the special mechanism for searching such dupes. To start working this mechanism needs the keyword «Birthday» to be included in the list of VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser keywords (usually it is necessary for non-English version of Outlook). To enter the keyword in the list, it is necessary to start VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser, go in Options-> Events and add key field in necessary section (in birthday or in anniversary).

2. Q: I have some contacts that I don't want to be reminded. What should I do?

   A: for this purpose in VBirthday Deluxe 4 the special mechanism of filtering is stipulated. If you want that VBirthday Deluxe 4 did not remind of such events check on attribute «Masked» in VBirthday Deluxe 4 Browser.

3. Q: Where is the database stored?

   A: VBirthday Deluxe 4 stores the data in it's own VBDB format. The file is stored in «\My documents\VBirthday\VBirthday.vbdb». You can copy the file or make backup copies by any possible means.