Product Reviews
January/99

Calendars for the Web version 2.0
Reviewed By Daniel ffolliott

This amazingly versatile program has features that will appeal to a wide variety of users' needs. There are other calendar creating programs, but this one focuses on producing Web ready output, although it can be used for creating printed calendars too for newsletters etc. Bearing in mind that needs will vary from user to user, I have approached my review from the somewhat limited perspective of a specific need of PCCT. The PCCT objective was to use the software to produce a monthly Web Calendar of Events, with ability to link specific dates to further detailed information about the event. The Club does not need to use all the "bells and whistles" that this software offers, but the features we do want have to work well.

My criteria for rating the performance of the product were

• Aesthetic appearance of the output
• Ease of use
• Small file sizes of GIF and HTML output
• Clean, technically consistent and accurate HTML code
• Range of features that meet PCCT needs

The following will give you an idea just how many design choices are possible, using this program

• 30 predefined calendar templates
• 9 ways of viewing the calendar events
• 7 different export options to HTML and image formats
• Online Help
• Dozens of good quality backgrounds and clipart images to illustrate your calendar projects

Selecting a template and entering the events
I picked the default calendar style to keep my project straightforward and file szes low. In the month view the calendar is displayed in squares for each day of the month

• It is best to size the calendar to fill the window to start with. There is a better way to make it smaller when we are ready to export to HTML
• I right clicked on the days for which I had an event and entered SIG names, times and locations, 12 events for November.
  This is an important step as the HTML output will look to this information to create a list of events, along with additional descriptive information for the calendar dates to link to
• Additional descriptions can be entered through events properties, HTML. This is how I entered the info about Myles White for November 17.

Observations: I found I could choose a font face for Events, but could not easily control the size of the text, which in some cases was too small and in other cases did not fit in the space available. The date format in the Events List that follows the Calendar is in mm-dd-yy format and can not be changed in this version. The company has confirmed that font sizes and different date formats will be in the next version 2.1 release expected 2Q '99

Using the Text Tool to create formatted entries on the calendar
By right clicking on the calendar and selecting preferences, I found an option "hide all events". This hides the events from view but retains the information intact.

• I used the text tool, the one with a large "T", and re-entered an abbreviated version of all 12 events, but this time was able to resize and move the text box to position the text more precisely in each square
• I had to fiddle with the text boxes a lot to get them looking the way I wanted. After I got one box looking right I copied and pasted the rest, using the right mouse button
• To add the image of Santa, I selected Insert, clipart from the main menu. The "2 months to Christmas" was created with the text tool

Exporting to Web Format
The Calendars for the Web program includes a licence to proprietary code which translates the calendar images to GIF format, suitable for Web pages. I also tested the option which exports to an HTML table, but the results were not nearly as professional looking.

I selected File, Web Page Options and File, Web Export Wizard to convert my completed calendar to Web ready format.

• Chose GIF for calendar format, medium resolution
• Specified pixel sizes 528 wide by 408 high. This ensures it will display on monitors set at 640 x 480 resolution, without horizontal scrolling
• Exported as Web Page
• View in HTML browser
• I left the option "include comments in HTML" unchecked as this creates additional and unnecssary code for my purposes.

The above selections caused 2 files to be created, nov98.gif and nov98.htm. The resulting Web output displayed automatically in my Web browser.

Troubleshooting
Calendars for the Web export function created a new Web page containing the entire calendar as a GIF image, with an image map of each date cell, followed by a listing in HTML text of the Events. The problem for me was that the General Meeting Cell for November 17 was not linked to the corresponding event description in the list below

• By manually checking the HTML source code in my browser, View, Source, I determined that the non functioning link shoud be to "#Target4" (Watch the capital "T" as Unix web servers are case sensitive)
• I returned to the Calendars for the Web program, right clicked on November 17 and selected Object Properties, HTML. I entered "#Target4" as the URL
• I then re-exported to Web format. I got an error warning about #Target4 being an invalid filename, which I ignored. This is a known bug to be fixed in the next release.
  

Observation: Apparently Calendars for the Web only lets you link Events (not text boxes) to Descriptions in the Events List, but my events were previously hidden. I think I succeeded in fooling the program into accepting my workaround, however. The company plans to allow a full description for text items in the next releasea

Importing the Calendar HTML code into the PCCT Web page
I copied and pasted the portion of the HTML code that I needed, using Notepad. I then manually cleaned up the code by removing superfluous links to the top of the page. I have since learned that there is an easier way to turn off "back to top" as well as unwanted descriptions (next point) in the export options. I also tidied up the code to occupy less space. I also removed the code for descriptions for all the other Event items that did not have descriptions associated with them. I also copied the nov98.gif image (10.3k) to the PCCT media folder and changed the source reference.

Observation: Apart from the above, the HTMl code produced by Calendars for the Web was perfectly functional for the Calendar in GIF format.

Overall Conclusions
The aesthetic appearance of the final product - simple and nice, but judge for yourself. File sizes were acceptably small. However the HTML code was not entirely up to my exacting standards. I was not really surprised though as much of the HTML authoring software in the market is imperfect and there is no perfect substitute for understanding the code and being able to tweak it yourself. The range of clipart and features is impressive.

I did not find the software particularly easy to use and I found the Help o.k. but sometimes hard to locate the right section to read. Next time I shall use the context-sensitive help feature "F1" instead.

Overall, I found the software useful for my purposes, But then I know how to tweak the HTML when I need to. Next month it probably will not take me so long, not that I have some experience with the program.

Visit Great Hill Corporation on the Web for more information on this software product