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Configuration Wizard

The PopCal configuration wizard is Filemaker file which has a group of screens that provide a friendly way to configure and create the parameter used by PopCal 2.0 to display the calendars in the way you choose. The steps of the Wizard and the options provided by each of them are explained below:

Size

PopCal 2.0 can display the single calendar and the dual calendars in three different sizes: Small, Medium and Large.

Here, as in any other Wizard step, you can choose the option you want by clicking the red button of your choice. As visual feedback, the selected parameter is displayed in red text in the screen. The button named “Show me” will display the calendar to test the parameter you just choose.

Once an option is selected, the forwards button (>) can be pressed to proceed to the next step. You won’t be able to continue if you do not select an option for the parameter displayed.

 

Position

Single and dual calendars can be displayed anywhere on the screen if you select the option “Position X, Y” and type valid X & Y coordinates where you want the calendar displayed. Valid X&Y coordinates must be smaller than the screen size to be allowed.

Additionally, you can select to display the calendar centered on the screen. This option will work with any monitor size where your application runs.

Kind

PopCal 2.0 has two different interfaces to choose from, Menus and Buttons.

In the first option you can select the months and the years of the calendar through a couple of pop up menus. This interface is usually better for applications with a large span of years in their selection.

The second interface has a couple of buttons, one for month browsing and the other for year changing. Left buttons are to decrease the year (or month) and the right buttons will increase the year (or month).

Both interfaces, as any PopCal 2.0 option, can be had in the same file, in the same layout or even in the same button, as the parameters can be changed dynamically in your scripts.

Behavior

This option will provide you a couple of different ways to close the calendars once your date selection has been made: Automatically or with buttons.

The first one, automatically closes the calendar immediately after a day is picked in the single calendar or both dates are selected in the dual calendars. Although this approach is faster, if the user selects the wrong date, he will have to display the calendar again to pick the right date.

The second option will display the calendars with OK/Cancel buttons. This behavior, although slower, will let the user verify his dates before pressing OK. You can select which option is better for your application.

First day of the week

Calendars in PopCal can be displayed showing the monthly calendar with the weeks starting on Sunday or Monday.

Error display

This feature will provide you a way to suppress the error messages generated by PopCal, allowing you to make your custom messages within FileMaker.

If Error display is on, the error messages produced by trying to close the calendar without picking a date will be displayed. If Error display is off, the messages won’t be displayed, but you will know that an error was produced because the plug-in will return the word “Error” in its result instead of a date. You can “trap” this word and display your own error message within FileMaker.

Language

PopCal 2.0 can show calendars with its months in seven different languages:

- English - French - German - Spanish - Dutch - Swedish - Italian

Format

The Date Format is the order on which days, months and years are written in a date. There are three main date formats used around the world to display a date.

	1. mm/dd/yyyy (month/day/year)
	2. dd/mm/yyyy (day/month/year).
	3. yyyy/mm/dd (year/month/day).

Although slash (/) is used to display in the file the date formats, these formats only refer to the order in which months/days/years are presented. The date separator can be fully configured as it will be described below.

Start/End Date

In PopCal 2.0, you can set a date to display the calendars, even more, for the RangeSelection function, you can set a start date and an end date one to display each of the calendars.

PopCal 2.0 will display the calendar on the month and the year of the passed date and it will emboss the day button for that particular date if the calendar behavior used is the OK/Cancel buttons.

If you don’t want to mark any particular day with this option, you can pass 0 (zero) as day number and the calendar will be displayed in the month and the year of the date. You can press OK and the selected date will be used.

Automatic behavior cannot select a single day. If you pass a date, the calendar will be displayed in the month and year passed, but without embossing any day number. If you press return (which is a shortcut for OK), a message will be displayed asking you to select a date.

Separator

The character that separates the day from the month and the year in a date is called the separator. It is usually the slash character “/”, but in some other languages is used some other separators like “.” or “_”.

To provide you the possibility to create applications for any language, PopCal 2.0 has the ability to change the separator in the returned date. The separator only takes one character.

Title

This option will allow you to setup the title for the floating window where the calendar is being displayed. The title accepts only 30 characters.

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