Anasoft Scheduler PE User's Guide

3. Getting Familiar with the User Interface of Scheduler Contents 5. Managing Your Schedules

4. Editing a Schedule

4.1 Adding/Editing/Deleting a Schedule
4.2 Editing Task
4.3 Editing Notice Sound
4.4 Editing Schedule
4.5 Handling Randomization
4.6 Editing Waiting Time

4.1 Adding/Editing/Deleting a Schedule
Maybe the first thing you need to do to schedule something is to add a schedule. When you click the "Add a Schedule" button in the toolbar, you can start a wizard to add your new schedule. Except for a Welcome page and a Summary Page, this wizard has 4 major pages describing the 4 major properties of a schedule - "Task", "Notice Sound", "Schedule" and "Waiting Time". You can set every aspect of the new schedule by configuring these properties in a suitable way.

Pic UG-4-1 Toolbar - The command buttons from left to right are "Add a Schedule", "Save", "Delete Schedule", "Edit Schedule", "Run Now", "Options", "Stop Current Sound".

After you have finished adding a schedule, you can also edit it at any time by double-clicking the schedule in the main schedule list. Now you can see the Edit Task dialog box. You can edit any aspect of the schedule by setting proper values in the 4 property pages in this dialog. After you have finished, click "OK" to save changes.

Pic UG-4-2 Edit Task Dialog box - you can edit any aspect of a schedule here.

4.2 Editing Task
There first page of the dialog is Task page. You must set a proper schedule Title here before you can continue.

There are three task types:

1) Run a program / open a file

When you select this task type, you should set one or two path parameter in a suitable way. Scheduler will run a program, open a file or do something else according the parameter(s) you set. The effect will be as below:

First Path	Second Path	Effect
A program. (Ex: "C:\Winnt\notepad.exe")	Blank.	Run this program. In this example, program "notepad.exe" will be opened.
A program. (Ex: "C:\Winnt\notepad.exe")	A file path. (Ex: "D:\readme.txt")	Run this program specified by the first path to open this file specified by the second path. In this example, program "notepad.exe" will run and it will open the file "D:\readme.txt".
A file. (Ex1: "D:\readme.txt") (Ex2: "D:\music.mp3")	Not used.	The file will be opened by the proper program for the file type. In the first example, the text file "D:\readme.txt" will be opened by the default editor for ".txt" file, usually this editor is notepad.exe if no other editor was set as the editor for ".txt" files later. In the second example, default "mp3" player will be opened to play this mp3 file, if no mp3 player is installed in your system, nothing will happen.
A directory. (Ex: "D:\Program Files)	Not used.	Scheduler will start a new instance of Windows Explorer. This instance of Windows Explorer will browse the specified folder - in this example, will browse folder "D:\program files".
A web path. (Ex: "http:://www.speedy7.com")	Not used.	Scheduler will start your default web browser to visit the specified we URL Pay attention - you must include the protocol head (such as "http://"), or Scheduler won't recognize it as a URL.
An e-mail address. (Ex: "mailto:service@speedy7.com")	Not used.	Scheduler will start you mail client program, such as Outlook Express, to starting editing a mail and prepared to send to the email address you specified. It's same as the effect you have already met by clicking "Contact Us" in many web pages. Pay attention - you must include the email head ("mailto:"), or Scheduler won't recognize it.

2) Notice

You are advised to set the text for the notice, but it's not necessary. If you just want to listen to the notice music set in the next page, but not interested in seeing the notice text, you may not set the notice text.

If you set a notice text, the text will be shown in a popup message box. If no text set, there will be no popup message box. If you just like to listen to some music, there you should leave the text section blank.

If you are editing a long notice, then it's suitable to open the Notice Text Editor to edit it in a more comfortable way. You can find a button at the right of to the notice text edit box to access the Notice Text Editor. This built-in mini text editor supports file open/save, general text edit operations, text/file drag and drop, and text statistics.

Pic UG-4-3 Notice Text Editor - you can edit long notice text here.

3) Special Windows Operations

There are 5 operations under this category - Stand by / Hibernate / Shut down / Reboot/ Log off. They are useful if you hope to make these system management operations at specified time.

Operations:

Operation	Tips in using it
Stand by	When you put your computer on standby, the computer stays idle at low power status with all normal operations as well as display output stopped. The information in the memory is kept there and is not saved onto the hard disk. The power is kept on. When the computer wakes up from standby, it will instantly resume the status when the standby starts. If the power is off for certain reasons during standby, all information will be lost. If you connect to the Internet through dial-up connection, dial-up connection will be disconnected when standby starts. You will have to redial after waking up from the standby. Standby on Windows 98 is not stable. You should press the power button to wake the computer up from standby. Sometimes the computer just does not wake up. Therefore, you are not suggested to set your computer on standby on Windows 98. On Windows ME and 2000 or later operating systems, you can wake the computer up by pressing a key in the keyboard and by moving the mouse.
Hibernate	When hibernation starts, Windows takes a panoramic photo of the system status, saves it as a file on the hard disk and then shuts down the computer. When the user opens the computer again, the system wakes up from hibernation. It reads all information out of the saved file and resumes the computer to the status when last hibernation starts. Hibernation is embedded in Windows 98/Me/2000... and all later Windows versions. However, it may not be enabled on a computer due to hardware configuration (such as when there is not enough disk space or the file system is not supported by hibernation, etc.), or not enabled just as the default OS setting. If hibernation is not enabled on your computer, a hibernation operation will just lead to a standby. To check whether hibernation is enabled in the operating system and to enable it if not, please go through the following steps: 1) Open the Control Panel and open Power Options (or Power Management). There should be a tab called Hibernate. If you cannot find this tab, then hibernation is not supported by your computer for certain reason (maybe some requirements on hardware configurations are not met). 2) Switch to this Hibernate tab. There should be a check box called Enable hibernation or something like that. When you check it on, hibernation is enabled. When it is not checked, hibernation is disabled. Besides, there are the sizes of the current free disk space and the required disk space on this tab. If there is not enough disk space, the check box may be unchecked and disabled. After you have arranged enough disk space on your system drive, the check box will be enabled again for you to check it.
Shut down	Shut down you computer. If you let your computer alone doing some time-consuming job, such as recording a web-TV program, or downloading some thing, you can let Scheduler shut down your computer at a time you are sure that job should have finished, so both your security and your power can be saved.
Reboot	Restart your operating system. It's useful if you hope to do some looping operations involving restarting computer. You should clear your user password so the system can be access to continue loop. You can set another schedule which will run with the schedule type "At Logon" to continue your loop.
Log off	Log off current user. It's useful for if you hope to completely exit from all current running user-level applications, and prevent people without an account in this computer from using it. But the public resources in this computer can still be shared by neighbors of your local network.

Parameters:

1) Force exit all programs without prompt: The default choice is true. This is useful since some programs are hard to be finished without it. If you haven't choose it, there usually will be (sometimes may not be) a prompt for you to react when some job haven't been finished in some running program.

2) Prompt waiting time: This choice is useful if you are doing some thing when the log off / reboot / shut down schedule unexpectedly due, so you can have some time to make a choice to do it or stop it. If you hope the job be done instantly without prompt, you can set the time to be 0 second.

Pic UG-4-4 Special Windows Operation Prompting dialog box

4.3 Editing Notice Sound
You can set the notice sound for a schedule by checking "Enable Sound Notice" and set proper notice sound parameters.

You may set Scheduler to beep, or you can set it to play some music - midi file (".midi", ".mid", ".rmi") or waveform (".wav"). If you have a sound card and attached sound boxes to your computer, then playing a piece of music is fine, but if you have no sound box or earphone, you can also choose "Beep", 99.9% of the personal computers are capable to beep as a basic built-in function.

If you don't like to hear beep or music at some time later, you can check on the "Mute" option under "Sound" menu, and then all beeps or music will be depressed.

4.4 Editing Schedule
The third page in the Task Editor can be used to edit schedules, the way how Scheduler decides on a time to execute your task. There are 7 basic schedule types:

1) Daily: run the schedule at the specified time (once or more than one times) every day.

2) Weekly: run the schedule at the specified time (once or more than one times) every week.

3) Monthly: run the schedule at the specified time (once or more than one times) every month.

4) Yearly: run the schedule at the specified time (once or more than one times) every year.

5) Once or Several Times: run the schedule at the specified time (once or more than one times).

6) Repeating: run the schedule at specified interval.

7) Count Down: run the schedule after specified time delay counting from now.

8) At Logon: run the schedule when you log onto the system.

Except for option 4 - "Once or Several Times" or option 6 - "Count Down", you can also set a starting time and an optional ending time for each schedule, the task will be executed only within specified starting time and ending time.

The above 7 schedule types haven't included all possible schedule types we required in our life, but they are basic ones. You can combine these basic schedule types with suitable setting in "Waiting Time" (see below) to realize sophisticated scheduling requirements. More about this topic can be found at:

Examples and Tips in Using Scheduler PE

4.5 Handling Randomization

This function help you add uncertainty you may be interested in to an existing schedule.

For example, if you hope to design a schedule to be performed at a random time between time X and Y, you can realize it by setting a schedule task which dues at time X, and then you can enable Randomization and set a Random Period of Y-X.

Enable Randomization

Check it if you want to enable randomization, uncheck it to disable the function.

Adjust Period to be Valid

If you check this option, you can only select a valid period before the next run and the end of this schedule series.

If you do not check this option, you may choose a randomization period as long as 12000 hours (500 days). In this case, there is possibility that the final time as the result of randomization is later than the next run or the end of this schedule series, so this schedule can turn out to be an "invalid" one which will never run. This is not a completely useless design. It can decide the possibility that this task is performed at all. For example, if you set the randomization design to be 3 times as long as the time between start of the current schedule and the next one, then we get 1/3 possibility that the task can perform between the two scheduled times, and 2/3 possibility that the task may not perform at all.

If the current schedule type is At Logon, then the Adjust Period to be Valid option will be automatically disabled. This is because we cannot know when the user will log onto the system in the next time.

When to decide the final time?

You can choose between "When the schedule time is set (earlier)." and "When the scheduled time dues (later)". If you choose the first option, the final time after randomization will be decided when this schedule has been created, or when the current schedule is set.

If you choose the second option, the final time will be decided only when the schedule is due.

Final Time

When a final time has been decided, you can modify it by dragging the slider, or click the "Modify" button to modify it.

Note:

1. You cannot add randomization to an inactive schedule - a schedule already stopped or disabled, so it has no further next run time.

4.6 Editing Waiting Time
Set a waiting time is important if you are not sure that your computer can be running all the time. If your schedule unfortunately dues at a time when your computer is not running, then how your schedule will act when you open your computer next time will depend on how you set the waiting time for this schedule.

There are 3 types of waiting time. Here are these waiting time types and instructions on how to use them:

Type of Waiting Time	Instructions
Don't wait	Select this option if you are sure there is absolute no need to execute this schedule after the specified time.
Wait for some time	Select this option if your schedule is still meaningful to be executed at some later time, but not meaningful any more if really too late. You can set the waiting time to decide when is "too late". If your computer is not running when the schedule dues, it will still be executed instantly next time when you open your computer, if it is still within the waiting time that you believe is meaningful for your schedule to run.
Keep waiting	Select this if you believe this schedule must be executed despite of any reason or how late it will be when you open your computer next time.

Waiting Timed can be combined with basic schedule types to realize sophisticated scheduling requirements.