FIGURE E

The apparent gibberish looks like real icons when used in Datebk3.

A Category of one's own
Categories are an integrated part of all Palm OS applications -- except Date Book. Datebk3 finally gives us the ability to assign categories to events. Now, for example, you can easily discern between the meetings you need to attend, and the ones you could easily avoid without getting into trouble. Another use for categories is to distinguish between events that are with your family and those for your job

From any view, tap the Menu icon and choose Select Category from the Options menu (in the day view, you'll find it under the Cat. Menu), or write Command-G in the Graffiti area. You'll be presented with the Select Categories screen, as shown in Figure F.

FIGURE F

Highlighted categories are visible when you return to the Datebk3 calendar views.

Initially, only the Unfiled category is available, so tap the Edit button to access the familiar Edit Categories screen and create the names of your new categories. As with the other Palm applications, you're limited to a maximum of 15 categories. Click OK to return to the Select Categories screen, where you'll find new boxes for each category. If you want to assign an icon to each category, tap the box to the left of the title and select an icon from the Icons and Descriptions screen, then tap OK.

Titles that are highlighted will be visible in the Datebk3 views. If you return to the regular Date Book, all appointments will be visible unless they've been set up as Private records and you have selected Hide Private Items in the Palm OS Security application. Once you've set up your categories and made them visible, you can apply them to appointments by selecting the event, tapping the Details button, and tapping the Category selection box. Note that an icon chosen specifically for the event using the Icon button will override whatever icon is associated with the category.

Schedule your To Do items
Although I make regular use of my Palm computer's built-in To Do List, the one thing I can't do is schedule a To Do item. So, although I may have "Pick up documents" on my list, I may be out of luck if I needed to pick up the documents precisely at 3 p.m. Datebk3 gets around this limitation through the use of Floating Events, which will shift to the following day until marked as done.

To create a Floating Event, enter a new record as normal at the time you wish to begin it, then tap the Details button. You'll notice three options beside Type: Appt., Float, and Done. Highlight Float and tap OK. In the day view, the event appears with a circle at the far-right. Because it's still based on a normal appointment, you can set an alarm and time duration. When you've completed the task, tap the circle to insert a checkmark and change its status to Done.

Another helpful addition to Datebk3 is the ability to create and display regular To Do items within many of Datebk3's calendar views. From the Record menu in the day view, select New Todo in Todo DB (or write Command-T); a familiar checkbox To Do item will appear at the top of the day's events. If you switch to the To Do List application, you'll see that it appears there as well (like Date Book, Datebk3 accesses the underlying To Do database). If you want to hide the To Do items you've created in Datebk3, select Hide/Show Todo's (Command-W) from the Options menu. This way, you may never even need to launch the To Do list in the future.