2.5.5. Editing Categories
As introduced in
Section 2.2.
Calendar Tool categories are used to provide additional descriptive information
for scheduled items. Categories apply uniformly to all four types of item.
Any category can be applied to any number of appointments, meetings, tasks, or
events.
Category definitions are accessible from scheduling dialogs, notification
dialogs, and item-level displays. The category menu in all such contexts
appears the same, as illustrated in Figure 184.
Figure 184: Category display menu.
The categories shown here are those appearing in the calendars of preceding
scenarios. If the category is `none' is selected, the text area above
the menu is empty. If any other category is selected, the text area contains
that category's name, as shown in Figure 185.
Figure 185: Category menu with non-empty category selected.
When the user selects `Edit ...' in the categories menu, the system
displays the dialog of Figure 186.
Figure 186: Edit categories dialog with several user-defined
categories.
This same dialog is also accessible from the `Categories' item in the
`Schedule' menu.
Adding a new category is described in
Section 2.2.
The user can also change and delete existing categories. To change a category,
the user selects its name in the `Current Categories' list and presses
`Change'. For example, Figure 187 shows the user having selected the
`special event' category.
Figure 187: Special event category selected for editing.
The figure illustrates that `Change' and `Delete' become
enabled when the user selects a category name. When the user presses
`Change', the system responds with the dialog in Figure 188.
Figure 188: Change category dialog.
The user can edit the category name to any non-empty string, and change the
color to any available in the color menu. In Figure 189, for example, the user
has shortened the category name and changed the color to red.
Figure 189: Change category dialog, edited.
When the user presses `OK', the system responds with the confirmation
dialog in Figure 190.
Figure 190: Category change confirmation dialog.
The confirmation indicates the total number of items that the category change
will affect, that is, the number of items that are defined with this category.
In computing the item count, each instance of a recurring item is counted
separately. When the user presses `OK', the system proceeds to change
the category in all affected items. The system also updates all active display
windows in which the old category appears, replacing the old category name and
color with the new ones.
To delete an existing category, the user selects its name and presses
`Delete'. In response, the system displays a dialog of the form shown
in Figure 191.
Figure 191: Category delete confirmation dialog.
Here the user has chosen to delete a category that is used in 15 scheduled
items. As the dialog explains, the affected items will all have their
categories set to `none' if the delete is confirmed. When the user
presses `OK', the system deletes the category from the defined list,
removes it from all affected items, and updates all active displays. The
display updates entail changing the color of all affected items to black and
removing the category name wherever it appears. Blank text appears in all
displays where the category name appeared prior to deletion.
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