ADD Planner Tutorials

Creating a Project with ADD Planner

1. Start a new .apf file by selecting File | New or typing Ctrl-n. You will see a blank ADD Planner display.



2. Click in the Project View; the word "Projects" becomes highlighted.



3. On the Menu bar, select Tasks | Add a Task.



4. The Add/Edit Task dialog is displayed. In the Name: field, enter "Learn ADD Planner" and then click on the Color/Category tab.



5. On the Color/Category tab, click the Category: Use Icon checkbox, the "School" radio button (because this project is about learning), and then click OK.



You now see the title task in your project, "Learn ADD Planner." The rest of the tasks in the project will be created under the title task.



6. Click once on "Learn ADD Planner" to highlight it, and then click the right mouse button. You will see the "Right-click menu." (Note: The cursor must be pointing to the desired task when you click the right mouse button.) Select Add a Task.



7. In the Add/Edit Task dialog, enter "Go through this tutorial" in the Name: field, and then click OK.



8. The Project View now shows the title task and first subtask in your project. Notice that the new task inherits the icon of the task it was created under. Now click once on "Learn ADD Planner" to highlight it.



9. On the Toolbar, click the "Add Task" icon (the large + sign).



10. In the Add/Edit Task dialog, enter "Read the online help" in the Name: field, and then click OK.



11. In the Project View, you now see two tasks under "Learn to use ADD Planner." Again click once on "Learn to use ADD Planner" to highlight it and select "Add a task" from the right-click menu.



12. In the Add/Edit Task dialog, enter "Visit the ADD Planner website" in the Name: field, and then click on the Perform/Add'l Info tab.



13. In the Use this field to perform this task: field, enter the full URL of the ADD Planner website: http://www.ADDPlanner.com. (Note: You must include http:// whenever you enter a web address.) Click OK.



14. To "perform" the "Visit the ADD Planner Website" task manually, highlight the task and then click the Perform Task (blue running man) icon. (Alternately, you can select Tasks | Perform on the Menu bar or Perform Task on the right-click menu.) ADD Planner will pop down and the ADDPlanner.com website will display in a browser window.



15. Pop ADD Planner up and save this project as a template task, which means you can reuse it or share it with other ADD Planner users. To do so, highlight the title task of the project, in this example, "Learn ADD Planner," then click the Save as Template Task icon (the yellow document with the down arrow). (Alternately, you can select Save as a Template Task from the Tasks menu or from the right-click menu.)



16. Now remove "Learn ADD Planner" and bring it back as a template task. Highlight the "Learn ADD Planner" task and delete it with the Delete key or by selecting Delete Task from the Tasks menu or the right-click menu. You will be prompted whether to delete the task; click Yes.

    

    To bring "Learn ADD Planner" back as a template task, click on the Add Template Task icon (the yellow document with the plus sign on it) or alternately select Add a Template Task from the Tasks menu or right-click menu.



17. You will now see the list of previously-saved template tasks that you can add to the Project View. Select "Learn ADD Planner" and click OK.



You will see that the "Learn ADD Planner" project is back.



18. Highlight the "Learn ADD Planner" task and delete it with the Delete key or by selecting Delete Task from the Tasks menu or the right-click menu. Now bring it back with the Undo command. (Select Edit | Undo or type Ctrl-Z.) Note that you can only undo the last action, and there is no "redo" option.
19. Finally, save your work. Click on File | Save As ... and save the file as Tutorial1.apf.

This concludes the Project View tutorial. There will be additional tutorials available soon. If you have suggestions for tutorial topics, please post them to the ADD Planner Forums.

Launching Music From a Reminder

In this tutorial you'll learn how to automatically play music from a reminder. This can be useful if you have problems changing state - listening to music can help you change state, from working to relaxing, taking a break to resuming work, or, in this example, from waking to sleeping.

Note: This tutorial uses features from ADD Planner 1.4.x including the ADD Planner Speech Components which are available with version 1.4.x. If you haven't done so already, please go to the Updates page and download and install these files.

1. In order to play music automatically, we first have to make a playlist in Windows Media Player. Start Media Player, and Select File, New Playlist.

2. The New Playlist dialog box appears. Choose a name for your playlist (in this case "Bedtime Music"), and then select the music you want to include in the playlist by clicking on each track to add it to the playlist.

3. Once you're satisfied with your playlist (in this case we've included all the tracks of Steven Halpern's "Music for Sound Healing") click on "OK" to save.

4. Now we'll define a task that will play the music we've chosen if we click "OK" when the reminder appears. First, right-click on the date in the Daily Task pane of the Daily View to create a new task.

5. Name the task Get Ready To Go To Bed, and choose a time that you want to start getting ready for bed (in this case, 9:30PM).

6. Next, define a reminder to pop up one minute before 9:30, that will say "Get Ready To Go To Bed" and automatically launch the playlist. First click on the Reminder tab. Click the Add button below the reminders list box. The Add/Edit Reminder dialog appears.

   

   Enter the reminder text "Get ready to go to bed"; change the Schedule: to 1 Minutes Before; click the Perform Without Waiting checkbox and Speak Reminder checkbox; and then click on the browse button to the right of the Perform Using: field.

7. A file chooser dialog appears. Navigate to the location of the playlist (usually Media Player stores its playlists in C:\My Documents\My Music\My Playlists), click on the playlist you just created, and click on the Open button.

8. We will now make this task pop up a reminder every day by making it a repeating task. Click on the Repetition tab, then check the Repeats checkbox, and select Every Day in the listbox. Click OK to save the task.

9. When the "Get Ready To Go To Bed" reminder comes up, you will hear the computer say "Get ready to go to bed", the music will start playing automatically, and the reminder popup window will appear. Click OK to close the popup.

   

This concludes the Launching Music From a Reminder tutorial. There will be additional tutorials available soon. If you have suggestions for tutorial topics, please post them to the ADD Planner Forums.