Looking at the Plans

One of the most important jobs that JXCirrus Diary does is to make plans out of your lists of tasks. Lets see what it made of your "downloading the camera" task from before...

Give it time to think

JXCirrus Diary spends a lot of time updating its plans. Any time you change a task, it tries to fix up the plans to handle the new change. This means that it spends a lot of time thinking.

Look at the top right of the toolbar... You should see one of these 2 symbols:

If there is a Calculating symbol, then the system is thinking.

If there is a Finished Thinking symbol, then the system has finished thinking and has made up a plan.

One thing... You don't have to wait for the system to stop thinking before you do things. You can keep on adding tasks, updating tasks etc. The only reason to wait for it to stop thinking is that it won't have a complete plan until then.

Looking at the task

Lets see what it has planned for your camera task. Using the tree view, click on the "Download my camera" task. In the item view, you should see details of the task. At the bottom of the details should be a little table saying "Predicted Times". This tells you when the system has planned for you to download the camera. The key thing is that it should be some time before the due date for the task (tomorrow at 9PM).

Now, you don't actually have to do the task then... What the system is doing is finding a way to fit the task in so it gets done before the due date. You can do your jobs in any order you like - The system doesn't care as long as they get done before the due date. If it doesn't think you will get things done by the due date, then it will warn you and highlight those tasks it thinks you should do first.

Looking at the day

OK, so we know when it thinks you could download the camera. How about everything else? We will now have a look at everything that it has planned...

There are a bunch of tabs at the top of the main screen.  Select the Plan tab.

This view shows you what the app has planned for today, as well as what tasks you should do, and any appointments.

You should be able to see some Planned Time symbols. These are the planned times for the tasks in the system. You may be able to see your "Download the camera" task, although it may have been planned for tomorrow night.

Now we will switch to tomorrow...

To do this, press the Tomorrow on the toolbar. The day view should show what is happening tomorrow.

You should be able to see your Appointment "Dinner out" appointment from 6 to 8.

You should also be able to see the Task"Download the camera" task at 9:00. This shows you when that is due.

Looking at the summary

One last handy view to look at... Go back to the set of tabs at the top of the main window and select the Summary tab.

This screen shows you a bit of information about what is going on at the moment. This view shows you what the app thinks you need to finish today, as well as some other groups of tasks.

This is the computer's take on what order you ought to do your jobs. You can totally ignore this and do the tasks how you like, but if you feel a bit unsure where to start, here is the place to go for the answer.

How it knows when to do the task

This is a bit complex, but here is the super high level view. There is a much more detailed section of the manual about automatic planning if you want to know more.

So, whatever time is left, it shuffles all of the tasks about until they fit into a plan...

Warnings about the task

There are a couple of warnings the system might give you about your task.

NOTE: This may seem obvious, but JXCirrus Diary has to be running for it to warn you.

Warnings about the appointment

The system will also warn you 15 minutes before your appointment, and will turn red if the appointment is overdue.

Next: What next with your tasks and appointment...