Relish Frequently Asked Questions

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Introduction

This document is a collection of questions (and answers) that have been posed by users of the Relish time management product. They have been collected from a variety of sources including telephone support calls, email messages, and CompuServe discussions.

What is the current version of Relish?

The current version of Relish is 2.23 for both single user and network versions. Version 2.2 refers to versions 2.20, 2.21, 2.22 and 2.23. Version 2.23 is primarily a maintenance release necessary for use with RelishWeb. Since it adds little functionality, and all of the bugs are minor, we are shipping it upon customer request only.

The fastest way to get the version 2.23 update is to download it.

What is the difference between the single user and network versions of Relish?

Relish Net is a superset of Relish. In addition to all of the features found in the single user product, Relish Net adds the important options of People, Places, and Things. People are individuals who share your Relish network, Places are locations (such as rooms) and Things are items that have schedules maintained with Relish. These options, combined with other features, facilitate group scheduling.

Relish Net requires an OS/2 network environment. That is OS/2 Warp Server or OS/2 with Lan Server, NetWare, LANtastic, or Peer Services (Warp 3 Connect or Warp 4).

Where can I get a demo of Relish?

Relish Net is now provided as "AS IS" freeware.

How can I contact Sundial Systems?

Sundial Systems is no longer in business.


I used to have the small calendar on my desktop, but now it is gone. How can I get it back?

If you are using the Trendy menus, start by selecting Settings->Notesheet. If you are using Classic menus, select Choose->Workspace. Then, on the right hand side of the dialog that appears - under Open Windows - check the box labeled Calendar.

There actually is another way to bring the reference calendar back once you've closed it. Select Month on the Settings (for Trendy) or Choose (for Classic) menu and just OK the resulting dialog.

Why does Relish only have one phone number field? Isn't that a bit unrealistic?

While there is only one entry field for phone numbers, Relish actually supports multiple phone numbers. To utilize this feature, try putting several numbers in the field separated with punctuation like a semicolon or comma. You can also place short labels on the phone numbers to help you keep track of them. When it comes time to dial, Relish will break the numbers into a list for you to select from and automatically strip out the labels when it dials.

A sample phone number field might look like this: Home 714-555-9999; Work 562-596-5121; Fax 562-596-7825; W2:555-1212

The beauty of this method is that there is nothing sacred about the order of the phone numbers. For the person you always call at work, put that number first. For others, the home - or car phone - number might be more appropriate on the top of the list. It's totally up to you.

Is there a version of Relish available for Windows?

No. Currently, Relish is only available on OS/2. Will there be a Windows version of Relish? Not any time soon. However, Sundial Systems is constantly evaluating future platforms for deployment of our technology.

What is the difference between version 2.12 and the current version?

The version of Relish in The Warp Companion from Sams Publishing and the Productivity Pak from Development Technologies is version 2.12. This was the major release prior to 2.2. The features that were added to version 2.2 include Type-to-Search, Floating Notes, Buns, enhanced repetition capability, and a lot more. Detailed information about the differences is included in the on-line User's Guides included with these "special editions" of Relish 2.12.

What are the Buns I keep hearing about?

Buns are a lighthearted name for one of the major features in version 2.2. A Bun is a desktop object that encapsulates a view of your Relish information and a collection of settings about how you want things to look and behave.

To start you off, Relish installs a folder of Buns on your desktop. This includes Buns for several of the "standard" views you can have of your information: daily, weekly, monthly, overdue, to do list, phone book, and floating notes (those things you don't want to forget but that really have no relevant time or date).

There's also a Bun template. If you want, you can start with any of these and make new Buns with more specialized information. For example, you might have one Bun to represent a group in your phone book and another for all entries that contain the word OS/2.

The most important thing about Buns is that they are all "hot-linked" together underneath the covers -- no matter where you enter a meeting, appointment, or whatever into Relish, it always appears in all the right Buns automatically. Experienced Relish users often find that Buns are one of Relish's most powerful features.

Is there a competitive upgrade to Relish?

No. Instead of offering competitive upgrades, Sundial chooses to offer version upgrades at little or no cost. In over seven years, there have only been charges for two of the many different upgrades.

If I want to copy my data files to a different machine, which files do I need?

Because Relish probably has a process running in the background, it's not as simple as just copying files. For complete details of this process, please read the section on copying Relish databases in Appendix A of the Relish User's Guide.

Briefly, you will want to:

First, run STOPNOW in the directory where Relish is installed
Then copy all of the files with the .NOW extension
Also copy NOW.DEF and NOWSERVE.INI
Do not copy RELISH.INI 

How do I change the colors in Relish? I looked through all of the dialogs and menus and can't find it!

Relish is designed to integrate with the Workplace Shell. This means that the techniques you learned for OS/2 apply to Relish. To change a color, open the OS/2 Color Palette and drag-and-drop a color onto a part of Relish. You'll find that, in addition to the separate Note Palette and reference calendar windows, the main Relish window has several distinct color areas.

You can also change the color of the text! OS/2 has a little known convention for doing this, which you might also find useful for customizing the colors on your desktop or in folders. To change the color of text rather than the background, hold down the Control key when you drop the color.

Likewise, you can also change Relish's fonts with drag-and-drop from the OS/2 Font Palette.

When will the next version of Relish be available and what features will it have?

Watch this space! While we are always working on new Relish versions (and have been continuously since 1987 when OS/2 was originally announced), we haven't yet announced what version will follow 2.2 (other than minor maintenance releases).

I just installed a video card with a Trident 9440 or 9680 chipset (or got a system, such as certain Aptivas, which use such a chipset). Whenever I start Relish, the system locks up. What can I do?

It's really the video driver that's causing the problem and you are probably using an older version of the driver that came with the card (or the system). Later drivers from Trident fix this problem. To obtain these drivers, contact the card (or system) manufacturer for the latest drivers specific to that card (or system). Or visit the drivers page of Trident's website at:

http://www.tridentmicro.com/HTML/Drivers/tvga_tgui.htm 

to download the latest (generic) drivers for the particular chipset and version of Warp you are using.

For reference, you should note that the drivers must be at least version 1.30 (dated late 1995) to avoid the problem.

Type-to-search doesn't work now that I've installed FixPak 1, 2, or 3 for OS/2 Warp 4. Can you fix it?

Normally, Relish allows you to "just start typing" to search for an entry on your schedule or in your phone book, and the entry matching the text you type then scrolls into view. FixPaks 1, 2, and 3 break the feature -- the proper entry becomes "selected" but does not scroll into view (or only partially scrolls into view). The same thing also happens when you use the Edit->Find and Edit->Find Next functions.

IBM has issued a fix for the problem, APAR JR10266, which is included in FixPak 4 or later for OS/2 Warp 4. You can get the latest FixPak from a number of sources. One way is to download the FixPak from IBM's website site at:

http://ps.software.ibm.com/pbin-usa-ps/getobj.pl?/pdocs-usa/softupd.html#warp34

I'm running the Xit utility, and have noticed some odd things when I add or revise a note on my calendar.

The Workplace Shell add-on Xit (from CodeSmith Software, email mshill@elkvalley.net) causes a strange behavior when used on the same system as Relish. If you have Xit running, and open a Relish Edit or Add Note dialog, Xit interferes with the dialog's behavior. Normally, you see a time ruler across the top of the dialog. With Xit running, a normally hidden (Keys) menu in Relish is visible and drops down over the time ruler.

Fortunately Xit has a feature called an exception list. This list contains the names of programs that Xit should not perform its title bar functions on. If you add RELISH.EXE to Xit's exception list, that should solve the problem.

For your information, you can always access this Keys menu by clicking on the sun icon in the lower right corner of the dialog (or by pressing the F2 key). It contains handy short cuts for interacting with the dialog.

When I use Relish to dial a phone number, it doesn't reset my modem properly. What can I do?

Some modern modems do not reset properly when sent the reset signal. Specifically, Relish uses numeric result codes by setting ATV0. So, in your internet dialer, if you add ATV1 (or just V1 to an existing initialization string), it should fix the problem.

I'd like to store my Relish database in a separate directory than where the program files are. Is that possible?

Normally, Relish stores its database of notes in the directory where the Relish software is installed. There are some situations, however, where it is desirable to store the database in a different directory. Relish provides several options for doing this, as explained in the instructions.