Setting up Time and Chaos

Time and Chaos (T&C) is a piece of contact management software that allows you to organize your contacts, time and appointments and be able to share this information with other users of T&C if you should wish. The department has 11 licenses for DAMTP windows pcs but you can run it for 30 days on a trial basis if you want to see what it can do.

The following information will help you setup T&C using a 'server share' as a repository for your information. This share gets backed up so if you decide to store you data elsewhere, you run the risk of losing your details if your pc suffers a hardware fault or gets reinstalled.

New Users

When you first open Time & Chaos by either double-clicking on the desktop icon or via Start -> Programs -> Time & Chaos, the following window will appear (after you see the 'Tip of the Day Window'):

Click OK as you will be overwriting these details using the following instructions.

  • As a new user, you need to make a new data folder. A data folder is where you store your diary, telephone, contact entries etc. This folder is stored on a network path, not locally.

  • To create this folder:

    1. Start Time and Chaos (T&C).

    2. Select 'New Data Folder' from the File menu.

    3. Type the path of this new folder = \\carew\time&chaos\your-username e.g. \\carew\time&chaos\de876. (NB: Don't use the pathname suggested: c:\progra~1\chaos32\New Folder).

    4. Click OK.

  • The next window asks for a descriptive name, use your CRSid, your login username. Press OK once entered.

  • You then need to open this new folder:

    1. File menu -> Open data folder, navigate to 'My Network Places -> Entire Network -> Microsoft Windows Network -> DAMTP -> carew -> Time&Chaos - your-username.

  • Once it's opened, you need to setup some preferences. To do this:

    1. Open up the preference from the File menu -> Preferences.

    2. In the 'General Options', click the 'Use Current Folder' button. You should see '\\carew\time&chaos\your-username' appear in the 'default startup folder location' box.

    3. Choose the date and time format that you want to use.

    4. Choose the word processor you want to use.

    5. Tick the 'Minimize to system tray' option. Press the Apply button.

  • Next, select the 'Passwords' option. Type in two different passwords. One is for full control of your data, the other is for read only rights. The read only rights is needed if you want to share your data with other people but you don't want them to change anything. Press Apply once done.

  • Choose the 'Network Setup' option. Make sure the 'I want to connect to an existing....' is selected, press Next. Step 1 connects you to a node manager. Don't worry about what a node manager is but you do need to go and find one.


    To do this:

    1. Click the yellow folder icon to the right of the white box.

    2. In the new window that appears, navigate to 'My Network Places -> Entire Network -> Microsoft Windows Network -> DAMTP -> carew -> Time&Chaos'. You should see the white box in Step 2 automatically fill in with your username when you click OK.

    3. In Step3, you can choose a nice icon if you want to, it's not necessary to do so. Press Apply again.

  • In the 'Addressing Format' option, you can choose how you want your address to look like. Choose one of the options and press Apply.

  • Choose your Appointment options and spelling options remembering to press apply after each change. The 'Appearance' options are fixed and cannot be changed so ignore this. Once complete, press OK to save everything.

    • You have now finished setting up your preferences. All that you need to do now is setup how Time and Chaos looks like on your screen.

    From the Window menu, you will see 6 options. Ticking any of these displays that ticked window on your screen. You can resize these windows by dragging a corner of each of the windows and moving it. Once you are happy with the layout, you can save this view so that the next time you open T&C, it looks the same.

    To do this from the File menu, choose 'Save Startup Settings'. There are some built in layouts that you may want to use, these can be found in the View menu -> Screen Layouts.

    If all has gone right, you should be able to close T&C, re-start it from the desktop icon/start menu and you should get prompted for a password. This is the password you typed in earlier when setting up your preferences. Typing in the correct password will open T&C and load your data.

    Users who've setup T&C before

    Users with an existing set of datafiles who want to put their files on the server instead of storing them locally need to follow the above instructions (create a new folder, open it, setup the preferences etc). For them to be able to read their data off the server, they need to copy their existing files from the old location into the new folder they've just created. The files to copy are:

    
~appt.isd
    
~appt.isl
    
~appt.ism
    
~phone.ism
    
~phone.isd
    
~phone.isl
    
~todo.isd
    
~todo.ism
    
~todo.ism
    
netinfo.bin

    To know where these files are currently located, look in the File menu -> Preferences - General Options. The directory listed under the 'Default Start-up Folder Location' is where the files are. Copy them or move them to the new folder created on the server, restart T&C, the datafiles on the server will be read (as long as they've remembered to change the 'Default Start-up Folder Location' to point to the server and not to the old original location).

    A pdf manual is available on Time & Chaos v5.5.0