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Rainlendar by Rainy Software |
Rainlendar is an excellent desktop calendar which incorporates multiple skins and the ability to do many functions that you may find very useful. |
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560k HERE |
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Rainlendar by Rainy Software Believe me, there are no shortages of calendar programs around for the windows desktop. You can find one at just about every freeware corner on the internet. Rainlendar sits in a class of its own with it's multiple skins and excellent interface. There are quite a number of features to this great desktop calendar as you will see which make it extraordinary! Here we go! : Platform..... It's running on my Windows XP Pro and Windows 98 machines rather nicely. Though I couldn't find any documentation on it, I think it can be assumed that Rainlendar will run on any win32 machine. Web Site.......... Rainlendar's web site is nicely organized in soft colors and easy to read fonts. It is sectioned off into different areas which gives you different aspects of Rainlendar and it's companion program, Rainmeter (which is kinda neat too!). The download links are easy to find at the bottom of the page. Downloading........ The
download is fast and easy. If you click on the 'show all files'
on their web site you will have a list of all previous versions
of Rainlendar up to the current one for your selection. Installation.......... Installation either requires you to open up the .zip file or click on the .exe file, depending on which one you downloaded. You're first asked which language to install of which your are given many choices. Next, you're given a window to select your components. Here's a pic of the window:
Then you have the usual panels for installation location and program installation. That's all there is. Help Files.......... Rainlendar comes with lots of great help to teach you how to customize your program. The contained help file with the program is a html document which will open up in your web browser. It is nicely laid out and easy to read giving you all the information you need to set it up. If this is not enough, Rainy's site include a well used forum where you can ask questions and get tons of useful information. Interface & Features ........... Rainlendar incorporates the use of skins which can be applied to the program making the interface choice almost unlimited. The installation comes with six English skins and a couple in other languages. Rainlendar utilizes skins to enhance its appearance on your desktop. If you're interested in making your own skin, the directory for Rainlendar has a document which explains the basics to skin making. You can then upload them to their site and become famous!! Here is a few examples of some of the skins that are available to users of Rainlendar:
There are quite a number of skins available from their web site and new skins are being added all the time. Just take a look and grab what you like. The skin example on the left shows how Rainlendar can incorporate the use of Microsoft's Outlook to work with Rainlendar. I do not run Outlook however, the example above shows just how inputs into Outlook can be linked to Rainlendar. From the docs, these events are not editable from Rainlendar and must be edited from Outlook itself, but they do give you an instance glance as to what's in store in your future without having to open up the Outlook program itself. Besides, I think the little jet icons are cool! All changes made to the program are done via the 'config' menu item obtainable from right clicking on the taskbar icon (if you have that on) or on the calendar itself. The configuration window is tabbed into four panes giving you total control on the programs settings. Here's a couple of pics of the config windows:
The configuration menus allow you to change many aspects of the program such as showing today's messages at startup, showing the alarms, starting your weeks on Monday, positional layouts, how the calendar is presented on the desktop, plus the many other items you can see in the panes above. Rainlendar also contains a 'to-do' lister which allows you to type in all of those little things that you've been putting off to do. You have the option of showing the to-do window on the desktop with the calendar or not (as in the example pic from Rainys web site above). Listed on the right-click menu is the item 'show all events' which will bring up a list of everything you have to do! Here's a pic of mine:
From this window you can mark each item as 'done' which will place that item on the 'done' tabbed list. You can insert particular notes to give you more detail as to what you actually have to do from the 'notes' tab. Each note is separated by a distinct black line. This can really come in handy, especially to keep track of details for each to-do item! Of course, you can schedule appointments for each day too. Here's a pic of the window used for inputting data brought out by clicking the calendar on each particular day:
Setting this window will mark your calendar with a notice that there is something happening on that day. Examples can be seen in the layout pics above. Rainlendar also supports transparency for Windows, giving it a nice dimensional look on the desktop. Again, check out the example pics. Other features contained within are incorporating Rainlendar as a plugin with a program called 'Litestep', hotkeys to instantly work with Rainlendar, alarm when an event is due, synchronization between multiple calendars, multiple month displays, and more! This program has a lot going for it considering how tight and lightweight it is. Don't forget! This program is also available in many different languages truly making this a world wide freeware effort. Kudos!!
Uninstall...... Uninstalling Rainlendar is done through the usual method of the 'add/remove programs' section of the control panel. The uninstall also removed the directory along with its contents. Problems...... I have personally had none with my recent installation of the newest version. Checking on the forums, I see very few problems and complaints and LOTS of support and skin donations! In Closing .......... Out of many of the desktop calendars available, this has to be one of the best for both usage and support. I strongly suggest you download this little gem and install it in your computer. Enjoy!! Buzzy J |
