Pimlical Android Help

Menu Items - 

Note - if you upgrade to a new version of Pimlical/Android that has new menu commands not previously defined, you may need to go into Menu | Preferences | Commands/Functions | MenuCommandsAndOrder and select any new menu commands as by default, the existing user preferences are never changed when a new version of Pimlical/Android is installed. In most cases, new menu items will be added to the existing list when first launched. But if you update and skip some interim versions, some new items may not be displayed by default. If there is no menu and no command bar, you can still get to preferences by bringing up any event-selection list (tap on any day in any view) and long-pressing the GREEN checkmark button.

 GoTo

Displays the Date Picker so you can select a date that the current view will display. A gesture can also be used to quickly go to Today's Date (a vertical stroke in the left-side of the screen goes to today - stroke upwards to stay in the same view, stroke downwards to move to today in the Day View).

 Views

Displays View selection dialog so you can go directly to one of the main views.  You can also set the default Startup View in the drop-down list. Since there is no real concept of 'startup' in Android (once an application has been launched, it remains in memory, even if only in the background), this is applied whenever you explicitly leave Pimlical (either by hitting the Home button or using Menu | Exit Pimlical or by using a long press on the Back Button). Setting Current View/Date will preserve both the current view and date when Pimlical next appears. Selecting any specific view will invoke that view and also change the date to Today's date. The normal, default setting for this preference is the Day View, so that when you return to Pimlical, it will go today's date in the Day View.

Some Views have a + button - a long press will change the number of days/weeks/months that are displayed in that view. The List View is limited by the amount of available memory for the scrolling region - setting this value to much above 10 days on most Android devices may result in the number of displayed days being reduced to whatever fits in memory. In the special case of the Day+ view, a long-press will set the number of days for that view when the device is in the same orientation as it is when you long-press the button (i.e. if it's in landscape mode, then it's the number of days in landscape mode that gets changed).

You can also switch views quickly with a gesture. A horizontal stroke in top half of the screen cycles through the views - Day -> Day+ -> Week -> Month -> Month+ -> List - forwards or backwards, depending on the direction of the stroke. There is also a preference (View-Related Items | ViewsToCycleThrough) which determines which views are cycled through and the order in which those views appear.

Not all options in the List View are available on all Android devices. How many days can be displayed in the scrollable region is a function of available memory and how memory is managed on the device. The setting of 366 days is only usable if there are very few events in that year (either because it is a past/future year being looked at, or because a custom filter has been imported from Pimlical/desktop that only displays a subset of events, such as birthdays, etc.).

  Filters

Displays the Filter Selection Dialog. See the section on Using Filters for details on how filters are managed. Filters are used to determine which events are displayed in a view based upon extensive selection criteria. Filters can also be used as the target of a find function to locate items.

  Voice

Displays Google's Voice Input dialog which makes it easy to enter appointments by speaking them. You can start out by saying something like 5pm optionally followed by Tomorrow or This Tuesday or Next Thursday. Start with Now to set event time to current time, otherwise the default is to enter it as an untimed event on the current day. Start with Floating Event or Task (or /Todo) to set a floating event or todo/task item. Voice input can also be invoked with a long press on the Find button. Not all Android devices support Google Voice.

 Toggle Untimed

Provides a quick way of toggling the display of untimed events on and off. If you have the Day or Day+ views displayed and there are a large number of untimed events or floating events, the actual schedule for the day may be hidden below the screen. Although you can scroll up to see it, it may be easier to just temporarily hide untimed events to review actual timed events on those days.

By default, the following items appear in the menu when the MORE button is pressed in the first menu list. Note that the order of items in the menu and which menu items are displayed is controlled by a preference setting: Commands/Functions | MenuCommandsAndOrder. You can also display all menu items in one screen or choose how many menu rows are displayed with the preference: NumberOfMenuRows, and also choose whether the menu icons are displayed above the text or to the left of the text.

 Find

Displays the Find Dialog. This allows you to select items from the database based upon text string, icon, event type, status and an optional date range. To exclude items from the display, uncheck the corresponding box (i.e. to skip display of Floating events, uncheck the Float checkbox. Matching items are then displayed in a list. This list is just like the Event Selection List in that items can be selected for edit (long press) or have an operation performed on them (brief tap). The only way it differs is that for repeat items, any modification always applies to the entire series (since there is no concept of which day an exception might be applied to).

 If the category/calendar selection field remains at (All), then only displayed categories are searched. If, however, there is an explicit category list, then all those categories are searched (regardless of whether or not they are currently displayed) to see if any category in an event matches any category/calendar in that list.

Leading and trailing spaces are always stripped off the find string (because on-screen intelligent keyboards frequently add a trailing space if you pick a word from the suggestion list).

The Filter button allows you to perform a search based upon the selected Filter. When using this function, any search parameters that you had entered into the dialog will be ignored, as it is the selected filter and that alone which controls the display of items.

Most Android devices have a Find button available on all screens, and this button invokes the Find function here.

 Preferences

Displays the Preferences Dialog. Preferences are divided into several sections - tap the button corresponding to the section that has those preference settings. You can then select individual preference items in the scrolling list. A long tap will display the full text of the comment describing the preference, and a brief tap will display a dialog that allows you to change the value of that preference. You can also use the Find button to find a preference by name (just type in enough of the preference name to uniquely locate it).

When returning to the preference dialog, Pimlical will display the section most recently accessed in red, and will also scroll the display when that section is selected to display the most recently accessed preference item. See the help section on Preferences for further information on individual preference sections.

 Select Calendars -    Select Categories

Select Calendars displays a list of all calendars that you have access to in the main calendar database and (if present) the local calendar. Select Categories displays a list of all categories in the Local Calendar (Categories are only supported in Pimlical's local calendar that is stored on the SD card (or virtual SD card if the device has no physical SD card).

Do a long press on the entry to toggle the display on or off for that calendar (Select Calendars) or category (Select Categories) (a green check mark indicates it will be displayed, a red Cross indicates it will be hidden.

The All and None buttons select all calendars (or categories for Select Categories) or unselect them all.

The Export button exports the currently selected calendar(s) as separate iCalendar files with an ICS extension. All exported calendars are placed in the folder: Pimlical/ExportedCalendars. These calendars can be imported back into Google calendar at a later time, or used to transfer information to other calendar systems that are not available by syncing.

The Import button imports an iCalendar type file (which must be located in the Pimlical/ExportedCalendars folder) into the currently selected local calendar (if there is no local calendar, the import function is not available - you can of course import iCalendar files into the google calendar associated with an Android calendar). If you have never exported any calendars, the ExportedCalendars folder may not exist in which case you will need to manually create it to put the import file into (or export any calendar which will create it).

A short tap on the calendar entry brings up the Edit Calendar dialog, where you can set the foreground and background color for the calendar (or local category), set a default icon to appear on all items in that category, or change the selection and (calendars only) sync settings. The Sync setting can only be changed for Android calendars - and due to a limitation in most (all?) Android calendars, you can not have an item display and not be synced (as if sync is turned off for a calendar, the Android calendar sync routine will remove items in that calendar from the database (of course they are still in google). The Sync button is not displayed for Select Categories. A short tap on the local calendar in Select Calendars has no effect (other than to display an informative message) as the attributes are set for individual categories within that local calendar.

In the Edit Calendar dialog, you can set the foreground and background (if GoogleCalendarColors preferences is set to false) colors for the category, set a default icon and also optionally set it for display and syncing (Note: with most Android devices, you must allow a device to sync in order for it to display). 

The Edit Calendar dialog has a Remove button which will remove that category, provided that it is empty. You can not remove a category that has items in it. You can set Pimlical to display all items in that category to find them. Remember that items might also be in a template or a filter.

The Edit Calendar dialog also has a Rename button which will rename that category. All other attributes remain the same.  

If the calendar was not previously selected and is an Android calendar, Pimlical will tell the Android OS to invoke a sync on that calendar (you may want to wait a minute or two and refresh the calendar again if it has not been visible recently). The Android sync routine (Google's software)  for the calendar database does not read older, non-recurring events. To force a sync of all events in the calendar, Use the Pimlical/Desktop to update all the modification dates (use Advanced Find to select all items in the calendar, click Find, then use Shift in Display Results dialog, but just click on OK button without changing anything, and then refresh that calendar with CTRL/H. Remember to make sure that the DaysBackToRead preference in Pimlical/Android is set to -1 to read all events in the calendar database.

If the preference UseGoogleCalendarColors is set to true, the foreground and background colors for a local category are always set to the same value as having different values is not compatible with the way that Google calendar colors are handled. If you set that preference to false, you can then change the color settings independently (see section on colors in Event Attributes in help for further information on setting default calendar/category colors).

 Select Local Calendar

Pimlical/Android allow for any number of local calendars, although only one of them can be open at any time. You can use this menu item to select OTHER local calendars in the PimlicalCalendars folder. Usually the easiest way to create other local calendars is to just duplicate an existing calendar in that folder using an Android File manager, or windows explorer (after phone is connected to a PC).

This menu option also allows you to create a backup copy of the selected local calendar (keep in mind that the currently displayed local calendar is backed up automatically by P/A), and also to restore a local calendar. If for any reason, you find that your local calendar is corrupt or missing a lot of items, etc. , you can always use the RESTORE button to restore an earlier version of the calendar.

 Refresh Calendars

Pimlical will re-read the entire calendar database and redisplay all items. The display can also be set to automatically re-read the database after a set period of time by adjusting the preference GoogleRefreshInterval - a value of 0 turns off the automatic re-read, while any other value specifies that after that number of seconds, the database should be re-read the very next time the display is touched or changed in any way - for example, a value of 600 would indicate that it should be re-read any time the display is refreshed and more than ten minutes has passed since it was last re-read.

 Add Daily Journal Entry

Opens up a text window so you can add a new item to the Daily Journal (in Pimlical/Android, the daily journal is called Android Journal to avoid clashing with P/D if syncing). The item is automatically date and time-stamped and will be added to the note field (Google's "description" field) of an untimed event in the current day's schedule with the name Android Journal. A template can be used to preset the attributes of the Daily Journal - it can, for example, be made a floating event so that there is just one journal that floats from day to day. To have Pimlical use the template, you just have to set up the description field to be Android Journal (in Pimlical/Desktop, you would use Daily Journal). Some users then mark the journal as complete on the last day of the month so that Pimlical will open up a new journal on the first day of the following month. That way, the last day of every month has a consolidated list of all the journal entries for that month.

 View Upcoming Alarms

Displays a list of all upcoming alarms in chronological order from the present time forwards. The list will include all alarms for the number of days defined in the Preference [Alarm Related Items]HideAlarmsMoreThanXDaysOut. This works just like the Event Selection List in that items can be selected for edit (long press) or have an operation performed on them (brief tap). The only way it differs is that for repeat items, any modification always applies to the entire series (since there is no concept of which day an exception might be applied to).

 Help & Usage Tips

This item displays a list of help topics (with the number of items in each topic displayed in parentheses). Select a particular topic and you will then see all the items listed under that topic. Requires Internet access as the help files are stored on the Pimlico Website and are constantly updated.

There is also a Email Tech Support button which, if you have configured a primary email client on your phone (for most users, this would be their Gmail account), will automatically invoke your Email App, and, most importantly, automatically collect all the requisite information that Tech Support will need (such as P/A version, Android OS version, etc. ). You can also check a box in the Select File Attachments dialog that appears to include error files, log files and your preference files. Note that due to silly restrictions that Google now makes for Apps targeting Android-13 and later, you can not attach other files to your email using this method because google views the email program as running under Pimlical which itself is banned from accessing any files outside of its own sand-boxed area. So if you do need to send other files as attachments, just invoke your email program directly. You may need to do a menu | Backup Everything to copy everything to a root folder that your email program can access files in.

 About Pimlical...

Displays the About Dialog which includes the Pimlical version number, number of records (total and deleted), the screen size, and also includes buttons to go directly to the Pimlico Software Home Page and also display the Complete Revision History for the program. The latter is useful as whenever you install a new release, you can quickly review all the new features and corrections in that version. The Upgrade button checks to see if a more recent version of Pimlical/Android is available and prompts you to have P/A send you the link to download it if you were using the Direct Download version and do not have a subscription. If you have a subscription, P/A will volunteer to download the file and install the upgrade for you..

 Find Items linking to Contact

Pimlical displays the full contact list at which point a single contact can be selected. Pimlical will then search the calendar database for all events or tasks which link to this contact and will display them in an Event Selection List. To find items linking to memos, use Menu | View/Edit Memos and long press the memo that you want to use as the target for linked events.

 GSync Now

Pimlical initiates an immediate sync of the Android calendar and contacts databases with Google by telling the Android Sync routine to proceed immediately (this is Google's Android sync software that performs the sync operation). Normally, the sync occurs at regular intervals as new items are added, deleted or modified, but the delay can be anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute or more before the sync actually occurs. This is mainly useful for testing, or when an item must be immediately uploaded to the calendar server (Google, exchange, etc.). Note that this has nothing to do with Pimlical's DirectSync operation (see DirectSync menu item below).

 Cancel GSync

Any sync of the Android databases to Google Calendars in progress will be canceled.

 Undelete

Displays a list of all deleted items that are still in the database in reverse chronological order of when they were deleted (so the most recently deleted item is at the top of the list). As with the Event Selection List, an item can be selected for edit (long press) at which point clicking on the Ok button will undelete the item. Undeleted items are always put in the Unfiled Category, since the original category may no longer exist.  A brief tap on this list is not supported unless the preference DebugMode is set (mainly because such commands will not undelete the item so it is not normally something that would ever be needed).

When the list is displayed, you can also long-press any item in the list, and a dialog will appear providing the option to undelete ALL deleted records in one step. Note that undeleting an item does *not* recover the original category of the item, as deleted items are always forced into the Unfiled category (you can use the Change Category popup command to move a block of items into a specific category).

 Undo Edit

This command will undo the last edit operation in the current session (i.e. if you are going to use this command, you should use it reasonably soon after making the edit correction, as eventually it will be forgotten. All the changes made in the Edit dialog are reversed.

 Exit Pimlical

This menu command can be used on devices that do not support a long press on the back button. Since Android does not support the concept of exiting an application, what this menu command does is ensure that any current preference settings are written out (the calendar is always written in real time) and then moves Pimlical to the background and sets a flag so that on the next activation, the database is re-read - all of which gives the impression of exiting Pimlical, although it is in fact still running in the background. If the Widget is complaining that dialogs are open in P/A when there clearly aren't any open, just use menu | Exit to clear the condition so the Widget can resume refreshing.

 Archive Older Events

This menu command will purge old events in the local calendar database and move them into an archive calendar with the name PimlicalArchiveCalendar (Pimlical/PimlicalCalendars/PimlicalArchiveCalendar.dat). If the archive already exists, the newly purged items are added to the existing database. Both tasks and events are purged. When invoked, an informative message first appears. This is followed by the Date Picker so the purge date can be picked (Default is the first day of the same month in the prior year). 

All items prior to (but not including the archive date) are then purged.  This includes items whose end date is on a day prior to the archive date, or repeat items with an explicit repeat end date that ends on a day prior to the archive date.

The purged items are marked as deleted in the current database, so a subsequent DirectSync will also remove those items from the desktop local calendar as well. If this behavior is not wanted, you should make sure you set the preference: DoNotSyncEventsPriorToDate  (in 3.4.11 and later) to the same date you chose as the archive date in P/A as then those events will be ignored and can be left in the desktop database without affecting the local calendar in Pimlical/Android. You can always look at the archive database by going into menu | Select Local Calendar and selecting the archive database for display. You can restore items from the archive to the current local calendar with the set of four popup commands (Copy Selected Item, Copy All Items In List etc.).

  Tasks View

This menu command is generally used to bring up an exclusive view of Tasks. It uses an Event Selection List for this purpose and applies by default, the filter Tasks_Only. The main reason for this view is that it can display tasks sorted by a primary criteria other than date. While you can always view tasks in the main calendar, they will always first be sorted by date, whereas the Tasks view can sort tasks first by say priority or urgency and then by other criteria. There is no requirement that this view display Tasks (it does that by default), as you can edit the Tasks_Only filter to do whatever you want - it could, for example, just display floating events, instead of tasks, it could display a special type of appointment - for example, it might display a list of all your medical appointments.  Note that you can use templates (by default, only showing tasks), and there's a Filter button that allows you to pick a different filter (you might have separate filters, one to display events by priority, another to display by urgency, and another to display completed Tasks, etc.).

  DirectSync

This menu command is used after you have launched DirectSync in Pimlical/Desktop with the local HTTP Option by pressing the button to initiate the sync. It confirms the sync and starts sending files over to Pimlical/Desktop where the sync actually takes place. If you need to cancel the sync, just hit the back button. The Wait dialog will be removed when DirectSync completes.

  AutoSync Now

This menu command is used to initiate an immediate AutoSync (normally AutoSync is invoked automatically by Pimlical based upon the preference AutoSyncFrequency).

  Toggle Untimed

This menu command toggles the display of untimed events on and off. This is useful if you have a lot of untimed events on the day, or a lot of floating events - so many that you can't really see your schedule clearly. You can also put this on the command bar so a single tap toggles the display back and forth between showing just timed events and all events.

  Recent Updates

This menu command is used to display a list of all events and tasks that have been modified or created recently. Only those items more recent than the cutoff date/time (as specified in the preference RecentUpdatesCutoff) will be included in the list. The list is sorted in reverse chronological order so the most recently modified/created item is at the top. This can be useful when a change has just been made and you don't remember what event you changed, or when a new item is updated or inserted into the database by AutoSync.

  Past Alarms

This menu command brings up a display of all alarms that triggered on your device in the current day. Missed alarms are not included in this list.

  Backup Everything

This menu command initiates a full backup of the Pimlical folder in Scoped Storage (.../Android/data/com.pimlicosoftware.PimlicalA/files/Pimlical ) (including all files and sub-folders) to a root folder on the filing system (most importantly, outside of scoped storage so other apps can access it. If the preference: BackupEverythingUsesDateTimeStamp is false (default value), then the folder is copied to Pimlical (as a root folder). If you had V-3.7.x or earlier installed, you know that PImlical used to use that folder for its data, but with V-4.0.x, switched to using the Pimlical folder in Scoped Storage. If that preference is true, then the Pimlical folder is copied into a folder of backups named PimlicalBackups (again off the roof of the filing system). Each backup has a name that includes a date/time stamp as the filename, as well as the size. A typical file name looks like:
BackupEverything_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS (538.mb) - where YYYY is the year, MM the day, etc. By naming things this way, if the files are sorted alphabetically, they will also be in chronological order too. The number of backups that can be stored in the PimlicalBackups folder is controlled by the preference: NumberOfBackupsForBackupEverything (default value is 5). If there are more than that number of backups prior to invoking this command, Pimlical will automatically locate the oldest backup and delete it and repeat that step until the number of backups (including the current backup) match the number in that preference.

Backup Everything backs up absolutely everything associated with Pimlical - all user and system preferences, icons, all calendar, contact and memo database and any other sub-folders you may have created underneath Pimlical. Pimlical traverses all files and sub-folders in the PImlical folder and will traverse all sub-folders below .../Android/data/com.pimlicosoftware.PimlicalA/files/Pimlical.

The date of the last Backup Everything and whether or not it was successful is displayed in Menu | About.

There is also a preference: BackupAndroidCalendars which, if set to True (default value)  will backup all the currently selected Android Calendars as well as the local calendar. Each selected Android Calendar is saved as a local-type Calendar in the PimlicalCalendars folder with a name that matches the name of the Android Calendar. All events in that calendar have their DatabaseID fields changed from the Android Calendar to the Local Calendar. This provides comprehensive protection against corruption or loss in Android/Google calendars as the events can be restored (with a small amount of effort) back into the original calendars.

One thing that’s helpful to know: The Backup Everything folder in PimlicalBackups should always have the size of the backup in parentheses after the filename. Now Pimlical does not know that information until the backup completes, so after it completes, it renames the file to include that information. So, if you see a backup with no parentheses at the end of the filename, you can be certain that the backup never completed properly.

Automated Backups

You can have Automated Backups that backup everything by using these Preferences:

DaysBetweenAutoBackupEverything - this preference determines how many days pass between automated backups. The default value is 0 which disables this function. If set to 1, then Pimlical will do the backup every day, if set to 2, then every other day, etc. Pimlical will either just use the Pimlical folder for the backups (constantly overwriting the previous backup) if the preference BackupEverythingUsesDateTimeStamp is set  to false, or if true, will create a new backup in the PimlicalBackups folder.

NumberOfBackupsForBackupEverything - as with manually invoked backups, if the preference is set to use date/time stamps and the PimlicalBackups folder, then if this number of backups already exists, the oldest backup is deleted prior to making the new backup.

BackupEverythingAfterFloatAdvance - This preference, if set to True (default is false), specifies that the Backup Everything command should be executed at the end of the nightly floating advance (default is 2am - see preference AdvanceFloatingEventsTime). The backup can only proceed if Pimlical is open with a main view. If any dialogs are open, or if there is any other activity (such as an AutoSync, etc.) the backup will fail and an error file with the appropriate information will be generated.

If your router supports a local hard drive, setting this preference to True as well as using BackupEverythingRemoteServer and setting DaysBetweenAutoBackupEverything to 1 will result in the backup being performed every night at 2am. This means that the next day if you lose your phone, it hard resets, or is stolen, etc. you still have a full backup taken from the beginning of that day.

Backup Everything to a Remote Server

Backup Everything can also target any number of Remote Servers as well as the local Android Device. To target a Remote Server, you must first set up the access parameters for the Remote Server - see section on Remote Servers in the Advanced Section of the online Manual.

BackupEverythingRemoteServer - This preference can specify the name of the Remote Server (first attribute in the selected Remote Server attribute list as defined by the preference: RemoteServerList ) to be used for the Backup Everything. It can be optionally followed by a comma and a duration value (like 1h, 30m etc.) to set a default value for the Wake Lock. Set this value to something longer than the default of 10m if the backup is taking a significant amount of time, or failing with a network disconnection). For example, this preference could be set to:
Router,30m
to indicate that "Router" is the tag to identify which Remote Server is being referenced, and the 30m indicates that the wake lock (timeout for holding the device awake) is set to thirty minutes. The default value for the timeout is 10mins.

 If this preference is an empty string, the Backup Everything is performed on the local Android device. Not all routers support backup to a local Hard Drive (it requires a hard drive or USB Key connected to a USB port on the router) and some routers have bugs in their FTP software (some, perhaps all, NetGear routers have a bug where they fail to properly release sockets, and after Java has acquired 49 sockets, Java disconnects and the backup fails (fairly obvious since it fails to copy precisely on the 50th file or directory).

Backing up over the internet to a web page is typically even slower than backing up to a router hard drive, and so timeouts and other failures are even more likely to occur. Again this may also be router-dependent and your experience may differ from that of other users with other routers. Also, these file copies appear to be far more reliable for smaller files - larger files (like 10mb) seem to encounter many more errors due to timeouts

  Restore Everything

This menu command initiates a full restore of the Pimlical folder in scoped storage (.../Android/data/com.pimlicosoftware.PimlicalA/files/Pimlical ) from a selected backup. When invoked, and if there is only one backup available, it will proceed to a confirmation dialog, displaying the name of the folder that will be used for the restore. If there are two or more backup, Pimlical displays a list of all available backup copies in reverse chronological order (Newest Backup is first, then the next newest, etc.), along with buttons for [DELETE] which will delete the selected backup, or [OK] to proceed with using the selected backup for Restore and then displaying the confirmation dialog. A [CANCEL] button exits the menu function. The confirmation dialog reminds you this will overwrite ALL your preferences, local databases and files and identifies the backup to be used. There is a  [CANCEL] button to exit the menu function, and a [RESTORE] button which then executes the restoration. At the end of the restoration, the updated preferences and local databases are then all refreshed.

Note that Restore Everything only restores from the local Android Device - you cannot directly restore from a remote server. If you need to restore from a remote server, use a file manager to copy the backup folder from the remote server to local storage on the phone and then use the Restore command.

  File Manager

This menu command initiates a simple File Manager that has access to all of Pimlical's Scoped Storage (.../Android/data/com.pimlicosoftware.PimlicalA/files/Pimlical ) as well as all other files and folders, except for the Scoped Storage areas of other Apps (this is an Android OS limitation, now fully enforced in AOS-14). When first invoked, a File Navigator dialog appears in order to select a file, listing all files and folders in the root of the filing system in alphabetic order (folders listed first). To move to the parent folder at any time, tap on the two periods (..) at the top of the list. Tapping on a file will select that file and bring up the File Operations Dialog. Tapping on a folder will open up that folder.  At the bottom of the dialog are three buttons when viewing files on the Android Device: [Local Folder | Remote Folder+] immediately goes to the Root folder of the filing system. A long press on that button will access the selected Remote Server if you have set one up.  [Pimlical SS] goes to the Pimlical folder in Scoped Storage (.../Android/data/com.pimlicosoftware.PimlicalA/files/Pimlical - note that you can't navigate to this folder from the root, so you have to use this button to access the folder. Finally there is a button with the legend: [Done | MultiSelect+]. The action of this button when tapped depends on whether you are selecting single files, or are in multi-select mode: in single file mode, the button simply exits the File Manager, in multi-select mode, this button displays the File Manager dialog with multiple files selected for operation. A long press on this button toggles multi-select mode on and off. In multi-select mode, only files are displayed along with a checkbox so you can select multiple files. Multiple files can only be selected in a single folder. If you need to navigate to a different folder, you will have to temporarily exit multi-select mode so that folders are displayed. In multi-select mode, the middle button at the bottom of the file navigation dialog has the legend [UnSelect All | Select All+] so a tap unselects all files, and a long-press selects all files. tapping a single file will toggle the selection of the file on and off.

If you prefer to have the folders sorted with the newest items at the top, use the Preference: FileManagerSort and change its value from Alpha to Date.

A long-press on the menu item File Manager in the main menu list allows you to select a Remote Server from the list of Remote Servers specified in the preference: RemoteServerList. A brief tap always selects the first Remote Server in the RemoteServerList preference.

When a file is selected in single file mode (by just tapping on the filename), or by tapping the [Done] button in multi-select mode, the File Manager Dialog appears .The top half of the dialog displays the full path to the file, the filename, the size of the file and the last modification date and time. Below that is a text field listing the name of the file. This is an editable field, so if you choose to copy or rename this file, you would edit the filename in this field. If you enter this dialog with multiple files selected, Pimlical instead displays the number of files selected, and the aggregate file size of all selected files. Also, in this case, the Open/Share/Rename buttons are hidden since they cannot be used on multiple files.

At the bottom of the dialog are six buttons:

[Copy ] - this makes a copy of the file(s), using (in single file selection mode only) the current name in the Filename field. Another File Navigator dialog appears, this time only displaying folders (no files are listed) - so you can navigate to the folder where you want to put the copy. You select the folder by having it as the displayed folder when you tap the [Select Folder] button. If a file exists with that name, a confirmation dialog will appear asking you to confirm the overwrite of the file at which point you can tap [Proceed] to overwrite the file, or [Cancel] to exit the copy function. You can long-press the [Copy] button to skip any confirmation dialog.

[Rename ] - this renames the existing file to the new name displayed in the editable text field. Again, you can long-press the Rename button to skip the confirmation dialog if the new name you pick already matches that of an existing file. This button is hidden in multi-select mode.

[Move ] - this moves the existing file(s) (possibly also being renamed in the editable text field if single selected mode) to the selected folder. Again, you can long-press the Move button to skip the confirmation dialog if the new name you pick already matches that of an existing file in the destination folder. This button is hidden in multi-select mode.

[Delete ] - this deletes the selected file(s), but first (in single select mode) displays a confirmation dialog so you can cancel out of the operation if you wish. Again, a long-press on the [Delete] button will skip this confirmation dialog.

[Open ] - this  passes the file to the Android Operating System with a request for Android to display all Applications that have registered as being capable of opening this file type - a list of those Apps is then displayed by Android, so you can choose the App to open the file with. Note that you can change the extension of the file in this dialog before you tap Open, which will create a copy of the file in the same folder but with the different extension, so you can get prompted for a different set of Apps that had registered that particular extension. This button is hidden in multi-select mode.

[Share ] - this passes the file to the Android Operating System with a request for Android to share this file with any application that has registered as being capable of accepting a shared file - a list of those Apps is then displayed by Android, so you can choose the App to share the file with. Note that you can change the extension of the file in this dialog before you tap Share so you can get prompted for a different set of Apps that had registered that particular extension (again, doing that creates a duplicate of the file with the different extension). This button is hidden in multi-select mode.

[OK ] - this exits the File Manager Dialog and returns to the File Selection List (tap Done button in that list to return to Main Screen).

Pressing the Android BACK button will exit the current dialog and return to the initial File Navigator Dialog. The title of the File Navigator dialog shows the current file path. At the start of the title,  .../ is used to represent the root of the filing system (rather than displaying the lengthy: /storage/emulated/0). When displaying files in scoped storage, /Pimlical [SS] is used to represent the lengthy path to scoped storage (.../Android/data/com.pimlicosoftware.PimlicalA/files/Pimlical ). Whenever you select a file and exit the File Manager, the File Manager will remember the last folder you looked at and will start off with that folder the next time you invoke the File Manger.

 Debug

The debug menu item is only displayed if the preference DebugMode is set to True. The Debug dialog is primarily used by Pimlico Software to diagnose issues within the calendar database and used under direction of Pimlico's Tech Support. However, there are also many useful support/maintenance functions as well:

Calendar Columns - Used to generate a text file in the Pimlical folder with the name CalendarColumns_YYYYMMDDtHHMMSS.txt which contains the names of all the fields in the Android database of available Android calendars (generates field names and values for every calendar).

Event Columns - Used to generate a text file in the Pimlical folder with the name EventColumns_YYYYMMDDtHHMMSS.txt which contains the names of all the fields for every calendar in the Android calendar database.

Find Event - Used to generate a text file in the Pimlical folder with the name EventValues_YYYYMMDDtHHMMSS.txt which contains all the fields in the Android database of calendars for those events that contain the designated string in the Description field of the event. If the Find field is left blank, all events in all calendars are written to the file.

Convert Seconds - there are several places internally where Pimlical will display a date/time in seconds since 00:00 on 1-jan-1970 (referred to as the Unix Epoch). This feature allows you to quickly convert those into a conventional date and time.

Filter Attributes - this button will dump the contents of the currently selected filter into a file with the name DumpOfFilter_{Filter Name}_YYYYMMDDtHHMMSS.txt. It shows each filter attribute and the current value of that item.

Check Unique ID's - every item in the database should have a uniqueID assigned to it. If there are any duplicates, odd things will happen (such as an alarm sounds, but the wrong description text is displayed, etc.). This function checks to see if all ID's are unique, and if not, will fix them by assigning a new ID.

Advance Floats - this button invokes the routine to advance floating events. if events have already been advanced for the day, it has no affect. It can also be used to generate advances right away for newly created events with advances (normally the advances don't show up until the next floating event advance time).

Strip Memo Tags - This function remains for historical reasons only. There was a time that Pimlical stored memos in separate text files and used to insert a date/time tag (like [dts: xxxxx) because the Android OS was not properly handling date/time stamps on files. This function strips out all those tags from the memo text.

Rebuild Categories - This function rebuilds all the category tables based upon all the categories that are currently used in all of the selected calendars. Some times, the category list can end up accumulating a lot of old category names that are no longer in used - this function would remove them.

Restore Memos - This function allows you to access the Restore Memo function to restore your Memos from an older backup files in the case where you cannot even access the Memo section of Pimlical because it causes an exception error - this way you have a 'back-door' to the Restore function.

Strip Pimlical Tags - This button strips ALL the custom tags that Pimlical puts in the note field of Android calendar events. Normally these tags are not seen (because Pimlical converts them into the actual local fields in Pimlical calendar for display). However, if you choose to no longer use Pimlical, you may wish to first strip out all those custom tags since they would no longer have any meaning.

Restore Contacts - as with Restore Memos, thus provides a back-door to the function that restores the contacts database from a backup copy when you can not even access the Contacts section without encountering a fatal Exception Error that prevents you from getting to the Contacts Menu.

Remove Deletions - This function removes ALL deleted records from the calendar database. It first checks to see if there are any deleted records, and if so, will backup the calendar first, before removing the deleted records. Note that if you sync this calendar regularly to another calendar and perform a Synchronize operation, most likely those deleted records will be restored to the calendar (that's precisely why deleted records are left around in the database!).

Remove Duplicates - This function removes all duplicate records in the calendar database. If two events are identical except that one is in the Unfiled category and the other is in some OTHER category, Pimlical ensures that it will always be the item in the Unfiled category that is removed.  If the two items also have duplicate ID's, Pimlical assigns a NEW ID to the duplicate so that it can be deleted without affecting the original event.

Reset AutoSync - resets the authentication for AutoSync, so that on the next AutoSync, CloudRail will request re-authentication for access from the selected cloud-based server (like Dropbox).

View Error Files - This function will display up to 25 current Error files stored in the Pimlical folder. Some error files have to do with System error conditions rather than Pimlical - for example, if you are trying to sync, but have no network connection, this could cause an error file to be generated. If you are encountering some kind of problem, it's typically helpful to Tech Support to review all your error files. Users with a subscription also have a button that will delete all error files with a single tap. If there are no error files, the button is grayed out. File length for viewing error files in this dialog is limited to 5k characters.

Internal Reset - This function resets some internal parameters inside the program and should only be used at the direction of Pimlical Technical Support. Invoking this command can reset your license condition to an unknown condition, and will also reset the date for menu | Backup Everything to todays' date.

View Log Files - This function will display up to 25 current Log files stored in the Pimlical folder (there are usually only a handful). These are typically used to hold the results of syncs, etc. Users with a subscription also have a button that will delete all log files with a single tap. If there are no log files, the button is grayed out. File length for viewing log files in this dialog is limited to 5k characters.

Refresh Widget - This function will force a refresh of the widget, by clearing any conflicting flags or processes that might have been preventing it from running, and also re-establishing the periodic interval for refreshes. It might not activate until that period has elapsed (i.e. if you have it refreshing every 15m, it might take as long as 15m for the first refresh to occur).

Preference Diffs - This function will write a file that shows you exactly which preferences you have that differ from the default preference settings. The currently selected preference file is used for this operation. The file is written to the Pimlical folder with the name: Preference-Differences_{Preference Filename}.txt (in debug mode, a date/time stamp in the form YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS is appended to the filename). The file displays three columns for the preference Tag, the current value that you have set, and the default value for that preference setting. All items are listed in the order that they appear in the selected Preference File. If there are Preference tags that are not listed in the default Preference file, those tags are listed at the very end of the file. This is useful for selectively resetting preferences in a section, for helping determine why something peculiar is going on and finally, as a method of documenting your current preferences in a form which makes it easier to restore them if doing that from scratch. Finally, you may be asked to provide this file as an attachment by Tech Support when attempting to resolve some issue that you may be having.  Note that embedded spaces are not stripped from the comparison (only leading and trailing spaces for the preference value are stripped), so if this routine is comparing say 255, 254, 255 with 255,254,255, it will report that they are different.

Find Record # - This function displays a dialog where you can enter a record number in the database. It will then display the description and date/time of the associated event (assuming it exists). This would primarily be used after some error message/file reported a problem by record # (such as corruption, etc.).