Tuesday tip: Using the Calendar

Today’s Tuesday tip is about how to use the Calendar. In some ways this feature of the software does what any normal Calendar does and you may be thinking that this is going to be a very quick tip! But there are a few useful things to know about the Calendar in order to get more out of your Visual Liturgy program.

You can access the Calendar by clicking on the symbol in the option bar on the left-hand side of the screen.

Once open, the Calendar will display the current month, and the current date will be shaded pale yellow. You will also notice other items in the Calendar such as Calendar Events. These are lectionary items held in the Visual Liturgy database, for example, the name of a particular Sunday or a Saint’s Day. Church calendar events are also displayed in the relevant font as specified by the Annual Lectionary publication. Other items that will show in the Calendar are Service Events (these are the services that you have planned and which appear in blue on any particular day you have chosen), and finally Diary Items: these are notes or reminders that you have added. Diary Items are displayed in black text with a yellow icon to the left of the note.

Adding a new diary entry
You can add a new diary entry by clicking on the ‘New Diary Entry’ button. This will open the Diary entry dialog box. Select a date for your entry by typing it into the ‘Diary entry for’ box or by clicking the down arrow on the right-hand side of the box and selecting a date from the drop-down calendar. Type the text of your Diary entry in the space provided and click OK to add the entry to the Calendar.

Viewing Calendar items
To view an item you need to highlight a calendar event, service or diary item and click the ‘Open item’ button to at the bottom of the screen to view the details for the highlighted item.

You can choose which service items are displayed by clicking on the Filter items button to open the Filter items dialog box. Tick the check box next to the item you wish to include using the scroll bar to see items that are not visible. Select the track and, if you wish to, include linked readings by ticking the check boxes associated with these options.

Finding events
You can also search for events on your Calendar. For example, if you would like to know on what date Easter Day falls in 2007, click the Find Event button (or right click anywhere in the Calendar and select Find event… from the shortcut menu) to open the Find event dialog box Once the box opens, click on ‘Filter’ and type in ‘Easter’ then click ok. Highlight Easter day in the events list and select which year you want from the drop down box at the top and click select. The calendar will then jump to that day.

To find when Easter falls. Click on ‘Filter’ and type in ‘Easter’ then click ok. Highlight Easter day in the events list and select which year you want from the drop down box at the top and click select. The calendar will then jump to that day.