MiG InfoCom Calendar InfoCom AB User Manual

© 2007 MiG InfoCom AB

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

- MiG InfoCom AB -

Revised for v6.0

© 2007 MiG InfoCom AB

Product FAQ

What is MiG Calendar?

It is a calendar component that can be used to create any type of
application that shows time based events such as flight times,
appointments, TV schedules, school schedules, event itineraries, project
plans, Gantt charts and alarm visualization.
The preferred way to use MiG Calendar is through the Java Beans in
com.miginfocom.beans.* package.

You say the component is Flexible and Extensible, what do you
mean?

We have made the component extensible in may ways so that the user of
it should never end up in a dead end and not be able to proceed. There
are short cuts so the component is really easy to use, but you also go a
very custom way with almost everything. For instance the visualization of
the events: You can with only one line swap in another AShape that
should do the visualization, or you can exchange the whole rendering path
and use whatever code you prefer to paint them. You can also map an
AShape to the paintContext of the activity.
Same thing with the placement of the activities in the date grid, there are
four different layout managers for this included in the component, but you
can easily write you own since ActivityLayout is a normal Java Interface.

What's in for the future of the component, in what direction will it
evolve? Do you have a product plan?

Yes we do, however it's not public for the moment.

If you have any recommendations on what to include in the next major
version please don't hesitate to contact us at the forums or by email.

http://www.miginfocom.com/forums/

[e-mail]

Is MiG Calendar a Visually editable Java Bean?

Yes. From v5.5 it is. It works in all Java Bean compatible IDEs. See below
for IDE support. In 6.0 this approach has been improved further and the
use of JavaBeans is now the recommended way to code against MiG
Calendar.

Do you have a feature matrix?

The flexibility in the component makes is support almost any feature

© 2007 MiG InfoCom AB

thinkable. For instance we can take the Activity class, which outlines
something that is time based. You can set any property on it and set any
object type for that property. The visualization of that activity, which is
done trough one or many ActivityViews, can depend on the value of that
property. This makes for an unsurpassed, almost unlimited, flexibility. A
feature matrix would not do this flexibility justice.

Can I use the component in an application that I sell?

Yes, as long as you don't expose the component's API. There are no
runtime fees. You just have to buy one developer license for every
developer working with the component.

What IDEs do your component support?

Any that is Java Bean compatible. Since the whole component comes in
one .jar file it is very simple to include in your current environment. How
you do this differs between the IDEs, but usually you will include it in the
classpath and/or set it as an external library. Tests has been run against
netBeans 4.1+, JFormDesigner 2.0+, JBuilder X, JBuilder 2006. (JBuilder
2005 has a severe bug the hinders it from working with custom beans)
and Eclipse (Visual Designer and Swing Designer).

Which versions of Java do you support?

Java 1.4.0 and higher. Sub pixel (LCD) anti aliasing is even supported for
JDK 6.0!

How many simultaneous activities can the component handle?

We have an internal test that creates 100.000 activities and shows 10% of
them visually. It starts up and displays them in 8 seconds and consumes
95 MB of memory according to Windows Task Manager (which means the
actual component is actually using much less). We use no special
tweaking or command line arguments. Just the normal client VM and Java

1.5.0_01.

Do the component support recurrent events/activities?

Yes. We have used the standard iCalendar specification from RFC 2445 as
a base and support all of the recurrence rules, including include and
exclude boolean operations. It has been Java-fied though and are
therefore much simpler to use, yet very powerful. It can even be used
separately for recurrence calculation. If you are to use medium to
advanced recurrence calculations that part in itself is probably worth the
money for the component.

Do you provide any standard dialogs?

No.

What can the AShape framework do?

You can build an advanced shape framework with it, much like SVG