Getting started

anYChe is an acronym for AnniversaryChecker. With anYChe you can manage several lists of anniversaries. Each anniversary consists of a person, the date of the anniversary, the type of the anniversary and arbitrary notices. anYChe can be configured to check for new anniversaries directly after logging on to your system. Another possibility is the timebased checking in certain intervals (but therefore you must know how to configure cronjobs on the Linux- or Windows platform). By the way: You can open this manual in your favourite browser too. Just navigate to the installation directory of anYChe. There you will find a subdirectory called help which includes another directory named en. Here you can open the file manual.html in your browser.

System requirements

anYChe runs on Linux and Windows. In general, anYChe should also function on Apples Mac OSX, but this can't be tested because I have not the needed hardware. Moreover any other platform may work, where you can install the programming language Python, the cross-platform-tool wxWidgets and wxPython.

Installation / Deinstallation

First of all you have to download an actual version of this program for you operating system.

Linux
For Linux you will get anYChe as a zipped TAR archive. This archive can be decompressed in an empty directory of your choice. In general it would be a good idea, to unpack the files in /opt/anyche. If you get root on your system, you can type in the following commands in a shell (the placeholders x and y must be replaced by the actually downloaded version number):

# cd /opt
# mkdir anyche
# cd anyche
# tar zxvf /path/to/your/downloadfolder/anyche-x.y.tgz

If you have installed the packages of Python 2.6 or 2.8, wxWidgets 2.8 and wxPython 2.8, you can start anYChe by typing in /opt/anyche/anyche. Now you will the main window of the program.

Windows XP / Windows 7
The installation is started as usual on Windows by simply starting the file anyche-setup-x.y.exe (x and y are placeholders for the exact version number). During the installation you will be asked, where you want to install anYChe, if you want to create a desktop icon and if the program should be launched directly after successful installation. With the buttons Next and Back you can navigate through the installation process very comfortable. At the last stage you can finish the installation by a simple click on the button Finish.

If you do not need anYChe any more, you can remove the program by calling the system control of Windows. This just removes the installation directory. Datafiles with anniversaries created by anYChe are not deleted. So you have to delete them manually from your harddisk by using the Windows Explorer.

If you are a developer too and you are already using Python 2.6 or 2.8 on your Windows system, you can alternatively download the TAR archive. With a program like 7zip you can install anYChe in a directory of your choice. For running anYChe you also need to install the tools wxWidgets and wxPython on your system. Now you can start anYChe by calling python anyche.py.

Arguments

anYChe can be called with some parameters:

• -c, --check: When this argument is given, then anYChe will check for forthcoming anniversaries. If no events are found, anYChe exits silently. But if there are anniversaries, then anYChe will present them in a separate window.
• --checkconsole=text: anYChe will check for forthcoming anniversaries. If no events are found, anYChe exits silently. If anniversaries are found, anYChe will show the result as text on the console. This argument is not available, if you have installed anYChe using the installation program of the Windows platform!
• --checkconsole=csv: anYChe will check for forthcoming anniversaries. If no events are found, anYChe exits silently. If anniversaries are found, anYChe will show the result as a comma separated list on the console. This output can be used by other programs. This argument is not available, if you have installed anYChe using the installation program of the Windows platform!
• -f FILE, --file=FILE: With this parameter you can explicitly choose the location and name of the configuration file. It is recommended that you use an absolute pathname. Generally this parameter is not necessary, because anYChe chooses the right location of the configuration file automatically for you.
  • Linux: The configuration is saved in a file named .anyche in the home folder of the user.
  • Windows: The configuration file will be saved at c:\user\\AppData\Local\scheernet.de\ in a file named anyche.ini. Absolutely no data will be saved in the registry of Windows!
• --force: In the preferences you can choose, that anYChe should check for the occurrency of anniversaries once per day. With the option --force you can override this setting. If you set this option, you also have to set --check or --checkconsole=text|csv. This argument is not available, if you have installed anYChe using the installation program of the Windows platform!
• --help: Show a short helptext. This argument is not available, if you have installed anYChe using the installation program of the Windows platform!
• --version: Show the version of the program. This argument is not available, if you have installed anYChe using the installation program of the Windows platform!
• -w SECONDS, --wait=SECONDS: Wait the number of seconds, before checking for forthcoming anniversaries. When you set this option, you also have to set --check or --checkconsole=text|csv. If --check is given as a parameter, the option --wait overrides any setting in the preferences of anYChe. This way you can define a default delay with the preferences, which can be ignored when called from the commandline. If you set --wait to 0, then no waiting takes place.