Accessing a Contact’s Menu

Each Birthday listing can be clicked on to reveal a list of common tasks associated with the contact and their event.

Selecting this menu item will open the selected contact in Address Book.

Send E-Mail...

Selecting this menu item will open a new window in your local mail program (such as Apple’s Mail or Microsoft’s Entourage) addressed to the first e-mail address listed for the contact.

This selection will not function properly if you access e-mail through your web browser.

If you do not have an E-Mail address for a contact the selection will be inactive.

Send E-Card...

This selection will take you to amazon.com’s E-Card site.

Send Flowers...

This selection will take you to the flower ordering page from your closest Amazon.  It is not currently available for every Amazon site and will not be seen in the menu if it is not available.

Find Wish List...

Birthday Bar searches, automatically, to find wish lists for your contacts.  If Birthday Bar was unable to find a wish list, or if you have the ‘Check for Wish Lists’ preference disabled, this menu item will appear.  Selecting it will open your web browser and take you to your closest Amazon’s wish list search page, searching for the name of your contact automatically.  See the section on Birthday Bar Privacy to read about the privacy ramifications of selecting this menu item.

If Birthday Bar was successful in finding a wish list for your contact it will display this option.  Selecting this menu item will open your web browser directly to the web page showing your contact’s wish list.

Preferences

Birthday Bar preferences are accessed by clicking on the disclosure triangle on the left side of the bar.

Select between positioning the bar at the top or the bottom of the screen.  Additional positioning can be done by command-dragging the Birthday Bar to another location on the screen (see Repositioning the Bar, below.)

Bar Size

Select between three display sizes for the bar.

Bar Opacity

Select the opacity of the bar from completely transparent to completely opaque.

Bar Color

Opens a color picker so that you may choose the background color of the bar.

Birthdays to Show

Select the number of upcoming dates you’d like Birthday Bar to show.  You may choose a number between 1 and 6.

Date Format

Select between showing the date formatted as Month / Day or as Day / Month.

Change Font

Opens a font picker that you can use to change the font that Birthday Bar uses to show upcoming events.

Check for Wish Lists

If this is selected Birthday Bar will send the e-mail address of your contact to the various Amazon websites (amazon.com, amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, amazon.co.jp) to see if they have registered a wish list.  See the section on Birthday Bar Privacy to read about the privacy ramifications of enabling this feature.

Closest Amazon

Certain selections in Birthday Bar, such as ‘Find Wish List...” and ‘Send Flowers...’ will take you to one of the Amazon websites.  Use this pop-up to select between being taken to amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk, amazon.co.jp, amazon.com, and amazon.de, amazon.fr)

When this is selected, Birthday Bar will check the shoofile.com website weekly for updates.  If there is an update the bar will change to the color indicated in the Update Color color picker.  The latest version of Birthday Bar may be downloaded from http://www.shoofile.com/birthdaybar.dmg.  See the section on Birthday Bar Privacy to read about the privacy ramifications of enabling this feature.

Update Color

Clicking on this brings up a color picker that allows you to change the color Birthday Bar turns when an update to the software is available.

Alert for Upcoming Events

When this is selected Birthday Bar will alert you by changing the color of the bar as an event nears.  The color of the alert, and the number of days in advance you will receive the warning, can be adjusted in the two preferences below.

Alert Color

Clicking on this brings up a color picker that allows you to change the color Birthday Bar turns when an event is near.

Warning Days

Select the number of days in advance of an event you would like the Birthday Bar to change color as an alert.

Open Birthday Bar when I log in

If you would like Birthday Bar to run automatically when you log in, so that you do not need to open it manually, turn on this preference.  If you would like Birthday Bar only to open when you command, turn this preference off.

Quit

Shuts down the Birthday Bar program.  Remember that Birthday Bar may automatically re-launch the next time you turn on your computer or log-in if you have selected the “Open Birthday Bar when I log in” preference.

Okay

Sets the birthday bar to the preferences you have selected and closes the preference pane.

Repositioning the Bar

The Birthday Bar can be repositioned by command-dragging the bar from one corner of the display to another.  Hold the command key on your keyboard (⌘) while moving the mouse onto the Birthday Bar.  Click and hold the mouse button while moving the mouse to drag it out of place.  Move the Birthday Bar toward another corner of the screen.  When you get close to a corner it will snap into place.

If you have multiple displays attached to the computer, Birthday Bar can be command-dragged to the corner of any of those displays.