This section takes you step by step through a first session with Mentor.

Start Mentor from the Extras bar (which will create a file called "Mentor" in your documents directory - "C:\Documents" by default), or use "New File" in the System screen, and set Program to "Mentor" - this creates a file in the folder shown in the System screen. Either way, Mentor will start up, displaying the splash screen.

When Mentor starts, it shows the last view of the file that you used. For new files, the Role view is displayed, because this is where you will need to define some contexts. In this example, we'll be following the progress of Joe, a busy professional who received Mentor for Christmas 1999. It's now Bank Holiday Monday, and Joe would like to start preparing for the extremely busy week ahead - a packed three day working week followed by some serious celebrations!

Role view shows a three week window of days, and the time slots allocated to these days in each context. Happily noting Year 2000 compliance, Joe moves on to define some contexts, which the manual tells him is on the "Context" menu.

Joe selects "Edit contexts..." and the "Add context" dialog appears. Normally, the "Edit Contexts" dialog would be displayed, but as none are defined yet, Mentor brings up "Add" automatically.

Joe decides to create a "Home" context for his personal tasks, so he enters "Home" in the Name field, and "Personal tasks" as a Description. Next, Joe presses the Symbol button to define a symbol for the "Home" role.

Joe clicks on the icon showing a person, to represent "me". The symbol is displayed at all three zoom levels at the top of the dialog. Joe selects "OK", returning to the "Add Context" dialog, then clicks "OK" to add that context. The "Edit Contexts" dialog is now displayed, and Joe presses the "Add" button to add another.

This time, Joe names the context "Work", enters "Work tasks" as a description, and selects a factory symbol. He then returns to the "Edit Contexts" dialog and presses "Done".

Now he can enter some time slots!

Selecting the "Context" menu again, Joe taps on "Create time slot..."

Joe wants to enter time slots for his normal working week, so he selects the "Work" context from the list. He decides to allocate an 8 hour day, so selects "Custom" and presses "OK" - the dialog is then refreshed.

Joe enters 8 hours, describing this as his "Normal work day". Of course, December 27th isn't a normal work day for Joe, but he can sort that out later. When he presses OK, the screen is refreshed to show his new time slot.

The first symbol shows that this is a "Work" time slot, the arrow is the cursor, then there are two symbols divided by a "/" sign. This means that no time (a dot) out of a day (the sun symbol) has been used (i.e. no tasks have been allocated to this slot yet).

Joe needs to repeat this time slot for every working day, so he selects the "Context" menu again, and taps on "Set Repeat...".

This brings up the "Set Repeat Type" dialog. The repeat types are the same as for the built in Agenda application.

Joe selects "Weekly" and presses "OK", bringing up the "Set Repeat" dialog.

Joe checks "Repeat forever" to make the task repeat continuously, and taps on the "Advanced" button (the "Test" button just refreshes the dialog to show the effects of changing fields).

Joe sets his working days, and presses OK, returning to the "Set Repeat" dialog.

Joe then sets priority to be "Recessive". This means that if his work day clashes with another time slot, then that other slot will take priority, and the work day slot won't be used. In this way, if Joe schedules a slot for, say, a day's holiday, his work time slot for that day effectively disappears. If he then moved his holiday to another day, the slot would come back, unlike deleted slots which are removed permanently.

Joe taps "OK" and the screen refreshes.

Now Joe has time slots for every work day!

Next, Joe taps on the calendar cell for 1st January 2000. He goes through the same process again, creating a new time slot for "Home", and then setting it to repeat on every Saturday and Sunday using a Weekly repeat.

Joe doesn't want to work on holidays, so he decides to delete the time slots for Monday and Friday. Selecting Monday, he presses the "Del" key.

Selecting "Yes", another dialog is presented which asks whether Joe wants to delete "Only this occurrence" or "All current occurrences" (meaning all except those in the past). Joe selects "Only this occurrence" and presses "OK". He then repeats this for Friday and the following Monday (the New Year Bank Holiday).

Joe has nearly finished setting up his time slots. All that remains is to enter some time slots for the bank holidays. He enters a "Home" time slot for Monday and Friday, choosing a "Day" for today, and a "Half Day" for New Year's Eve. Knowing that he's going on a trip on the 3rd, Joe decides not to enter any time slots at all, so tasks won't be scheduled to that day.

Joe's now ready to start entering tasks. All this work defining time slots will pay off now, as Mentor knows when tasks can be scheduled, and how much time is available on each day. Joe selects the Task view.

The task view shows all the tasks within Mentor, regardless of when they are scheduled. It is useful for entering tasks and organising them. Joe knows all about this - being a sensible chap he has read the manual!

He decides to enter a "composite task" - these act like folders in the file system. Using these, you can create a hierarchy of tasks, as complex as you like. To enter a new task, Joe simply starts typing, just like in the built in Agenda application.

Joe types "Next century!" and the "New Task" dialog appears.

Pressing Enter completes the creation of a new task - Joe hasn't had to use the dialog at all! This makes Mentor very quick for entering tasks as you think of them - you can always provide more details later.

The sphere icon (second column) indicates that this is an atomic task - i.e. a single "to do" item, rather than a collection of other tasks. Joe wants this to be composite, however, so he selects "Make composite" from the "Task" menu, which changes this to the composite symbol.

Joe can now tap on this composite entry, to enter tasks for his Millennium preparations. He does so (Mentor moves down the hierarchy into this composite entry), and then types "buy party booze" - his first task. This brings up the "New Task" dialog again - but this time, Joe fills in the details, using the "Home" context, and choosing an Importance value - Joe selects "Core" importance, which means firstly that the task must happen and secondly, that it's due on its scheduled date.

Next, Joe sets Urgency, choosing the "Dated" option. Urgency is all about when a task has to happen, and this one certainly has a specific due date!

Pressing "OK", the dialog refreshes, showing fields for scheduled and due dates. Joe leaves the scheduled date as today, but sets the due date to Friday. Note that Urgency has been set to "Automatic" - this means that Mentor will calculate how urgent the task is based on the due date - as the date approaches the urgency will increase!

Joe next sets the size of the task. Mentor makes this easy by presenting a number of options - is this a ten minute task or is it more likely to take an hour? This is the sort of question you can answer rapidly - you don't need to think hard about exactly what values to use. Joe sets this task to "Hour" - he's got a lot of booze to buy!

This just leaves the status of the task. Joe sets this to "Not started".

Now Joe taps on "OK", and the task is displayed.

Symbols display the context (Home), that this is an Atomic task, with Step importance, ASAP urgency, of Size one hour and status Not Started. The symbol in the right hand column indicates that the task is Floating, which means that Mentor will reschedule it automatically. You can also set tasks to be Fixed, so that Mentor will leave them where they are, whatever happens.

Why is the importance set to Step, when Joe entered Core? This is because the data that Joe entered was did not make sense. "Core" tasks have the same due date as their scheduled date, while "Step" tasks can slip from their scheduled date, because their due date is sometime later. Joe described his task as "Core", but set a due date sometime later than the scheduled date. When entered values are inconsistent in this way, Mentor makes sense of them, and sets appropriate values automatically.

The idea with Core and Step is that you can look at your schedule of tasks for a day and see which must be done that day (the core of your schedule), and which you have planned to do that day (still committed, but they can be rescheduled).

Urgency is set to ASAP because Joe has scheduled this to be done today.

Joe enters a couple more tasks - first another Home task, which he sets with Core, ASAP, Minutes and Not Started parameters.

Mentor schedules this task to today, and as it's Core, makes it due today as well.

Next is a Work task - Joe needs to archive his PC before the new year. Leaving the default scheduled date of Today, Joe enters the task.

Mentor detects that there is no time slot for the task, because the scheduled date is not a work day. The dialog shows the scheduled and due dates as entered, and below that the suggested scheduled and due dates (in this case to schedule the task to Tuesday, as there is a time slot in the Work context on that day). Joe chooses "OK", which accepts the suggested dates.

Having scheduled this task to Tuesday, the Urgency for that task is set to Soon (a clock) rather than ASAP (a warning sign). Changing to Role view, Joe can see the effect that this has had on his time slots.

Role view shows that about an hour of his day has been taken up on both Monday and Tuesday. Joe taps on the header for the 27th December cell, which takes him to schedule view for that day.

Schedule view is like Task view, but it only shows the task list for a given date, without any task hierarchy (composite tasks). As it shows only one day, the Urgency value is not shown. Joe can see all the tasks he has scheduled for today, wherever they are in the task hierarchy.

Joe is getting familiar with Mentor, now. In Role view, he can set up time slots for his different roles and see how much time has been used up by the tasks he has created. In Task view he can manage all his tasks together, grouped however he likes, regardless of when they are scheduled. With Schedule view, he can focus on the list of tasks he has for today. As he enters tasks, Mentor makes sure that there is time in his schedule to fit them in, and as things change, it keeps them up to date.

We'll hear more from Joe later, but now he's off to check his stocks of aspirin!

That concludes your whistle stop tour of what Mentor can do - it's only scratched the surface, but hopefully it's been enough to inspire you to read on, and to try Mentor for yourself!