I wanted to create a calendar on my home page that would allow you to navigate to each article published in the current month. A calendar like the one pictured left. So to that end I wrote a little application to do the work (screenshot below at right).

The premise is that you pick the month (say April 2002), then add a link entry for each day that has an article. If I write an article on the 25th, I simply copy the URL (magic name in CityDesk), and add an entry for 25 and the URL (see below):

Once I’ve added all my entries I click the ‘Copy’ button to copy it to the clipboard and paste it into the right place in CityDesk. Bob’s your uncle.

It’s a pretty simple application, but that’s the whole idea. It’s written using Microsoft Visual C# for the Microsoft .NET framework. You can override most of the output of the table and cells by using the ‘Settings’ button.

The application was written on Windows XP and has been tested on Windows 2000, although it should work just fine on Windows 98 and above. You are required to install the Microsoft.NET Framework 2.0 to get it to run (sorry about that, it’s about a 23MB download) which you can find here (Microsoft).

Download the Installer (v1.4 - 324KB)

The release notes follow:

• Fixed problem with the installer on Vista. [1.4.3211.31386]
• You can now set the “Permanent link to archive for” text in the settings dialog to anything you want. [1.4.2190.24866]
• If the software crashes an option to submit a crash report has been added. It’s completely anonymous and entirely optional. You can now specify a different link target for monthly links than daily links. The month and day names can now be customised in the settings dialog - this means you can use any language you like. [1.3.2013.35022]
• Fixed a problem where the configuration wasn’t being correctly loaded on new installs. [1.2.1629.31403]
• Upgraded the installer and made a couple of build setting changes - nothing interesting. [1.2.1625.26966]
• Added a new settings dialog to control the generated HTML (on the toolbar). Added an option to the settings to set Monday as the first day of the week. [1.2.1612.33571]
• Added a field for the target frame that links open in (suggestion by Jeff Kolker). [1.1.1396.27666]
• The installer now stops if you try to run it when HTMLMonthCreator is running, now built using Visual Studio.NET 2003 for .NET framework 1.1, also testing for .NET framework 1.1 before installing (let me know if it gets it wrong), added a new icon (thanks MS Office 2003). [1.1.1384.28294]
• Moved the registry settings from global section (HKLM) to user-specific section (HKCU) like all good applications should do, if last loaded month can’t be found stop trying to locate it each time it starts. [1.1.1346.37724]
• If you make a change and open another month you’re prompted to save, MRU menu is sorted in reverse chronological order, the last month is automatically reloaded when you start the app. [1.1.1335.32786]
• The clipboard is no longer cleared when you exit and the installer now adds an item to the CityDesk 2 ‘Tools’ menu to launch HTMLMonthCreator. [1.1.1308.23533]
• Changed the html for the caption to work around a bug in Mozilla 1.3. [1.1168.17829]
• Improved HTML generation as suggested by John Topley (thanks John). [1.1.1134.22528]
• Added most-recently-used menu next to ‘open’ button, added ‘copy’ button, removed ‘generate button’ so app always generates HTML and put exact build number into ‘about’ box. [1.1.1061.39360]
• Initial release. [1.0]