Opening non-date specific resources automatically to today's date

Mike Hogue

I have several resources that are laid out in a "date-like" structure that aren't actually done by date. For example, Boa's Handbook to Prayer, None But the Hungry Heart within the Complete Works of Miles J. Stanford, etc. These books are often divided into 12 sections that have 31 subsections each.

Is there a way to get them to open to the section/subsection corresponding to the date?  If I open a calendar devotional (e.g. Carson's For the Love of God) from my library it will automatically open to the correct date. 

A reading plan could work, except that most of the time these devotionals have extra subsections that don't correspond to the correct number of days in the month. For these instances, I'd be fine to ignore the extra subsections.  I'd just like section 2-28 to advance to 3-1...unless it's a leap year, of course.

Is there a way to set this up? Perhaps using the COM API?

Thanks in advance!

Dave Hooton

For example, Boa's Handbook to Prayer

For these instances, I'd be fine to ignore the extra subsections.  I'd just like section 2-28 to advance to 3-1...unless it's a leap year,

The nearest you will get without undue effort is a Generated Reading Plan (from Docs > New > Reading Plan) that is read "At your own pace". Each day-of-the-month is a single session, together with Part 1, seven day-of-week sessions from Part 3 and some unwanted sessions. You can improve this with a Custom Reading Plan because you can remove unwanted sessions, but only the first 31-day month will correspond to actual dates and you can't add further readings to each session i.e. you can't incorporate Part 1 and Part 3 readings with the daily readings. The Part 1 Morning Affirmations cannot be sub-divided as it is a single entry in the Table of Contents. It would be different if the book had page numbers.

If you choose a Custom Reading Plan (from Docs > New > Reading Plan), use Add to import the "At your own pace" Plan.Then:

• Remove the first few sessions so that the first reading is Day 1 of the First Month
• Adjust the Start Date to Jan 1st.
• You will now see that Day 1 of the Second Month will not start on the correct date, even if you remove The Second Month session.
• Neither will Day 1 of the Third Month start correctly.
• Remove the seven day-of-week sessions at the end

You will have a Plan but the resource constrains what can be done.