I 100% agree that good control of repeating events would be very useful, in particular with the upcoming Alarms/Reminders feature!
In Outlook a repeating event is added to the Calendar for each time the event is to be repeated. It seems to be there for "all dates in the future" (at least what is visible when scrolling). Each event can be individually edited so that means that one could "add notes etc" (the whole series can of course also be edited).
Also, in Ecco, I create many recurring Events in the "Tickler" so the option to show Recurring Events in Grids would great.
Hm, I guess there are two opposing impulses at work when it comes to recurring events.
1. User wants to see all recurrences when browsing / scrolling through his calendar, many instances (e.g. birthdays for yearly) ahead. The current model accomplishes this quite well.
2. User will want to modify individual instances without modifying the single repeating ('mother') event, e. g. take notes on present ideas for birthday, time the party begins etc. or notes to prepare for one session of a recurring meeting. But if IQ were to create repeating events as a string of individual instances over long timespans, it would create a lot of data in the calendar. So the 'look ahead' time would have to be limited which sort of contradicts requirement number 1.
3. Personally, I clone most scheduled calendar events to my main action grid so they become task-like and can be arranged in order together with other tasks. So if I have doctor's appointment at 10, I drag some tasks above it and some tasks below it, depending on what I want to get done before and after the appointment.
The problem I'm facing with 3 is that the appointment column for the item representing the event in the grid currently shows the weekday for when the recurring item was created (e. g. the weekday of a child's first birthday when I created the item, rather than that of the current instance, e. g. the fifth birthday). I have not yet found a way to change that and it often confuses me. Adding the weekday to the beginning of the item text helps but it's an extra step and doesn't always prevent confusion.
Maybe a combination of both types of features works best? I. e. have two recurring events for the same occasion:
- one in the current style to populate the calendar for many years ahead to mark the day
- a further event representing each individual instance, for each year since the event created up to the current date / month / year plus a user-configurable interval into the future (e. g. the next five years)?
However, users might dislike have two representations of the same event in their calendar so - as you suggested - maybe the individual instances should be accessible only by interacting with the 'mother' event?
Exciting stuff, will certainly give this some more thought...
Maybe clicking on the 'mother' item could open a grid containing all recurring items from the calendar as TLIs. Here, there should be an easy way to add individual instances (suggest possible dates in a dropdown box?) that you want to modify in any way as subitems. These could then have text added to the item's title, as well as notes added as further subitems or HTML) or even their date and time changed and could be included in other grids to represent the inidividual recurrence there... The calendar should then either show the 'mother' item for instances without any modifications or the user-modified subitems for those specific instances...
Comments
Hi Left, I've been thinking…
Hi Left,
I've been thinking on the best way to implement repeating events...
Google Tasks generates new items (a few days before the due date it seems). That way, each instance can have notes and done date.
It would also be great to have links to previous / next event instance (for meeting notes for example)
What is clear is that the current repeating events, only visible in the Calendar is not a long term solution
Any ideas ? Comments ?
@Pierre, I 100% agree that…
@Pierre,
I 100% agree that good control of repeating events would be very useful, in particular with the upcoming Alarms/Reminders feature!
In Outlook a repeating event is added to the Calendar for each time the event is to be repeated. It seems to be there for "all dates in the future" (at least what is visible when scrolling). Each event can be individually edited so that means that one could "add notes etc" (the whole series can of course also be edited).
Also, in Ecco, I create many recurring Events in the "Tickler" so the option to show Recurring Events in Grids would great.
Hm, I guess there are two…
Hm, I guess there are two opposing impulses at work when it comes to recurring events.
1. User wants to see all recurrences when browsing / scrolling through his calendar, many instances (e.g. birthdays for yearly) ahead. The current model accomplishes this quite well.
2. User will want to modify individual instances without modifying the single repeating ('mother') event, e. g. take notes on present ideas for birthday, time the party begins etc. or notes to prepare for one session of a recurring meeting. But if IQ were to create repeating events as a string of individual instances over long timespans, it would create a lot of data in the calendar. So the 'look ahead' time would have to be limited which sort of contradicts requirement number 1.
3. Personally, I clone most scheduled calendar events to my main action grid so they become task-like and can be arranged in order together with other tasks. So if I have doctor's appointment at 10, I drag some tasks above it and some tasks below it, depending on what I want to get done before and after the appointment.
The problem I'm facing with 3 is that the appointment column for the item representing the event in the grid currently shows the weekday for when the recurring item was created (e. g. the weekday of a child's first birthday when I created the item, rather than that of the current instance, e. g. the fifth birthday). I have not yet found a way to change that and it often confuses me. Adding the weekday to the beginning of the item text helps but it's an extra step and doesn't always prevent confusion.
Maybe a combination of both types of features works best? I. e. have two recurring events for the same occasion:
- one in the current style to populate the calendar for many years ahead to mark the day
- a further event representing each individual instance, for each year since the event created up to the current date / month / year plus a user-configurable interval into the future (e. g. the next five years)?
However, users might dislike have two representations of the same event in their calendar so - as you suggested - maybe the individual instances should be accessible only by interacting with the 'mother' event?
Exciting stuff, will certainly give this some more thought...
Maybe clicking on the …
Maybe clicking on the 'mother' item could open a grid containing all recurring items from the calendar as TLIs. Here, there should be an easy way to add individual instances (suggest possible dates in a dropdown box?) that you want to modify in any way as subitems. These could then have text added to the item's title, as well as notes added as further subitems or HTML) or even their date and time changed and could be included in other grids to represent the inidividual recurrence there... The calendar should then either show the 'mother' item for instances without any modifications or the user-modified subitems for those specific instances...