InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by Pierre_Admin on 2009/11/29 01:33

Well, it was first promised 2 years ago and it took 1 year to complete, but the first IQ version with a fully functional Calendar* is just around the corner.

Release (of this 0.9.25Pre-rel1 version) will be in a few days, but for those that just can't wait for me updating Mantis, and doing some final checks, you can get a peek here:

Download Portable Version here

(handle with care, this is a major rework)

Cheers

*:(well... I've got some more ideas, but...),

Comments

Lookin goood, as much for all the minor improvements, as for the major two (Calendar & Map).

A couple of small points you might be already working on:

1: How does one get all appointments in an old file to show on calendar? Your instructions only seem to do one at a time.

2: You can delete the linked item, and the calendar entry still stays.

3: I like the multi-select category box on the calendar item dialog. When did this functionality come in?

(about #1 and #2 : didn't mention those issues in my own comments but I've tried and have the same "problems")

Pierre, I just couldn't wait so d/l & am playing w pre-release. Looks wonderful. One tiny thing I noticed. In calendar if user has all day events, time used is 24 hrs, likewise for 2 all day events, ex: birthday & holiday, time used = 48 hrs. not sure if you can exempt all day events from that calculation. Hope you enjoyed your first American style Thanksgiving. And thanks for all your hard work on 9.25. You can be very proud of IQ. I hope it gets the wide recognition (& licenses) it deserves. -- Jan Rifkinson Ridgefield CT USA

Thanks!

This should not be a problem with newly created events, but was in the past, a small bug. Show the ItemDuration in a grid, sort and delete all entries that are 24 or more.

Pierre, certainly not a big deal & perhaps by design but now all day events = 1 hr duration. I'm not sure that this is logical but I don't know if this is a programming problem. Just thought I would follow up on my post & your fix

Thank you.

Jan Rifkinson

Ridgefield CT USA

HP Blackbird Vista Ultimate SP-2

Pierre, you might want to replace or add the calendar link http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=node/1215

to the IQ manual instead of what's there. You also have that animation that can be added to demonstrate possibilities.

Jan Rifkinson

Ridgefield CT USA

HP Blackbird Vista Ultimate SP-2

I added link for 2. IQ Calendar to the page: -- link to nonexistent node ID 944 --

Thanks, Tom.

Jan Rifkinson

Ridgefield CT USA

HP Blackbird Vista Ultimate SP-2

Pre-Pre-release was updated as the Alpha and Date filter toolbars were not displayed when they should

Some quick general comments (not specifically about the calendar) - not sure if it's totally relevant to write that (since it's a pre-prerelease), but here they are:

- Copy/paste Xml : don't work at all here (so can't test issue 0828, for example). I don't think I'm doing anything wrong... But who knows. Anybody else ?

- Pressing ctrl-shift-O when calendar is open OR when no grids are opened : only makes the grid menu flash briefly.

- issue 0833: Source bar combo boxes for Source, Filter and Sort enhancements : "3- Press Delete key to remove entries in the list (IE and FF manages list the same way" doesn't work here.

This one is fixed :

- issue 0794 (Status bar lineage HTML hyperlinks are not clickable after a double click to change hierarchical display mode) seems to be fixed now. I can't reproduce it anymore. Can someone verify that ? (I'd like to log in to Mantis but I can't : super slow... wonder what's happening on the server).

Calendar now.

Looks good. I didn't notice anything especially weird... i really like the "duration" concept for events.

(BTW : I won't be able to use the calendar recurrence as a temporary "replacement" for tasks recurrence as calendar recurrence only show once in the DB and this won't work for regular task management.)

Some thinds that I'd like to see, but I'm sure most of these are already there... just not available yet... :

1- Ability to change the calendar graduation (e.g. : 15 min vs 30 min.)

2- More category colors + customizable category names...

3- Calendar/grid appearance should probably be homogenized a bit more. Right now the calendar seems like something a bit "separated" from the rest of the app.

4- WikiTag text box in the appointment/event details dialog (it's in the add item, so I think it should be there too, for coherence. Seems like WikiTags will be IQ tags, so to speak, or Outlook categories)

5- Right click on the calendar should bring up a context menu with some choices, calendar options (views, colors, show time as..., etc.)

6- Automatic/conditionnal formatting (depending on the content of event, WikiTags, etc. like what's already possible in grids.)

more tomorrow... ;)

hehe... the calendar works really well here...

Going to be hard to "resist" using it until there's some syncing feature available.

Are these issues confirmed ?

[quote=Armando]

- Copy/paste Xml : don't work at all here (so can't test issue 0828, for example). I don't think I'm doing anything wrong... But who knows. Anybody else ?

- Pressing ctrl-shift-O when calendar is open OR when no grids are opened : only makes the grid menu flash briefly.

- issue 0833: Source bar combo boxes for Source, Filter and Sort enhancements : "3- Press Delete key to remove entries in the list (IE and FF manages list the same way" doesn't work here.

[/quote]

keep switching back to the older versions because I can't copy/paste...

I guess issue 0833 can wait ... But am I the only one with problems with this too ? I discovered that if I right click on the entries, I can then delete them. Otherwise, no luck.

Very, very minor comment:: pls add word calendar to calendar tab to match others so it doesn't get lost.

Jan Rifkinson

Ridgefield CT USA

HP Blackbird Vista Ultimate SP-2

Hi Pierre

Calendar looks great, just started playing with it here is some input.

1. In setting up a weekly reoccurrence, I would expect the default day checked to correspond to the day of the selected date. For example I entered 1/12, a Tuesday, when I selected reoccurrence the default day was Monday.

2. The select Year icon doesn't work on the Calendar tool bar. Ecco had a great approach going to a month a year or more out by cascading the months from a selected year.

3. Is there a calendar preferences menu somewhere. The max reminder period is 15 minutes, I would like at least 1 hour before appointment reminder. Another nice Ecco touch is once a reminder pops up you can reactivate the reminder from a selection of values. I didn't check to see what IQ does yet on closing a reminder.

4. I really like the way Ecco allows you to set time, using the little clock in the appointment dialog. I can do it all with the mouse. I have to change between keyboard and mouse in IQ.

5. Appointment, I would like to be able to set a default appointment length, so when I change the start time the end time automatically changes by the default appointment length setting, say 1 hour.

6. It seems I remember in the prototype you showed early in the year you could copy and paste an appointment, couldn't figure out how to do that.

7. Is it possible to setup a 7 day week in the monthly calendar?

I know you have great enhancement plans for the calendar, these are just initial observations. Once again it looks great, I'll be moving my Ecco stuff over soon. Is there an import set up for the Ecco calendar?

I've made the momentous decision to leave Ecco behind and trust my future to IQ alone. So I've exported my appointments (the last things I was maintaining primarily in Ecco). I used the Selected items dialogue to move them into Ecco, and this has worked just fine. However, probably because I'm a lazy user of forums and don't always RTFM

, I can't see how to show all the Appointments I've imported in the calendar view. This I think is the same issue to which lucky_phil has alluded.

I do support all of Al's comments too. I guess the hardest bit will be reproducing the Ecco mouse-only appointment setup, since that will not be a part of the calendar control that IQ uses? So I guess that we might have to wait for that one?

In making the shift to IQ, I'm leaving behind a truly great program, beautifully engineered and rock-solid in its implementation, which has served me well for fifteen years. Before Ecco I used Symantec GrandView and before that, PC Outline. InfoQube is now, still short of the near-mythical Vesion 1.0, up there in the company of the greats.

Pace Armando's concerns: one feature I leave behind with great regret is Ecco's phone synchronisation with Palm Treos - which has apparently now been kludged so as to work with the Palm Pre. A quand une synchronisation IQ <-> téléphone? Does IQ calendar and address book sync with a phone matter to anyone other than Ecco's French-speaking users

Mark Gregory, Rennes, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

Hi Mark,

Great to hear that (though it puts pressure on me to get it perfect...)

I'll add a quick way to create appointments from fields
Can you explain the "mouse-only" appointment setup (unless I've missed something)
Sync: Live-Outlook sync along with iCal support are the next big steps in that direction. That should fill that space

Hi Pierre

The mouse-only setup in Ecco allows you to set an appointment date and time by only using a mouse, no keyboard usage required.

Click on the hour entry and you get a clock display, just click on the hour you want.

Click on the minute entry and you get a clock display in 5 minute increments, just click on the minutes past the hour you want.

Click on the A and it toggles between AM and PM.

In the current IQ implementation you have to move between keyboard and mouse.

Another nice feature, for me any way, in Ecco is the button to tile the Calendar and Address Book. You can then drag a Address Book name entry over to the desired date and time for the appointment you would like to create. At the same time with the drag operation, an entry is made under name for whom the appointment was made for. This is great, if for example you made a doctors appointment six months out and a month from now you want to see when the appointment is for. Just go to doctors name in the Address Book and there is a record of the appointment, no hunting through the calendar.

Any luck on my Address Book error message?

Thanks

I'm trying, ~~but currently failing,~~ and have now succeeded, to upload an image that I've grabbed of this dialogue in Ecco. ~~More once someone replies to my post concerning the Drupal website editor!~~ Thanks to Al for putting the image into words...

Updated:

The image is in a later post. Thanks Pierre and Armando.

Mark Gregory, Rennes, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

No problem Mark, glad I could help.

I forgot a couple of inputs.

1. Is it going to be possible to see the start time on the calendar (monthly view), right now you have to mouse over the appointment to see the appointment start time. I would like to at a minimum see all of the appointment start times at once and an option to see the end times also?

2. When I open IQ, then open the calendar it opens with the Sep-Nov months (monthly view). I would it expect it to open in the current month, Dec.

Further to Al's description of the Ecco calendar entry, here's a screen grab which shows the mouse-only date setting dialogue.

Mark Gregory, Rennes, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

[quote=gregory]A quand une synchronisation IQ <-> téléphone? Does IQ calendar and address book sync with a phone matter to anyone other than Ecco's French-speaking users ?[/quote]

I have a crude but operational download script to a Java phone. Needs a bit more write-up but I expect to post it sometime Wednesday, US Time.

Jerome

Sounds very interesting, Jerome.

Let me shoot for the moon... Presumably this is a one-way export rather than a two-way synchronisation? Which handles the use case where you want to export IQ details to the phone. I would observe that another common use case is that you take someone's contact details on the phone and then wish to import them into the PC-based InfoQube. The ideal is of course two-way synchronisation. Going via Outlook, as suggested by Pierre, may be another good route forward - once he can produce Outlook synchronisation.

Mark Gregory, Rennes, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

Right, it's a one-way download, not a synch. And the destination isn't the phone's Contacts, Notes or Calendar system, but rather a plain text reading app, for now. In time I'd want to find a flat J2ME database for random access to selected IQ items.

Tracfones in US are inexpensive, primitive phones. Mine doesn't even have a proper Outlook synch, just a manual drag-and-drop capability. And the records are often truncated in the phone: for example, truncated directions to someplace. Hence the need for a long-form, one-step (eventually) IQ download, even if it's nothing fancy. Today's first version will be rudimentary at best, something to build on, until IQ can provide an integrated approach.

I just wanted you to know that North American IQ users are also hacking away cheerfully at the cell problem.

Jerome

Mark, et al.

I have PalmPre & am able to sync my google calendar & address book w phone quite easily. Pierre assures me that IQ calendar will be conversant w Google so it looks to me like this is possible right around the corner unless I am misunderstanding what you want. I would assume this might also be true for Android but don't know for sure.

Jan Rifkinson

Ridgefield CT USA

HP Blackbird Vista Ultimate SP-2

Unfortunately Palm France never seems to be able to get its act together. The Treo was only ever briefly offered by the major operators here. My Treo 600 had a qwerty keyboard and came from Singapore. My azerty Treo 680 was bought in the 3-month window in which Orange (France Télécom) actually "sold" it (it was never talked about by their sales people). And there is still absolutely no news when the Palm Pre will be sold in France (it's been available in the UK and Germany for some while now). Probably Palm is trying to engineer an exclusive deal with one of the big four operators here, despite the fact that exclusivity deals are illegal in this country! Ho hum.

Mark Gregory, Rennes, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

Pierre, we discussed the following possibility once before but I wanted to remind you of it again as you are focused on the calendar

In the clipper dialog, there is the possibility of selecting a "DueDate" for a clipping. I had hoped that user would have the possibility of selecting any kind of date field, now including the ability to add it to the calendar. This would be extremely helpful in a number of circumstances.

Thanks for considering.

Jan Rifkinson

Ridgefield CT USA

HP Blackbird Vista Ultimate SP-2

Two suggestions concerning the calendar, which relate to various earlier posts:

A boolean field property for all date fields, something like Display in calendar (y/n)?, probably default n (although Ecco had y)
A calendar options dialogue - to create / update settings such as default alarm reminder interval, etc. Might include:

Default alarm interval
Default start of working day (04:00 here today!)
Start of working week (Sunday or Monday)
Non-working days (usually Saturday, Sunday, but may also be Friday in certain cultural contexts, etc.)
Default appointment duration

Many other settings should follow the Windows regionalisation - things like public holidays, timezone, daylight saving, etc. Perhaps they already do! Being a lazy soul, I'll get more into the calendar when my recently-imported ex-Ecco appointmants get to show up on the IQ calendar!

Mark Gregory, Rennes, France - GMT +1/+2; EST +6

Improvements in the new version:

New: Can select multiple items in the Calendar and hit the Delete key to delete all of them
bugfix: deleting a date in a grid does not remove it from the Calendar
New: select a bunch of dates (e.g. imported appointments from Ecco) and right-click: Create event. Will create Calendar events for each
Improvements: Long delay when adding some events
Bugfix: New all-day event would have duration=24hrs
Improvements: If Duration=0, Duration is not shown in the Calendar
DateFilter: Show when using user-defined duration
DateFilter: Added the > operator
When adding items at the bottom of a window, item is sometimes hidden
Selective "Export - [of html pane] - to Web page"

Available using the above download link. I'll also be releasing it as Pre-Rel 1 later on today

Great work Pierre! :)

1. New: Can select multiple items in the Calendar and hit the Delete key to delete all of them

Works well.

- Wonder if ctrl-e could also be assigned to deletion since this is the default shortcut in grids.

- Couldn't the "standard calendar deletion dialog" also show when several items are deleted ?

3. New: select a bunch of dates (e.g. imported appointments from Ecco) and right-click: Create event. Will create Calendar events for each

It seems to work well if I do it one item at a time, but not when I create several appointments in a grid (appointment field : today's date).

In one case, IQ refused to create an event, showing the event creation "error message" popup.

--> Personally, I'd prefer if any item with data in the appointment field would show in the calendar.

7. DateFilter: Show when using user-defined duration

I'm not sure what that means.

[quote=Armando]

3. New: select a bunch of dates (e.g. imported appointments from Ecco) and right-click: Create event. Will create Calendar events for each

It seems to work well if I do it one item at a time, but not when I create several appointments in a grid (appointment field : today's date).

In one case, IQ refused to create an event, showing the event creation "error message" popup.

--> Personally, I'd prefer if any item with data in the appointment field would show in the calendar.

[/quote]

Sorry, it works. I didn't get the litteral meaning of "select a bunch of dates". I was just selecting the full items.
If I select the dates in the appointment field, it works as expected.