iCal feature wish-list

iCal will remain completely useless to me until I can import my calendar from Palm Desktop and synchronize iCal (and Address Book) with my Palm PDA via iSync. So my iCal feature wish-list is:

1. Import calendar from Palm Desktop.
2. iSync to synchronize iCal (and Address Book) with Palm PDA.

Escher

I'd like to see 24 hour coverage, but otherwise I think most of my wish list will be handled by iSync.

Alex.

I'd like it to be independent of the HelveticaNeue.dfont ... I have deleted that from my system, as it doesn't play well with Adobe apps and the 'real' Helvetica Neue PostScript font.

Can anyone send me HelveticaNeue.dfont from his/her system to fryke _at_ fryke.com and post here that he/she sent it?

[quote]Originally posted by dividend:
<strong>3. the dock icon gets confusing; if the programme has been running it shows the current date, otherwise it displays the ...</strong><hr></blockquote>


Call me crazy but I kinda like this. If I'm not mistaken July 17 was when Jobs announced iCal (MWNY), so the version 1.0 icon has that date. I figured that an update would have the date of the update, so I can always tell at a glance what version I'm using. It's the same with iTunes...the icon changes slightly to indicate the version no.

Other than that, yea, I really want iSync. I mean, first Apple gives me a calendar on my iPod...but I have to wait to get software to use it. Then, I get the software, but have to wait to be able to some other software sync them.

Reminds me of a girl I used to know in college.

I have only used it a short time, but I haven't noticed any kind of memo feature like in Palm Desktop.

I do web design and work in various locations. I keep all my user/password and registration numbers in memos on my palm so I can always have them with me (it saves my bacon all the time). Without them this app by itself is useless to me.

In my short time using it I kind of like this thing - and the web publish feature is sooo cool (I can't remember holidays to save my life. Now my wife won't be able to make fun of me).

Anyone know a good app for keeping simple memos that syncs with a Palm (besides Desktop)?

[quote]Originally posted by dividend:
<strong>

2. make sure that in the minicalendar, weeks start with the same day as in the large calendar, as for now they always start on Sundays which is not international standard
</strong><hr></blockquote> I believe you can set the start date of a week to any day in the Preferences [quote]
<strong>

4. add menus to the dock, just as palm desktop uses</strong><hr></blockquote> yeah, they should have this. [quote]
<strong>
5. be able to connect people with events without sending them info</strong><hr></blockquote> I am pretty shure you can, just add them and nevfer choose "Send Invitation." [quote]
<strong>
6. I want to be able to choose and design my own colours,as with other cocoa-programmes</strong><hr></blockquote> The check buttons are actually images, so if you wanted to make different colored ones, you need to hard-wire it into the program, should not be too hard. This should be a feature. They offer a limited amount of colours. [quote]
<strong>
7. events for a particular day are not visible except with an X, they should be</strong><hr></blockquote> But that defeats the purpose of being able to view one calendar without viewing another. [quote]
<strong>
8. birthdays should be integrated with address-book.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Also, that is a good idea, incorporating that, but, what calendar would it go under. I think that in the Adress Book, you choose "Add Birthday to Calendar" and then iCal asks "Which calendar should I add this to?"

This seems like it all

<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />

iCal sucks. I entered 15 weeks worth of to dos for one class, clicked back into PalmDesktop and thought, "What am I doing." PalmDesktop is where it's at right now. Screw iCal's pretty interface and crappy feature set.

Here's what would be nice:

SPEED! Right now it's super slow on my 233 MHz G3. Yes, it's a four year old computer, but a calendar program should not be what I'm worrying about in terms of speed.

iSync. I have my schedules entered in but they're not really useful now because I can't see them on my iPod.

Have an option to remove at least some of the warnings when you try to change the first event in a recurring event. It's annoying and confusing when I get a warning asking for confirmation when I click to change the time but I haven't even changed anything yet.

It should handle events that last less than an hour better. Right now it keeps changing things back to one hour even if I don't want it to be that long.

You should be able to specify the spacing on the "grid" when you're dragging a new event or changing an old one. Instead of being fixed at 15 minute intervals, it would be nice to change that to five or ten minute intervals.

Speed. Wait, did I say that already? Yes, it needs more speed.

I'd really like a web interface for creating/editing calendar events a la webmail.mac.com. Currently I use Yahoo! calendar because I can add things as I think of them at the Windows computer at work. Without this, iCal will simply be a curiosity for me.

Edit: along the same lines, I want _one_ calendar between my 2 macs. I don't want to have to publish 1 calendar and have the other mac have read-only access to it. Perhaps my calendar can live on .Mac? Didn't Jobs hint at some sort of uber-sync capabilities between machines when he was talking about iSync?

[ 09-11-2002: Message edited by: chromos ]</p>

I would like some more complicated repeated item options. For instance do something on first, third and fifth Saturdays. Of course not every month has a fifth Saturday, so this event only happens twice on those months. I don't think you can do this in iCal.

[quote]Originally posted by Alexander Wilson:
<strong>I'd like to see 24 hour coverage, but otherwise I think most of my wish list will be handled by iSync.

Alex.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Do you means seeing the whole day (i.e. all 24 hours)?

Thats just a change in the prefs -- make hours to view as 24 and start and end time as midnight and it shows the whole day.

I would prefer it ti mimic Palm Desktop -- show my my working day but let me scroll down to see evening events.

Its getting there but we all need iSync!

[quote]Originally posted by fryke:
<strong>I'd like it to be independent of the HelveticaNeue.dfont ... I have deleted that from my system, as it doesn't play well with Adobe apps and the 'real' Helvetica Neue PostScript font.

Can anyone send me HelveticaNeue.dfont from his/her system to fryke _at_ fryke.com and post here that he/she sent it?</strong><hr></blockquote>

I had just removed HelveticaNeue.dfont the same day I downloaded iCal.

FYI - Not having HelveticaNeue.dfont in your Library/Fonts folder means it will Quit on Opening.

This is a big deal for me who uses InDesign and Helvetica nearly exclusivly for my design work.

I have sent feedback to iCal team. Hopefully they can rename or somehow internalise the font within the software.

userone

Some small suggestions:

1. Somehow integrate/coordinate Stickies with your to-do lists. This is what I use(d) Stickies. (And Stickies should have a Dock menu for New Note, but that's another discussion.)

2. Resizable columns for weeks!

The above posts cover all of my other requests. This is like iTunes 1.0 and iPhoto 1.0 at this point. They have lots of room to improve the thing, and, at least with iTunes as a precedent, we have reason to believe it will. (I'm still waiting for iPhoto 2.0, but that's another subject again.)

Insofar as the icon, couldn't it just keep the last date when it was run until the next time you start up? People who use this sort of thing are very likely to place it in their login items list. Maybe Apple should pose this question when you first run it, and place the option in the preferences to have it start automatically on login.

[ 09-11-2002: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>

Make the software USABLE. I feel incredibly limited by iCal's inherent LACK of options.

To do items:
Option to make the to do panel date-dependent. I mean when you scroll to a new date, have the to do items update to reflect that date rather than every day you have to do items for. Ahhh. The whole needs to be re-written. How about "Formatting" options for the calendar?

[quote]Originally posted by ShawnPatrickJoyce:
<strong>The whole needs to be re-written.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Let's not overreact, eh?

[quote]Originally posted by BuonRotto:
<strong>Some small suggestions:

1. Somehow integrate/coordinate Stickies with your to-do lists. This is what I use(d) Stickies. (And Stickies should have a Dock menu for New Note, but that's another discussion.)</strong><hr></blockquote>

Check out your Services menu under the app's name. There's now an option for "Make New Sticky Note" using whatever text is currently selected.

Simple, free application to create .ics files

This subscription thing would be ingenius attached to a web-based multi-platform personal calendar.

Make it easy for anyone to create and update their own .ics subscriptions

I always have trouble knowing when my favorite indie bands are in town - it would be great if they, or their fans were able to create subscriptions like this.


I am thinkin about pitching this to my programmer friends and actually making this a reality . . .
Hmmmm . . .

[ 09-12-2002: Message edited by: cinder ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by Kesh:
<strong>

Check out your Services menu under the app's name. There's now an option for "Make New Sticky Note" using whatever text is currently selected. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Ah, this is true. I don't know quite what I am looking for in this feature -- auto synch of note and to-do list? seems silly. Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe stickies should just get a checkbox feature.

[quote]Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
<strong>Here's what would be nice:
(snip)
iSync. I have my schedules entered in but they're not really useful now because I can't see them on my iPod.
(snip)
It should handle events that last less than an hour better. Right now it keeps changing things back to one hour even if I don't want it to be that long.
(snip)
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Mount your iPod as a FW HD. Go to iCal. Choose File/export then select the Caledar file on your iPod. Export the calendar to that folder. Now you can see your schedules on your iPod. Works for me.

Create an event. Use the inspector to set the end time to whatever you want. It will not reset it to one hour. I just created an event 20 minutes long then changed it to 15 minutes then selected some other events and it didn't change. First create an event. Next do get infor or press the i button to open the event inspector. This lets you set any time legth to the event that you like.

[quote]Originally posted by dividend:
<strong>Escher - I managed to import my palm desktop calendar by Export -&gt; vCal format, and then import it into iCal. Worked nice. I agree that iCal is pretty useless without iSync, but that is coming end of this month, no point in telling Apple that.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Thanks for the tip, dividend. I read about the vCal export trick elsewhere, and it's a good temporary solution. There's now <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16230" target="_blank">vCal Exploder</a>, which is supposed to further streamline the Palm Desktop 4.0 to iCal 1.0 migration.

My issue now, however, is that iCal is a lot slower than Palm Desktop. I really like iCal's interface, but not for the price of glacial operation. I will wait for iSync and iCal 1.1 at the very least.

Escher

[quote]Originally posted by Escher:
<strong>

Thanks for the tip, dividend. I read about the vCal export trick elsewhere, and it's a good temporary solution. There's now <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16230" target="_blank">vCal Exploder</a>, which is supposed to further streamline the Palm Desktop 4.0 to iCal 1.0 migration.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Has anyone been able to take an exported Yahoo calendar and import it into iCal?

I'm back to iCal. Screw PalmDesktop and it's practical uses. iCal is where it's at now for prettiness. Actually to-do item views are date-dependent so that's good.

Make it usable!!!!

[ 11-30-2002: Message edited by: trevorM ]</p>

We just have to give it time, I guess. I wasn't so keen on the 1.0 releases of iTunes or iMovie, but they're fantastic apps now. With time, iCal and iPhoto will hopefully catch up.

iCal wishlist:

SPEED! Geeze its slow, slower than anything else, slower than 10.0, honestly. I run it on a Pismo 400 with 768MB of RAM and on a G4 Digital Audio with 512MB RAM, it is equally slow on both ...

There is no reason a calendar application should run as slow as iCal does, other shareware and freeware applications that do the same stuff sure don't.

Interface Consistency:

There are many things about iCal that are simply counter-intuitive. Opening, modifying, and creating different kinds of events and to-do items should all be one click or double-click actions.

I have four buttons allowing me to show or hide different areas or show info on an event but I have to go to a menu to create new events and to-dos. This is completely backwards.

Entry of events data should be consistent between what one dumps in to a particular event and what one sees displayed within the day box. Right now it cuts off where ever and it can be very unclear what different entries are. Most PIMs [the Newton, Claris Organizer, Palm Desktop, Outlook, Entourage, and others] have found ways around this by either being smart about where they cut entries or using titles so that one can look at a day and see a header for everything to happen that day.

The top line where it shows different whole day events in week view cuts off in mid word, that makes no sense, no rhyme or reason, just cuts off.

Events and To-Dos need to be tied to addresses and names and such without having to send them a notificaion. If I have a bill to pay I want it to look in my Address Book and find the company name and address but I don't want them notified, I want the info there to help me pay the bill.

Location of meetings should be included, in fact meeting should be a type of event [more types of events are really needed].

Getting back to interface directly it need to be more clear what buttons do without the balloons, the pin button shows or hides something but one would think it was to pin a new event up on the calendar.

iChat does a great job of integrating with the system so that it is available and tells you who is available to chat with while it is not open. iCal needs that same functionality for events and information.

There should be some sort of note function to at least attach notes to different events where more detail or perhaps meeting notes could be tied to the meetin event.

The colors, while pastel is nice, are too hard to see and to tell apart. They should be clear at a glance and easy to decern.

Mail and the Address Book need to integrate closer with iCal, not the MS kind of integration like Office where nothing is really integrated but it all has hooks in it from the other MS apps. Nor the kind of integration that prevents other 3rd parties from filling in the different areas. Rather Apple needs to continue to use open standards and make it so that any calendar application can take the place of iCal for major areas of use [system specific stuff like iChat has simply could not be done by a 3rd party most likely.

Wouldn't it be neat if we were able to use features from each in the other? iChat and Mail are starting to move this direction already as Mail is aware of who is available to chat from your Address Book. It could kinda bring the concept of OpenDoc back.

All that said I see tons of potential in iCal, but its all unrealized at this point. The guy writing pluggins to let my Newton sync with iCal is oging to make me hate my life because I will start seriously using iCal at that point and have to deal with all its problems. I hope that they really bear into 2.0 because it could be great.

[ 11-30-2002: Message edited by: Bogie ]

(I added some positive remarks)

[ 11-30-2002: Message edited by: Bogie ]</p>

Alarms!!!

The ical alarms do not have a belated ring when your computer is sleeping or shutdown, unlike Microsoft's entourage



This makes ical practically uselss... <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />

Entourage can sound alerts when the computer is shutdown, perhaps disconnected from power even?

I've got to see this.

Spart:

No, actually, if your machine is off or unplugged, Entourage won't do anything, but as soon as you boot up, it's "Beeeeep" oops you've missed an appointment or a birthday or something.

With iCal, when you turn your computer on after you've missed an alarm it does... nothing. You'll never know you missed little Timmy's birthday until he's borrowing his dad's hunting rifle to shoot you down like the scum that you are.

That makes more sense.

<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> I'm laughing. thanks tonton ! <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

Yeah, I forgot to mention that was pretty hilarious.

...Father Gunned down By Son Because of Lacking iCal Features...

I'm sure Apple would love to put that headline up <a href="http://www.apple.com/hotnews" target="_blank">here</a>.

I think iCal should have the option to give reminders for to-do's. For me, I use it to remind myself to pay bills. This was a big feature for me in Entourage, and I miss it in iCal. However, it's nice to get away from M$. Here's to the next version of iCal!
jared

Thanks iCal dev team!

I have been biting my lip and not using Helvetica Neue for the last couple of months - until yesterday when I had to use the full Font. Removed the HelveticaNeue.dfont and fired up iCal v1.02 to check it - and it works!

cool as.

/userone