[chandler-users] After a few of weeks of Chandler...

[Dave Cowen]

On Oct 30, 2007, at 12:13 PM, Jeffrey Harris wrote:
> Actually, I'm not sure this is in Bugzilla.  What do events sent from
> Chandler look like in Outlook?  How does that compare to invitations?
> I'd like more detail here.

Hi, Jeffrey --

First, thanks for the detailed response (and for those of all of the  
other responders).  A couple of notes:

The above issue is #10938 in Bugzilla, which Brian was kind enough to  
file from back when I sent a message to the list about the problems  
sending events/invites to Outlook-using folk.  More info is in the  
ticket, but the long and short is that Outlook doesn't recognize the  
attachment.  I'd be happy to help troubleshoot with you in any way.

> To be clear: Chandler supports arbitrarily complex recurrence rules,  
> we
> just don't provide UI to create them.  So while this is obviously  
> not a
> long term solution, you could create a scheduled down time recurring
> event in iCal, export it, and import into Chandler and it ought to  
> work
> fine.

I noticed that on my iCal events with complex recurrence!  I was  
surprised when I was able to move a single event and the rest of the  
imported complex occurrence held up, too.  Good job on that, but  
please do consider expanding the UI.

> Ah, this is another feature disguised as a bug :)
>
> The default untimed event is what we call an "any-time" event.
> Conceptually, any-time events are events that should happen at some
> point, you may not know the time, but they probably won't take much
> time.  In contrast, all-day events take up time on your calendar.

Perhaps I should clarify just why I found this so confusing -- I  
understand that it was a deliberate choice, but it doesn't mesh well  
with the way I work for a couple of reasons.

I have several calendars I look at both for home and work.  At home, I  
have my own calendar, my wife's calendar, and my stepdaughter's  
calendar.  At work, I have my personal calendar, a couple of group  
calendars, and a couple of personal calendars for my supervisor and  
direct report.  In iCal, it's possible to color calendars with a  
fairly broad palette.  To maximize "at a glance" understanding of the  
calendar, I colored my home events green and my work events blue --  
with my own calendars being of a very strong intensity to signal that  
they were my own, and different calendars of different intensities and  
shades to signify "how close" the events were to me (my direct  
report's calendar was a darker blue than the office calendar, for  
example).

Needless to say, the ability to do this is missing in Chandler; I  
didn't put it on my list of "pony" features since I'd consider my  
scheme fairly idiosyncratic.  However, the fact that some events on my  
own calendar have a different color intensity than others is "at a  
glance" confusing for me; when I look at what's coming down the week,  
I find I can notice my own tasks "at a glance" easier if they're a  
consistent color.

Perhaps it's also because I use any-time events to signify things that  
could actually be considered all day events, but where I don't want to  
clutter my calendar.  If I take a day off work, I'll put a "Dave off  
work" any-time event in my work calendar, and then I'll have  
individual personal items in my personal calendar.  If I make "Dave  
off work" an any-time event, it's sort of messy.  Work holidays are  
another good example of this.  My wife traveling on business in her  
calendar.  I'm not saying that all of my any-time events are actually  
all-day events, but I'd say a small majority are.

Dave