[chandler-users] Tasks with Start/End <--> Chandler Starred Events

[William K Volkman]

Hello Jeffrey,
On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 16:54 -0700, Jeffrey Harris wrote:
> > Does this mean that, when importing from an external application, 
> > either a task with start/end date and an event will be imported in 
> > the same way (calendar-stamped note)? And no star will be stamped?
>  >
> > If so, I think important semantic information is being lost!
> 
> There is a loss of semantic information (at least in terms of what we 
> display), at least for now.  RFC2445 allows for a wide array of semantic 
> data about tasks to be stuck in a VTODO, different subsets of which are 
> handled by clients, and like various other features in RFC2445, there 
> are a lot of fields that are rarely if ever used by end-users.
> 
> At the moment, Chandler doesn't offer much in the way of semantics
> around due date or start time for tasks.  I don't think anyone's
> philosophically opposed to having such things, if there are features 
> people use and miss, but they aren't what we've got working now.
> 
> Today, if a Chandler user creates a starred event, it's hard to tell
> whether someone else looking at that information would want to see it on
> their task list, or on their calendar.  Since iCalendar doesn't support 
> the concept of having an item coexist as an event and task, we have to 
> disappoint some use case.

Chandler "invented" the starred event, apparently due to confusion about
tasks and by doing so has (to my mind) weakened it's usability.

> > When using other applications, an Event is usually short-living and 
> > hard-scheduled (1-2 hours in which you must be in a place), and a 
> > Task is something that happens in background, with a start date and a
> > due date, across a time span of several days.
>  >
> > I think that importing some 15-day-long tasks as calendar-stamped 
> > items would create lots of unnecessary lozenges in the calendar view,
> > making it unusable.
> 
> Heh, it's funny.  Several of my friends (not a representative
> sample, of course) who use non-Chandler calendars gave up on task lists
> within weeks after trying them out.  They all switched to just putting
> their tasks as long all-day events, because they found they really only
> wanted to look at one screen, and the calendar was it for them.

This is the type of person that I alluded to when I said the user
demographic is currently improperly biased. These are the set of people
which I would observe (non pejoratively) are not busy enough to be
really representative, given a paper calendar their needs could probably
be met.  My "task" list for today consisted of 70 items, a calendar is
not going to be able to usably display that amount of information.

> Anyway, the point is everyone's going to use Calendar/Tasks differently,
> some actually like having lots of long-term lozenges.  For some people, 
> having task list items appear on a calendar is a selling point, for 
> others, it's not.
> 
> As I mentioned in a different message, I don't think we need to lose 
> data when round-tripping with other applications, but we do have a 
> dilemma as to how to export event+starred items.
> 
> Personally, I'm more worried about people being confused that something 
> they created in their Chandler calendar disappears from their Lightning 
> calendar, I'm less worried about people finding something disappearing 
> from their Lightning task list.  But I don't really know.

And I am horrified that something might vanish from my task list, the
calendar can track things like meetings, appointments, trips, and
conferences however handling the 20 to 30 requests for information as
well as the research items that I deal with on a daily bases are
critical to be kept track of.  When a financial institution makes a
request for authorization I have only a few days to respond and putting
30 of these on a calendar is not practical.

Regards,
William.