[ANNOUNCE] Organiser Feed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Organiser Feed pushes your calendar entries directly onto the event feed of your home screen.

I have been working on this due to user requests in the maemo forum. In the meantime another solution popped up which still has some issues (mainly due to the choice of programming language some libraries are currently not available) compared to Organiser Feed and therefore I decided to publish it anyways.

Screenshots

Current Features

• Per calendar settings for:
  • Inclusion in event feed
  • Maximum look ahead range (events starting beyond that range will not be shown)
  • Maximum number of entries (e.g. only show 1-2 entries at a time)
  • Inclusion of to-dos
  • Inclusion of overdue to-dos
• Recurring event support
• Auto-update when entries in the calendar change
• Directly jump to the event when clicked on the homescreen
• Sort order of events (I am abusing a shortcoming in the current homescreen version for this - this may stop working at any time)
• Control panel integration: Configure Organiser Feed via Settings -> Notifications -> Event Feeds
• Either a plain icon or the calendar icon with the correct day of the event
• Customisable expiry time: events can be removed from feed either at the beginning of the event or at the end
• Two display modes: one feed entry per event or aggregation of events happening on the same day into one feed entry (due to platform constraints no more than 5 events per feed entry are possible)

Download

Stable

You can download the current version (1.1.5) of Organiser Feed at https://www.bithub.de/philip/calenda....1.5_armel.deb

Alternatively you can get it directly from the Nokia Store (releases may lag behind the versions published here):

Fixed web browser: http://store.ovi.com/content/224356
Nokia mobile browser: http://store.ovi.mobi/content/224356

Unstable

The current unstable version is 1.1.80 and does not include all translations. This release introduces two new view modes (single entry and aggregation by category) and supports to-dos without a due date. If you notice any bugs please let me know.

Download: https://www.bithub.de/philip/calenda...1.80_armel.deb.

Changelog

1.1.5

• Add polish translation

1.1.3

• Fix an issue in single entry view mode displaying an incorrect start time
• Other minor bug fixes related to the feed entry ordering

1.1.2

• Include Spanish translation
• Introduce #{age} and #{formattedAge} template variables

1.1.1

• Fix an issue where feed entries do not appear on the top of the feed if there are only overdue to-dos left
• Fix an issue where the feed entry contents are truncated in aggregated mode
• Support for the Birthday calendar coming in PR 1.2

1.1.0

New stable release including all translations.

• To-do support
• Template support for the "No aggregation view mode" (https://gitorious.org/harmattan-orga...late+support**)
• Aggregate all events of a day into a single item to save screen space (selectable from the settings)
• Better integration with MeeBirthdays: Display age and special icon for birthdays (requires MeeBirthdays >= 0.2.3)
• Grayscale "day icon" support
• Several bug fixes related to all-day events, events spanning several days and other areas
• New and updated translations

1.0.1

• Translations for Russian, Norwegian and French added (thanks for the translations to: Andrey Savin, mousse04, Tarl and skripis)
• Prefix colour of calendar to event title
• Add alarm symbol to indicate that a reminder is set (you will have to restart your phone in order to see the symbol)
• Add a potential fix for redraw bugs on the home screen
• Fix an issue where an all day event would only expire at the end of the next day when expiry mode was set to on end date

FAQ

Available at https://gitorious.org/harmattan-orga...s/Home#**FAQ**

Development

Organiser Feed is licensed under the GPL 3 and development happens in public in the Git repository hosted at https://gitorious.org/harmattan-organiser-feed

If you are missing a feature or want to support development let me know.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Excellent app, works like a charm

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

There's another similar app called DateEvent. Are they the same?

http://my-meego.com/software/applica...uto=659&faq=13

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Nice addition to the Notifications screen. This installed without any issues.

However, tapping on the calendar entry doesn't take me to the event. No biggie, the Date is right above on the screen and tapping there gets me to the calendar, but your post says it should. It doesn't seem to at the moment.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

No they are not the same.

Which PR are you running? I'm not sure whether the interface I am using was added in PR 1.1 (it works on my N950).

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Ah, could be that. I'm still on the Danish 1.0 PR version. I'll lose patience soon enough and flash my N9.

Thanks again for the nice addition.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Thanks a lot to make this nokia-missing feature available and active!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Nope, this is more awesome :D

I've used both, this is clearly the superior choice.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Tapping the calendar entry works for me and using PR 1.1

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

I have just released version 0.9.3 which fixes an issue with the "Today" and "Tomorrow" labels not being updated automatically (you can always force a reload via the Refresh button of the feed).

I have added compatibility for PR 1.0. It will not be able to open recurring events (well it will open something but not the exact event you tapped on). Can you report back if it works for you now?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

There is one major problem with the app. The events that are created locally work like charm, but events that are synchronized from exchange have their time wrong. Looks like it doesn't handle time zones correctly, as in EET (+2 GMT) event which is supposed to be 2pm is displayed to be at noon in event feed. However the time is correct within calendar app when you open it from the feed. Weird.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Thanks for letting me know - I will look into this.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

can we have to-dos also shown in the feed?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Exactly, my future Exchange entries (for the next day) are shown but not current ones - being in NZ & on summertime, we are on GMT +13 hours...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

It's on the todo list :)

I have pmed you.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Excellent start. May I know how often does the feed get updated?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Thanks, Initial observations are that 0.9.3 resolves this - will let it run for a day or so to confirm :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

The feed gets auto-updated as soon as something in the calendar changes (this may take 5-10 seconds) or if new items have to be preloaded in order to fill the home screen with events which fall into the limits specified by the user.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Seems like another calendar feed is out unfortunately with the same name (funnily enough it was announced the same day this one was released).

Does anyone have suggestions for a new name (it should have the word calendar in it)?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

If you mean this one - http://store.ovi.com/content/221735, then I'm the author. Sometimes same ideas come to different minds, sorry for it. I think we even started development at same day (less or more). I've started at Nov, 14.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Yes, that's the one. No need to apologise - it's quite a coincidence (the name was just the first thing that came to my mind). I have been quite busy in the past month so I haven't really been developing it steadily (I think i started some time in early November).

Changing the name of this implementation would still be the best choice due to package name collisions and other things. Out of curiosity: which namespace in gconf are you using for the settings (I am currently using /apps/CalendarFeed) and I should make sure that they don't collide.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

I'm using /apps/ControlPanel/CalendarFeed

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Excellent :). But I've had a look at your source code with regards to the power consumption guidelines.

I could see that you use a fair amount of QTimers and such. Maybe you could in those cases use the Harmattan system heartbeat to optimise power consumption instead?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

It does use a couple of timers but most of them are relatively long lived:
1. Day change timer: Fires once a day at midnight to update labels
2. Reload event timer (if the calendar doesn't change this timer fires after the maximum look-ahead time and +- 12 hours)
3. Expiry timer (fires every time soon as the first event expires)
4. Calendar close timer (to prevent constant reloading of the calendar backend in case a lot of items are being edited - it is only activated if the calendar was previously changed)

Timer 1 & 2 should be negligible for power consumption. 3 & 4 could be more problematic but should not have a noticable impact on battery life. The issue with global timers is the interval in which they should be run and whether the daemon will not end up being the only process waking up the system in that case. I will look into adding that functionality in the next version. Thanks for letting me know.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Why you two chillip and dkormalev not merge in a single powerfull and customizable notifications feed app?!

I miss things, like Twitter mentions and DM's, and Facebook on my notifications.

This would be great.
;)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Hi, .9.3 opens the calendar now (under PR 1.0) but I get a weird error message as the image shows - and the calendar doesn't open on the day of the event but rather the last day the calendar was showing.

I'm still on PR 1.0.

Thanks for the good work on this - it's a valuable addition to the Notifications screen

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Many thanks for this - I appreciate your work done. And I like your version over the one in the store since yours show separate events.

Now, one request though - would it be possible to have it pull events for more than 1 week ahead?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Does this happen for all events or only recurring (or an exception of a recurring event)? If it does there's nothing I can do it's an API limitation (PR 1.1 should be out for you soon though http://www.developer.nokia.com/Commu...e-going-global)

It is possible. I'm nore sure whether it should be shown in the graphical user interface as the longer the period is the more events have to be kept in memory which may degrade performance. You can force a longer period via gconftool manually e.g.:

1. Use gconftool-2 --all-dirs /apps/CalendarFeed/calendars to list the UIDs of all calendars (default refers to the default settings for all calendars)
2. Modify the look ahead value for the calendar you want to change - e.g.:
   gconftool-2 -s --type=int/apps/CalendarFeed/calendars/default/lookAhead <time in seconds>

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

For all events, recurring or otherwise. Thanks for trying. I get it that's the PR 1.0 API doesn't allow for this. No worries - PR 1.1 will show up soon enough.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

I second that, assuming they're both of the same nature.
i.e. F/OSS + F/OSS OR closed/commercial + closed/commercial.
Would be tricky for them to collaborate otherwise...

*EDIT*
Noticed the title of the thread's wrong....
Name of the app's Calendar Feed, but in the title you've called it Organiser Feed.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Version 1.0.0 is now out (I have also submitted this version to Nokia Store). It adds custom icons per day, an option to select when events should be removed from the feed (i.e. on start or when the event ends) and now behaves properly if the timezone of the device changes. I have also included a German translation (if you want to help translating let me know).

If you are updating from an earlier version:
Due to the rename the package name has changed from calendarfeed to organiserfeed. So remove the old version from your phone before upgrading (either via the application manager or from the console via apt-get purge calendarfeed). I decided not to use Debians "Replaces" field as it may cause problems with the other Calendar Feed package.


We're both open source. The issue is that we chose completely different approaches in the backend to show events on the home screen. This implementation is push based (i.e. it reacts to calendar changes and updates the feed accordingly) while the other solution periodically updates the feed using the sync framework.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Organiser Feed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Hi chillip,

I like very much the way you chose to implement this. It fits exactly my needs. Thank you.

One issue (maybe) in version 1.0.0: when I choose the "Show day in icon" the title "feed" with the refresh button seems like it is shifted right hiding the button.

Do anyone else notice that?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Organiser Feed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

I have seen this behaviour from time to time. As I'm not using my home screen for anything else I am not sure whether this is caused by the event feed (could anyone please confirm whether they have observed this behaviour when only using regular feeds). It does disappear after some time though.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Organiser Feed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Thanks for the reply.

I find the app complete. Nevertheless some features that might be useful:

- show an small alarm icon next to the time if the event has an alarm setting
- add thp's hack as a setting, i.e.: http://forum.meego.com/showthread.php?t=4925

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

As you are both open source this could be made into a singular super app.. where the user choose in what way he want it to update. Either through sync or by push. One of the strenght with open source is that it can combine the best feautures into on single app and the work load be shared.

But do what you think is best for your work flow.. like what you have done so far ;)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

That's I'm talking about. ;)


BTW, great work with the app!
:)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Organiser Feed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

Great Work !!! :)


Is it possible for the next Version/Update to display the Calendarname in different colors ( i have 3 Calendar ) or change the fontcolor of the entries ?

Default Calendar -> Calendar Name in blue or fontcolor of the entries in blue
Birthday Calendar ->Calendar Name in red or fontcolor of the entries in red
.
.
.
or something like that


Sorry for my english :(

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Organiser Feed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

This is an awesome idea. It would be nice to differentiate a work calendar from a personal calendar at a glance!

To add to the feature request, I would like to have tasks in the feed and also feed on the lock screen. :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Organiser Feed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

thanks a lot for this application.

Would it be possible to add an option to add calendar entries to the standby screen, so that you don't have to unlock, swipe to Feeds and see what your next activity is?
It would be nice to just double-tap the screen or push the unlock button, and see what your next appointment is. (something like the music controls that were added in PR1.1,they're also in the standby screen)

edit: woops didn't see the last sentence in the previous post, looks like we're asking for the same thing. there you go, 2 votes already for this feature :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CalendarFeed - Show upcoming calendar events on your event feed
 

The name was changed to Organiser Feed (I have hopefully updated all references in the original post now).

Might be doable (although I'm not entirely sure if it will work).

Pretty much impossible as it requires root privileges for that. I don't think the Nokia Store will give those permissions.

Great idea. I'm thinking about prefixing the event title with a thin rectangle which has the colour of the calender (just like in the organiser).

Although it is possible at the moment (to push notifications on the event screen) they won't show the correct time (this feature was added to meegotouch in git already so it could be that this gets included in PR 1.2). I'll have to experiment a bit with that feature (e.g. if several items get auto-grouped and so on) and come up with some solution when to push them (e.g. push the day's upcoming items to the screen at midnight or early morning).