Gemini Calendar - my vision of calendar software

[lisanti99]

I would pay REALLY GOOD money for an Droid Calendar app that did floating events. It is the #1 reason that is preventing me from leaving Palm.

Please, Powell??

While I'm here, I'd like to suggest a new feature.

One thing that I found terrific on my previous PalmOS/Datebk calendar was the ability to use Floating Events and Advance Reminders to set reminders for expiring car insurance, for example.

Here's how it worked:

A Floating Event in Datebk is an event whose date it's always "today". When creating a FE, you create an event that "moves" itself automatically as the days pass by, so that it's always placed on the current day.
It is very handy if you want to remind you something to do, like "remember to call grandpa!" or something.

But the real shine of this feature was in pair with a recurring event: imagine -as an example- that you have a yearly insurance whose payment expires on 15th of July.

Firstly, you create a "standard" Event on 15th July, something like "Insurance expires!".

Then, in the Event properties, you flag the "Advance Event" option, that lets you input how many days in advance you want to be alerted. Let's say 10 days.

What happens is that on 5th of July, 10 days before the Event, the calendar will show a new Floating Event saying something like "Insurance expires! - due in 10 days".
As you may have guessed, the following day the Floating Event will automatically move to the 11th, now saying "Insurance expires! - due in 9 days".

And so on.

I'm not sure something like this could be technically viable on Android, given the Google Calendar integration, etc.
What I know is that Datebk used the "notes" field to store the addition info needed for its magic.

That's it.

(and please forgive my awful English... I hope I was clear enough)

 

[kokiangel]

Checked out the new widgets today. I must say I like the one with the current date on the far left best. I have a really hard time seeing the tiny day on the agenda part of the widget since it is color coded. Not that I am complaining about that! I like pretty colors. I just like being able to see today's date at a glance too.
Also, on the widgets without the current date, the time and description run together/overlap. There needs to be a gap between them for aesthetics sake. Nit picking, I know.
And before, when I tapped on the agenda part of the widget it opened in day view and now it doesn't. No matter I tap what it opens the calendar. Is that intentional?

Looks like progress though. Keep plugging. Still it is the best calendar app for Android.

 

[ylexot]

Like the new widgets. Also getting the time and event text running together...I'm thinking it's the time format that is using up too much space.

 

[NeoXTC]

hmmm I can't seem to get this app it says can't find it on market can someone help?

 

[kokiangel]

Try here...Gemini Calendar - Android Apps and Tests - AndroidPIT

 

[Sandia]

Your calendar is the only one that allows for 3 wk interval recurrent events- Thanks!. I have the new Samsung Intercept & I'm having trouble getting my Gemini Calendar to sink with the online Google Calendar.
Can you help me?

 

[crasher]

When duplicating events, I noticed that recurring events cannot be copied into the clipboard, yet. I would like to suggest that duplication of recurring events work just like a single event. We can just duplicate the 1st of the recurring events and edit the repeats later.

 

[powell]

I will try to answer some questions asked here.

Ringtone selection and vibration on/off is not implemented yet.

Option "Map address as link" is supposed to linkify the human readable address. It is a function served by the Google library, I just pass the string to this library. I do not know, why it does not work sometimes, I will investigate this problem.

If you have problems with Add from book function, contact me on bugs@gemini-mobile.com, it must be solved individually.

Thanks for the "until" problem report, it needs to be fixed.

Floating events is a great idea, I would use it myself very often.

As you might have noticed, time string that overlapped the event title in the widget is fixed in the last version.

I had two or three reports about Force Close problems on Samsung devices, uninstalling Gemini Calendar and installing again helps. This is not a normal situation, so send me mail about it, if it happens.

Sometimes Gemini Calendar is not visible on the Android Market. Possible reasons are:
- Google faults, it is enough to wait for some time and try again,
- screen resolution incompatibility, which basically means screen resolution of 240x320,
If you own Sony Ericsson x10 Mini or other device with screen resolution 240x320, you probably will not see Gemini Calendar in the Market (let me know, if you do!)

I have also been asked about donations and future expected paid version of Gemini Calendar - whether donors will have to pay once more, when paid version appears. My answer is: of course, donors will have a free licence, when the time comes.

 

[jimnyo]

hello,
i apologize, i have not had a chance to read all 7 pages of your thread, but a few things: one, i do LOVE your app and i think it is well on its way to becoming the best calendar app out there. i came over from the palm platform and i'm still lamenting the death of palm desktop, but you are making the grieving process a little easier. second, you specifically asked for feedback in your very first post about how we like the input method for dates (the swiping up and down to change the numbers). personally, and maybe this is too much to ask due to my laziness, i would MUCH prefer it if i didn't have to tap the month and THEN move again to the swipe bar and then back to the date and then AGAIN to the swipe bar, and same for the year. if i could just touch the month (or right next to it) and swipe up/down, same for the date and year, i would be INCREDIBLY grateful.

lastly, i am either totally ignorant or i have a bug. when i tap on the widget, it opens to day view. i cannot figure out for the life of me how to get it to month view. same thing happens if i open it from my list of apps. HOWEVER, on occasion, if i open it from my list of apps, it opens in the month view. can you help me? thanks!

 

[jae_63]

lastly, i am either totally ignorant or i have a bug. when i tap on the widget, it opens to day view. i cannot figure out for the life of me how to get it to month view. same thing happens if i open it from my list of apps. HOWEVER, on occasion, if i open it from my list of apps, it opens in the month view. can you help me? thanks!

Click on the leftmost of the widget's four squares to enter Month View, or any any of the right three squares to enter Day View.

I've suggested previously that the rightmost square should be used as a "Normal Add Event" instead.

 

[haasjohn]

Best I've found! So far what I miss about my Palm is the search feature.

Please keep up the excelent work.

 

[(G)]

Best I've found! So far what I miss about my Palm is the search feature.

Power Search will search your whole phone, including the calendar.

 

[kokiangel]

Should have checked out your website before now. I have been wanting to donate but hate to do so via my phone. So much easier to do on my laptop where I can see what I am doing! It isn't much of a donation but I guess every bit helps? Now I don't feel like a total freeloader anyway since I love this app so much.
Also, love your little androids in their plaid britches.

 

[maplewood]

I have just installed Gemini and it looks wonderful. However I can't figure out why some events that are on my Google calendar display on Gemini and others don't. (They are all on the same Google Calendar).

Is there a users guide anywhere?

 

[syrguy1969]

I have just installed Gemini and it looks wonderful. However I can't figure out why some events that are on my Google calendar display on Gemini and others don't. (They are all on the same Google Calendar).

Is there a users guide anywhere?

Powell has a tips link on the first post that is pretty helpful, but for the syncing, I haven't seen this problem, the only thing I would suggest is looking at the calendars your syncing to Google and Gemini and see if there is any difference. I had Google synced to "My Calendar" and Gemini synced with Exchange and that lead to something that looked like what you have.

In Gemini click: Menu > More > My Calendars
In the Inc calendar app click: Menu > More > Calendars

See how they match-up......hope this helps.

P.S. Very sorry if this is basic knowledge stuff that you already knew, it is just what caught me in the begining.

 

[iamozzie]

Just a few problems I noted. Just downloaded to my Droid X. When i pick multiple days (spanning days), the setup shows the right date, but the calendar shows an additional day on the end. I overcame by dragging to a day short.

Also when setting up a time for an event the start time and end time simultaneously change and it difficult to get them correct. i got around this by going to the hour, then minutes (even though i was not setting minutes) and that seemed to work.

A great addition would be icons to see what was happening on a particular day without going into it.

Thanks for finally developing a useful calendar rather than the lame one included on the device...

 

[maplewood]

Gemini shows some events but not others.

In Gemini click: Menu > More > My Calendars
In the Inc calendar app click: Menu > More > Calendars

See how they match-up......hope this helps.

-----
The list of calendars includes all that appear in my Google account (plus another) but some of those events still don't appear.

I am creating some events in Outlook and using Google Calendar Sync to get them onto my Google calendar. Might that be an issue? Could there be some flag in that event that prevents Gemini from reading it?

I don't think that's the problem because I have entered some events directly into my Google calendar that also don't appear on Gemini.

 

[lairdb]

Miscellaneous feedback and suggestions.

(FWIW, some context: I've been a BlackBerry user for years, and am trying a Samsung Galaxy S (Vibrant) to see if I can switch to Android. K9Mail, with both GMail and my Exchange linked as IMAP accounts seems to be working pretty well for email, so the next quest was a calendar.)

So far, quite impressed with Gemini Calendar; nice mix of functionality, etc.



- Enhancement request: compress all-day appointments to one line and supress the "00:00". I probably have anywhere from 2 to 5 all-day events every day, and they completely occupy the visible agenda area. (FWIW, the terrible handling of all-day events is what first drove me away from the stock calendar.) All-day events can easily be compressed to one line, with description truncated with an ellipsis if too long, and iconage pushed to the far right of the entry.

- Enhancement: ability to hide the month calendar, to make more room for the day's items. I need to see my day, not my month. It's kinda nice to use it when needed (although I'd like to see it have a little more embedded info, e.g. a micro-graph of free/busy next to each day number); perhaps it could pop up along with the menu content?

- Enhamcent: Graphical day view. I'd rather see a graphical view, not just an agenda view.

- Was surprised to find that I quite like the author's non-stock time-setting control. Enhancement: rolling the minutes control over an hour boundary should increment/decrement the hours control. (Similarly, in Go To Date, rolling the day over the end of the month should increment the month, etc.)

- In appointment entry, the "alarm clock" icon doesn't have anything to do with the alarm -- it appears to determine whether it's an all-day event or not. Different icon would be less misleading.

- Minor Bug: Changing the time fields, and then selecting and deselecting the "alarm clock" icon loses changes to the time fields. Those changes shouldn't be lost until the appointment is actually saved with the "alarm clock" selected.

- Dislike the icon; need a calendar-looking icon.

Hope this is useful feedback.

 

[jimnyo]

hello again, thank you for the clarification on the widget. i don't have 4 squares on my widget (it's just the thin, horizontally long one), but i did have 1 so i clicked that and it opened to month view for me. thanks!! other questions:
1. lately, it seems it takes quite awhile for my calendar to load on the top half of the screen when i'm in month view. i'd say average is about 5 seconds, but sometimes it never loads until i click on a different day. then i click back to the day i want and it's there. is this a bug?
2. i could've sworn it used to let me delete an individual occurrence of a recurring event, but now it won't? only "all" and "this and future events".
3. why can't i change some info in events that have been previously created? when i click 'edit' on an open event, it won't let me change the category or recurrence.

 

[judebert]

My Treo just got soaked, and I've 'upgraded' to a Samsung Captivate from AT&T. I know people are crazy for web browsing on their phones, but for me the PIM functionality is the big attraction. I've used Palm devices since the original Palm Pilot 1000; I realy loved the Treo for putting all my functionality in one place!

The PIM apps on Android are primitive, at best. Gemini Calendar goes a long way towards fixing that. But, speaking as a programmer and PIM user, here are some improvements I think it could use.

1. Custom alarm ringtones. I use a soft alarm for my morning wakeup so I don't disturb my wife. I need loud alarms for the workplace, where I might be separated from my phone or surrounded by other distractions.
   
   I realise that alarm tones are a system function, but I don't know if that API allows for custom tones, or only the default. On the Palm, it was only a system default; DateBk6 actually included an option to handle its own alarms. Perhaps this is a possibility for Gemini Calendar (if the API allows for app callbacks).
2. Nagging. I set alarms because I need to be notified. Not just pinged, but nagged.
   
   

   One more thing: On all of the events I add, I have an "On Time" notification and a "5 minutes before" notification.
   
   When the "5 minutes before" notification goes off, I turn on the Droid and see the notification screen, and hit "Dismiss All." However it only dismisses the "5 minutes before" alarm, because the "On Time" notification still rings and needs to be turned off individually.
   
   Is there any way that "Dismiss All" can dismiss ALL the notification alarms with one touch?

   
   

   I've wondered about this in the past, and your question caused me to look it up. By Googling "android snooze time", I found a free app called "Calendar Snooze." It's in the Market, but I haven't tried it yet, and don't know how nicely it plays with Gemini Calendar. If you try it, please let us know.

   
   Again, I realise this is a system API function. But it's essential for PIM apps. I've tried Calendar Snooze, and it does well at nagging, but it doesn't allow custom alarm ringtones. As I mentioned, DateBk6 on PalmOS used the API's app callback feature to handle its own alarms. If Android has the same possibility, it would be a great improvement.
3. Reccurence editing. Perhaps it's just my version, or my device, but it seems I can only set the reccurrence when I create the event. There have been plenty of times I've wanted to turn a one-shot event into a recurring one, or vice-versa.
4. Recurrence splitting notes. This has already been mentioned by tommygun:
   

   Besides that, if you change the note attached to a recurring event, it is automatically applied to all of them, both in the past and in the future.
   
   I think that when the user modifies a recurring event, there should be a pop-up asking something like thiso you agree?

   
   I know you've just added recurrence splitting to other editing functions. The note-taking capability needs to be considered as the same sort of thing. It's important for taking notes at recurring meetings.
5. Skins. Not a PIM requirement, but useful to keep users from getting distracted.
   

   I am planning skins, you will be able to change the look of Gemini Calendar, maybe even add your own skins. This is however plans for rather distant future.

   
   I see you're planning that. I'd like a cleaner, flatter look. I'm willing to make my own. Just need the capability.

All in all, a fantastic program. Add the PIM functionality I mentioned and I'll be sending you a donation. Unfortunately, I'm a little desperate; if I can't find a calendar that handles my alarm and note-taking schedule, I'm going to have to return the Android phone and buy a Palm Pixi or something. Ugh! Save my phone!

 

[ewingr]

I did a search through this thread, and best I can gather this calendar does not offer search or filter capability. Is that correct?

 

[jae_63]

I did a search through this thread, and best I can gather this calendar does not offer search or filter capability. Is that correct?

As has been mentioned previously, the separate Power Search application does support searching of the calendar

 

[bkdu]

Hi there

Firstly, I'd like to say that this is one fantastic calendar app. Would like different widgets, but you already said you're working on them ... so I'll wait.

Another biiiiiiig plus for me would be either one of these
- addition of tasks as opposed to events, as well as separation of the two (perhaps via category or event type selection)
- option to include other task apps, such as Shuffle or Checkmark

Would like option to display events and tasks separately through both widgets as well as in the actual calendar app ... perhaps side-by-side view, or separator line, or simply different color coding (love the colors by the way ... none of that "neon" crap that seems to be in some of the other calendar apps)

Cheers
bkdu

PS: This is a great app with enormous potential ... would pay for this to help make it worth all your efforts.

 

[tommygun]

would pay for this to help make it worth all your efforts.

Actually, you can already do it.

 

[bkdu]

Actually, you can already do it.

If it's offered as both free and paid, then I would have gotten the paid version. These apps don't cost a fortune and people should get compensated for the time and effort they invest. Plus, if you don't like it, there's the usual 24 hour refund policy ... have to say I quite like that approach ... everybody wins that way.