This post is rather long. It has several bug reports and suggestions. I wanted to get all of my thoughts into one post.
Background: I use Rainlendar for my personal calendar. I am a partner in a tiny web development company. We use Joomla for almost everything and Coffee Cup HTML editor, paid version, for almost everything else. I am a programmer with a keen interest in internet calendar programs, from presentation down to the data standards. We use jEvents on a couple of our Joomla sites. My programming background includes making desktop software in VB and C#, a mix of corporate internal apps, freeware, and companion software for commercial hardware.
I downloaded the Trial version Saturday.
1. The Help file did not come up, instead it reported it could not find a PDF reader on my computer. I have the current version of Foxit installed and set as the default application for opening PDFs.
In my own programs, I use a Windows API call that asks Windows to "execute" the non-executable file. Windows uses the application registered as the default for files with that extension to attempt to open the file. I have been doing this in .NET since 2.0 came out but the API call at the root of this is in the Win32 call book. I first implemented this in 1995, I think.
In one application I wrote, I deviated from normal practice and used instead another API that allows me to call a program and supply a file name as an "argument". This allowed me to provide a feature to my clients, to be able to choose under Options the program they wanted to use with this type of file regardless of the setting in the operating system.
2. Syncing. I agree with the gentleman above me, syncing with Google Calendar is highly desired, not just Import. I would have bought this Calendar app today if it had the Syncing feature. If it had that feature, I could sync up with one or more calendars held in Google, overlay them, and present them with a theme of my choice. This is value added to the google service.
3. I liked your Add screens. I liked them better than I like using Google Calendar or Outlook.
4. I looked at an ics file generated by the program and it looked pretty good to me, but I intend to test it in various ways tomorrow. I may post again if there are any interesting results from my tests. The program might be useful to me for generating test calendars.
5. When an event begins in the evening and does not have a definite ending time, there is no provision for options in dealing with the display of the event. For example, if a club opens at 8 pm, but the close time depends on when people leave, it is tempting to "close" the event before midnight. Otherwise the event display straddles the line into the next day. Ideally, the user should be able to handle this case by entering the time, for example, 4 am, when the club absolutely will not admit anyone else, and this time will be displayed on the event details display, but then opt NOT to have the colorbar show the event across two days.
6. When an event is a convention, it will begin on a day and run for several days. There is no easy way to handle conventions. There is no interface at all for handling conventions.
Points 5 and 6 are partly a problem with the ICS standard.
Calendars in general are geared to handling business meetings, and the design of most I have seen is all about businesses. Yet nearly every non profit organization keeps a calendar, and their needs are still not being addressed in a complete and comprehensive way.
7. I think previous versions of this were in Flash. Am I correct? I despise Flash and have tried to avoid dealing with it these past two years. We just finished an effort to purge all Flash use from our web sites. Our clients are happier with html/javascript implementations. Supporting mobile users was becoming a larger headache with time. Error messages, failure to run at all on the iPhone, crashes, security issues, it all piles up until it costs us too much time, and too much money. Thank you so much for implementing without Flash!
8. I could not immediately determine the difference between the Trial version and the Paid version of the program. These differences should be clearly stated, in a Help menu item, or on the About screen, and on the top of every Tip that comes up. Nothing obnoxious, just a reminder of what version you are using and in brief, any limitations or differences there are between that version and the paid version. Also, as this trial gets older, it would be nice to know a newer version is available, and what advantages there are to upgrading to it.
9. Lastly, an option should be available from within the program to go to the web site and purchase a license. I think you are shorting yourselves an opportunity, there.
Best of luck with this one!
Tim
