[GSoC 2017] Calendar Application

Introduction

Hello I'm Akshay (IRC/Trac: akshay, GitHub: AkshayAgarwal007) from Kolkata, India. I would be working on developing a native Calendar Application for Haiku as a part of Google Summer of Code 2017. My mentors for the project are Scott McCreary and Kacper Kasper. I am very excited for this project.

Why a Calendar Application? Isn't there already one?

A Calendar application is a must have application for any operating system and would be beneficial for end users as well as developers. Haiku doesn't have a calendar application yet. There are a few existing 3rd party Calendar apps out there, but none are close to a simple and elegant Calendar app that an end user would like to use, with all the necessary features a modern Calendar app should have.

Also the existing ones (Borg, A-Book, Organizer, Eventual) have issues of their own and hence I would be writing one completely from scratch, referring them wherever required.

Features the Calendar app would have

I reviewed a bunch of Calendar apps on other platforms and came up with a subset of necessary features to be implemented:

• Create, modify and synchronise events.
• Set event reminders.
• Display Day, Month Calendar views.
• Set event color.
• All day long events, recurring events.
• Google Calendar integration.
• A minimal look with intuitive UI design.

Future features

These are the features that I plan to work upon after GSoC:

• Support for alternate calendars.
• Categorize events.
• Search for events.
• Week, Year View.
• Timeline view for a single day/week.

Google Calendar Integration

This is one of the most important feature the Calendar app would have. It is a must have so that the users can get their events synchronised between devices and other platforms they use. Since almost all the calendar apps have a Google Calendar integration, this would be the best way to achieve event synchronisation.

A Google Calendar API client would be written using Haiku APIs and would be integrated into the application.

Wireframes

These are some tentative designs for the Calendar application.

Add Event

• I would be coming up with a final design for this, incorporating all the options required for supporting recurring events and an event color picker.

Day View

• All day long events would be pinned to the top.
• Right click on an event will open a context menu with three options (View, Modify, Delete)
• View will open the entire event details in read only mode. Modify and Delete options would also be available inside View mode.
• Using the calendar widget in the side panel, user can navigate through months. Buttons to navigate one month at a time can be replaced by a dropdown to simply select month+year for user's ease.

Month View

• Clicking on a particular day in month view will show events of that day in side panel.
• Again the buttons to navigate one month/year at a time can be replaced by a dropdown to simply select month+year for user's ease.

I would be finalising the user interface design in the upcoming week and suggestions from you all would be highly valuable for the same.

Icons

I plan to use the following icons in the application (icons be Michele Frau [Zumi] are really cool):

• Main Application icon:
  http://zumi.xoom.it/myhaiku/3rd%20party%20apps/schedule%20r3.png
• Add Event toolbar icon:
  http://zumi.xoom.it/myhaiku/btoolbar/document%20open%20recent.png
• I would be needing a Calendar toolbar icon similar to one in the wireframes.

Apart from this I would also be working on to improve date/time classes in Haiku as required for the application.

References

• PDF copy of my GSoC Proposal
• Eventual Documentation
• GNOME 3 Calendar App Design