Month: October 2021

Good news! We have spent time this week preparing Kalendar for KDE Review — the two-week process that new KDE applications are subjected to before initial release. Don’t worry, we’re going to go over what that means in a second. We will also go through some of the refactoring, tweaking, and boatload bug-fixing that has been happening in anticipation for KDE Review. Oh… and our new logo!

That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped working on new features, however. Far from it! We have some new cool stuff to show off, including timezone management and expanded tag filtering capabilities.

Note: Kalendar is still under heavy development. You’re free to poke around and try it out, but it is not yet final software! If you want to contribute to its development, join us in Kalendar’s Matrix room.

What is KDE Review?

Before an application is released as a beta or stable version under the KDE umbrella, they must go through a two-week review process. This process involves experienced members of the KDE development community looking through the project and ensuring that it is up to the standard expected from KDE software. This also involves administrative tasks such as ensuring that the software is properly licensed.

There is a detailed wiki page on the KDE community wiki that goes into more detail about this process.

As preparation for this process, we have been making sure that Kalendar is up to scratch. It also means we have finally decided on a logo!

Kalendar’s new logo!

We asked the talented folks in KDE’s Visual Design Group if they could come up with a logo for Kalendar. We received three!

Unfortunately, we could only select one. And though we liked all of the entries, we liked one the most:

This is Kalendar’s logo! With a slick gradient, a subtle K motif, and a very breezy design, we though it was perfect for the app. A massive thanks to Áron Kovács for creating it and for taking our suggestions on board. We love it!

We also loved this entry from Andy Betts. The tick going through the K was super ingenious and the bright colours made for a cheerful logo. Thank you, Andy!

This last runner-up was submitted by Bugsbane. Simple and clear, this was a great logo. Thank you, Bugsbane!

Now, onto features!

Set incidences’ timezones

!109: Add ability to pick incidence timezone (Claudio Cambra)

Kalendar’s incidence editor now lets you set an incidence’s timezone. This can be changed using a simple combo box that contains all the timezones you will need. While you are editing the incidence, you will be able to set the time and date as if it were in the selected timezone, and when you go back to Kalendar’s incidence views, you will be able to see these incidences’ dates and times in your own timezone. This will be handy if you travel a lot, or if must arrange meetings with people overseas!

Add filtering capabilities to all views

!104: Add filtering to all views (Claudio Cambra)
!106: Make set filters persist across view changes (Claudio Cambra)

You can now filter incidences by tags in all of Kalendar’s views, much like you previously could in the tasks view. Doing so brings up a nice persistent header that shows which tags you are filtering by. And that’s another thing — you can now filter with multiple tags, so you can find incidences that have tag A or tag B!

As a result, you can also now carry over the tags you are filtering by when you switch across views.

Tweaking the visuals of static elements

!104: Add filtering to all views (Claudio Cambra)
!97: Improve presentation of scrollable sidebar area and alignment fixes (Claudio Cambra)

We have taken care to make static heading elements look consistent and be more suggestive as to their static-ness. What does this mean? Well, you can see that they all have shadows, which we thought was a good way to show these elements as being “above” scrolling elements. It should look a little less jarring now when you scroll through your calendars in the sidebar, for instance — it’ll look like your list of calendars is going beneath the navigation buttons, and not simply getting cut off.

The aforementioned filter header has a similar shadow, as it stays in place when you scroll horizontally through the months or weeks in Kalendar’s views.

A new merge request template

!101: Add merge request template (Felipe Kinoshita)

For those of you who are thinking about providing your first contribution to Kalendar, we have added a new merge request template that should make it easy for you to tell us what you are adding and how you are changing things around!

Bug-fixes and other changes

!85: Fix regression sort shortcut not configurable (Carl Schwan)

• Tasks view now saves your set sort properly

!87: Fix saving last opened view (Carl Schwan)
!88: Save selected calendars after closing app with Ctrl+C (Carl Schwan)

• Kalendar now saves your selected calendars (i.e. the ones you have set as visible) correctly even if the application crashes or is killed (i.e. CTRL+C)

!89: Fix source selection dialog (Carl Schwan)

• The calendar source section of the settings now looks and works as intended

!90: Refactor singleton registration (Tobias Fella)

• Our singleton registration code in main.cpp is now cleaner

!91: Add common command line options (Tobias Fella)

• Kalendar should now process standard Qt application command line options

!92: Raise required Qt version to 5.15.2 (Tobias Fella)

• The Qt version required by Kalendar now matches the Qt version demanded by KFrameworks

!93: Port navigations actions from ListView to Repeater (Felipe Kinoshita)

• There should no longer be weird behaviour when dragging the view switching actions in the sidebar

!96: Use config enums on settings pages (Felipe Kinoshita)

• Settings in the settings pages now can use KConfig enums thanks to upstream changes!

!98: Add settings option in the hamburger menu (Felipe Kinoshita)
!107: Add a “Configure” section to the hamburger menu (Felipe Kinoshita)

• The hamburger menu should now show configuration and settings actions, like the window and global menus

!99: Don’t base the settings window size on the application window size (Felipe Kinoshita)

• Settings window on desktop now has a more consistent and reasonable size

!100: Use the ellipsis character instead of triple periods (Felipe Kinoshita)

• Actions now use ellipsis character

!102: Fix saving month view’s border width configuration (Felipe Kinoshita)

• Changing the month view’s border width now actually gets saved in the config

!105: Viewed incidence in task view now retained after scrolling or changing views (Claudio Cambra)

• A viewed incidence in the task view now stays open regardless of scrolling or changing views

!108: Change settings window title to “Configure” for consistency sake (Felipe Kinoshita)

• Kalendar’s settings window now has title “Configure”

Commit 2fac6288: Fixed choosing calendar colour in the calendars settings (Claudio Cambra)

• Can now set a calendar’s colour again

Coming up next

With KDE Review starting, we are going to have a bunch of fixes coming in for the remaining bugs in Kalendar. We’ll try to sneak in some new features too!

Is there anything you’d like to see added to Kalendar? Get in touch! I’m @clau-cambra:kde.org on Matrix.

Note: Kalendar is still under heavy development. You’re free to poke around and try it out, but it is not yet final software! If you want to contribute to its development, join us in Kalendar’s Matrix room.

Up until now, Kalendar has allowed you to view your events on a day-by-day basis through both the month view and the schedule view. This week, we are introducing the week view, which gives you a more detailed perspective of your incidences.

Another big new feature: we have reimplemented the KCommandBar in QML. What does this mean? Well, those of you who are power users will be able to leverage the same Command Bar you have enjoyed using in other KDE apps in Kalendar too.

Lastly, we have some improvements for the month view on mobile that should make it far better to view your incidences.

Let’s get on with it!

Adding a new week view

!80: Add a week view to Kalendar (Claudio Cambra)

The new week view provides an hour-by-hour, day-by-day overview of your calendar’s incidences. We have focused on preserving the same aesthetics as in the rest of Kalendar, and ensuring it is as simple to view and as fast to use as the rest of the app.

When using the week view, you will be able to see your incidences positioned according to the day they occur and the hours during which they take place. All-day and multi-day events are placed in a small view at the top of the week-view, which displays incidences in the same way as the month view. This clears up your week view so that you can focus on the incidences with the most specific start and end times.

The current time is marked with a line, and the present day is highlighted. You can navigate through weeks forwards and backwards, as well as by using the date changer popup as you would expect to do in any of Kalendar’s views.

This view is a brand new addition, so bugs are to be expected! If you decide to take Kalendar’s in-development version for a spin and find any bugs, please report them 🙂

Re-implement KCommandBar in QML and include in Kalendar

!79: Implement kcommandbar in QML (Carl Schwan)

If you are a power user of some other KDE apps, you might have used KCommandBar — a KRunner-like popup that lets you quickly search for and trigger actions within the application you are using.

This week, we have reimplemented this component in QML and included it in Kalendar. Our KCommandBar can be invoked with the key combination CTRL+ALT+i, and you can immediately invoke Kalendar’s actions such as creating events, sorting todos, or switching views.

Making the month view more readable

!81: Improve readability of month view incidences in mobile/horizontally constricted environments (Claudio Cambra)

We have changed the displaying of incidences in the month view to be more readable when there isn’t much horizontal space. Now, when incidence lines are narrow, they will not elide, will feature smaller text, and will have less padding to ensure that their names are always visible. This will be a particularly helpful change on mobile.

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Improving visual and interactive consistency

!82: Separate multi day view incidence delegate into own component (Claudio Cambra)
Commit b4744ad9: Separated incidence background onto own component and added glow in dark mode (Claudio Cambra)
!83: Improve calendar selector in task view (Carl Schwan)

We have unified several components that have been used across the different views, including the incidence lines presented in the week and month views as well as the backgrounds of incidences in the month, week, and schedule views. The result is improved visual consistency now, as well as future consistency if any changes are made. Incidences in the month view, for example, now feature subtle shadows just like in the week and schedule views.

Additionally, the calendar picker that is invoked when you add a task using the quick-add field in the task view now works in the same way as the sidebar’s calendar list.

Toggle-able menu bar: finally here!

!41: Make Menubar toggleable (Felipe Kinoshita)

We showed off our toggle-able menubar a few weeks ago, but little bugs have kept this from being merged. Up until now! Those of you who would like to switch between a hamburger menu or a menu bar can now do so from either thanks to a check-able “Show menubar” action. If you use a global menu, neither of these components will appear.

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Bug-fixes and other changes

Commit d0b610b5: Make it compile with new akonadi includes (Laurent Montel)

• Kalendar now shows incidences correctly when using most up-to-date versions of Akonadi (e.g. from kdesrc-build)

Commit 4e42c4d5: Fixed schedule view not defaulting to current day (Claudio Cambra)

• Schedule view now once again opens up to current day when not explicitly moved to different month

Commit 0b3e512e: Fixed collection picker in all tasks page quick add field (Claudio Cambra)

• When adding a task from the quick-add textfield and in the ‘All Tasks’ page, the collection picker presented to let you select what calendar this task will be put into once again presents calendars correctly

Commit ada0e9c7: Fixed incidence radius in week view incidences (Claudio Cambra)

• Incidences’ corners in the week view now have the correct radius instead of sharp corners

Commit 81431239: Fixed separator size not taking into account the horizontal scrollbar width (Claudio Cambra)

• The background separator in the week view’s alll day/multi day events header no longer extends beyond this view, removing the ugly gray background to the right of incidences

Commit 55f72978: Fixed list view dragging on week view elements (Claudio Cambra)

• Scrolling in the week view now works correctly in mobile, with dragging anywhere scrolling vertically the entire page and not just select items

Coming up next

Some big new features this week mean that next week will inevitably be full of bug-fixes, so expect lots of those. There are several smaller features that we still want to implement from our feature-list, so expect some of those too.

Is there anything you’d like to see added to Kalendar? Get in touch! I’m @clau-cambra:kde.org on Matrix.