Feature Requests

[andrew]

First, myCal PRO is an excellent calendar app. I would recommend it highly as one of the best, if not the best, replacement calendar app for the iPhone/iPad. I currently have Calendars+, CalenMob, myCal PRO, Week Agenda, and, of course, the default Calendar app installed. They each have certain advantages, but myCal PRO is highly competitive and, with a few enhancements, could easily dominate.

One great feature of myCal PRO is that it appears to refresh/download updates to the calendars, unlike Calendars+. So if I make changes to my work calendar in Outlook, those changes won't show up in Calendars+ until I open either the Apple calendar app or myCal PRO, which triggers downloading the updates/re-syncing the calendars.

Second, here are some feature requests/suggestions:

1. Add a refresh button to manually refresh/re-sync the built-in calendars (if this is possible).

2. Add an option for 7 day split to start on Today. (If today is Sunday, start the week on Sunday and show the next seven days. If today is Wednesday, start the week on Wednesday and show the next seven days.)
This would be a great feature because I want to see what's coming up and I don't care about what has already happened.

3. Add a list view that shows as many upcoming events (not just today's events) in a list as will fit on the screen (adjustable font size would be great).
Calendars+ has the best implementation of this, followed by CalenMob, then Apple. The list view is my preferred default view, so I currently use Calendars+ to see what's coming up, even though I prefer myCal PRO for all other views.

4. Enhance data/time selection to use a format similar to Calendars+ or CalenMob.
I prefer the format of CalenMob, but Calendars+ is good too. Being able to select a date from a calendar and easily switch and also select the time makes adding events a lot easier.

<snip>

Thanks for a great app!

[HairyJohn]

Hi Andrew!
Thank you for the kind words! Im working hard on making myCal PRO as useful as possible so any suggestions are always welcome.

I hope you dont mind but I removed the links to the images. I don't mind mention or comparisons to other apps at all or descriptions of functionality a user would like to see, but I wouldn't want to be accused of plagiarism if/when I implement a new feature etc.

A lot of detail in your request! Let me come back to this shortly once I have some time to digest it all.

Regards
John

[HairyJohn]

Ok here goes:

1) Add a refresh button
Isn't or at least shouldn't be required, myCal PRO accesses the internal iOS calendars and makes sure that any reloading has occurred as soon as the app is notified

2) Add an option for a 7 day split that starts today
I like this and have been thinking along these lines for some time, but what layout would you expect to see for the following or preceding weeks? Should that also start from the same day of week as the current day?

3) List view
Very high on my todo list, don't worry!

4) Enhanced date/time selection
I will need to look into this but I have always wanted to select a date from a calendar picker. Plenty of scope for improvement here!

Thank you for the suggestions, please keep them coming!

Regards
John

[HairyJohn]

Just a heads up, the List View has now been released as part of v1.9 and is free for all PRO users.
More to do however and I have another release lined up for this week which contains a few smaller improvements and a few bug fixes.

Regards
John

[andrew]

John,

1) Refresh Button
Hmm...This is what I am seeing: (1) Add/change an event in my calendar using Microsoft Outlook, (2) Open myCal PRO and the change is not displayed, (3) Open the iOS Calendar app and the change is not displayed right away but the app immediately begins syncing and then displays the change, (3) Switch to myCal PRO and it automatically updates to display the change. Thus, it appears that myCal PRO does automatically display changes in the iOS calendars, but it appears that myCal PRO will not automatically trigger iOS to update the iOS calendars themselves. Is it possible to do so? If not, how do I make sure that myCal PRO is showing the up-to-date version of my calendars without first opening the iOS Calendar app?

2) 7-day Split Starting on Today
Yes. I think that if the 7-day split is set to display starting on Today, then scrolling backward or forward should display preceding and following weeks starting on the same day of the week as Today. So if Today is Tuesday, the 7-day split view would show Tues. - Mon., and previous and subsequent weeks would also show a 7-day range of Tues. - Mon. That is how Microsoft Outlook, for example, handles the situation, and it allows seamless scrolling forwards and backwards.

3) List View
Thanks! I like it. A couple suggestions:
(a) Could you add an option to display the end times only for the current day? Another calendar app that I use does this by default (no option), and it makes the view cleaner and more condensed. I would definitely want it to be an option though, because displaying end times for all events in the list view is definitely a nice feature to have.
(b) Instead of displaying the events in colored bubbles, would it be possible to display just the text (and icons if selected in the preferences) and color code the start/end time to indicate the calendar? (That is, the list view would display the text in black for all the events and the start/end times would be green, blue, etc. to indicate the calendar with which the event is associated.) ... I very much like the bubbles used for events in the month view--the myCal PRO month view is by far the best of any calendar app I have used, and it is one of myCal PRO's greatest strengths. But I think the List View would be cleaner if that information was displayed in color-coded start/end times rather than bubbles.

4) Enhanced date/time selection
Thank you for looking into this.

Thanks,
Andrew

P.S. I would be happy to beta test new features in myCal PRO and PRO+ if that would be helpful.

[HairyJohn]

Hi Andrew!

1) Hmm that is a concern, the syncing is supposed to be handled automatically by iOS when my app registers for notifications. The fact of launching the app in the first place is supposed to trigger iOS to fetch any updates.
Can you try the following, can you leave myCal PRO running and add an event in Outlook. Dont do anything else in myCal PRO and wait for a up to a minute. Then tap the Info icon and select 'Email log data to support'. I'll see if the notification is coming in and not being processed, or if no notification is coming in at all.

2) If Microsoft think its a good idea, then why not! It makes logical sense to you and me, so lets do it.

3) Still some work to do on the list view, and I think you are correct there is a little too much bubble on that page. Same for the Day View. I'll add an option to switch it down so its not quite so bold and in your face.
End times for today only? Interesting idea, dont see why not! I'll add that as an option too.

4) With all the other suggestions you have when am I ever going to get the time to do this one??
Kidding! Its definitely on the list, and I find the standard Apple tumbler approach quite loathsome now. The more loathsome it gets, the higher up the list it moves...

Beta tester? Thank you that is very much appreciated!
You'll receive an email shortly with the invite, you'll need to register and then register all the devices you want to test on. Im limited to 100 test devices in any 1 year so trying to keep it down to max of 2 devices per tester.

Regards
John