I've been using an old copy of WINDATES and have been looking for something to replace it with that I could use both with Windows, and under Linux. I tried Sunbird but as it's still in the .3 version it's a little buggy, and lacked the features I wanted.

Then, after a search I found a link to Rainlender on the Open Source Calendar page. Anyway, it seems to be exactly what I was hunting for - thanks!

Of course I've only been using it for a short time and already I have suggestions, mostly culled from my use of WinDates.

Add an "Copy as New Event" entry to the context menu of the events list.
This would take a copy of the event listed and open it for editing. The user would have to change dates/times, before saving, but it would save time on having a string of events that have the same details and no regular schedule.

Add more options on the Alarm/Snooze pop-up window
At the moment the user can either cancel the alarm, or set it to snooze for the default number of seconds. Why not allow the default value (for that alarm only) to be shown and edited, buttons for snoozing the alarm for Hours and Days (with their own default values perhaps), and have an Edit button for that event). That way the user would have more flexibility in ignoring the alarm if they want to, and could set the event to another date directly upon being reminded of it.

Individual Snooze Settings
This would add an extra value and units (minutes/hours days) fields to an event editing dialogue box. The value would be the default period (in whatever units were chosen) that the snooze button in the alarm pop-up box would work (perhaps the button would show the value and units in it).

The idea of the last two suggestions is to allow more flexibility how alarms are handled.

For example, with WinDates I sometimes have a "bus alarm" for leaving home in the mornings. It takes me 6-10 minutes to walk to the bus stop and anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to get ready. I'd create a bus alarm by setting the alarm at 30 minutes in advance, with a reminder/snooze setting of 5 minutes, so that if I get distracted getting ready (as often happens) it'll remind me in 5 minutes time. At the same time, I also have a reminder for the deadline of some Web Comics I do, and I set the alarm to 1 minute on an all day event, and a reminder for every 5 hours.

Just some ideas, and thanks again for Rainlender.

I've been thinking about some kind of template feature for the new events which would automatically fill in some of the fields. I'll think about the copy feature too.

It's not possible to put controls into the alarm windows so I would have to open a new dialog if the snooze time is changed which isn't very nice. However it is already possible to select separate snooze times for individual events from the context menu. Currently it's just some predefined values but I have a todo item to make it user configurable.

Actually, I've only just now did I find the context menu on the alarm reminder dialog box, so it seems that the functionality was there already.


I noticed too, that if you right click anywhere else in the dialog box you get the standard context menu, so that's not exactly intuitive (I expected the snooze options to come up).

However, after a review of your help file, I can't find this documented anywhere! It's not obvious that you can do this, and with no reference to it new users don't know that the functionality is there.

I'm suggesting you add a page in the help files about reminders and what you can do when the reminder dialog box appears. I have some other ideas about what can be done with this, and will make them in your suggestions forum.<br><br>Post edited by: LauraSeabrook, at: 2007/06/05 20:00