iCal's Quick Event and the Colossal Stupidity of Apple's UI OS X team these days...

[blow45]

Here's an issue I am having with (the ipad app looking, fake realistically leather, functionality compromised) ical in lion.

I am on the 22 of April today, I create a quick event for the day. I then go and select the 24 and I am also on the day view there just to make sure. I click on add quick event write something, press return, and it goes and adds the event for the 22 of April.

Now I 've pretty much had it with the idiocy that has gone down in lion's interface to the extent that I think if someone doesn't sack the head of os x team Creg Federighi (sp?) the poor os is in big trouble - or to be more exact doesn't stand a chance to get out of the trouble they put it in. But maybe it's just my fault here that I don't understand the functionality of adding a quick event. So I am running it by you guys.

So, if I understand correctly a quick event is only for the current day you are in, you might have gone and selected another day, then clicked on the big fat + button to add a quick event, but somehow ical assumes that ALL quick events are meant for the very same day, because as we all know we all program our days on the very same day and who would want to add a quick event for the actual day they were on on ical , right?

Of course I could write "blah blah on 24th" and it would surely (in it's infinite AI wisdom) put it on the 24th of April? Yes, apparently not. Still puts it on the 22 (which by now has become a pretty busy day as you might imagine...). Ok test "blah blah on the 24th of April". This works, finally. For the love of God though, I go and select a day on the calendar and add a quick event, then it should be on the day I selected by default, not on the today's day by default!!!! And if I add the 24th it doesn't need ET intelligence for ical just a bunch of lines of code to understand that 1-31 with st, nd, rd, th ending should go on that day of the month and not today.

But maybe I have it wrong and there is some rationale there, that's not so obviously inane... I really mean it. I would really like to hear someone correct me here, and tell me no this is good fuctionality and you are biased because you think lion is ****. This would be preferable that I were wrong than coming to understand that the people in charge of the ui at the moment at apple and their leader have reached and are pretty close to surpassing ms in ui idiocy levels...

(Wish Steve were alive to go mobileme on them and just barge in and shout at them for the bs they've been pulling with os x. And tell them wtf is that, why am I typing in dinner with Jony on the 23rd and go you add it for today, why when I choose the 23rd day of the month and I add a quick event dinner with Jony do you go put it again for today? What mind numbing drugs or medications are you developing under the influence of?)

Anyway got to run, it's a hell of a busy day today what with all the events ical has added to it. Ical the cure for procrastination, makes you plan everything for today!

 

[matrix07]

Here's an issue I am having with (the ipad app looking, fake realistically leather, functionality compromised) ical in lion.

I am on the 22 of April today, I create a quick event for the day. I then go and select the 24 and I am also on the day view there just to make sure. I click on add quick event write something, press return, and it goes and adds the event for the 22 of April.

Now I 've pretty much had it with the idiocy that has gone down in lion's interface to the extent that I think if someone doesn't sack the head of os x team Creg Federighi (sp?) the poor os is in big trouble - or to be more exact doesn't stand a chance to get out of the trouble they put it in. But maybe it's just my fault here that I don't understand the functionality of adding a quick event. So I am running it by you guys.

So, if I understand correctly a quick event is only for the current day you are in, you might have gone and selected another day, then clicked on the big fat + button to add a quick event, but somehow ical assumes that ALL quick events are meant for the very same day, because as we all know we all program our days on the very same day and who would want to add a quick event for the actual day they were on on ical , right?

Of course I could write "blah blah on 24th" and it would surely (in it's infinite AI wisdom) put it on the 24th of April? Yes, apparently not. Still puts it on the 22 (which by now has become a pretty busy day as you might imagine...). Ok test "blah blah on the 24th of April". This works, finally. For the love of God though, I go and select a day on the calendar and add a quick event, then it should be on the day I selected by default, not on the today's day by default!!!! And if I add the 24th it doesn't need ET intelligence for ical just a bunch of lines of code to understand that 1-31 with st, nd, rd, th ending should go on that day of the month and not today.

But maybe I have it wrong and there is some rationale there, that's not so obviously inane... I really mean it. I would really like to hear someone correct me here, and tell me no this is good fuctionality and you are biased because you think lion is ****. This would be preferable that I were wrong than coming to understand that the people in charge of the ui at the moment at apple and their leader have reached and are pretty close to surpassing ms in ui idiocy levels...

(Wish Steve were alive to go mobileme on them and just barge in and shout at them for the bs they've been pulling with os x. And tell them wtf is that, why am I typing in dinner with Jony on the 23rd and go you add it for today, why when I choose the 23rd day of the month and I add a quick event dinner with Jony do you go put it again for today? What mind numbing drugs or medications are you developing under the influence of?)

Anyway got to run, it's a hell of a busy day today what with all the events ical has added to it. Ical the cure for procrastination, makes you plan everything for today!

You're holding it wrong!

Seriously, Quick Event, as far as I can tell, is not confined to current day. Don't believe me? Type this: Dinner at 7pm on Tuesday. See where it goes.
Better yet, I just tested it. Go to the 25th and make a quick event and it stays on the 25th.

 

[tkermit]

I am on the 22 of April today, I create a quick event for the day. I then go and select the 24 and I am also on the day view there just to make sure. I click on add quick event write something, press return, and it goes and adds the event for the 22 of April.

That's arguably a bug. Submit it as feedback to Apple.

 

[blow45]

You're holding it wrong!

Seriously, Quick Event, as far as I can tell, is not confined to current day. Don't believe me? Type this: Dinner at 7pm on Tuesday. See where it goes.
Better yet, I just tested it. Go to the 25th and make a quick event and it stays on the 25th.

Not in any of the 3 lion systems I have around me at the moment.

That's arguably a bug. Submit it as feedback to Apple.

Maybe it's by design, who knows with apple these days...
I am not prepared to submit feedback for something as rudimentary as this. It's beyond me if they 've come to have such oversight in their software creation.

 

[tkermit]

I am not prepared to submit feedback for something as rudimentary as this.

But you are prepared to rant about it relentlessly on here?

 

[matrix07]

Not in any of the 3 lion systems I have around me at the moment.

I'm glad my Lion is better than your Lions.

 

[blow45]

I'm glad my Lion is better than your Lions.

lol!

 

[bayxsonic]

What's the point of having that popup if you're still going to select the day? You might as well do another click on the day and type in the name of the event.

That popup is for natural language, you say "Dinner at 7" and it automatically create an event TODAY. If you wanted it on April 24th, you would have typed "Dinner at 7 4/24", or "Dinner tomorrow night" for an event at 8pm.

RTFM before you tell how stupid others are. Open this link in Safari or search for "Add events to an iCal calendar" in the help menu. file:///Applications/iCal.app/Contents/Resources/iCal.help/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/index.html?topic=icalwr13-events

I'll allow it's not complete, but not stupid, unless you consider all electronics stupid which, after all, they are.

 

[blow45]

What's the point of having that popup if you're still going to select the day? You might as well do another click on the day and type in the name of the event.

That popup is for natural language, you say "Dinner at 7" and it automatically create an event TODAY. If you wanted it on April 24th, you would have typed "Dinner at 7 4/24", or "Dinner tomorrow night" for an event at 8pm.

RTFM before you tell how stupid others are. Open this link in Safari or search for "Add events to an iCal calendar" in the help menu. file:///Applications/iCal.app/Contents/Resources/iCal.help/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/index.html?topic=icalwr13-events

I'll allow it's not complete, but not stupid, unless you consider all electronics stupid which, after all, they are.

The purpose is that instead of finding the time frame manually and putting it there and going and editing the place field that you press the pop up and write "something" between 5 pm to 6pm "there". What's the purpose of the pop up placing the event on anything other than the selected date? Why would anyone select a date other than today and require ical to schedule for today?

Explain to me, it's the 22nd of April, I type dinner at 7 on the 24th and ical's "AI" is so clever as not to put it on the 24th of April but on the current day the 22nd. It completely ignores the existence of what can be very easily be required to be parsed as a date number by even beginning programmers and defaults on the current day.

How more apparent can it be to a piece of software that supposedly has some natural language input that when one schedules time and event for a future date and omits the month, it goes without saying that they are referring to a date later in the current month. Ical simply ignores the date and schedules for "today", how can it simply ignore the date? Why would someone have a "XXth" or "XXnd" or "XXrd" string in their text, that's > than "YYth" or "YYnd" or "YYrd" of today other than for scheduling later on the current month?

That's not something that's either hard to program, or it's particularly demanding of programmer smarts, it's just piss poor attention to detail by apple in their os coming off as stupidity, that's why lion has been such a buggy mess.

Of course all electronics are stupid , that's why they require smarts from the people who develop them.

 

[matrix07]

Explain to me, it's the 22nd of April, I type dinner at 7 on the 24th and ical's "AI" is so clever as not to put it on the 24th of April but on the current day the 22nd.

You just have to type "dinner at 7 on apr 24th". That's all.
I prefer it this way. It's more consistent.

 

[blow45]

You just have to type "dinner at 7 on apr 24th". That's all.
I prefer it this way. It's more consistent.

if I type all that I might as well go to the 24th and put dinner at 7. There's no rational explanation why "something on the 24th" (or any date) shouldn't go on the 24th day of the month and it reverts to the current day. There's also no rational explanation when you are on the 24th that quick add reverts again to the current day.

These are all bugs and they are stupid sloppy work. You might prefer it that way, but it's clear that apple has moved well in the "it's not a bug it's feature" former MS territory, it's not only clear from this bug, it's clear from lion on the whole. That's what happens when you neglect your main desktop os...

 

[matrix07]

if I type all that I might as well go to the 24th and put dinner at 7. There's no rational explanation why "something on the 24th" (or any date) shouldn't go on the 24th day of the month and it reverts to the current day. There's also no rational explanation when you are on the 24th that quick add reverts again to the current day.

These are all bugs and they are stupid sloppy work. You might prefer it that way, but it's clear that apple has moved well in the "it's not a bug it's feature" former MS territory, it's not only clear from this bug, it's clear from lion on the whole. That's what happens when you neglect your main desktop os...

I understand your point but "if I type all that I might as well go to the 24th and put dinner at 7." is nonsense. I mean "the" (from "at 7 on the 24th") and "apr" waste the same time.
I think this is just a string of command, no AI involved. You might want to check back when SIRI available for Mac to test that.
I wonder could you do what you wanna do on Outlook?

 

[blow45]

I understand your point but "if I type all that I might as well go to the 24th and put dinner at 7." is nonsense. I mean "the" (from "at 7 on the 24th") and "apr" waste the same time.
I think this is just a string of command, no AI involved. You might want to check back when SIRI available for Mac to test that.
I wonder could you do what you wanna do on Outlook?

I ve not used it for ages, some people swear by it even from the mac community though. I am too busy to even attempt to migrate there, as much as I lament such sloppy work and pointless iosification of calendar and contacts. Anyway you cut it what I am referring too is clearly sloppy work, yeah sure I could put in apr. but that doesn't make a feature and not a bug. Anyway ical, mail, and contacts had so much going for them, clearly they show there's no vision at apple, or anyone doing the right type of work to take them to the next level of ease, integration and feature richness... Well...at least they are not abandonware like iWork... Apple has let a lot of people down on the os x front...

 

[rwbock]

I'm with you, blow45: Lion makes Outlook seem easy!

I'm with blow45. I am lost at sea since upgrading to Lion. Maybe someone can point out how I am missing something obvious.

Before Lion, all I had to do to create a new event was to click on the future date (I always use month view), then command-N for a new event, and create it.

Now I *can't* click on any date but Today! I am forced to use the inane "+" option and its inane UI. If I am planning my whole month, it's comical how long it takes.

Please tell me I am missing something. Make me efficient and I will forgive the leather look

 

[tkermit]

I'm with blow45. I am lost at sea since upgrading to Lion. Maybe someone can point out how I am missing something obvious.

Before Lion, all I had to do to create a new event was to click on the future date (I always use month view), then command-N for a new event, and create it.

Now I *can't* click on any date but Today! I am forced to use the inane "+" option and its inane UI. If I am planning my whole month, it's comical how long it takes.

Please tell me I am missing something. Make me efficient and I will forgive the leather look

Double-click?

 

[matrix07]

I'm with blow45. I am lost at sea since upgrading to Lion. Maybe someone can point out how I am missing something obvious.

Before Lion, all I had to do to create a new event was to click on the future date (I always use month view), then command-N for a new event, and create it.

Now I *can't* click on any date but Today! I am forced to use the inane "+" option and its inane UI. If I am planning my whole month, it's comical how long it takes.

Please tell me I am missing something. Make me efficient and I will forgive the leather look

You don't have to be with anyone. Just double-click it LOL.

 

[rwbock]

Duh.

Duh. Thanks to you both. I think the fact that, except for "Today", you cannot click on any date and make it "active" (as was possible with Snow Leopard) blinded me to other simple steps. Appreciate the help.

 

[blow45]

it's not you, it's apple's design. Good design is intuitive, bad design isn't. Bad design is that which has perfectly intelligent people rushing to forums because of some counterintuitive step. And there's a fine line between good and bad design.