Calendar Events

DEVONthink Feedback
1

Regarding the script “Add as Event to Calendar”:

This script does not function the way I would expect it to. For example, I make an appointment to see my dentist on Thursday at 11:30. I type a note in DT: Dentist, Thursday 11:30.

When I use the script “Add as Event to Calendar,” I first get to choose which calendar I want, which is what I expect. Next, I get to select when to be reminded of the event: 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, 1 week…

Problem: I want to enter an event, not a reminder for an event. I want “Dentist” to appear in my calendar for Thursday at 11:30, with perhaps the option of setting an alarm. It would also be nice if I could type a note (“ask about upper right molar”) and have it appear in my calendar as words, not a link which will be useless to when I am looking at my phone, which is usually where I check my calendar. And what happens if my event is four days from today? or ten days?

If I simply wanted to remind myself to call the dentist, this would work fine: Call Dentist. Select Personal Calendar; remind me in 2 days. I don’t care what time I get the reminder (though the Reminders app lets me set a time and a priority and add a note.)

MacJournal has a ‘send event to calendar’ function which works pretty well, though it won’t send any notes, just a link. It will put the event at any date and time. It also has a cute little calendar which I can click to add an entry. The Planbook app I use for lesson plans does it beautifully: all lessons are synced and updated to specific calendars; the lesson notes appear in the calendar.

This is maybe a lot to expect, but it would certainly make DT more useful to me. I understand that DT is not a ‘getting things done’ app, and guess that calendar sync is not a high priorty for most users, but I thought I’d ask.

Thank you for your consideration -

Creno

2

I usually schedule such an appointment directly in the Calendar. Takes less effort than creating a note in DEVONthink, then invoking the Reminders script. :slight_smile:

But often I’ve got a document in a database that requires an action in the future. It might be a draft I’m working on for which I wish to set a completion date, or a scanned bill from an insurance company that requires payment by a certain date. That’s when I’ll use the script to create a calendar event tied to that document. Often the choice among date options doesn’t quite fit, so I’ll create the event, then go to Calendar and edit the date.

When the event alarm notifies me of the due date, I choose the option to take me to the event in Calendar. Open the event and there’s a clickable link to my draft, the insurance bill or whatever, which when clicked opens that document in my database. There it is, ready for action.

3

I’ve just tried and the “Add as Event to Calendar” does, indeed, add an event to the selected calendar on the given day at 09:00. You can then double-click it to adjust the rest of its properties. For reminders there’s another script.

4

This script seems slow (takes maybe 9 seconds to open select calendar window). Not a big deal, just wondering if it’s my setup or the norm. And I use it daily.

This function would be smoother and quicker if I could pick a default calendar and reminder duration and bypass the selection windows or have a default selected for each so I could just click thru then adjust in Calendar if needed.

Any chance I can get at the settings for this?

Thanks
Bern

5

Three year old post right, but just today I encountered the same script outcome in Calendar which I concluded obviously had to be an error…that is until I read the disconcerting response to your post.

To add: Any function - in this case an EVENT script - which net-impedes work flow should be fixed or trashed. Yes, obvious. Creno very clearly expressed a preference for DATE/TIME input for the script called, Add Event to Calendar vs being presented with a reminders style incremental time option. Who wouldn’t prefer that? You say it’s more efficient to input Events to Calendar directly. Indeed, yet somehow the blinding subject in the room goes unaddressed. Will you repair the Events script such that within DT Add Event to Calendar offers net greater value over exiting DT?

6

@Deeptide: Disconcerting response?

Think about what that script is designed to do. It works with a document in your database, one for which you wish to establish an event in the Calendar, so that you will be reminded when an action involving that document comes due. When an alert from Calendar is received, the event can be opened. Clicking the link it contains will open the referenced document so that action can be taken. (Note that the script has a clickable keyboard shortcut (or if not, you can add it.)

Multiple Calendars are commonly used. I have several for various purposes, one of them semi-public, shared among a group. Therefore, the first choice after invoking the script is the Calendar to be used. To remove that step would result in howls of outrage from many users.

The next step is to choose among a list of possible time intervals, rather than to enter directly a date and time. Ten time intervals are presented, which I think is a convenience as it relieves me from consulting a calendar to calculate the date two weeks from now, for example. If none of those interval choices is the desired one, that’s not a big deal, as I’ll almost always want to go to Calendar to edit the new event, anyway, and the desired date/time can quickly be edited there.

Now the script lets me create a new event in Calendar. The name of the event will be Reminder: [Document Name].

Why would I want to edit the new event normally? That’s because I’ll usually want to add a note describing the action to be taken on the referenced document, and it’s much more flexible to to that in Calendar rather than in a more complex script alteration. I’ll also want to edit the event, in case the action is to be repeated, e.g. every week, month or year – a job better done in Calendar than trying to do this in a much more complex script.

Perhaps there has been a bit of confusion. The purpose of this script is to create a Calendar event tied to a document in a DEVONthink database. It does that. I use it frequently. But if I wish to create a Calendar event to call my dentist, why should I do that in DEVONthink? I would simply go to Calendar and create such an event.

Of course, I could create a document in my database the Name of which is my dentist’s name, with content consisting of the phone number. Select that document and invoke the script to create the desired event. :slight_smile:

7

On my instance of DevonThink Pro Office, the script Add Calendar Event doesn’t work at all. Choosing this item in the menu, whether text is selected or not, doesn’t do anything.

8

I just tried this on a Clean Sierra install: Select text in an RTF, choose Script > Reminders > Add as Event to Calendar. After okaying DEVONthink’s access to Calendar.app, it asked what calendar, what interval, and made a new event.

9

Sorry Bluefrog, I was refering to the Calendar Event template. This one doesn’t work at all on either my computers, one on Sierra, the other on El Capitan. How does it work?