Events

The app already holds two things with dates on them. A goal is an effort that progresses and eventually finishes. A meeting on Day is an appointment at a time. An event is neither. It is a run of days with a name, so there is no progress on it and nothing to finish — it starts, it runs, and at some point it is over.

Because an event is its span, its row on the timeline says its name, the day it begins, the day it ends and how many days that is, and nothing else. Two months of choppy travel is the same shape whether you call it a trip or a stretch, and the dates are what tell you which one you are reading.

An event can start on a date, end on a date, or run open-ended from its start. An end can also be marked as soft, which means a horizon rather than a finish line — the point where the thing is expected to wind down rather than the day it stops. A soft end shows with a tilde before it, and an event that runs past a soft end is still running. Only a hard end completes one.

That distinction exists because most real stretches have one. Leaving in late September for about two months is not a commitment to a particular Thursday, and a date printed flat would claim a precision you never gave.

You mark an event as Committed, Maybe or Canceled. Everything else about its state is read off the calendar: a committed event reads as committed before its start date, active once it has begun, and completed after a hard end has passed. An event you marked Maybe stays Maybe until you commit to it, and a canceled one stays canceled whatever its dates say.

An event therefore cannot claim to be running on a week it had not started. The status is worked out each time it is read, so time passing keeps it right on its own.

An event is a run of days, so the days inside it belong to it, and so does everything you wrote on those days. That holds without anything being filed, so an event never needs tidying and can never hold a stale list, and moving its dates moves what it covers.

An event’s page reads in the order a goal’s page reads, on the web and on the phone alike: your own writing under Summary, then the notes filed under the event, then its work, then its log. Each of the four is a card that folds, and what you fold stays folded on that device until you open it again. The installed phone app draws the same cards. Tasks lists what is filed under the event, open work first and finished work behind Show finished; the line under it files a new task under the event and gives it the event’s life area. Journal shows entries newest first, each with its day on its own row, and the bar at its top writes an ordinary journal entry filed under the event that reaches that day like anything else. Archive at the foot of the page takes the event off the list and keeps everything written on it, and Restore puts it back.

The Journal card holds two lists, and the two words on its top line switch between them. Filed lists the entries filed under the event, whatever day they were written. All days lists every entry written on the event’s days, filed or not; an event with no end counts its days up to today. The card opens on Filed when anything is filed under the event and on All days when nothing is, and the one you pick stays picked for that event on that device. An event with no start date has no days, so its card lists the filed entries and shows no switch. Clicking an entry’s words opens it for editing, and right-clicking it, or a long press on the phone, opens the journal’s own menu for it.

A note can also be put in an event by hand, which is how a note written weeks before the days it is about still belongs to them. You do that from the event, with Write a note on the line of its Notes heading. That starts a note already filed under the event and opens it with the name field ready. The notes filed that way are listed under that heading, above the work and the log, on the web and on the phone alike, each with the day it was written and the day it last moved. A row there opens the note on both. The heading stands whether or not anything is filed there, and reads No notes yet under it while nothing is.

A goal filed under an event is listed on the event's page under Goals, between the notes and the work, each with its status; a row opens the goal. An event with no goals filed under it shows no Goals card. This is on the web; the phone's event page follows.

Renaming an event keeps everything filed under it. Deleting one keeps the notes and drops only the link, so nothing you wrote goes with it.

An event can sit inside another one. A single trip inside a longer travel stretch is one event within another, and both are true at once.

Events is on the menu between Goals and Notes. The page is a timeline, one line per event, soonest first, with the free days between them on lines of their own. Events with no date come after the dated ones, and what has already finished is behind one word, Earlier, at the foot of the page, most recent first. There are no headings between them. The dates say which is which.

Every event is two lines. The first line is its name, in ink at the heavier weight, and an event you marked Maybe or Canceled says so after its name. The second line is three columns in a fixed-width face, each starting at the same place down the whole page, so the dates line up character for character and can be read straight down: the day the event begins, the day it ends, and how many days that is. The days are written the way you would say them, Wed Sep 23 and Mon Sep 28, with no year. The count includes both ends, so the 23rd to the 28th reads 6 days. A one-day event says its day once, leaves the end blank, and reads 1 day. A tilde in front of the end means the end is approximate. An event with no date reads No date in the first column. Where two events claim the same days, the word overlaps stands above the name of the later one.

A single event is a plain line, the two lines and nothing around them. An event that holds other events is a card with a fold arrow, and its top line is the same two lines after the arrow, with the dates of everything inside it, from the first day anything inside it begins to the last day anything inside it runs. Pressing that line opens the card, and pressing it again shuts it. Every card starts shut, and the cards you open stay open on that device until you shut them. Open, a card holds the events inside it as the same two lines each, smaller, with their dates directly under its own, and the free days between them as the same grey lines, and an event inside that holds events of its own is a card inside the card. Those lines are all a card holds. Notes, the summary, the tasks and the journal stay on the event’s own page, which the name opens.

A task can stand on this timeline too. On a task’s menu, Highlight as Event puts it here on the day it falls, for a meeting big enough to shape the weeks around it. It reads as the rows around it do, its words on top and its day under them, with the word Task where an event says how many days it holds — an event is a span of days, and this is the one point those days are read against. Its words open the task, not an event page, and everything about it is still edited there. It is on your task list and you finish it there. A finished one stays here struck through: the day still happened. Only a task with a date can be here. Take it off from the same menu, where the item then reads Not an Event.

Between two events with free days between them stands a plain grey line in the three date columns, with no name: the first free day, the last free day, and how many there are, as 6 days free. One such line stands first, from today to the first event, and one stands last, after the last dated event, with a date and no count, since nothing bounds it. Free days that have passed get no line. The count is only the days neither event holds, so an event ending on the 2nd and the next starting on the 20th read 17 days between them, and two events that touch or overlap have no line between them. The free days inside an open card stand between the events inside it in the same way.

There are three ways to make an event. The plus at the right of the page title makes New event on today’s date among what is coming, with its name ready to type. Right-clicking a line of free days in a browser, or holding it on a touch screen, offers New event on exactly those days, from the first free day to the last, and a free-days line inside an open card files the new event inside that card. New event inside on an event’s own menu makes one inside that event and opens the card so the new line is on screen; a single event becomes a card when it gains one. That opening is for now only: the cards that stay open on the device are the ones you opened yourself. In every case the name is ready to type where the event landed.

Right-clicking an event’s line in a browser, or holding it on a touch screen, opens the event’s menu, on a plain line and on a card’s top line alike: Open, Rename, Status…, New event inside and Delete. Delete swaps the menu to Delete this event? with Delete and Keep under it. Status… offers Committed, Maybe and Canceled. Rename puts the name box on the event’s own line. The day on the line is a control of its own, and pressing it opens the panel that sets the start and the end; an event whose dates you are changing keeps its place on the page until you open the page again. The line of an event inside an open card takes the same menu and the same date control.

On a phone-width screen an event is the same two lines, the name above its dates, on plain lines and on a card’s top line alike, and a free-days line is the same line of dates. The installed phone app draws the same page: a single event is a plain line, an event that holds events is a card, and the lines inside an open card are smaller.

The name on an event’s line, or Open on its menu, opens the event. Its days lead the page, above the name. Press them and both dates open at once, from a month grid on the phone and from your browser’s own date fields on the web,. An event with no days yet reads Set dates in that line. The name under it is the field that renames it, and Rename along the top of the page opens the same field.

Under the name are the stance, the life area, and the event this one is inside, each the control for the thing it names. The state read off the calendar stands beside the stance wherever the two differ, and it takes no edit, so a committed event you are inside reads Active there. Beside the days is how long the event runs, counted the way the list counts it, both ends included, so the 12th to the 19th reads 8 days and a one-day event reads 1 day. An event with no end counts to today, today included. Your own writing about the event goes under all of it, under Summary, in the editor a note uses, and History along the top reads back what it said before. Delete is at the foot beside Archive, and it asks before it goes. The days inside keep what you wrote on them.