1 Navigation Controls
2 -------------------
3
4 Links to other views from the day view can override the default "all events"
5 limits, which is not necessarily beneficial.
6
7 The "New event" link should probably not be present when only remote events
8 are being aggregated by a calendar.
9
10 Points in Time
11 --------------
12
13 Make events with identical start and end times appear in the day view,
14 potentially using the approach given below.
15
16 Events which have identical start and end times might be represented by
17 building a calendar scale that distinguishes between times acting as start
18 times and times acting as end times. (The iCalendar specification appears to
19 state that events without end dates/times are actually points in time, but
20 this potentially conflicts with the expectation that merely specifying a start
21 date or time produces an event with an undefined end point or a "common sense"
22 end point.)
23
24 Consider making dates convertible to timespans of the form (start of day,
25 start of next day).
26
27 Localised Keywords
28 ------------------
29
30 It should be possible to define events using localised equivalents of "start",
31 "end", "summary" and so on. To achieve this, the page language would be found
32 and regular expressions built to use the localised keywords, falling back on
33 the English keywords, would then search for event details.
34
35 Recurring Events
36 ----------------
37
38 Recurring event information from iCalendar sources should be considered in
39 order to avoid showing incomplete or incorrect event datetimes. Ultimately,
40 such information may need to be parsed and incorporated into the general event
41 recurrence processing.
42
43 Having events recur at certain intervals would potentially involve the
44 expansion of events to produce multiple instances within a specified period of
45 interest, and such expansion could occur after an event's details have been
46 read. Care would need to be taken in cases where no limits are placed on a
47 calendar: the expanded instances should not be allowed to recede into the past
48 and future indefinitely; where no other events exist to provide implicit
49 limits, some other default limits might be required to let the expansion
50 occur.
51
52 The description of recurring events could be based on the iCalendar
53 specification, although simpler schemes could be preferable. Recurring event
54 descriptions might start with "every" and then provide a time period ("day",
55 "week", "month", "year") for offsets from a specified date or time, perhaps
56 using qualifiers ("first", "second", "other", and so on), or instead provide a
57 more complete description using additional qualifiers that may override any
58 specified date or time for instances other than the primary occurrence. For
59 example, "every second Wednesday of every other month".
60
61 Possible grammar:
62
63 <recurrence> [ of <recurrence> ]...
64 [ from <datetime> ]
65 [ until <datetime> ]
66
67 recurrence = every [ <qualifier> ] <interval>
68 interval = second | minute | hour | day | <weekday> | week | month | year
69
70 The resolution of each successive <recurrence> must be lower than those it
71 follows. Thus, "every second day of every second week..." is valid whereas
72 "every second week of every second day..." is not.
73
74 Map Views
75 ---------
76
77 Other projections might be supported. This would be necessary for various
78 retrieved map images.
79
80 Dynamic images obtained from other sites or generated locally might provide some
81 enhancements to the map view. For example, a weather/radar image might show the
82 cloud or rain forecast either for the current situation or, if forecasts are
83 available, for the times of events shown.
84
85 Consider having day numbers down the side of a map view with highlighted days
86 indicating days having events, and with pop-up elements shown upon hovering over
87 each highlighted day.
88
89 To Do Items
90 -----------
91
92 Consider adding support for "to do" items. These might have time-related details
93 such as deadlines, but are more likely to have relationships with other items,
94 potentially forming a hierarchy of items.
95
96 Event Section Parser
97 --------------------
98
99 Events could be described using a Wiki section, potentially retaining the
100 definition list syntax for consistency with the current method of describing
101 events:
102
103 {{{#!event
104 Start:: 2011-06-07
105 End:: 2011-06-07
106 Summary:: Event inside a section
107 }}}
108
109 Such events could then be presented using more sophisticated methods and
110 potentially be editable. To support direct editing, the parser would provide
111 a hidden form field indicating the location of the section in the Wiki text,
112 and the new event action would be enhanced to read existing events from the
113 indicated page region, populating the form fields with the data found in the
114 page.
115
116 Enhance the linkToEvent method on Event instances so that event sections can
117 provide anchors for events in Wiki pages.
118
119 UID Properties
120 --------------
121
122 Especially in the case of aggregation from multiple sources, the only reliable
123 way of avoiding repetition of the same events described in different places is
124 for authors to include a UID property identifying each event, using the same
125 value regardless of where the event is being published.
126
127 Formatting in HTML Output
128 -------------------------
129
130 Locations are sometimes expressed using more advanced formatting than plain
131 text, leading to Wiki notation being shown as plain text in, for example, the
132 day view or in pop-up elements. Such information should be formatted
133 appropriately.
134
135 Formatting in iCalendar Output
136 ------------------------------
137
138 If there is a reasonably standard way of incorporating Wiki text in iCalendar
139 output alongside plain text, this would enable events aggregated from Wiki
140 sources to use Wiki text to describe things like the location and topics of an
141 event with links and other formatting that could then be reproduced in the
142 aggregating Wiki.
143
144 Remote Source Timeouts
145 ----------------------
146
147 Sometimes, network problems can cause delays in accessing remote sources. The
148 library should support either a timeout mechanism or asynchronous retrieval of
149 remote source data.