Re: [Evolution-hackers] functional specification for list view

[Ettore Perazzoli <ettore ximian com>]

On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 20:14, Tim Lee wrote:
> Where you thinking at all of adding tasks to this view based on their
> due date?

Hmm, that's an interesting idea...  However we are already showing the
tasks in the same view, on the right of the calendar, so it sounds like
it might be a bit too much.

> I agree that grouping would make this view much more useful. I think a
> list does not lend itself to showing time relationships well. Being able
> to group events by the day, week or month they occur in would help.

That sounds a bit complicated to implement...  I think we can leave this
to after 2.0, although it does sound like a good idea.

> Would a meeting's status ( tentative vs. accepted vs. canceled ) be
> displayed.

I guess we could have a column for this, and handle it the GalView way.

> Would all day events be differentiated from "normal" events? Would they
> start at midnight?

This I don't know, what does Outlook do?

> Will people be allowed to add new events in this view? 

Yes, the "new" button would still work normally.  Although, I don't
think we can have a "click here to add" interface since this is supposed
to be a read-only list...

> Will there be a way of showing meetings with conflicting/overlapping
> times? I think this will be necessary if people are going to be able to
> edit event times in the view.

The main purpose of this list is to simplify searches.  People can still
use the normal view to check for overlapping things.

(Anna, this reminds me: I think you have to specify in the spec that the
same item needs to be kept selected when you switch views.)

> Under other columns I would add a meeting organizer column.

Probably not a bad idea, and it should come for free...?

> I think it might be useful to provide a means of filtering/viewing the
> list by date/time. The simplest would be to filter events occurring
> between two dates. For example only display events that occur on M-F
> this week. Though more sophisticated filters might be useful ( events
> ending after 5:00 PM, starting before 10:00 AM on Mondays, etc. ). 

I don't know, this might need further UI work...  I think we should keep
it simple for now though.

Actually this reminds me of another question.  How does the side
calendar interact with the list view?

It should probably:

      * Not show any day selected when the view is in "list" mode.

      * Switch to day/week/etc. view when a day/week/etc. gets selected
        in the calendar.

Something like this should be added to the spec.

> Would events that have their time shown as Free vs. Busy be
> differentiated?

This could be another custom column I guess.

> Would the fields in the preview pane be editable? That might be a nice
> feature, but how difficult would it be to implement?

We are not planning to make any of the fields in the preview panes
editable.  Maybe we should have an "edit" button in the preview pane as
well?

-- Ettore