Documentation

for version 2.2.0

Hello, welcome to the Eventail documentation page. In here, I will try to answer most of the questions you might have about the application.

What is Eventail?

Eventail is a notification/today Widget extension for iOS. It displays calendar data which is already in your iOS device. This may include calendars from Apple iCloud, Google, Outlook, or any other calendar source compatible with iOS.

As such, the Eventail app itself is only a setting screen for the Widget. Once the Widget is configured, the app only needs ot be run to change the settings.

When you launch the app you will see the screen divided into two parts. On the top, a widget preview shows how will the widget look like with the current settings. Under the widget is the settings area.

What Eventail is not?

Eventail is not a full-featured calendar application, its purpose is only to display data. You can continue to use your favorite calendar application in tandem with Eventail.

Installation

The app contains a short animation which shows the widget installation. To recapitulate, in order to install the widget follow these steps:

  1. Press the home button or swipe from the bottom (on iPhoneX) to enter the home screen.
  2. Swipe to the leftmost pane.
  3. At the bottom, there is a round Edit button. Tap on it.
  4. Find Eventail in the list of widgets and tap the green + button next to it.
  5. You can use the “grabber” next to the Eventail widget to move it to the desired position (higher is better, top is best).
  6. Press Done at the top right.

How to use eventail

The widget has two states: either it displays a summary view of several days to come or a detailed view of a single day.

To switch between the two views, you can tap on a day, this will zoom into it. To come back to the view of multiple days, you can tap anywhere in the widget.

Week View

Week View displaying 5 days of events in advance.

In the Week View you will see events and reminders for the next few days. Events with start and end times are displayed as rectangles. All-day events are in pill shaped cells. The event backgroud color is derived from the color of the calendar of the event.

Events that have already passed (their end date is after now) and reminders that have been completed will be displayed with a dimmed color.

Detailed Day View

Detailed Day View displaying a single day.

In the day view you will see the events for this particular day. All-day events will have filled background of the color of the calendar they are in. Other events and reminders will have indicators

Your own events have a circular indicator

Normal events
Filled disk
Events during which you are not marked as busy
Empty circle
Events that have ended
Filled disk with dimmed color

When you are invited to an event the indicators are different.

Events without reply
Gray disk with white question mark
Reply: Accepted
The indicator depicts a group of people
Reply: Maybe
The indicator depicts a hollow group of people
Reply: Declined and events cancelled by the organizer
The indicator depicts a dimmed group of people

Eventail Pro

Eventail app is free with a good basic set of functionalities. Additional features are available as an in-app purchase.

The list of Pro features is:

Troubleshooting

This section provides some problems that can arise while using Eventail and how to fix them.

Widget can't load

If the application works, but the widget displays a “Widget can't load” message, it may be a memory problem. This can potentially happen in two cases:

  1. You have many events to display.
  2. You have few events to display, however they are very far apart.

Settings

Eventail has many available settings, each time you modify a setting, you will immediately see the change reflected on the widget preview at the top.

Display

These settings affect the elements which appear in the widget.

Number of Days

A setting between 3 and 5 (or 7 with Pro). Determines how many days will be shown in the widget.

Display Time of the First Event

If this setting is enabled, the widget will display the time of the first event of each day. This way you can quickly see when does your day start.

For the current day, the time of the next is displayed.

Enabled

Displaying the time of the first event informs you when each day begins.

Disabled

Gain some space by hiding the time of the first event.

Display Days with no Events

If enabled, days with no events will be show as well. Otherwise such days are skipped. Events which only have “middle parts” of all-day events are considered empty as well.

Enabled

Showing empty days makes it clear when you have nothing planned.

Disabled

Hiding days without events lets you plan further ahead.

Display Past Events

If this setting is off, the events that have their end time past current time will be hidden. If this setting is on, they will be displayed in a dimmed color.

Enabled

Follow the progression of your day by displaying past events.

Disabled

Concentrate on what comes next by hiding past events.

Display Declined Events

If this setting is off, you will not see any events that you have declined, or that have been cancelled by the organizer. If this setting is on, they will be displayed. The declined events are displayed with struck out titles and will have a dimmed icon.

Sources

Select the calendars and reminder lists you would like to see in the widget.

Calendars

Select the calendars you wish to see in the widget.

Reminders (Eventail Pro)

Select the reminder lists you wish to see in the widget. The widget only displays reminders which have a due date (or alert) set!

Contacs

If you wish to see the person's age when a birthday is displayed you need to give the app access to your contact list. It is not used anywhere else.

Note that this process is automatic, if the app has access to calendars then it will display the age in the birthdays, if it has not it will not.

Æsthetics

Appearance settings that do not change the data which is displayed.

Tint Weekends

If enabled, weekends (i.i. Saturdays and Sundays) will have tinted header and background, so they can be distinguished at a glance.

Enabled

Weekends have a slight blue tint.

Disabled

Weekends have the same color as any other day.

Text Settings

Options to modify the text rendering in the application.

Events in Capital Letters

Turning this setting on will make all Events and Reminders be displayed in capital letters.

Text Font

Eventail offers thre fonts to select from. By default the system font is used. The other two options, available with the Pro upgrade are System Bold and Condensed.

Condensed font enables you to see a few more characters per item.

Text Size

Change the text font size. Eventail also fully supports the accessibility text size settings.

Background and Color

The app offers three different backgrounds and two options for colorization of events.

Background

By default Eventail uses the standard iOS clear background like all other widgets. With the Pro purchase you can select from two additional themes.

Default

Default theme blends perfectly with other widgets on iOS.

Dark (Eventail Pro)

The dark theme offers a higher contrast between the background and the events.

Black (Eventail Pro)

Black theme looks gorgeous on the iPhone X OLED screen.

Event Colors

You can choose between two themes for event colors. Events are colored according to the calendar colors.

Default

By default, events have similar coloration to stock Calendar application. The calendar color is desaturated to maximize readability of event titles.

Vivid (Eventail Pro)

The Vivid color option puts emphasis on the calendar color.

Eventail Pro

This section allows you to purchase Eventail Pro or restore the purchase if you have re-installed the app.

Before purchasing the upgrade, you can preview the Dark and Black themes as well as the Vivid theme. Consult the Eventail Pro section for more information about what the Pro upgrade brings.

If you have purchased eventail before it become free, you will obtain all of the Pro features automatically. If, by any chance this does not happen, use the Restore Purchases button to activate it.

Installation Instructions

This section displays a short animation that explains how to install the widget into the iOS widget area.

It is a non-verbal way of describing the installation procedure.

Contact & Feedback

You can contact me using three methods:

Suggestions are welcome and I read all of the questions. I try to answer if I can, but please bear in mind that I am working on this application alone in my spare time.

Troubleshooting

If the widget fails to load, you can use the settings in this section to make it work. I am always trying to find solutions that do not require this sorts of hacks but they take time to implement.

Number of days to look ahead for events

By default Eventail looks for events up to 62 ahead. If the widget fails to load you may try to reduce this setting.

Maximum number of visible events in the week view

By default eventail will display around 50 event in the week view, over this number, you will see an indicator such as +3, this means that if you focus on this day there will be three more events

If the widget works well you can increase this count to see more events.

Indicators show how many events are currently hidden.

Frequently Asked Questions

Widget displays "Can not load", what can I do?

If the application works correctly but the widget fails to load, it is most probably a memory issue. As it happens, on iOS Widgets have to work with very limited resources. I am constantly working on improving the memory usage, but if you happen to run into this issue try the following:

  • Visit the Troubleshooting section and try lowering the limits.
  • If neither helps, try disabling the Display days with no events setting.
  • If that does not help either, please contact me. It would also help me greatly if you could enable sending crash reports to developers in Settings → Analytics → Share With App Developers

Could you add me as a beta tester for the app?

Thank you, I am flattered by your offer but I currently do not accept external beta testers. That is, unless you write for a known journal or record a popular podcast.

I write reviews for apps and I would like to have a promo code to test the application.

Please contact me by e-mail, I will gladly give promo codes to reviewers.

Could you implement feature X?

Maybe, please write me an e-mail about the feature you would like to see in the app. Note however, that there are some requests that will probably not be integrated in the app anytime soon.

  • The app is meant as a display widget, it is very unlikely I will add features to create or modify events.
  • Maintaing translations is extremely time consuming and although I would love to localize the application for more of them, I simply do not have the resources.
  • No Android version is planned, I can only test the app on devices I have.