CalenGoo Tutorial

1.2.11

 

Tutorial

In the following text you will get an overview how to use CalenGoo. It will explain how to install it and which functions are available.


Installation

When you have started the program for the first time, you have to enter your username (also called "email" on the login page of Google Calendar) and password that you use to log in to Google Calendar (if you have not used Google Calendar before, please go to http://calendar.google.com and click "Create an account" to get a free account. Afterwards please add one or more events before trying to connect with CalenGoo).
You should be connected to the internet, because when you log in for the first time, CalenGoo will download all data of your visible and invisible calendars. So it is better, if you have a fast internet connection, e.g. WiFi at this point.


If you have a Google Apps account (with your own domain), just add your domain name in the username field (e.g. "john@public.com" instead of just "john" if you do not have normal Google account).


In the upper left corner you will see the download progress. You will see this after every log in, but normally it only downloads the newest changes, which is much faster than downloading all data for the first time. After the first download is finished, you can consider to turn off the automatic synchronization and start it manually with the "Start Sync" button when you have time, because the application reacts slower during a running synchronization (see also "How can I make it faster?" on the Support page for more hints).


If the download progress is interrupted at any point, it will restart the next time you start the program until it is finished.


Usage

The program should be really easy to use if you are familiar with Google Calendar. It uses


  1. the same colors

  2. a very similar layout

  3. the same hidden and visible calendar settings

  4. a red line to mark the current time in the current day


as your Google Calendar. So after you start the program and it finished synchronizing with Google Calendar, you should see the same events in the same colors.


To edit an event, just double tap it in the day view or press and hold it for half a second (or more) in the week view or month view. To add a new event, press the plus sign in the upper right corner or double tap the time where the new event should be placed (either a free space in the calendar area or you can also double tap the time line on the left).


Offline mode

When you are not connected to the internet, you can nevertheless use CalenGoo to view and edit your Google Calendar. This makes it even usable with an iPod touch. The next time you are connected to the Internet and synchronize CalenGoo, it will automatically upload your changes to Google Calendar. Unsubmitted events are displayed in a brighter/transparent color than submitted/synchronized events.


Day view

After you logged in to your Calendar, you will see the current day in the daily view. You can move it around to see the previous and next days and events. There are buttons to jump back to the current day (Today) and to another date that can be chosen by day, month and year (Go to).

The Month button brings you to the month view and the Search/magnifying glass button brings you to the search view.


Week view

The week view displays a whole week of events. You can go to the previous or next week by using the swipe gesture, i.e. moving the screen to the left or the right.


Month view

On the left you see CalenGoo's month view. It gives you an overview over a whole month and you can jump one month forward or backward using the swipe gesture like in the week view.


The current day is marked with a red number.


Because the text is very tiny, you can zoom into the view using the normal pinch gesture that you already know e.g. from the photo application.


To jump to a specific day, double tap this day and it will be opened in the Daily View mode.


Agenda view

Below you can see CalenGoo's agenda view. All your events are displayed in a list, with small icons indicating a note, a recurring event, a recurring exception or a location entry. By making a swipe gesture across a row, you can reveal a delete button and delete that event.


Search View

The search view allows you to enter one or more keywords. The first 200 calendar events that match these keywords are displayed, each in the color of its calendar. Events that are displayed in parentheses are events in hidden calendars. To be able to see them, you must set their calendar to visible using Google Calendar or CalenGoo's "Settings".


Editing events

Double tap events to view them. Tap the "edit" button in the upper right corner to edit them. If the event is an all day event and you double tap the all day event box, you will get a table that displays all these events for the selected day. You can then select one to edit or delete it.

When editing an event you have a lot of fields that you can use to describe more details of an event. Title and time are certainly mandatory. But you can also specify a location, the calendar to save the event to (which also sets the event's color), reminders, attendees and recurrence rules. When you enter a location, you can later use it to show it in the iPhone's maps application, when you view the event in CalenGoo.
To get different colors for your events, you have to create several calendars in Google Calendar. When you create a new event, you simply assign it to the appropriate calendar to get it displayed with the calendar's color.


Settings

Using the settings menu, you can choose which calendars to download and display. You can also configure several display options and colors and choose larger fonts for the day view, week view and month view. If you like to know more about these options, please read the Configuration Page.


Further documentation

If you have not already read about the many functions Google Calendar offers, you should read a tutorial e.g. here:


Google Calendar Tutorial


It will show you how to share calendars, invite people to events and other basic and advanced features of Google Calendar you should know.


Additionally you should browse the topics on CalenGoo's Support page to know how to solve the most common problems you might experience and e.g. what can be done to make CalenGoo faster and more useful for you.


And if you have any problems or suggestions, please send an email to calengoo@dgunia.de

An unsaved event in offline mode. It is uploaded to Google Calendar the next time you start CalenGoo while being online.

CalenGoo's normal daily view of your Google Calendar. It can be scrolled nearly infinitely to the left and the right to access other dates.

Every event is displayed with its calendar's color. So in this example I have four different calendars in my Google Calendar account.

The month view gives you an overview over your events in a whole month. The current day's number is displayed in red.

The month view can be zoomed and panned to examine your events in detail. Double tap a day to open this day in the daily view mode.

The red day is the current day.

You can search your calendars for keywords. Hidden calendars are displayed in parentheses.

The different parts of the editing view. For every event you can enter the title, the time, the location, the calendar, up to five reminders, the recurrence and the description. At the end of the list you find a button to delete the selected event.

The agenda view. It shows your events with their calendar's colors as a long list. Small icons show notes, recurring events and location entries.

The event overview. It shows you all details like the title, location, calendar name, description and the status of all attendees.