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Remind: A sophisticated calendar and alarm program

dianne.skoll.ca

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Re: Remind: A sophisticated calendar and alarm program

#11

Post by skydhash »

jrm4 wrote: post #9
madamelic wrote: post #8

I love tools like this but I am currently in a cycle where I question why a tool has to operate like this. These text-driven tools always come across like "programming the space shuttle to drive down the street for ice cream". Like, do we really need... all of this. It's beautiful and neat but does it solve the problem in a user friendly way? Sometimes it seems like there is a lost art to simple but deep products. Ma…

For me it's not "overcomplication," it's strong interoperability with a workflow I like, specifically one that was kind of complicated to write once, but afterwards operates in a way such that I don't have to think at all. I've been using this for years, so perhaps today there may be some voice or AI driven way to do this but -- first I add weekly events. And for one off events, I have a bash script that's like "what…

Most of these tools are something you set once, write some scripts if it's a CLI, then forget about until someone tries to make a breaking change. Then you switch to the fork that maintains the old feature set.

Re: Remind: A sophisticated calendar and alarm program

#12

Post by squigz »

madamelic wrote: post #8

I love tools like this but I am currently in a cycle where I question why a tool has to operate like this. These text-driven tools always come across like "programming the space shuttle to drive down the street for ice cream". Like, do we really need... all of this. It's beautiful and neat but does it solve the problem in a user friendly way? Sometimes it seems like there is a lost art to simple but deep products. Ma…

> Many of these replacements tools are starting to seem more about demonstrating how nerdy you are by over-complicating the solution in a novel one-off way.

This is a really pessimistic view on a tool that has been developed since the 80s.

Some people just enjoy the power tools like this - and the CLI in general - offer. You don't need "all of this"? Well then don't use it! That's sort of the beauty of it - it can cover basic needs and much more complicated needs.

That said, I think more users would use more powerful software if they gave it a shot. Unfortunately, many users get intimidated by slightly-user-unfriendly UX and instead go use software where they have little choices. So instead of adapting software to their workflow, they adapt their workflow to the software.

Re: Remind: A sophisticated calendar and alarm program

#13

Post by SwiftyBug »

This is awesome! I've been looking for something to use as my calendar app. I just moved from macOS to Linux. On macOS I used the default calendar app. Because I still have an iOS device, I'd like to sync iCloud events with my computer. I've tried a combination of davmail, vdirsyncer, and calcurse. While this works, it's not a great experience. Calcurse doesn't seem to handle timezones very well and, for a TUI, it has a rather limited keyboard support (I can't copy the description text of an event, for example). I could use a GUI as long as it can handle both iCloud and Microsoft Exchange calendars.

Re: Remind: A sophisticated calendar and alarm program

#15

Post by jrm4 »

skydhash wrote: post #11
jrm4 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's not "overcomplication," it's strong interoperability with a workflow I like, specifically one that was kind of complicated to write once, but afterwards operates in a way such that I don't have to think at all. I've been using this for years, so perhaps today there may be some voice or AI driven way to do this but -- first I add weekly events. And for one off events, I have a bash script that's like "what…

Most of these tools are something you set once, write some scripts if it's a CLI, then forget about until someone tries to make a breaking change. Then you switch to the fork that maintains the old feature set.

I mean, exactly. AFAIK, Remind hasn't changed in years and neither has my workflow.

(relatedly literally writing this from Openbox; sometimes software is actually just finished)

Re: Remind: A sophisticated calendar and alarm program

#16

Post by upofadown »

n3t wrote: post #4
upofadown wrote: post #3

At 6am every day I run a script that dumps the scheduled events for the day out of remind. If there are any events the script: * Makes a unique noise on the house announcement system. * Sends me an email with the events. * Sends me a SMS with the events. My long term events archive is just the reminders file which I have never bothered to truncate. It's got easy to search stuff in there from decades ago.

> house announcement system Please tell us more!

Just some speakers hooked to an amplifier which is plugged into a computer audio output jack.
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