Some questions for offline calendar

MIB · January 11, 2023, 4:22pm

Hi everybody,

I’m trying to use and test deeply the defaults apps and submit bugs in order to fix the small ones I can encounter.
But in order to be sure if it’s a bug or not, I would like to confirm some behaviors I noticed…
Here, I’m wondering about some features in Calendar. And I talk only about offline calendar.

In Calendar > General Parameters
You can find easily in general parameter a section named Text and an option to export the database (“send database”).

When you click on it, it displays a message with cancel and start. So I guess it is supposed to work and export calendar. But where? How many time does it need to export the calendar to ics file? If I select Start, nothing happen but I didn’t try to wait 10 or 20 minutes…
Am I wrong or is it a beta feature which could not work?
In an event: the list of attendees

In an event, you have the possibility to have the list of the attendees of the event.
I tested quickly one time the feature but it didn’t work. So I tested again to be sure if there were an issue or not.
To do the test, I sent from a protonmail address an invitation from its calendar to 2 posteo addresses. On my cell phone, I received the e-mail with an ics attached and I opened it.
I saved it in my calendar like below:

Here, I have 2 questions about the points 1 and 2 inside the picture
1. Is it normal the email of the sender of the invitation not included in the the ics file like the two attendees?
2. What do you see a different icons instead of the dark grey square? Indeed, when you select, you can see it’s a shortcut to add the attendee to your contact… weird to have a dark grey square for that… Is it a bug?
3. I noticed that you can use “Send an e-mail to the attendees” to send a pre-defined answer to the two attendees of the event. The issue here is the owner of the event is not in the list of the e-mail. That where the missing e-mail of the sender in the ics file would be an issue…
Here, the app ask you which app you want to send the pre-defined answer… and that works fine after I selected K-9 mail app.

Now some other questions about the possibilities of change/update for such event (in case of offline calendar in my case).
1. If you edit the event and save it, you have a temporary message which say that the update of the event will be send to the attendees.

But nothing happen (nothing is asked to send update). So here, do we expect to be able to update an offline event and be able to send the update using mail app or any other one or do we consider that it’s not possible for offline calendar mode? In taht case, why do we have this message at the bottom of the calendar app…

Thanks in advance for you help and feedback.

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tcecyk · January 13, 2023, 7:16pm

You’re testing the invite agenda calendar and email user experience that’s currently possible in default /e/ - that’s laudable - if you mention “agenda invites” in the post title maybe you’ll gather more interest.

It’s the same probably with getting code accepted - if the patch is too large it’s hard to get someone to look at. You describe all difficulties you encountered, probably it’s a multiple of fallacies.

In general I had no issues importing .ics files that the mail client received.

If I create an event on-device, the initial invite sendout doesn’t work for me, that’s no fun -

W ContentResolver: Failed to get type for: content://com.android.calendar (Unknown URL content://com.android.calendar)
D AgendaFragment: selected viewholder is null: false
E AgendaFragment: showEventInfo, event ID = -1

… but sending “quick messages” does work after event creation and running through an exception first:

E ChooserActivity: failed to get target intent filter
E ChooserActivity: android.content.IntentFilter$MalformedMimeTypeException: mailto:tcecyk%40example.com?subject=Re%3A%20termintermin&body=Be%20there%20in%20about%2010%20minutes.
E ChooserActivity: 	at android.content.IntentFilter.addDataType(IntentFilter.java:797)
E ChooserActivity: 	at android.content.IntentFilter.<init>(IntentFilter.java:442)
E ChooserActivity: 	at com.android.internal.app.ChooserActivity.getTargetIntentFilter(ChooserActivity.java:1670)

… it then offers a Mail compose window - but as you say in your (3.) - with no owner recorded it’s not attributed to the proper mail account if there is more than one

I ActivityTaskManager: START u0 {act=android.intent.action.SENDTO dat=mailto:xx@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. flg=0x3000000 cmp=foundation.e.mail/com.fsck.k9.activity.MessageCompose (has extras)} from uid 10091
I ActivityTaskManager: Displayed foundation.e.mail/com.fsck.k9.activity.MessageCompose: +816ms

But the initial invite Email is probably more important to work than the quick messages.

For “2.” gray-squares behind the contacts: if the mail address is in your addressbook and you attributed it some image, it will show in the square

If I’d do more serious user-interaction-flow testing, I’d probably use the upstream non-fork Apps in their latest version to establish what is solved already before testing current /e/ forks - and probably look for automated testing on this.

MIB · January 14, 2023, 8:11pm

Hi @tcecyk,

thanks for your message!
Indeed, test first with the origin app is better.
So I did a test with 1.0.43 and it seems that the issues are already in Etar app.
Thus, it seems I will have to discuss with Etar developpers…

One thing first (not evoked in my post) is that the export database option in parameters of Calendar is now hidden in Etar app because the feature doesn’t work and should not really exist based on what I saw in their Github. So it would be necessary to update Calendar app. Which means too that there is no option to import/export calendar for the moment (WIP: New ICS import/export by dschuermann · Pull Request #653 · Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar · GitHub)

MIB · January 30, 2023, 1:25am

Hi @tcecyk,

so I look at Etar Github and I discovered interesting stuffs…
So for question 4 , even with the original Etar Calendar app, the issue appears.
There is a Github issue opened (Invitation mails were not sent · Issue #163 · Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar · GitHub). We will see what happened.
But for question 2.1, nothing exist in the opened issues list

One question: what is the Etar version used for /e/ Calendar?

smu44 · January 30, 2023, 7:02am

You can find info about the upstream repo here: https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/android_packages_apps_etar/-/branches
Easier to read: https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/android_packages_apps_etar/-/network/v1-s

MIB · January 30, 2023, 11:25pm

Hi @smu44,

I hope I read the links correctlty… because I’m not use to read this kind of stuffs.
So it would mean that for R, the last version of Etar used in the code is 1.024 while today “official” Etar version is 1.034.

I saw also there were a lot of fix, change in this version by /e/ team.
So one question: for improvement for default apps which are forked from an open source one, where do we have to post an idea for improvement: in the Etar Github or here? If here, I guess the improvement will be included only on the forked version for /e/?

smu44 · January 31, 2023, 6:38am

Hi,
This is not an easy question, as /e/ Etar is based on LineageOS’s, and I couldn’t find any automatic update from Etar to LineageOS repository… Also, it seems that LineageOS moved to something else and gave up with Etar.
That was just a quick thinking, please correct if I’m wrong.

petefoth · January 31, 2023, 6:02pm

I think you are better off posting in the original upstream project - LIneageOS ETAR in this case - see link below. /e/ don’t really have enough developers to do all the work that needs doing on /e/OS (including updating their forked apps to the most recent upstream versions). They don’t have the time or resources to implement new features (or bug fixes) in their forks.

They do (eventually) pick up new features and code changes from upstream when the eventually get round to updating their forks, but it is sometimes easier to use the upstream apps directly: they can all be installed alongside the /e/ forks included in the /e/OS build

Not exactly I think.

LOS still use ETAR as the built-in Calendar app, but they use the version in their own githup repos https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Etar. Its app id is org.lineageos.etar
the “official” ETAR (at least the version that is available in F-Droid) comes from the ETAR-Group github repos https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar Its app id is ws.xsoh.etar
the two are very similar, but their commit histories are different. Neither appears to be a fork of the other (or of any other github repo). They may be a fork of the original Google Calendar app (https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Calendar)
/e/'s version at https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/android_packages_apps_etar is definitely a fork of LOS version. Its app id is foundation.e.calendar

My LineageOS builds contain the LOS version, as do IodéOS builds. On devices running different Android ROMs (e.g. /e/OS) I usually install the F-Droid version (which will happily run alongside the /e/ fork: I’ve never tried running it alongside the LOS version)

I hope that clears everything up

smu44 · February 1, 2023, 7:34am

Thanks @petefoth, it is cristal clear now

MIB · February 1, 2023, 2:24pm

thanks a lot @petefoth for these valuable information!!
Ok so now I will try to see how to post improvement about calendar for LOS

MIB · February 9, 2023, 10:05am

Hi @petefoth,

just perhaps I don’t search correctlty but where can I find the apk of the LOSS Etar fork?
I would like to install it to do some test before I post some improvements on LOS website…

Thanks in advance

petefoth · February 9, 2023, 11:39am

As far as I know it’s not available separately from the LineageOS ROM. If you want to try it you would need to install a LineageOS ROM on your phone

MIB · February 9, 2023, 11:22pm

Aïe…
I have only one phone and so it will be complicated…
I will post the Enhancement requests directly

Thanks

MIB · February 14, 2023, 11:26pm

unfortunately, I didn’t find any way to poste enhancement request for LOS…
It seems they doesn’t accept feature request.
On their reddit:

petefoth · February 15, 2023, 8:24am

No - LOS don’t like change

And, as mentioned above, /e/ don’t have the time or resources (or the motivation in my opinion) to add new features to their forked apps.

Anyway, I think the best place to ask for a change is the “upstream” ETAR.

If they don’t want to make the change, then either you are out of luck, OR you would have to make your own fork of the app and make the change there yourself

MIB · February 15, 2023, 10:54am

I think that it’s here I looked for some improvements I would like.
So since it seems no one has time I posted idea here with link to the idea already existing in Etar Github…

For the addition of organizer, I will perhaps try to do something on my side but since I’m not a dev, not sure I will succeed to do something ;-). But I will try to find time to try something

MIB · February 25, 2023, 11:39pm

ok just in case /e/ team handle them in the future, below the post for some improvements:

https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar/pull/653