Menus

When KOrganizer starts, the main KOrganizer window appears. The window has several components: a menubar, a toolbar, a month calendar, a main panel with the current “view” of events, and a tasklist. The calendar initially displays today's date.

The menus provide access to all the common operations that can be performed with the calendar, including saving, loading, adding and deleting events, printing and other operations.

File

The File menu provides access to functions involving the entire calendar.

File->New (Ctrl+N)

Opens another main window. This window initially contains unnamed calendar. You can use the new window to:

  • open the same calendar twice (click on File->Open and choose the same calendar as in the original window)

  • have two different calendars open at the same time (click on File->Open and choose a different calendar).

  • create a new calendar (click on File->Save to give your new calendar a filename and to save it).

File->Open (Ctrl+O)

Opens a file dialog allowing you to select a new vCalendar to load. If you have made changes to the current calendar, you will be given the option of saving them before loading a new one.

File->Open Recent

Open Recent provides a list of recently opened calendars for quick access, allowing you to bypass the file dialog entirely.

File->Save (Ctrl+S)

When you choose Save or click the Save icon, KOrganizer saves the calendar to disk, and makes sure all changes that you made will be remembered. If the calendar has no name, Save will behave like Save As.

File->Save As...

Save As displays a file dialog in which you may choose a different name for your calendar than the one currently assigned to it. This is useful if you have made changes to a calendar that you want to save, but also want to keep separate from your “regular” calendar.

File->Close (Ctrl+W)

Closes the current calendar. The window itself will remain open, and may be reused to open another calendar.

File->Print (Ctrl+P)

Choose Print or click the Print icon to print the current calendar. You can specify the range of dates to be printed (either manually or with Calendar Widget) and the View Type (Day, Week, Month or To-Do).

File->Print Preview

If you choose Print Preview or click the Print Preview icon, the current calendar will be printed on your screen, instead of on your printer. Use this feature to check if the printout will be correct before you start printing.

You can specify the range of dates to be printed (either manually or with Calendar Widget) and the View Type (Day, Week, Month or To-Do).

File->Import From Ical

If you have used ical, a popular but older calendar program for UNIX®, you may wish to import your events, events, and to-do items directly to KOrganizer. This action will read the .calendar file from your home folder and merge any entries it contains into your current calendar. If any errors or suspicious things occur during the process, you will be notified via a message box.

File+Import->Merge Calendar

Merge Calendar: If you have a different vCalendar file somewhere, and you would like to include its contents into your own calendar, choose this option. A good time to do this would be if you received a vCalendar with a few entries via e-mail, for instance.

File->Archive Old Entries

From time to time you should delete your old events.

Tip

Contemporary computers have ample storage space. However, if you synchronize your KOrganizer calendar with a limited-memory machine like the Palm device, you will find archiving useful. The performance of KOrganizer can also become worse when there are many events.

Procedure 7.1.

  1. Click the Archive Old Entries.

  2. Fill in the date in Events older than field or use the Calendar Widget to choose the date.

  3. If you have chosen archiving, you must also provide a filename for the archive in the Archive File field. If you want to re-use an older archive file, click on the Browse button and find an existing archive. It will be overwritten, therefore make sure that you do not need the original data or that you have a backup copy.

File->Export->Export Web Page...

You can export your calendar or a part of it as a HTML file, suitable for publishing on the World Wide Web.

Procedure 7.2.

  1. Click the Export as web page....You will get a window with three tabs: General, Event, and To-Do.

  2. General tab:

    1. Specify the date range that you want published. Enter dates manually or use the Calendar Widget.

    2. Choose the View type: Event List, To-Do List or Both.

    3. Specify the web output file in the Output file field. If you want to overwrite an existing web file, click on the Browse button to find it.

    4. Specify if you want to include categories and attendees in the exported web page.

  3. To-Do tab: specify if you want to list Due Dates, Categories, and Attendees.

File->Make active

If you opened more than one calendar, only one calendar can display alarms; only one calendar can be active. Click on the Make active menu item to activate the current calendar window.

The active calendar is loaded as default calendar when starting KOrganizer. In other words, if you work with more than one calendar, you should make your main calendar active.

File->Quit (Ctrl+Q)

When you choose Quit or click the Quit icon, the current calendar window will quit, prompting you to save if the current calendar has been modified but not yet saved.

This has no effect on other calendar windows which may be opened. You have to quit each calendar window individually.

Edit

With the Edit menu you can edit and search events and To-Do entries.

Cut, Copy, and Paste menu items behave in the same fashion as in other KDE applications. With the Find menu item you can find event and to-do entries across the current calendar.

Edit->Cut (Ctrl+X)

Cuts the currently selected event(s) to the clipboard, removing them from your calendar.

Edit->Copy (Ctrl+C)

Copies the currently selected event(s) to the clipboard, leaving them untouched in your calendar.

Edit->Paste (Ctrl+V)

Paste inserts the contents of the clipboard into your calendar. The clipboard must contain a valid vCalendar, provided either by a previous Cut/Copy operation or from a selection made outside of KOrganizer. You will be warned if the contents of the clipboard cannot be understood.

Tip

However, you can safely use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V hotkeys to copy text data from any outside application to a KOrganizer Edit Event window and vice versa.

Edit->Find (Ctrl+f)

Choose Find from the Edit or click the Find icon to find an event according to its title, Description, and/or categories. The Find will only search the fields specified.

Tip

You can use wildcards if you do not remember the exact summary. If you don't know single character of the summary, put ? instead of the missing character. If you don't know more characters, use *. For instance if you know that the event or tasks has work in the middle, you would write *work* in the Find dialog. KOrganizer will locate entries like “Must go to work”, “Wine workshop” and similar. Letter case is ignored.

The result of the Find operation is a list of events and/or tasks with the specified keyword. The columns shown in the list are the same as the List View columns.

This resulting list is active. You can double-click on a line to display or edit the event or task details. Get more information about these details in the Entering events and Entering To-Do's sections.

View

There are several different “views” available for displaying your list of events, including a “list” view, a “day” view, a “week” view, and a “month” view. KOrganizer is smart enough to remember in between sessions what the last active view was, and the next time it is started, it will display that view.

In general, each view will provide a way of displaying your events and events constrained to a particular time period or style of display. Click on any event to select it for further action. Right click an appointment to bring up a menu with options such as edit, delete, and so on. You can also use the Action menu to perform similar operations.

View->List

Switch the display to the List view.

This view displays all your events for the day as a list. Events are displayed one per line. The first column of the appointment will have a bell icon displayed in it if an alarm is set for the appointment. The second column will display a chasing-arrows icon if the appointment repeats multiple times. Holding the mouse over the arrows icon will bring up a tool tip with more detailed recurrence information. The third column displays start and end time information, and the fourth column gives a summary of the appointment.

The list view is good for displaying many events on a single day in a compact fashion. It is also useful if your events are spread out over a long time period that would not be displayed completely on the screen when using one of the other views.

View->Day

Switch the display to the Day view.

This view presents your event for a single day, sorted chronologically. You can also see the length of each event. Time is indicated on the left side of the view. A scrollbar on the right is provided when the whole day cannot be displayed on a single screen (which is the usual case). Each rectangle in the view represents an individual appointment, and displays the appointment's start and end time and summary. A bell icon is displayed if an alarm is set for the appointment. A chasing-arrows icon is displayed if the appointment repeats multiple times. Holding the mouse over the arrows icon will bring up a tool tip with more detailed recurrence information

Since the Day View cannot contain the whole day on most screens, you can scroll up and down to see the whole day. However there is a useful hint that tells you if there is any currently invisible event above or below your current position; it is a small down-pointing or up-pointing arrow at the bottom, respectively at the top of the main panel.

Any event can be resized with your mouse. Simply move the mouse pointer near the top or bottom edge of the event, and drag the edge up or down. This way you can visually modify the starting and ending time of your event. This also works in the Week and Work Week views. In other words, it is possible to change start and end times with the mouse by just moving the upper or lower border of the event to the new time.

Any event can be rescheduled with your mouse. Move the mouse pointer over the event, and drag it to a new time location. This also works in the Week and Work Week views.

Events can be moved to other, presently non-visible dates. Move the mouse pointer over the event, and drag it to the Date Navigator on the left side.

Tip

There is a useful shortcut for adding events: double-click on any open region of time, and KOrganizer will automatically create an event with default duration (which is customizable in the preferences dialog). You can immediately edit the description. The events “snap” to half-hour increments, rounding off to the closest half hour from where you clicked.

View->Work Week

Switch the display to the Work Week view.

This is the same as the week view, except only the working days of the week are shown.

View->Week

Switch the display to the Week view.

The week view provides a view similar to the day view. Events for seven days are shown next to each other. All of the functions available for the day view are available in the week view, too. See the Day View section for further information.

View->Month

Switch the display to the Month view.

The month view shows all the events for the current month in a familiar calendar layout. Each day contains all of the events that can fit in the area provided (maximizing the window will enable you to see more appointments). Information on repeating and alarm status is indicated through bell and chasing arrows icons, just like in other views.

You can navigate inside the month view using a set of buttons along the right side of the screen. By pressing the appropriate upwards-facing button, you can navigate to the past by week, month, or even year. The downwards-facing buttons will navigate to the future.

View->To-do list

Switch the display to the To-Do view.

The To-Do list provides a place for you to jot down quick (or long-term) notes to yourself about things that you need to do. The to-do list always appears right below the Date Navigator. You can also display it in the main panel if you click on the To-Do View icon or if you choose View->To-Do list.

You can give your to-do task a “date due”, in other words a date when the to-do should be finished.

You can also assign priorities to to-do events, and they will appear sorted in order of priority. The lower the number, the higher the priority, except that zero (0) is defined as “no priority.”

To make a new to-do entry, right click in the to-do box. You will get a menu with the option to create a new entry. If you clicked on an already existing to-do, you will get more choices: you can Show the summary, Edit the task details, Delete the task altogether, or you can create a sub-todo. You could for example make a large to-do task like building a house, and make sub-tasks like choosing the right building site, hiring an architect, hiring workers and finally arranging a party for your friends.

When you choose New Todo, a new to-do will be created and you will be able to enter all necessary information.

Click on any to-do task in the list to highlight it. If you click on the thick-line box on the left of the task description, you will change the “completed” status of the task. If you double-click the task description, you will be able to edit all the details of this to-do task.

You may also pick Purge Completed from the right mouse button menu to delete all to-do entries that you have marked completed. This is handy for quick cleanup.

To-do tasks can also dragged around with the mouse to rearrange the hierarchy or to exchange to-do tasks with other calendar windows. You can also read an overview of all available drag-and-drop operations.

View->Update

Updates or refreshes the currently displayed view.

Go

Go->Go Backward

Go to the previous day, week, month, year, depending on the view.

Go->Go forward

Go to the next day, week, month, year, depending on the view.

Go->Go to Today

Go to today.

Actions

Actions->New Event...

Choose New Event to start writing a new event. Initially the appointment window will have current time and date.

Read detailed description of the event window in Entering Events section.

Actions->New To-do...

Choose New To-Do to start writing a new To-Do task. Initially the task has no Due date, but you can specify one.

Read detailed description of the event window in Entering Events section.

To-Do screen is quite similar to the event screen, except there is no recurrence tab window. To-Do tasks are supposed to be one-time only.

Actions->Show

Choose Show to show the currently selected event or To-Do task.

Actions->Edit...

Choose Edit to edit the currently selected event or To-Do task.

Actions->Delete

Choose Delete to remove the currently selected event or To-Do task. You will be asked for confirmation.

However, if the Settings->Preferences->Personal->Confirm Deletes checkbox is not checked, you will not be prompted for confirmation, and the event will be deleted immediately.

Schedule

Schedule->Outgoing Messages...

Open the outbox-dialog.

Schedule->Incoming Messages...

Open the inbox-dialog.

Schedule->Publish

Publish an event.

Schedule->Request

Send the marked event as a group-event to the attendees.

Schedule->Refresh

Get the latest version of the active event from the event's organizer.

Schedule->Cancel

Cancel the groupscheduling-event.

Schedule->Reply

Answer to an event-request.

Schedule->Counter

Answer to an event-request an make a proposal for new date/time.

Schedule->Mail Free Busy Information

Lets the user send hers Free Busy information to one or several users as an attached Free Busy message which can be read by KOrganizer.

Schedule->Upload Free Busy Information

Lets the user upload hers Free Busy information on to server. Other users will then be able to retrieve those information.

Settings

Settings->Show Toolbar

Click on this to enable or disable the toolbar.

Settings->Configure Toolbars...

Click on this to display the Toolbar Configuration Window.

Settings->Preferences

Choose Settings->Preferences or click the Preferences icon to display Preferences window.

Help

Help->KOrganizer Handbook (F1)

Invokes the KDE Help system starting at the KOrganizer help pages. (this document).

Help->What's This? (Shift+F1)

Changes the mouse cursor to a combination arrow and question mark. Clicking on items within KOrganizer will open a help window (if one exists for the particular item) explaining the item's function.

Help->Report Bug...

Opens the Bug report dialog where you can report a bug or request a “wishlist” feature.

Help->About KOrganizer

This will display version and author information.

Help->About KDE

This displays the KDE version and other basic information.