[Korganizer-devel] [Bug 137435] can't create exceptions to recurrences

[Ross Boylan]

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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137435         




------- Additional Comments From ross biostat ucsf edu  2006-11-16 10:13 -------
Thank you.

I'd like to request/suggest that this be left open as a documentation issue (maybe an interface/design issue too).  Even with the previous advice and restudying the manual I didn't quite get it until I played around a little.

For your reference, here's the mental model I had:
The basic event and recurrence rule creates a (potentially infinite) set of events at specific dates and times.  Exceptions consist of modifications to this set, which can be
a) adding an event to the set (add button)
"the set" refers to the original set of events
b) deleting an event from the set (delete button)
c) moving an event in the set to a different date/time (or maybe changing some other aspect, e.g., location, comment...) (change button).


The model as implemented is
A = original set of events
E = set of exceptions (which are just dates)
The resulting events are those in A except for those in E.
The add/delete/change buttons simply manipulate the set of dates in E.

Among the surprising features of this is that one uses the "add" button in order to remove an event (because this is an addition to set E).

So I read "exception" as "event that doesn't fit the pattern," while the current design is that "exception" is "date on which a regularly scheduled event will not happen."  The manual does say that; it was just a little hard to get it, at least for me.  The guts are buried in a parenthetical remark well into the explanation: "exceptions (i.e. times when even if the recurrence rule matches, the event will not be scheduled)."

Minimally, it would be good to make this more explicit earlier on in the documentation.  It might be possible to revise the interface a bit to make it clearer too.  And, if someone is feeling ambitious, it might be more natural if the program actually implemented a model that was like the mental model I started with.