--- title: Reminders and alerts description: What alarms, notifications and reminders each do in Calendite, and how alert text is built. order: 7 --- # Reminders, alerts and alarms Three words that mean three different things in Calendite. - An **Event Alert** is a thing attached to an event that fires at a time. It is either an **Alarm** or a **Notification**. - An **Alarm** rings and takes over the screen, even locked, like a phone alarm clock. - A **Notification** is a normal Android notification. No takeover. - A **Reminder** is not an alert at all. It's one of the four [calendar items](/docs/everyday-use/calendar-items.html) — the one you have to do rather than attend. --- ## Alerts on an event Add them from the event form's **Alerts** tile. An alert fires either at an exact date and time, or relative to the event's occurrence: "10 minutes before it starts", "5 minutes after it ends". Choose **Alarm** or **Notification** per alert. An event can carry several. ### Alert templates An alert's title and body can pull values out of the event using `%` codes: ``` %t starts in %tm minutes ``` → *"Stand-up starts in 10 minutes"* There are 27 codes. The ones you'll use most: | Code | Gives | |---|---| | `%t` | the event title | | `%T` | the alert's own title | | `%tm` `%th` `%td` | minutes / hours / days until (or since) | | `%tf` `%tc` | time until, full (`2 hours 15 minutes`) or compact (`2h 15m`) | | `%dm` `%dh` `%df` `%dc` | the event's duration, same four ways | | `%Et` `%ET` | start time, 24-hour or AM/PM | | `%Ee` | end time | | `%Ed` `%ED` `%Ew` | date (locale), short date, day of week | | `%l` `%L` | location, full or short | | `%g` `%G` | tag name, tag colour | | `%n` `%N` | the current time / date | | `%%` | a literal `%` | The full list with descriptions is in the [alert template syntax reference](/docs/reference/alert-template-syntax.html). The same codes work whether the alert fires before, during or after the event: `%tm` says "in 10 minutes" beforehand and "10 minutes ago" after. On a ringing alarm the time-relative codes re-render about once a minute, so the count stays accurate while it rings. If a code has nothing to resolve to (`%l` on an event with no location), it renders as nothing rather than an error. ### Launching an app from an alarm An alarm can carry an app to open. The ringing screen shows it as a badge with **TAP TO OPEN** curved around it, useful when the alarm is *for* something: a workout app or a meditation timer. If the app has since been uninstalled the badge says so rather than failing silently. --- ## Reminders Pick **Reminder** on the **Choose a Calendar Item** step that opens when you tap **NEW**. A reminder differs from an event in three ways that matter: - **No duration.** It's a point in time, not a span. It's never all-day. - **The alert is mandatory.** A reminder that never fires is pointless, so you can't save one without an alert. - **It can be completed.** Events happen to you; reminders get ticked off. ### Recurrence anchor A repeating reminder computes its next occurrence one of two ways: | Anchor | Behaviour | |---|---| | **On schedule** (default) | dates come straight from the rule. Completing late, or deferring, never moves future occurrences. | | **After completion** | the next one is counted from your completion time plus the interval. | *"Water the plants every 3 days"* almost certainly wants **after completion**: three days after you last watered them, not every third calendar day. *"Submit timesheet every Friday"* wants **on schedule**: Friday is Friday whether or not you did last week's late. ### Do not interrupt A per-reminder switch. When on, a reminder that would fire while you're in the middle of an event defers itself until that event ends rather than ringing over your meeting. All-day events don't count as "in progress" for this; otherwise a single all-day event would silence a whole day. It gives up after three automatic deferrals so a reminder can't be postponed forever. ### When one rings **Done** or **Remind Me Later**. "Later" opens a picker so you choose a time, not a fixed snooze interval. Completed reminders stay visible on the calendar, struck through and faded, so you can see what you've done rather than having it vanish. --- ## Alarms in practice An alarm shows a full-screen ringing screen over the lock screen, with slide-to-dismiss rather than a button, so it is hard to silence by accident in your pocket. Two Android permissions matter: - **Notifications**: without it, nothing appears at all. - **Exact alarms**: without it Android may fire alarms late to save battery. Calendite has to request it separately because Android treats it as a special access. Granted in the setup wizard, or later from system settings. Alarms survive a reboot: they're re-armed on boot. --- ## Where alerts don't reach - **Inner events do not inherit their parent's alerts.** The inner event's detail screen shows the parent's alerts for context, but nothing is scheduled from them. Give an inner event its own alerts if it needs them. - **Alerts are not shared.** When you share a calendar, alerts and notes are deliberately excluded. Your partner sees the event, not your reminders about it. - **Variants do inherit alerts** from their base, live, and can suppress or add to them. --- ## Next - [Inner and variant events](/docs/everyday-use/inner-and-variant-events.html) - Full variable list: [alert template syntax](/docs/reference/alert-template-syntax.html)