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Getting started

Calendite is a calendar with a rule engine at its core. Instead of the rigid "repeats every week" options most calendars give you, you describe when something happens and Calendite turns it into a precise rule, worked out on your device.

This page covers what happens the first time you open the app, and how to find your way around.

First run: the setup wizard

Five steps, in this order. You can change every one of them later.

  1. Import from your calendar: reads the device's own calendar so you don't start from an empty grid. Needs the calendar permission. On iOS only recurring events are imported; one-off events are skipped.
  2. Permissions: notifications, and exact alarms. Both matter: without exact alarms Android is free to fire your alarms late, and Calendite has to ask for that one separately because Android treats it as a special access.
  3. Country: sets which days count as the weekend, how dates are ordered, and which bank-holiday calendar applies. UK default is Monday-first weeks and the England & Wales holiday list.
  4. Tags: pick a starter set. Tags carry colour and can pre-fill new events.
  5. Work: describes your working pattern, so WD and rules built on Tag(Work) are meaningful from day one.

Getting around

On a phone there are four things along the bottom:
CALENDAR the grid: Month, Week or Day
EVENTS a scrolling list of what's coming up
NEW (+) create an event, reminder, deadline or time period
MORE everything else

On a tablet or desktop window the bottom bar is replaced by a sidebar down the left, and a day agenda rail appears on the right showing the selected day. The layout switches on window width, not device type, so a split-screen phone behaves like a phone and a resized desktop window adapts as you drag it.

What's under MORE

Item What it does
Settings general preferences, including the sync server choice
Scan a QR code pairing invites, browser links
Country weekend days, date order, holiday calendar
Tags create, edit and colour tags; set their defaults
Calendar sync import from the device's calendar
Notes & files where notes are stored; you can point this at an Obsidian vault
Data sources feed-backed categories (bank holidays, term dates, fixtures)
Share calendar pair with someone (Android only for now.)

Notifications, About and Send feedback are listed but not available yet.

Creating your first event

Tap NEW. The form asks for a title and when it happens; everything else is optional and lives behind the OPTIONS grid below the fold: location, alerts, notes, colour, visibility, an app to launch, and so on.

The When section is where Calendite differs from other calendars. Three modes:

  • No Repeat: a single date.
  • Repeating Rules: the picker-driven builder. Choose patterns and exceptions; the compiled rule shows in the RULE bar so you can see what you built.
  • Manual Input: type the schedule in plain English, or write the rule directly.

Whatever you pick, tap the calendar preview to see the actual dates it produces before you commit. That preview is the fastest way to learn the rule language: build something with the pickers, then read what it compiled to.

Which kind of thing?

Tapping NEW asks Choose a Calendar Item before it shows you a form, because not everything on a calendar is an event. There are four:

  • an Event, something you attend, with a start and an end time;
  • a Reminder, something you have to do rather than somewhere you have to be — no duration, a mandatory alert, and it gets ticked off;
  • a Deadline, a moment something is due by, counting down to it and then up past it;
  • a Time period, a span of whole days such as a holiday or time off work.

What you pick decides which fields the form then shows. See Calendar items for what each does differently.

A good first hour

To see what the app is designed for, in order:

  1. Set up your Work pattern properly in the wizard; most of the interesting features build on it.
  2. Add a bank holidays data source (More → Data sources; gov.uk publishes JSON), then change your Work rule to WD, !BankHolidays and watch the holidays drop out.
  3. Add an inner event to Work (for example a stand-up) and see it appear only on work days.
  4. If you work shifts, add a variant and see one series carry several sets of hours.

That sequence covers the three ideas the rest of the app rests on.

Where things are stored

  • Events, tags, alerts and settings: a local database on the device.
  • Notes and descriptions: plain .md files, either in app-private storage or a folder you choose (More → Notes & files).
  • Nothing is uploaded anywhere unless you turn on calendar sharing and choose a relay server. There is no account and no default cloud.

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