Android App: Calendar Event Reminder

310 thoughts on “Android App: Calendar Event Reminder”

1. Hi,
   Great idea. Can you make this app for the iPhone? This is a major flaw on the iPhone, the iCalendar event alert goes off once, and it’s a little chirp. It doesn’t get your attention at all. I found your site while doing a search to fix the iPhone calendar problem…lol. Well, if Apple doesn’t fix this problem, I will switch to Android for sure!

2. Hey Dave,

   nice proposal. I added it to the feature list.

3. I’m afraid to say that i’m not going to implement this for the IPhone.

   Sorry,
   Frank

4. Hi Frank,

   I have a formatting suggestion/bug. The gray area around the Snooze/Dismiss buttons doesn’t span the whole dialog box. Easiest way to see this is to turn the screen into landscape mode with the dialog box open. Hopefully it’ll be a quick fix for the next release! I hope you’re getting a lot of visibility on the market! This is a great product!

   Thanks,
   Joe

5. Pingback: Calendar alarms? - xda-developers

6. wow wow wow frank ………. now your application is THE BEST calendar snooze in the world android ……. thx I’m really happy :-)))))))))

7. It worked for about one hour, then nothing… Must be a software compatibility thing: I’m also using Agenda Widget , BirdieSync (great sync Thunderbird Android), and just installed Touch Calendar.

   3 months with my Samsung Galaxy S GT-I9000, and I still don’t get its concept of calendar(s). In the OS setting for calendar choice, I have:
   – “My Calendar”
   – “Main” (= Google web calendar)
   – The calendar created by BirdieSync automatically, without any explanation.
   – Facebook calendar
   – “Facebook through Google” calendar

   I tried all kinds of combinations and settled on selecting the BirdieSync calendar ONLY (I don’t want my data in the cloud, and I don’t need the Facebook calendar) in ALL apps/widget. This works except for Calendar Event Reminder, which has no setting to choose the calendar to watch…

   The OS settings have no “Reminder Settings” choice. That’s one more problem due to Samsung’s customization.

   I’d appreciate your help (I bought the app) with the problem and, if you can, a little explanation of the mysteries of the Galaxy S calendar(s).

8. Forgot to mention two things:
   – When Calendar Event Reminder worked, alarms went off at the END of the minute for which they were set…
   – “Nudnik” works OK with my setup, but it’s way too slow and ugly. I uninstalled it before to install your software.

9. Christian,

   thanks for your message. I had a look at BirdieSync and in the market teaser it says that they are using their own synchronization engine. Are the calendar events synced to your android calendar or are they using some custom calendar app? Also please have a look at the events in this calendar: Is there any reminder set for the events? Maybe it is missing and you “only” have some events stored in the calendar. You can add a reminder by opening the event in edit mode in the calendar and use alarm->choose a reminder (on time, 5/10/15 minutes earlier…). Then save the event and wait for the reminder to fire.

   On my Galaxy S i can find general settings for reminders in the calendar app->Menu->Settings->Reminder Settings. What Android version are you using? 2.2 or 2.1?

   Also i would like you to send me a logfile. Please have a look here with a detailed desciption:
   http://blog.invalidobject.com/2011/04/10/getting-support-via-catlog

   Please activate logging, then set up a reminder for a calendar event and wait for it to fire. After the time elapsed go back to CatLog and send me the logfile.

   Just some additional explanation:
   – My app will listen for reminders to fire which is done by the system. If they fire to late or don’t fire at all my app won’t get any info and is not able to show the alarm.
   – Nudnik reads the whole calendar, stores the events in a seperate database and keeps track of them. I didn’t want to use this “shadow database”-approach because it is error prone and also has some security
   drawbacks.

   Regards,
   Frank

10. Steven,

    thanks for your mail. Could you please check, if you have activated the setting for installing third party apps to your phone? You can find it under your phone settings->Applications->Unknown Sources to yes. Then try to install the app via usb. If this does not work maybe your provider has limited the kinds of applications to install.

    Could you also please tell me which email app you want to use? If you want to use the Android client this will only work with a rooted phone. GMail or K9 work without and you don’t need to do the installtion via Super
    Manager.

11. I am very interested in your calendar app, but I have a question.

    Does your app allow more flexibility in snoozing events?

    For example, I will often set an event with a 4 day reminder. Then, each day, I snooze it for one day. On the day of the event, I might snooze it for 4 hours, 1 hour, 30 minutes, etc.

    On the screen shots you show above, there are only options for:
    – 5 minutes
    – 1 minute before start
    – 5 minutes before start
    – 10 minutes before start

    I would like to see many options like:
    – 5 minutes before start
    – 5 minutes
    – 10 minutes
    – 15 minutes
    – 30 minutes
    – 1 hour
    – 2 hours
    – 4 hours
    – 8 hours
    – 1 day
    – 1 week
    – Custom (input by me at time of snooze action)

    Is this asking a lot? 🙂

    Thanks,
    Sandbar

12. Sandbar,

    thanks for your comment. You can customize up to six snooze buttons to your preference with different snooze logic (x minutes before start, x minutes, on time…). Until now you have to set the snooze time in minutes, so if you want to snooze i.e. 3 days, 20 hours this would be 5520 minutes and 4 hours 240 minutes.

    The snooze button will then look a bit strange (“Snooze for 5520 minutes” or “Snooze 240 minutes before start”), but i will work on the display issue on the next release 😉

    Regards,
    Frank

13. Thanks foo.bar,

    I have Android 2.2. No “Reminder Settings” in the calendar, only a “Notification Settings” section, which only has “Vibrate” and “Select Ringtone”.

    I’ve uninstalled Agenda Widget and Touch Calendar, and used BirdieSync to completely replace its Android calendar with the one from Thunderbird (all events deleted in phone “BirdieSync” calendar, then all events copied from computer to phone. Deleted all unused calendars (Facebook), turned off everything I could related to sync and calendars, reinstalled Agenda Widget and Touch Calendar. Now Calendar Event Reminder seems to work just fine. My reminders were the same before, it just seem they weren’t noticed or something.

    “Are the calendar events synced to your android calendar or are they using some custom calendar app?”
    – As I said, BirdieSync creates a new “calendar” which is found in Calendar-Menu-More-Settings-Calendars. It also appears everywhere there’s a choice of calendars. BirdieSync also creates a new account in the general OS settings under “Accounts and Sync” (where I set all syncs to “off”). I’m using BirdieSync in manual mode so far, originating the sync from the phone, over wifi.

    Everything seems to work, but I don’t feel relaxed. It feels like it’s all gonna break again at the first opportunity. Nothing to do with your software, though. I’m an old hand at computers and OSes, and Android feels more and more like the beginnings of Windows. The Mac was steady as a rock, and Microsoft was enslaving us for a 20 year trip through hell. There’s definitely something to be said for Apple. Google has no support, no real centralized, detailed yet concise and clear documentation on Android. I’m sick of tweaking, I just want the damned thing to work.

14. Christian,
    had some problems getting back to you. Your email address seems not to be valid.

    Am i getting you right that my app is working now?

    I can totally agree with you that the google support has lots of room for improvement. I had the same experience espacially from a seller point of view.
    I think the problem with the devices not beeing mature is very dependend on the manufacturer. I had some experiences that could be compared to yours with Samsung Galaxy S and some Motorola devices, but am totally happy with my current HTC Desire HD.

    Maybe you could try it (also the HTC Desire is great).

    Regards,
    Frank

15. Hi, love your app which is just what I’ve been looking for.
    Just one problem: on my Galaxy S it seems that the settings are not stored permanently. For example if it is shut down due to low memory, killed, of the device is restarted. Then all my settings are lost. Any idea what could be wrong?
    Thanks
    Stefan

16. Thanks for the great app, does what I really need at a better price than other options on the market!

    Similar to what Sandbar says – I would love the option to add more reminder times, as well as to input them in days. I think the option to add a “custom” button would work, so that when you go to snooze you have 4-5 presets (like now) but also a button labeled something like custom, which would bring up a dialog to allow you to specify a number, plus 2 drop down boxes – one for “minutes/hours/days” and one for “from now/before event/after event”, etc… This would make the snooze totally flexible.

    Also, I agree that clicking on the notification should bring up the dialog.

    Thanks,
    Patrick

17. Also, I just noticed that the “Keep Open after Alarm” option does not seem to be working for me, on an HTC thunderbolt – the dialog disappears as soon as the alarm ends regardless of this setting. Is that normal?

    Thanks,
    Patrick

18. Stefan,
    Could you please try to uninstall and reinstall the app? If this does not help please send me a logfile of your system (see here: http://blog.invalidobject.com/2011/04/10/getting-support-via-catlog )
    Please first activate logging, then change some configuration and afterwards stop logging and send me the logfile. Also please make sure that my app will not be killed by a custom task manager.

    Regards,
    Frank

19. Patrick,
    thanks for your comment.
    I added the “extra snooze button” to the feature list above. Until now the alert will only stay open after the last reminder. So this is no false behaviour right now. There is already a feature on the feature list regarding the window staying open on every alert, which you can vote for.

    Regards,
    Frank

20. Is there a demo version available for this app. I’ve been having problems with the calendar snooze app lately with reminders not showing up and would like to try this one out and see if it works.
    Thanks.

21. Hi,
    using it on a Motorola Atrix 4G, but it seems that the setting “Play Sound only once” isn’t working, so the sound notification stops only after the defined “Alarm Seconds”.
    But this makes no sense as I would expect one or two Sound Notification, but the Vibration should go on for the defined “Alarm Seconds”.

    In addtion I thougt I can define Sound Patterns (like only 3 times, Sound off 10s), similar to the Vibration Settings.

    Please can you fix this and add the Sound Pattern (Amount of Sounds played).
    Thanks.

22. ramzing,

    thanks for your comment but there is and will be no demo verion as far as i can say. But i can offer you to try the app and if it doesn’t work i can refund you the money.

23. JW,

    thanks for your comment. I had the same issue a few days ago and had to realize that the sound i selected in the sound option panel repeats ITSELF more than one time. So even if i selected to play only once, it seemed to loop two times. But actually it didn’t. Could you please check if this applies to your sound, too. You can find out by opening the sound option in the preferences and select the sound.

24. Frank,

    Thanks for the offer. I went ahead and picked it up at the android market (registered under a different name). I like your poll for the most desired features and I would have to say my top two would be
    1) A way to keep the reminder on the screen until explicitly dismissed (or perhaps an option on the notification bar that brings the item up and presents the snooze options). Also is there a way to keep multiple reminders on the screen or on the notification bar as stated above. As I see it right now a new reminder dismisses the previous one even if the older one hasn’t been explicitly snoozed.
    2) A way to set custom times on the snooze popup directly via the snooze popup, perhaps a drop down that will let you choose a custom time. This would be in addition to the preset buttons). Similar to what Patrick says above.

    Thanks!
    ramzing

25. Add to that list: A button on the snooze popup to call up the calendar program so that the event can be edited.
    Thanks!
    ramzing

26. Do you have any type of demo or time limited version? I would like to try this and compare to some other apps before buying. Thanks.

27. Steve,

    no demo version until now, please see here: http://blog.invalidobject.com/android-app-calendar-event-reminder#comment-901

    Regards,
    Frank

28. ramzing,
    thanks for the proposual. I added it to the feature list.

29. Hey –

    I’m trying to download your app on my new samsung sprint epic. When I try to buy, i get an error message “a network error has occurred”. I was in the sprint store when i tried this and they couldn’t figure it out. Came home and tried, but same thing. Called sprint support, and they couldn’t help.

    HELP! Thanke.

30. Hi,
    i’m afraid i can’t help you with the market problems, but you might try to get my app over at androidpit. It’s an alternative for android market.

    Regards,
    Frank

31. I have been looking for a calendar reminder app ever since I got my DroidX. I have a few questions. 1. Can I customize the delay between the nagging reminders? 2. How do you handle multiple reminders going off at the same time? For example 2 things going off at 9am and I want to dismiss one and snooze the other, can that be done?

    Thanks!!

32. Brian,

    ad 1: You can customize
    a) the auto snooze time. This is used if the alarm isn’t manually snoozed and the alarm time elapses. The next alarm will then raise after the auto snooze time.
    b) up to 6 custom snooze buttons with different snooze actions (for x minutes, x minutes before/after, on time). You can also find this on the screenshots.

    ad 2: Multiple reminders on the same time are raised one after another. So if the first is snoozed or discarded the second will pop up. You can snooze / dismiss both of them individually.

    Regards,
    Frank

33. Das Calendar Event Reminder funktioniert nicht. Habe ein HTC Desire S mit Android 2.3.3 und HTC Sense 2.1.
    Habe beim standart Kalender die Benachrichtigung ausgeschaltet. Was ist das Problem. Bitte um Hilfe.

    Danke

34. MAD,
    kannst du bitte prüfen, ob du für den entsprechenden Kalendereintrag auch einen Reminder gesetzt hast? Ohne einen Reminder wird meine App keinen Alarm anzeigen. Du kannst ihn hinzufügen, wenn du den Kalendereintrag bearbeitest und auf Menu->Erinnerung hinzufügen gehst.
    Solltest du das bereits gemacht haben benötige ich ein Logfile von deinem Handy. Ich habe hier beschrieben, wie du dieses Logfile erstellst. Bitte zuerst die Logging Session starten, dann den Kalendereintrag mit Reminder hinzufügen, dann warten bis der Alarm erscheinen sollte und zum schluss die Logging Session beenden und mir das Logfile schicken.

    Danke,
    Frank

35. One major capability seems to be missing. That is, to truly work like a snooze button (as on an alarm clock). I need to be able to hit snooze an indefinite number of times and have the reminder reset that number of minutes ahead each time it hit it (e.g. 10 minutes ahead each time I snooze). All you would need to do to implement this is to include another choice on the Snooze Type, “X minutes from NOW” Or to put it another way, please implement Relative snooze times in addition to the Absolute snooze times that are there. Thanks.

36. Tim,
    thanks for your comment and suggestion for improvement. I think the feature you want to use is already there. Just use the simple snooze method (deactivate advanced snooze buttons) or set one of the advanced snooze button to “After x minutes” and then set snooze time as you like. If you use this snooze button the alarm is snoozed for the specified time and reoccurs after it elapses. You can also do this an infinite number of times.

    Regards,
    Frank

37. Frank, Aha! I see it now. For some reason that menu comes up with that particular choice scrolled off screen. Thanks for the fast reply.

38. Frank,

    In the spirit of making a good app even better, here are the features I would like:

    1. Button to edit event in calendar (as requested by others)

    2. Progressively insistent reminders – I want a gentle and unobtrusive reminder at first, which gets more insistent if I miss it the first time. This is important to not disturb others in a meeting, but to be sure I do get the reminder eventually. You could implement this many ways: a. Different sound/vibrate settings for original alert verses for the reminders, b. full sets of sound/vibrate – do x repetitions of set#1 followed by x repetitions of set#2, c. automatically increasing volume on the sound (as a different snooze app does – it works but I would like more control)

    3. A way to view upcoming alarms/notifications – A choice in the app or a separate widget that shows the next several pending alarms, whether they are from original calendar events, or from reminders or snoozes.

    4. Float events – This one is a bit different. I used it heavily in the Palm app, DateBk6. A floating event is a hybrid between a regular calendar event and a ToDo list item. First, here is how it would work if the calendar implemented it: The floating event would have a time and duration like an ordinary event, but also have a Done/NotDone state like a ToDo item. If it is not marked Done on that day, the event is automatically moved (or copied) to the same time the next day. Say, I have a report to write and I set aside an hour on my calendar to work on it today. I get the reminder, but day if I don’t get it done it also flows over to the next. This is not just a repeat of the alarm, it actually puts a new appointment on my calendar for the next day. Very useful! Okay, here is how you could implement it in your app: When the snooze dialog appears, give me a button to Float Event. Your app would actually add that appointment to the calendar on the next day. (Of course, you could get fancy and do it automatically at midnight, but even this one-button manual approach would be very useful.) Also, the same thing can be accomplished with multiple clicks by using feature #1 above, the Button to Edit Event in Calendar, and then changing it in the calendar – I am just looking to simplify the steps needed.

    5. Finally, a defect report – I do occasionally get spurious alarms for events that I had already dismissed, often around ten minutes earlier. This is not repeatable so it is hard to say where the problem is, but it seems to be associated with having done a mix of repetitions (ignoring the event) and specific snoozes, and maybe even having those overlap with another event and its repetitions and snoozes.

    Thanks,
    Tim

39. I do not care for this to be published. I am just reporting what appears to be a problem. I have a Captivate and I leave the screen orientation on automatic. I have had the unfortunate event (in church) that when the alarm/reminder is activated and the phone’s position is changed from portrait to landscape, that the snooze and dismiss swipe buttons disappear and I can not stop the alarm.

40. Tim,

    wow, thanks a lot for the very detailed suggestions for improvement. I will add them (1-4) to the feature list. Ad 5: I got this from several other users and i think i found the bug. Unfortunately it will take some time to fix it and i’m very busy right now, so this won’t be out very soon 🙁 Anyway i will keep you all updated via twitter…

    Regards,
    Frank

41. Rob,
    thanks for the bugreport. I’m very sorry for this malfunction and the embarrasing situation you might got into. Is this problem reproduceable with other alarms on your device? I guess the sliders didn’t reappear when switching back to portrait? If this happens again or if you can reproduce it, could you please try to turn off the screen and then on again and see if the sliders reappear?

    Regards,
    Frank

42. I’m using CER on an Motorola Milestone with Cyanogenmod 7 installed (Android 2.3.4). Since installing it several weeks ago I’ve almost always had a bug where reminders would fire twice. After dismissing the first reminder a 2nd one would start about (half?) a second later.

    Today CER really started going haywire. After an event had already occurred it suddenly started spouting reminder after reminder after reminder. Dismissing them al didn’t help. Even if I did nothing and it entered snooze a new one would start something like 10 seconds later. Sometimes dismissing a few of them would give me peace for a couple of minutes, but then it all started again. I’ve tried everything I could think of, including rebooting the entire phone, changing most of CER’s settings and even the notification settings of the stock calendar but the reminders kept coming back. So unfortunately CER is disabled for now.

43. Vinz,

    i’m very sorry that everything got worse instead of better. I just worked on the multiple alerts occuring and i think i found the fix. If anyone else got this problem, please get in contact with me and i will provide a beta version to test. If this is working i will push it out to the market.

    Thanks,
    Frank

44. Some quick testing suggests the new beta solves both my problems, which means CER seems to be working perfectly for me at the moment. So I can heartily endorse the beta if anyone else is suffering from the same problems 😉

45. Hi, me again 🙂
    I wanted to write here for some time, never got the chance:
    I have the same problem some others seem sto be facing, namely that events pop up again after being cancelled. Just this Sat I got an alarm that had been cancelled 4 hours before, first 3 times in a row, 2 Min later EIGHT times in a row. It seems to help if I remove the reminder from the calendar entry, maarking it “done” doesn’t chance anything…
    So I’d also be willing to test the Beta, if you like 🙂
    (Btw: just re-installed my Milestone, now there seems to be a problem with the Homescreen Helper, I regularly get asked which Launcher I would like to use and your app isn’t in the list…)

46. Just pushed out release 3.3.2 with a fix for the unintentinally reoccuring alerts.

47. Hello I love the potential of your product. I purchased it last night but my problem is…I don’t have a data plan for my Motorola Charm. All of my alerts/reminders literally disapear after I set them and never sound as if I never set-em in the first place. I thought your product would over ride the problem and take over even when I’m not around wi-fi…seems it doesn’t. How can someone without a data plan take advantage of your app? I’ve no need to sync back and forth with google, just need your product to work for me out in the field.

    Thanks.

48. Gerald,
    thanks for your comment. Actually you don’t need a synchronization or any data connection. You only have to add an event to your phone by using your calendar app and set a reminder for it. The last step is mandatory. There will be no alarm if you don’t set a reminder for an event. Which calendar app are you using to add events?
    Also i’m not sure if i got you right. Do you mean that alerts are popping up if you sync your calendar with google? And they don’t if you do not sync? That would be a strange behaviour.
    It would be also helpful for me if you can send me a logfile of your system. Please see here. Just start logging, then add an event with reminder, wait for it to be fired and if it does not occur go back to the logging and send me the logfile.

    Thanks,
    Frank

49. “Actually you don’t need a synchronization or any data connection”. You’re right. I figured it out right before I got you message. I unchecked the “sync only when in wifi areas” in my settings. Thanks anyway.

    Is there a “no alarm” option? Can I put in something like paydays through out the yr/month and not have an alert (audible sound) for it? Just helps for me to see certain things but don’t need and audible sound for them once that time arrives.

50. Gerald,
    you can add an event to your calender without a reminder. That way you have it stored in the calendar but will not get an alert. But i think in some cases you want to get a “silent alert” without sound but still with the popup. Unfortunately this isn’t possible right now. I will work on enhancing the settings so that you can specify a sound/vibration profile for different calendars stored on your phone. That way you could store the sound alarms in one calendar and the silent alarms in a second calendar.
    I cannot say when this feature will be ready for shipping, but i will definitely work on it.

    Regards,
    Frank