Event Selection List

The Event Selection List is used to display a list of events in a form where they can be easily selected by a tap. In many views, items can be so closely spaced together that selecting a single item with a finger is nearly impossible. If you have a large screen or tablet, you may wish to select the AlternateSelectionInterface preference which bypasses the Event Selection list and assumes you can accurately tap a single item in any view.

The most common use of this list is to display a list of events on a particular day when you use a brief tap on a day in any view. A brief tap anywhere on the screen will bring up this list. All items scheduled for that day are displayed.

The Event Selection List is also used to display the matching results of the Find Function, the upcoming alarms list,  the list of all events that link to a specific contact or group, the List of deleted records for undelete, etc.. Operation of the list is basically identical regardless of what function was used to create it. The only difference and this is an important one is that if you invoke an operation on a repeat event, any command function you use will apply to all occurrences, whereas if the Event Selection List is invoked for a specific day, the functions will only apply to that instance of the repeat series.

The Appt(), Float(), Task(), Template()  buttons can be used to create a new event.  If the Event Selection List was brought up with a tap on a time-slot in the Day or Day+ views, that time-slot will provide the default time for the event. In all other views, the event will be untimed by default and will have the date set to the date of the day for which the Event Selection List was created. If the Event Selection List was created from Find/Alarms/Contacts, today's date is used as a default instead.

The Template() button displays a list of all the available templates - which can then either be inserted or edited (see Quick Entry Templates section for more information on this feature).

The Go button () is displayed in all views other than the Day View and if pressed, will go to the day View with the selected day displayed - this function is only available when the Event Selection List is displaying the contents of a single day. The list can be dismissed with the Back key or the green checkmark  button.

The H or S button appears when the current filter is hiding one or more items in the selected day (H-ide). The S-how button appears if you tap the H button - to inform you that while all events are being shown, the filter that you are currently using normally hides one or more items that are being displayed. Remember that if items are hidden in the current view, a tilde character (~) appears in front of the date line as a reminder that some items are hidden. When using the [S] button to show everything, an asterisk (*) appears in front of the date line as a reminder that there are some items being displayed that would not normally be displayed by that filter.

A brief tap on an item brings up the Edit Dialog with that item displayed. A long tap on an item pops up the Command List (See Popup Commands for further information on all the commands and how to customize them).

If there is a status icon displayed at the left edge of the row, you can long-press that icon to toggle the status (for example, if there is a checkbox for a task indicating it is an active task, a long-press will mark the task as complete and the icon will change to checkbox with a tick inside it).

System icons displayed at the right edge of the top row can also be long-pressed:

 Displays the groups to which this item belongs.

 Invokes the web page, email or linked file associated with this item.

 Displays the linked contact(s) and/or memo(s) for this item

 Displays the attendees for this item's meeting

 Displays the location for this item in Mapping Application

 Displays the alarms for this item and when they will next trigger

Other icons, for which there is no useful information specific for that event, display help information about the icon.

Selecting Multiple Items

Normally, when the Event Selection List is displayed, you  either briefly tap an item (to edit it), or long-press the item to perform other operations (Delete, Advance, etc.). However,. there is also a Multi-Select button:  which you can use to select more than one item, and then have a long-press command apply to all selected items. When you tap this button, a new column appears to the left of every item with a circle containing either a  to indicate the item is not selected, or a  to indicate that it is selected. You can also long-press the Multi-Select button to toggle between selecting ALL items or selecting none of them. When you initially tap the Multi-Select button, you can also long-press that button to bring up all items already selected.

Once you have selected an item, you can long-press any item in the list (regardless of whether it was one of the one's that you selected or not) and the subsequent command will only apply to those items that you had previously selected. In other words, if you long-press an item that is not selected, that will not select that item, and it will remain unaffected by the operation you then invoke.

Not all of the popup commands are available in multi-selection mode. There is a separate preference setting: PopupListCommandsForMultiSelect which shows controls what items appear in the list and in what order (same way that the preference PopupListCommandsForEvent manages the commands for a single item).

There is one special "system" type command, CompareCalendarEvents which operates differently in that you must only select two events before invoking this command. It then compares the two events and displays every difference between them. This can be helpful when you have two events that appear to be identical and you are wondering why you have two copies of the event.

The multi-select command can be invoked on any Event Selection List. For example, if you went into menu | Find, and hit clear and then ok, that would display every single item in the calendar, and if you then long-pressed the MultiSelect button (to select all the items in the list) and then did a long-press and Delete, that would then delete the entire database (!).

It's a good idea not to leave P/A with an event selection list open when switching to some other App. Eventually, Android OS might run out of available memory for those Apps and will abscond with P/A's memory under those conditions. Then, when P/A is re-activated and told to display the event selection list, P/A can not as it has to first re-read all the preferences and calendar Database(s). Also, if you leave an event selection list open, (a) the Widget will not refresh, (b) any AutoSync will be postponed, and (c) any backup everything will be postponed. You might consider setting the preference: EditDialogQuickReturn which instead of refreshing the event selection list, just returns to the main view after editing an item.