Wino Calendar

[bkaankose]

Hi everyone,

I want to start a new discussion about the next application that will be integrated into Wino Mail. I want to develop a calendar application and integrate it into Wino Mail, just like in Windows Mail & Calendars. It won't be a full complete replacement for Mail & Calendars without having calendar in place. This is also one of the most requested features from the users.

App Architecture and Core Principles

• Core principles and priorities of the effort should not change; meaning that just like Wino Mail having similar design and functionality with Windows Mail, calendar will be the same Windows Calendar as much as possible.
• All additional features that require extra efforts is delayed until app becomes stable/feature pair with Windows clone.
• Wino Mail and Calendar will share the same configurations and account setup. They will have their own isolated store and shared store for data sharing.
• Both applications will be separate apps, but apps may launch each other and communicate.
• Calendar must work without any account setup required; but appointments and meetings will be synchronized from Wino Mail if there are any.
• App is going to be a UWP + WinUI2, not WinAppSDK / WinUI 3.
• Startup performance, feature parity with Windows Calendar, stability is the top 3 priorities.

Scope

Wino Mail had amazing feedback from both community members and other users so far. I wanted to shape it and prioritize development towards your feedback as much as I can. I think we came along a good way in just couple months already.

Even though I use Windows Calendar for my personal computer, I am not aware of the full capability of this app. There will be/may be some functionalities that I'm not aware of.

I want all of you to provide feedback as much as possible for Wino Calendar as well. Let's create the initial scope for this app and make it better for future.

You can reply under this discussion for all the initial things you wanted to see in Wino Calendar and additional stuff as well. Let's discuss and come up with the best solution for everybody. I will update this initial post and list them here as more suggestions provided by the users.

1. Calendar synchronization from Wino Mail.
2. Holiday calendars must be supported.
3. App must work without Wino Mail installed or any account setup in Wino Mail.
4. Printing calendar. Due to technical difficulties on this item it will be deprioritized for later stages after the first release.

[Benjin]

App is going to be a UWP + WinUI2, not WinAppSDK / WinUI 3.

Can you tell me more about this decision? I'm a bit out-of-date on the pros and cons of the different Windows app SDKs, but I'm curious why one might intentionally choose to target an older UX framework.

[bkaankose]

I personally find it more performant. For the record, I ported Wino Mail to WinAppSDK on a separate branch and it worked completely fine. Except:

• Worse startup performance
• Losing other UWP targets
• Couple UI glitches
• Lack of easy title bar customization options

It may feel an older framework, but I believe nobody can say that "WinAppSDK works much better than UWP". I don't see using an older framework as a disadvantage, actually it's an advantage for Wino's case. If ever WinAppSDK becomes performant as UWP, then migration can be done.

[lostmsu]

Have you tried alternatives like Avalonia?

I would love this app to be cross-platform because with the decisions Microsoft is making lately (like deprecating great Mail app) I feel eventual move to Linux is inevitable.

[Benjin]

Two simple features that I find extremely useful in Apple's calendar apps (especially in conjunction with each other), but aren't present in the Windows Calendar app: 1) duplicating an event, and 2) changing the calendar an event is on.

My scenario: I have a shared calendar with my partner, but also iCal feeds that I subscribe to (e.g. travel plans, sports schedule). I very frequently want to copy an event (e.g. a "flight" event on my travel feed) to the feed I share with my partner so that she can see that info easily.

Note that I am not necessarily deleting the event from the source calendar (and may not have permissions to, in the event of a calendar feed or read-only source).

[Catscratch]

I think, for starters, it would be enought if WinoMail could handle appointments (ical) you get by mail. I'm using separate apps for mail and calendar which is working great. Only drawback of WinoMail (as replacement for WindowsMail) is that it can't handle ical events.

[albertyckwok]

Any news on this app. The native Win 10 is making it difficult to keep the classic calendar look and hoping we have something to similar to replace that.

[bkaankose]

With the full roll-off on Windows Mail & Calendars this got popular more than ever recently. I will see if I can prioritize this going forward.

[albertyckwok]

Thanks for trying. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I tried to build and run Wino.Calendar.csproj but only see a blank screen. I haven't work on Windows coding for many years so it is likely that I am not doing many things correctly. I am using MS Visual Studio 2022 on Win 10.

[bkaankose]

It's a blank app :) I removed it from the UWP solution.

[AkazaRenn]

It would be great if there's widget support to replace Microsoft's terrible Outlook widget.

If it can collaborate with Calendar Flyout that would be fantastic, too.

[sushinateur]

Hi there ! I wonder what the timeframe of the calendar would be. Looking for a replacement for the Windows-Calendar, maybe even as a stand-alone app. Any thoughts ? Thanks in advance !

[P40L0X]

Any news on the calendar integration?

[bkaankose]

I've already started the separation of common parts from Wino Mail last week. It's hard to give an estimate, but I can say at least work has been started.

[GreyManSoftware]

Will the calendar app be a standalone app like it was in Windows Mail and Calendar? I've become desperate for the calendar as Microsoft have started hard pushing everyone into Outlook and I can't face it! :D

[leo-tpsc]

I just want to say I'm very keen on this feature. I've wanted to use the app but can't due to the lack of calendar features. If I may ask, it would be great if we could also use it to schedule teams meetings as with the previous client. Thank you so much for working on this, so many of us can't stand the terrible new Outlook app and you might literally be the one saving Windows for us. Thank you so much!