Any plan to introduce calendar and timeline support, with keywords for teams?
65 Likes
@Vova quick question, is this gonna support CalDAV in some way? It could be useful not only to use calendar apps but more important to import events invitations, etc.
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Yes, you can upvote this features, so it will prioritises higher: https://community.anytype.io/t/-/1104 and https://community.anytype.io/t/-/1397
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Any chance this gets prioritized after the public launch?
3 Likes
It will not be done before public launch. But after launch it is possible, especially in collaboration usecase. Cannot give any predictions but this one 100% in our sight.
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Great, it was a bit weird that I haven’t seen it anywhere because this does seem like something that should be decently important when it comes to collaboration. Glad to hear that it’s on the radar!
4 Likes
I tried the 0.28.0 version and they still don’t have this function. The whole database concept of notion gets compromised without a calendar view and a sound kanban view. I think anytype team needs to spend some time resetting their priority. focusing more on the note taking itself not the encryption, not the syncing.
3 Likes
I also want that soon, but encryption and syncing are the base of Anytype, so it does make sense they want that to be solid before developing further features (which they are).
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I just want to say that I’m glad that this is currently the most voted feature. 
7 Likes
Help needed
Hello fellow anytypers. It is time to dig deeper into this request.
We need you stories, pains, needs, videos, screenshots and anything else regarding calendar and timeline view. Show your current setup in anytype or other apps where you use this feature. Please be focused not only on the feature itself but also on the context this feature is needed for you. What job you want to accomplish or what data or visual representation you are lacking.
All this info really helps up to develop the best version of this feature. Cheers 
14 Likes
@ignatovv In my case timeline is helpful for building itineraries for my travel.
Here is an example from Notion:
1 Like
Calendar and timeline view should maybe be two separate requests for two separate views, as they most likely will serve two (or more) different use cases.
Calendar
For me, a calendar view is the most important of the two for the main (and maybe obvious) reason to easily see Objects that are separated in time in a recognizable format. Some examples:
- I keep track of all my online orders and other kinds of deliveries and it would be great to see them in a calendar view to see what will arrive when.
- I keep track of appointments (see this thread: Using AnyType to become a better friend - #2 by sambouwer) and seeing those appointments, or any other kind of upcoming and past appointment, directly in a calendar view.
- When the API arrives to allow Objects to be created and read via API, I want to sync some of my Outlook calendar items with Anytype. When I put an online order in, I want it to sync TO Outlook. When I have appointment in my Outlook calendar that are linked to tasks that I track in Anytype, I want them to sync and be visible in Anytype.
- A calendar view makes it easier to add Objects on the correct date with as little clicks as possible.
Heck, I might even migrate a significant part of my Outlook calendar to Anytype (and sync to Outlook if needed).
Timeline view
Less interesting for me and more a nice to have for project planning. Thats about it for me.
10 Likes
For me, the ideal calendar view would be one where I can add filters, or even impose a calendar view on a set.
The use case is as follows: in my job and my personal life, I have a number of things that are assigned to me, but which don’t need to even be started for MONTHS. For instance, I am in education, and when I am teaching a course, I might decide I want to implement a change to the course. But I don’t have time during the course, so an ideal senario might be to do it during the summer. If I could make a task/idea that I give a date where I want to start working on it, and then have this appear in a calendar view, that would be wonderful.
The reason this is so wonderful is that, because I work so many months out, I can end up with many such tasks/projects. It is easy to oversubscribe myself. However, if I can see a calendar where I have started to collect what I want to do and when I want to do it, it is much easier to decide where the next task will fit.
Anyway, that is why this feature would be good for me.
6 Likes
I agree calendar (and timeline) views should be just like any other view that can be applied to an existing Set. For both views I foresee some mandatory settings like startdate, enddate, title, etc. to make sure it can be properly rendered in the view, but that is already the case for example for the Kanban view where you need to group by some Relation. Anytype can do some guessing to what might be the relevant Relations to pick for these settings, or just only render the graph when those settings are configured.
4 Likes
For me calendar view is most important and very usefull. Timeline view is nice to have but I don’t use it really so I will only focus on the calendar.
There are 4 types of calendar uses in my opinion.
- Calendar View in Sets
- A Global Calendar View
- Daily Notes Calendar
- Import external Calendar View
Calendar View in sets
I think we all know this feature. A Calendar view for your set where you select any date relation to view in the calendar. Apps like notion do this very well and its nice for sets like movie releases, episode releases, events, workout planners, etc. Where you can toggle which relations you want to see in the cards in calendar.
Notion calendar view of my Episode release databas
The downside is that is is limited to just that one set (which can also be seen as an upside) and that you need to make multiple calendar views and never have one global calendar. But in anytype you could make a set based on a date relation to view more events/objects in a single calendar, but then I rather have a global calendar.
A Global Calendar View
I would love a global calendar view and I think anytype is made for this. Simular to above but now imaging being able to make a calendar view and simple select any and all date relations to be shown.
In the properties you can toggle all date relations in your workspace on or off and they will show in the same calendar view. Default relations like Creation Date, Last Modified Date, Last opened Date as well as custom date relations. For example I have birthdate, release date, due date, start date, reminder date, etc. Yes, this will lead to an object being shown on multiple days but that would be the user’s choise.
And a global calendar fits very well with a daily notes plugin/feature.
Daily Notes Calendar
Daily notes is something many apps and people use. The app makes a note for each day you use the app and often use a calendar to visualize this. Obsidian and Capacities have this feature where capacities goes the extra mail having each daily note showing what you did that day, of linked/mentioned that date, or what objects you created and even include a timeline if you use the time in the date relation. See screenshot:
Capacities daily notes view including calendar views
In the month overview on the top right a dot is placed when any note or relation mentions that date which is really useful. It also used to quickly jump to a day or create a daily note when it is not yet created. Daily notes when created this way should auto apply your daily notes template.
Import external Calendar View
Most of us use a dedicated calendar tool like google calendar, outlook and the likes. Which would be very useful if you can sync/import in into Anytype. But is should then be more than a window into your dedicated calendar. You should then be able to link and mention those events and appointments. Something like Evernote has with calendar blocks that pull al info from your dedicated calendar.
This makes notes related to time and events more useful, see screenshot for an example with a dedicated event block pulled from my google calendar in Evernote:
Evernote event block pulling info from my google maps
Als you can see, calendar view goes beyond just a view based on a date relation with a day/week/month viewtye. There is much more to it and all four examples I showed have their own usecase which should be considered, all of which I would love to see in Anytype. Though that would be a tall order to ask.
There is much more to say about this but my post is getting rather long already, things like a yearly overview, inline date mentions, synced date blocks, etc. But these four are the main usecases for calendar view in Anytype.
ps. It is hard to show screenshots that dont have personal info when it comes to calendar views I notice haha.
13 Likes
This should actually just be an option for the set calendar view as well. Tana has this and it works great. You can add as many date relations as you want and choose whichever you want to be shown in the view.
One thing that isn’t as nice is Tana is that these dates aren’t differentiated well enough in the view itself. If different dates from different relations were colored differently in the view, it would make it a lot better visually.
2 Likes
My biggest use case is timeblocking, so I’d require a daily calendar at least, and hopefully a weekly one too. And since it’s for timeblocking, easily reordering, resizing, duplicating etc. of objects in the view should all be very easy to do. If you want a very good example of this, you can check TickTick’s calendar. It’s one of the best ones I’ve seen when it comes to ease of use.
It would also be great if we were able to sync the Anytype calendar with external calendars, since there are no notifications in Anytype yet.
3 Likes
I agree with most of what Sam said, and that’s why I’m adding a couple of items as my answer based on his:
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Personally I’m waiting when eventually we get derived relations (formulas) + added hierarchy levels to objects and relations (something like this inheritance feature so that I can implement my ideal task/habit tracker. So, having a calendar view could be extremely useful to have an overview of all the things ( events, habits, tasks, appointments, etc.) in a single view is extremely useful. However, I really don’t think Anytype should go down the root of Notion in this particular area. Notion’s implementation of the calendar view is just basically a gallery view with some items being shown. Not only is it not aesthetically pleasing, it’s limited in terms of number of items being shown in that limited size of a day. I think implementing something like the “agenda” view of the google calendar would be much useful. That way you showcase your items for the day/week in a much more clear fashion.
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As for the timeline view, I think it’s most useful when you want an overview of when each thing ( project, task, etc. ) has started, how long it’s been going on and have an estimate of the time remaining for that one. I think unlike the calendar view, the Notion, Coda, Click Up implementation of the timeline view is near perfect. Of course Anytype can sprinkle its own design language and color palette into it.
Of course adding such views to the sets would open other possibilities too. For example as mentioned by the community what logseq or obsidian is doing with the daily note. Not the creating note part itself but a tool to look back at the objects you created on a specific day.
7 Likes
@ignatovv I do share the same opinion of @sambouwer, @BenLear, @isle9 and @dzlg.
I would just like to add a few points which may be petty, but might still be of importance. At least for me.
Timeline View
For me this is the more important one. I divide a big part of my life into:
- work (projects)
- further education (study for exams, writing essays, thesis etc.)
- free time (Life Goals etc.)
projects, which help me to keep an overview of the whole. It also helps keep my motivation high.
FYI: This is not mine, just of a YouTuber for demonstration purposes of goals.
Right now I am doing this in an excel spreadsheet. But I don’t like it.
FYI: Again not mine, just for demonstration purposes …
In comparing both examples above, what’s missing for me in Notion is:
- No possibility to divide a project into tasks
- No possibility to colorise the projects
- No possibility of a progress bar colouring the progress of a certain project
otherwise like @dzlg said it’s ok.
Calendar
This would have the same use case as @sambouwer (replace own calendar) & @dzlg (as habit tracker). IMHO it should have a daily, weekly and monthly view option. In my case I use it for time blocking same as @isle9 .
Important for me here is, for using it as a „Agenda“, how @dzlg calls it, which would replace my calendar, would be:
- the possibility of coloring events
- the possibility at least to display the start and end time of an event
For demonstration purposes of Apple Calendar only showing the start time…
Daily Notes Calendar
The suggestion of @Jeroen for a daily notes calendar is interesting. In my opinion the possibility to see all entries of a set in a monthly view (on a side window) would be great.
9 Likes