Release Notes

Fixed characters in weekly view.

AsciiDoc checks are skipped if --disable-docs is used.

Fixed import for iCal files with empty description (fixed by Marian Buschsieweke).

Fixed handling of note files edited outside calcurse (fixed by Nicholas Johnson).

Fixed handling of recurrent open-ended appointments at 00:00.

Default description for items with empty descriptions (reported and partially implemented by Jonathan van der Steege).

The PasswordCommand option can now be used to manage passwords in an external program and is the new recommended way of storing passwords for calcurse-caldav (implemented by Ryan Lue).

Support any weekday as first day of week; previously, only Sunday and Monday were allowed (implemented by Morgan Seltzer).

Configuration of the format in which appointment time is displayed (implemented by mercurialmoon).

Actions without key bindings.

generic-prev-view key binding to cycle backwards through windows (implemented by Aurora).

Support for Home/End keys in text input mode.

Support compilation on big-endian systems (reported by nmeum).

Fixed --docdir support (fixed by Marco Sirabella).

Allow newlines in iCal SUMMARY by replacing them with blanks (reported by Matthias Braun).

Fixed sidebar configuration sometimes not increasing width (fixed by Morgan Seltzer).

Layout change recognizes changed appointment space; before this change, a layout change did not update the maximum number of appointments visible until the config menu was left (fixed by Morgan Seltzer).

Fixed InsecureSSL support (reported by Pitido).

Multiple iCal import fixes: Make iCal event import independent of property ordering. Return failure if an item is skipped. Avoid double free on import errors. Fix parsing of UNTIL.

Do not remove an empty note file after edit session.

Keep internal linked list sorted when moving items.

Prevent external hook/notification commands from interacting with the UI.

Allow non-ASCII characters in username and password (fixed by Henrik Grimler).

Improved error handling for the configuration file. Unknown keys are now reported as errors instead of ignored.

Always request href from server after pushing a new object to prevent items from being erroneously deleted or created when path contains characters that need to be URL-encoded (reported and fixed by Max Deineko).

Note file contents are now exported as DESCRIPTION in iCal exports. For notes that should not be exported, please use the "-- " separator (dash-dash-space-newline); everything below that separator (including the separator itself) is ignored during export.

The item deletion menu has been redesigned and now looks as follows:

Delete (s)elected occurrence, (a)ll occurrences, or only the (n)ote?

Options that are not available (e.g. because the item is not recurrent
or does not have a note) are omitted.

The systemdialogs option has been removed from the configuration. The welcome window has been removed, import/export status messages are now always displayed unless the --quiet command line flag is used.

Support for advanced recurrence rules (e.g. "every year on last Sunday in October"). Supported in the UI and in iCal imports. For details on how to use advanced recurrences, run :help repeat. Sample iCal files with advanced recurrence rules can be found in contrib/import/ in the calcurse source tree.

Repeat counts are accepted in the UI as an alternative to repetition end dates for recurrent items (e.g. "#3" to specify that an item should have three occurrences).

The :previous and :next commands can be used to jump to the previous/next occurrence of the currently selected recurrent item. This is useful for verifying that a new (advanced) recurrence rule works as intended.

Various improvements in iCal imports: Location, comment and status of iCal events are now imported as special fields in the note file. The time zone identifier (TZID) is now recognized, time fields are converted to a local time and the zone identifier is logged in the note file.

Notes are now displayed in the item view dialog (implemented by Ambika Eshwar).

Fixed formatting of DTSTART for recurrent events (implemented by Jerem-K).

Improvements in hook execution. Hooks are background jobs and must not interfere with the terminal (stdin, stdout, stderr).

Checks to make sure the config and data dirs exist (implemented by Nitroretro).

XDG base directory support: While using ~/.calcurse/ is still supported for backwards compatibility, we recommend putting your configuration files in ~/.config/calcurse/ and your data files in ~/.local/share/calcurse/ instead (implemented by Nitroretro).

Configurable text for empty days (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Support RET to set the todo item priority to 0 (implemented by Issam Maghni).

Various improvements in iCal imports (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Documentation for Yahoo’s Calendar Server.

Escape necessary characters in SUMMARY on export (implemented by Kelvin Jackson).

Update notification bar properly when certain recurrent appointments are deleted (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Fix save of interactively imported data (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Restore ability to edit recurrent items without exceptions (reported and fixed by Lars Henriksen).

Fix monthly and yearly recurrence algorithms for frequencies greater than one (reported and fixed by Lars Henriksen).

Fix DST issues (reported by Lars Henriksen and others, fixed by Lars Henriksen).

The --conf command line option has been renamed to --confdir and the --directory option has been renamed to --datadir.

Multiple days support: Preview appointments for multiple days without having to navigate in the calendar panel (implemented by Lars Henriksen). There are five new configuration variables: one that turns the feature on/off and four that affect the number of lines used by each day and with it the number of days on display.

Experimental vdir support: The calcurse distribution tarball now includes an experimental script called calcurse-vdir that can be used as an alternative to calurse-caldav (implemented by vxid). For details, please refer to contrib/vdir/README.md in the calcurse source tree.

Support for editing recurrence exceptions (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Custom data directory support (implemented by vxid).

A new Troubleshooting section in the calcurse-caldav README.md (added by Randy Ramos).

Various fixes in the notification system (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Fix for a calendar redraw issue (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Fix a potential deadlock (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Use ICALDATETIMEFMT for EXDATE in iCal exports (implemented by Henrik Grimler).

Fix for the compile-time AsciiDoc check (implemented by Brandon Munger).

The -F option is superseded by -P which can be used to remove certain entries from the data file (instead of keeping them). Please consult the man page for details.

Major overhaul of the input routines in interactive mode (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Support for separate data and configuration file directories (partly implemented by Quentin Hibon).

A --filter-invert option which inverts the other filter options (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Support for negative date ranges when using the -d command line option.

The SyncFilter configuration option which allows for specifying the types of items synced from/to the server (implemented by Satvik Sharma).

Support for a CALCURSE_CALDAV_PASSWORD environment variable which can be used to pass a password securely from another program (implemented by Randy Ramos).

HTTP support (implemented by Dino Macri).

Authorization removed from debug logs by default.

Fix for an appointment becoming an event when entering an invalid start time (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Fix for the deletion of a multi-day recurrent appointment (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Fixes for potential database inconsistencies caused by appointments which end before they begin (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Several fixes dealing with DST (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Fixes for date range queries (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Fix for segmentation fault with recent ncurses implementations.

Fix for potential segmentation fault in mutex handling.

RFC5545-compliant DTSTART in iCal exports (patch by Quentin Hibon).

Fix for not closing the stream after exporting iCal items (patch by crvs).

Fix for priority parsing in iCal imports (patch by dott).

Various improvements to the change detection and save conflict resolution code (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Several improvements to concurrency control (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Various fixes to the scrollbar (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Various potential buffer overflow fixes.

A more robust command line argument parser (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Various improvements to the UTF-8 handling code (implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Several stability and portability fixes (partly provided by Mikolaj Kucharski).

Several stability fixes in the calcurse-caldav script.

Month names and abbreviated day names now honor the locale setting (suggested and implemented by Lars Henriksen).

The phase of moon feature was removed (suggested and implemented by Lars Henriksen).

The selected day in the calendar now stands out (suggested and implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Both the position and the date format used for the heading in the appointments panel are configurable (suggested and implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Support for CTRL-U and CTRL-G in prompts (implemented by Quentin Hibon).

Support for using all keys recognized by ncurses, particularly UTF-8 keys, in key bindings (partly implemented by Lars Henriksen).

Support for CALCURSE_EDITOR, CALCURSE_PAGER and CALCURSE_MERGETOOL environment variables to override the default editor, pager and merge tool.

Several improvements to the reload and save routines. The save routine now detects external changes to the data files and no longer blindly overwrites data which was edited externally. In case of external changes, different options are offered, one of them being the execution of the merge tool to merge external changes and changes done from the running calcurse instance. The reload routine also no longer performs a reload if both the external data files and the local data are unchanged.

Several improvements to the CalDAV synchronization script, including OAuth2 support and instructions on how to synchronize calcurse with Google Calendar (requested and implemented by Randy Ramos).

Support for passing the password as a command-line argument to the CalDAV synchronization script (suggested by azarus and implemented by Randy Ramos).

A new utility, called calcurse-dateutil, which can be used to create "extended recurrent events" such as events occurring on the third Thursday of each month.

Gracefully parse iCal parameters with colons (reported by Hakan Jerning).

Fixes to the notification feature affecting recurrent appointments (reported by rgc69).

Do not crash when changing colors (reported by Randy Ramos).

Build fix for NetBSD (reported by Thomas Klausner).

Avoid fatal error when using the help command (reported and fixed by Lars Henriksen).

Avoid empty warning box when key is already in use (reported and fixed by Lars Henriksen).

Several fixes to the calcurse-caldav synchronization script to allow for synchronizing with NextCloud servers (reported by Geoffroy Tremblay).

Proper support for punctual appointments starting at 00:00 (reported by Maximiliano Redigonda).

Proper ISO 8601 week numbering (reported and fixed by Lars Henriksen).

The delete key no longer acts as backspace (reported by Zekario and fixed by cryptolmath).

Proper parsing of date-time strings (reported and fix suggested by Lars Henriksen).

Various fixes and improvements to calcurse-caldav.

Do not crash when editing the repetition of an appointment and passing an empty repetition value (reported and fixed by Vlad Glagolev).

Avoid a crash when all todo items are hidden and an interactive action is performed (reported by Vlad Glagolev).

Documentation for the --daemon command line option.

Avoid starting the daemon more than once (reported by Vlad Glagolev).

Improvements to scrolling within list boxes.

In the calendar panel, days with non-recurrent items now have another color as days containing recurrent items only.

Automatically select new appointments/events after creation.

Support for (optional) dates when specifying the start/end time of items. Allows for easily moving items and adding appointments without switching the selected day beforehand.

Encoding fixes in calcurse-caldav (reported by Raf Czlonka).

Avoid notification bar artifacts after leaving calcurse.

Fixes to the key binding pagination (reported by Kevin Wang).

Do not change selection unexpectedly after modifying items.

Hook support: Run scripts before/after loading or saving items. This feature can be used to automatically make Git commits or synchronize with a server when the data files are written. Example hooks can be found in the calcurse source tree.

Experimental CalDAV support: The calcurse distribution tarball now includes an experimental script called calcurse-caldav that can be used to synchronize calcurse with your mobile devices or any other computer. For details, please refer to contrib/caldav/README in the calcurse source tree.

Support for a filter mode -F that is identical to -G but writes the filtered items back to the calcurse data files instead of stdout. Can be used to remove certain items from a script. Use with care!

New long format specifiers "raw" and "hash".

A --daemon command line option to start calcurse in daemon mode.

A --quiet command line option to disable system dialogs.

Support for todo items with an undefined priority.

Support for durations when specifying recurrence end dates.

Support for decimal values when specifying durations.

Support for UTC times when importing iCal events.

Support for sending notifications for all appointments (both flagged and unflagged items).

The "Add Item" key binding now works from the calendar panel.

Week numbers in the monthly view (requested by Hakan Jerning).

Fixes to the slice computation (reported by Hakan Jerning).

Various fixes to the iCal import and export functionality.

Support for reloading appointments via a key binding and via SIGUSR1 (thanks to Tim Hentenaar for submitting a patch).

The compact mode and default panel options are no longer hidden.

A powerful set of new command line options. The new main operations in non-interactive mode are --grep and --query. There are filter switches to restrict the set of items that are read from the appointments file. All old command line options are still supported for backwards compatibility.

Support for shorthands such as "tomorrow" or "monday" as date specifiers.

Support for dates beyond 2038 on platforms with 64-bit time_t.

Several fixes to the user interface.

Handle CRLF line endings in iCal files (reported by Hakan Jerning).

Gracefully handle all day events in iCal imports (reported by Jörn Tillmanns and by Hakan Jerning).

Retain comments in descriptions and configuration values (reported by Hakan Jerning).

Support all types of iCal durations (reported by Hakan Jerning).

Load todo items on startup (reported by BARE Willy sprl).

Do not highlight items on inactive windows.

Support for punctual appointments (appointments without an ending time).

A --limit option which allows for limiting the number of appointments returned (thanks to William Pettersson for submitting a patch).

Support for %(remaining) and %(duration) modifiers in format strings (thanks to William Pettersson for submitting a patch).

The online help system now uses the system pager (e.g. less(1)).

A new command prompt allows for browsing the help texts (type ":help" for more information).

Several general improvements to the user interface.

Do not garble long notes (reported by Hakan Jerning).

Fix compilation under OS X (thanks to Jack Nagel for submitting a patch).

Do not break the appointments file when importing an iCal file that contains an item with a newline in the summary (reported by Jonathan McCrohan).

Do not prompt for a todo after adding an appointment.

Close key binding window when reassigning the same key (thanks to Michael Smith for submitting a patch).

Update copyright ranges.

Do not ignore "--datarootdir" in the i18n Makefile.

Complete the test-suite even if libfaketime is not present.

Add a workaround for broken libfaketime-based tests on 32-bit systems (fixes Debian bug #697013).

Do not update start time/duration with bogus values if the prompt is canceled in edit mode.

Fix another corner case of the screen corruption bug (BUG#6).

Fix core dump when trying to edit a non-existent item.

Display correct welcome messages on startup.

Fix another screen corruption bug.

Fix several compiler warnings.

Vim-like copy/paste (FR#15). Use the delete key to cut items.

Support for entering times in 24 hour format ("2130" instead of "21:30", thanks to William Pettersson for submitting a patch).

Compact panel mode (FR#7). This can be enabled using the currently undocumented "appearance.compactpanels" configuration setting.

Configurable default view (FR#19). The default view can be changed using the currently undocumented "appearance.defaultpanel" configuration setting.

"-D" and "-c" can now be used simultaneously, whereby "-c" has precedence over "-D".

Cache monthly view to speed up browsing.

Sort calcurse -d output by time (BUG#2, reported by Romeo Van Snick).

Fix a critical data corruption bug (BUG#7, BUG#8, reported by Baptiste Jonglez and Erik Saule).

Fix screen corruption (BUG#6, reported by Erik Saule and Antoine Jacoutot).

No longer show the calcurse screen in the editor/pager when the window is resized (BUG#9, reported by Michael Smith).

Calculate busy slices correctly if (recurrent) appointments with a duration of more than 24 hours are used.

Fix a core dump that occurred if the main window was too small.

Several translation updates.

Full UTF-8 support.

Much more powerful formatting options for printing items in non-interactive mode. Format strings can be specified using "--format-apt", "--format-event", "--format-recur-apt" and "--format-recur-event".

Support for vim-style count prefixes for displacement keys.

Powerful duration strings: Allows using extended duration strings, such as "+3:10" or "+1d20h5m".

A feature that allows piping items to external commands.

New key bindings to jump to the previous/next month/year.

A new configuration file format. calcurse-upgrade can be used to convert existing configuration files.

Several performance improvements.

Notes are now stored using hash-based file names which results in lower disk space usage.

A test suite that can be used to test the core functionality of calcurse.

A "--read-only" command line option to discard all changes to data files.

Do not hardcode paths to the default editor/pager. Rely on the "$PATH" variable instead.

Update the number of todo items when importing an iCal file to prevent some items from being inaccessible.

Fix a segmentation fault when importing iCal data (reported by Andraz Levstik).

Format the "DURATION" field properly on iCal export. Use days/hours/minutes/seconds instead of seconds (reported and fixed by Jerome Pinot).

Do not localize dates in pcal exports (reported by Baptiste Jonglez).

Portuguese translation (provided by Rafael Ferreira).

100% complete French, German and Russian translations.

Handle iCal line folding correctly.

Introduce a configure option to completely exclude the documentation subdirectory from the build process ("--disable-docs").

Keep the order of events across restarts (reported by Alan).

Fix the build process when disabling documentation generation.

Avoid flickering on window resize.

Avoid a segfault when resizing the calcurse window.

Add missing documentation for the "backword-kill-word" line editing function.

Honor the "TMPDIR" environment variable instead of using hardcoded paths for temporary files (reported by Erik Saule).

Fix pager invocation when showing the log file during an import (reported by Andraz Levstik).

Accept resource parameters in iCal import. Accept additional parameters such as language parameters (reported by Andraz Levstik).

Sync the notification item after editing or pasting an appointment. This ensures the information in the notification bar as well as the countdown for the notification daemon are always up-to-date (reported by Andraz Levstik).

Fix recurrent appointment notification.

Fix flagging of regular appointments.

Fix sort order when using command line options to display upcoming appointments and events (reported by Erik Saule).

Usage of short form dates such as "29/5/10" instead of "29/05/2010", "23" for the 23rd of the currently selected month and year or "3/1" for Mar 01 (or Jan 03, depending on the date format) of the currently selected year.

"backword-kill-word" line editing function.

Automatically drop empty notes after editing.

Documentation and man pages now are in AsciiDoc format which is easier to maintain and can be translated to several formats such as HTML, PDF, PostScript, EPUB, DocBook and much more.

Manual and man pages contain updated links to our new website and mailing lists, as well as instructions on how to use Transifex.

Extensive code cleanups and improvements.

Avoid a segfault when resizing the help window.

Remove the lock file if calcurse died (fixes Debian Bug #575772, thanks to Erik for submitting a patch).

Parse appointment end times correctly if they date back (reported by Aleksey Mechonoshin).

Fix some compiler warnings.

Russian translation provided by Aleksey Mechonoshin.

Several translation updates.

a weekly calendar view was added with the display of the week number and colored slices indicating appointment times

the side bar width can now be customized by the user

wrong calculation of recurrent dates after a turn of year fixed (patch provided by Lukas Fleischer)

check for data directory availability added

fixed a possible segfault that could be triggered when calcurse screen became too small

INSTALL file is no longer missing from the distributed package

compilation issue related to memory functions definitions fixed

a daemon was implemented so that calcurse can now send reminders in background

new --status command line option to display information about calcurse running instances

fixed a bug which prevented ical files from being imported

no more error when user’s home directory does not exist

dates are now written properly again when using the -r flag

incorrect duration format fixed when exporting to ical

calcurse is now distributed under a 2-clause BSD-style license

todos can now be flagged as completed

support for regex-based searches added

locking mechanism implemented to prevent having two calcurse instances running at the same time

inside calendar panel, day names and selected date are now in the same colour as user’s theme

missing T letter added in the DURATION field for ical export (reported by cuz)

ical events which spans over several days are now imported correctly (reported by Andreas Kalex)

fixed gcc’s ‘format-security’ issue (reported by Francois Boulogne)

no more freeze when changing color within the configuration screen on OpenBSD

fixed a memory leak caused by a wrong use of the structures related to the notification bar

todo items are not displayed twice if -d and -t flags are both given (reported by Timo Schmiade)

it is now possible to export data from a given appointment file even if the user does not have any home directory (reported by Ben Zanin)

prevent character deletion before the beginning of the string within the online editor (reported by Martin Rehak)

new option to periodically save data

cut and paste feature added, to move items from one day to another

support for iso date format (yyyy-mm-dd) added

new --enable-memory-debug configuration option to monitor memory usage

configuration scipt improved to be able to link against ncursesw if ncurses is not available

fixed a two-years old bug (appeared in version 1.5) that made repeated items with exceptions load uncorrectly in some cases (thanks to Jan Smydke for reporting it)

fixed a bug related to user-configured keys that could be lost when using calcurse in non-interactive mode

key bindings are now user-definable

new layout configuration menu

memory leak due to a wrong use of the pthread library fixed

fixed a possible freeze when deleting an appointment’s note

exception dates now properly ignored when exporting data to pcal format

daylight saving time unwanted offset fixed

ical import added

pcal export added, to be able to produce nice-looking PostScript output

-s, -r and -D command line arguments added which allows to use an alternative data directory, and to be more flexible when specifying the range of dates to be considered when displaying appointments and events (thanks Erik for submiting the patch)

^G, 0 and $ keybindings added to ease movements in calendar

--note command line argument added which allows the display of note contents in non-interactive mode (patch submitted by Erik Saule)

It is now possible to configure date formats used in calcurse interactive and non-interactive modes (patch submitted by Tony)

Debian Bug Report #469297

Italian manual provided by Leandro Noferini

Ability to attach notes to appointments, events and todos added

Call to an external editor/pager to edit/view notes implemented

Documentation improved, with the use of a css style sheet in html manuals

Leap years are now properly handled

configure.ac updated to link against pthread and not lpthread

Moon phase calculation added

Automatic redraw is now performed when resizing terminal

Major code cleanup release, error and signal handling improved

Current day is now automatically updated in the calendar panel

No more problem when trying to load a calendar from current directory

Dutch translation and manual provided by Jeremy Roon

The command launched to notify user of an upcoming appointment is now configurable, so that user can get warned by mail or by playing a tune for example

Color theme configuration menu was completely redesigned, with support for default terminal’s color added

Export command implemented, to be able to save calcurse data in iCalendar format. The --export command line argument was also implemented to be able to use this feature in non-interactive mode.

Flag Item command implemented to mark appointments as important so that user gets notified before they arrive

Fixed a possible problem while editing an item description and using CTRL-D to delete last character

01/01/1970 is not returned anymore when editing an item endless repetition

Edit Item command implemented to be able to modify an already existing item

Long command-line options are now accepted

-t flag now takes a priority number as optional argument

Repeated items are now marked with an * to be recognizable from normal items

When creating a recurrent item, the end-date is included again in the repetition

Date format corrected in Go To command

Notification-bar implemented, which indicates current date and time, the calendar file in use and the next upcoming appointment together with the time left before it

-n flag added to get notified of the next appointment within upcoming 24 hours

Support for todo priorities added

New screen layouts added to make the todo panel the largest one

General keybindings implemented, which apply whatever panel is selected

The repeated end date can no longer be before the item start date

Fixed a possible conflict in the LOCALEDIR variable definition

spanish translation and manual provided by Jose Lopez

german translation and manual updated by Christoph M.

Support for recurrent events and appointments added

Debian Bug Report #369550, #377543

fixed the compiler linking problem with libintl on systems which do not provide intl support within libc

german translation provided by Michael Schulz

english translation provided by Neil Williams

Support for i18n added

Support for non-color terminals added

Option added to choose which day is the first of the week (monday or sunday)

Documentation improved, with translated html manuals

When confirmation is requested, it is now done by pressing y or n instead of yes or no

french translation

french and german manuals

Adding of all-day long events

Many GUI improvements: better scrolling (with the use of ncurses pad functions), scrollbars added, progress bar added

Appointment duration can now be entered either in minutes or in hh:mm format

January 0 bug fixed

Current day is no longer highlighted in every year of the future and the past (thanks to Michael for reporting that bug)

Fixed compiler warnings (thanks to Uwe for reporting this)

Removed -lpanel link during compilation

Characters can now be erased with CTRL-H (to fix a problem reported by Brendan)

An option was added to skip system dialogs

Configure script was improved

Ncurses library use improved: screen refreshing is faster, windows do not flicker anymore when updated, and memory footprint is much smaller

Changed abbreviation for Wednesday from Wen to Wed

Command-line options which allows to display appointments and todo list without entering the interactive mode

Manpage and documentation updated

Configure script improved

Debian Bug Report #335430 regarding the GoTo today function is now fixed

Calcurse now comes with a manpage

Debian Bug Report #330869 regarding the October 0 which does not exist is now fixed

Default options "auto-save", "confirm-quit", and "confirm-delete" were set to yes