Project Kalendar is an exploration of a calendar that's built from the ground for power users.
You've definetly heard that pitch before. What do I really mean by that? Aren't there already thousands of calendar apps? Isn't there a million dead startups that have tried to build calendars? What is so special about THIS one? I know, just hear me out.
As a software engineer, I'm always looking for efficiency. I love to optimize my workflows and not waste time on redundant, boring tasks. It's to no surprise then that I love my keyboard shortcuts. In almost every app I use on a daily basis, I have learned all the keybinds I need to be able to do most things without ever having to touch my mouse. This experience is great; not having to use the mouse can also mean I can get a lot done without even focusing on my screen. I perform actions as if I'm just typing a document.
However, there's one kind of app I could never really use with my keyboard. Calendars.
Inherently, you would think that it makes sense that we would need a mouse. There's a lot of dragging, scrolling, and clicking all over the screen. This works most of the time, but what I really dislike is having to be so precise with the placement of my cursor that it just slows me down. I could go on for days on the cases where I've been particularly annoyed by this paranoia of fat fingering my mouse in my calendar, but I'll save you the details.
I want to explore if I can find an alternative to this leniency on the mouse. I think there is a world of new experiences possible if we add a "cursor" into our calendar. I want to build an experience where I can edit my calendar without even having to look at it.
There are other problems I've had with calendars too. Everything is so absolute, but a lot of events aren't. Some events depend on the start or end of other events, why hasn't this relationship been able to be represented in calendars yet properly? I think it's just a UI/UX challenge, one that I'm confident I can solve.
Imagine how nice it would be to have a command pallete in your calendar too! I loved notion calendar's initial implementation of this, but I believe there's much more to be done. Especially when I plan to add so many keybinds, the command pallete becomes essential to reduce the friction in learning them all.
Since no experience like this exists, I know it might seem like it's not needed or that it's not worth the effort. I'm not sure either. However, I've seen the dramatic impact tools like vim have had on document editing, and I'm confident I can replicate that experience on a calendar for everyone.
Trust me, this is something that you'll just have to try and see if you like it.
That is what this project is all about. I've made the demo that I'm iterating on public. I know it's janky, the responsiveness is non-existent, and the UI is not great, but it'll get there.
Of course, these are problems I've faced, but not everyone has these issues. This project also aims to validate the usefulness of this kind of app, hence why it's public so early. As much as I like the idea of this, I don't want this to be a solution looking for a problem.
Ok, now go have fun with the demo! I'm always looking for feedback, so feel free to reach out to me on any of my social medias!