Times & repeats

Four rows of the commitment card say when a commitment — anything on your calendar — happens: the day, "how often", "what time" and "how long". A fifth row, "repeats", joins them once the commitment comes round more than once. Add a commitment says where the card opens from.

#The day

At the top of the card, "on ‹month day›" with "▾ change". "▾ change" opens the full calendar; its buttons are "that day" and "never mind". If you use another calendar system, the gregorian date sits small underneath — see Calendar systems & names.

#What time

Six quick answers: "all day", "9a", "noon", "3p", "6p" and "9p". Then "exact…", which opens a clock face titled "the exact minute", with "that minute" and "never mind". A time that is not on the list shows on the chip.

Times are written short: "7p", "7:30p", "12a".

With the 24-hour clock on, the quick answers read "9:00", "12:00", "15:00", "18:00" and "21:00" — the same times. Times are written "19:00", "19:30", "0:00", and every clock face here is a 24-hour face. See Time & directions.

Switching between "all day" and a time puts the length back to one day, because the two measure a span in different units.

#How long

For a timed commitment, ten quick lengths: "—", "15m", "30m", "45m", "1h", "90m", "2h", "3h", "4h" and "8h". Then three chips:

• "⋯" takes any number of minutes, from 1 to 1440.
• "ends…" opens a clock titled "ends at — it starts ‹time›". Picking an end sets the length, and changing the length moves the end. An end at or before the start counts as the next day, so "10p to 1a" is a real evening.
• "beyond a day" asks the end date on a calendar titled "the day it ends", then the time on "ends ‹day› at". The chip then reads "ends ‹day› · ‹time›". A timed commitment counts as beyond a day only past 24 hours.

For an all-day commitment, one chip: "beyond a day". It opens a calendar titled "the last day it runs", with "just one day" as the way back. The chip then reads "until ‹day›", as in "fri 20".

No span runs past a year.

Below "how long", a timed commitment also has "time zone" and "ends in" rows. They are covered in Time zones.

#How often

Three chips, one for each kind of commitment:

What a commitment is explains the three kinds.

#The plain repeat

"↻ repeats" or "✦ yearly" opens the "repeats" row: "weekly", "every other week", "monthly" and "extensive…".

A weekly one then asks "on which days". Seven chips show your own day names, starting on your own first day of the week. If you choose none, it repeats on the day it is set on.

A repeat that came in from a phone calendar offers one more answer, "its own rule", and opens on it. That way an edit never rewrites a monthly meeting as a weekly one.

#In a shorter month

A monthly commitment on the 29th, 30th or 31st, and a yearly one on 29 february, are asked "in shorter months:". The answers are "skip that month", "the last day" and "roll over", each with its own line.

Until you answer, the line reads "say which, and every calendar will agree". If you save without answering, a question stops you, headed "what about shorter months?". Every button on it is an answer, and answering places the commitment.

#The extensive repeat

"extensive…" opens a sheet titled "how it repeats", for patterns the plain answers cannot say. It has three kinds:

• "every…" — a number from 1 to 99, then "days", "weeks", "months" or "years".
• "a weekday of the month" — "which one" ("1st" to "5th", or "last"), then the weekday, then "of every" 1 to 99 months.
• "around easter" — "how far from easter", 0 to 300 days, then "before" or "after".

Numbers change with "−" and "+"; each end dims at its limit.

"ends" offers "never", "on a date" (shown as "on ‹date› ▾ change") or "after some times", from 1 to 999.

Under your choices, the rule is said back in words — for example "the last friday of every 2 months, 6 times". Under that, "starting" lists the first three days it lands on. If a rule would land on nothing, it says "it would never happen — say a later end", and "keep" does nothing until you fix it.

The buttons are "keep", "none" (only when there is a rule) and "never mind".

A rule made under another calendar system counts that system's months and says which, as in "every month · hebrew". Every N years, and anything round easter, is a fixed star; the rest are asteroids. Once a rule is set, the chip wears it — "↻ the last friday of every 2 months" — and the plain answers step aside.

Nothing on this sheet reaches the commitment by itself. It changes only the card, which you keep with "place it" or "keep".

#What a phone calendar will not repeat

Easter, rolling over into the next month, and another tradition's months have no form in the standard that phone calendars use. If the almanac lives in a phone or Google calendar, such a rule stops the save before anything is written: "a phone calendar has no way to repeat “‹the rule›” — keep it on a zenith almanac, or choose another repeat". For a rule in another calendar system, the sentence names that system and says the phone's own calendar knows only the gregorian one.

#Only this day, or every one

Changing a repeating commitment asks first. "✎ edit" on its page, or on its row in the day's brief — the list of a chosen day's commitments along the bottom of the sky, the calendar's main screen — opens a question titled "this one repeats". It asks whether to change every one of them or only the day you are looking at.

There are two answers and only two. There is no "this and all following".

• "only ‹day›" opens the card on that one day with its repeat taken off. Backing out leaves the pattern as it was. On keep, that day becomes a commitment of its own, carrying everything the pattern had, and the pattern skips it.
• The other answer changes every one.

If the day cannot be split off, the card says why: the almanac is locked, the day could not be taken out of its source calendar, or "that day could not be taken out of its pattern". The same question is asked when you carry a repeating commitment onto another day.

Taking one day off. Burning from "only this day" does not burn the whole thing. That day comes off, the pattern carries on either side, and the page stays open. A message, "‹day› is off “‹name›”", carries an "undo" for a few seconds. Days taken off are listed under "days off" on the commitment's page, each with "put back" — see A commitment's page.

Moving between almanacs. A repeating commitment cannot be moved to another almanac yet: "“‹name›” repeats — a repeating commitment cannot be moved between almanacs yet. its rule lives in the calendar it came from."

#See also.

Add a commitment · Time zones · What a commitment is · The day brief