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I must say that I love my Desire (have had it for about a week), except for some small kinks and I'm not the big fan of the HTC Sense lock-screen (I don't like the vertical "handle", I would much prefer the default Android one.. [any tips to get it is welcome]).
But there is one thing that annoys me, and I don't understand why they didn't implement. And that is birthday "reminders" in the calendar..
I like the HTC Calendar and I "love" the integration between Google Contacts (& Calendar), the phone and Facebook... For me (as a developer) it couldn't be much more work to integrate that into that calendar as well (the data is already there, you just have to show it [more or less..]).
Anybody know if there's a way to "fix" this (a setting I've missed) or a better calendar app that can handle this?
I know that you can include birthday info in your Google Calender from your Google contacts, but that's not "good enough". For one thing, I don't have all my friends (that I have on Facebook) in my Google Contacts and I have no intention to add them to it (or go through them and add their birthdays..)
I'm glad for any input..
All the best to you..
/Chris
(I used "Google [Service]" to be clear on what I was talking about)
I have the same problem. How do i make my device remimd me of my contacts b-day?
thanl you
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
You have to do it via Google.
First you have to sync your contacts with your Google contacts. The birthday and anniversary details will be carried up to your Google contacts from your phone.
Then switch to your Google calendar. On the left hand side in the Other calendars section, click "Add", select "Browse Interesting Calendars" and click the "More" tab. From the displayed list click the "subscribe" link against "Contacts' birthdays and events."
This adds your contacts' birthdays to your Google Calendar, which when sync'd with your phone will appear on you phone's calendar.
I admit this is not straightforward and I would have liked to have seen the phone do this by itself.
And what can we do with the contacts stored on the phone and no as a gmail contact?
Thanks!
meson1 said:
You have to do it via Google.
First you have to sync your contacts with your Google contacts. The birthday and anniversary details will be carried up to your Google contacts from your phone.
Then switch to your Google calendar. On the left hand side in the Other calendars section, click "Add", select "Browse Interesting Calendars" and click the "More" tab. From the displayed list click the "subscribe" link against "Contacts' birthdays and events."
This adds your contacts' birthdays to your Google Calendar, which when sync'd with your phone will appear on you phone's calendar.
I admit this is not straightforward and I would have liked to have seen the phone do this by itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wonder if someone could help me with this. I had this all setup and it showed my birthdays fine.
Then I added a couple more birthdays to contacts and they didnt show even after syncing rebooting an taking off the calendar and putting it back on.
Now I cannot at all get the calendar to show ANY birthdays. Ive got it all set up right, and i;ve syncd. They show on the google calendar on the laptop here, it shows all tasks and birthdays, however the calendar on the phone doesnt show anything other than uk holidays. Ive messed with every setting possible...HELP!
Julian1984 said:
And what can we do with the contacts stored on the phone and not as a gmail contact?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On your phone you have three types of contacts: SIM contacts, Phone contacts and Google. Obviously, SIM contacts reside on your SIM card; Phone contacts in the phone and Google contacts on Google Mail.
As you have pointed out only Google contacts will synchronize with your Google Mail account. But all is not lost. You won't have to type in all your contact details again because you can link contacts together in the phone.
What you do is to create Google contacts that duplicate each of your phone contacts. Just create each Google contact on your phone with the same name as each existing phone contact. You do not need to include any details, just create them as empty contacts. Once you've done this, they will appear as two separate contacts in the contact list.
Now the magic. For each person, edit either one of their two contacts. You will see that you can link each contact with another contact. If you've used the same name for your Phone and Google contacts it will already be suggesting that these two can be linked together. So link them.
Now you will find your two linked contacts now appear as one in your contact list. And these linked contacts will now synchronize with your Google Mail account contacts and carry all the details from your original Phone contact with them.
Hope this helps.
eboBirthday from the Marketplace. Free.
kevano22 said:
Then I added a couple more birthdays to contacts and they didnt show even after syncing rebooting an taking off the calendar and putting it back on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this too. Only birthdays that were assigned to contacts at the time I created the calendar online show now.
I'm going to try and delete that calendar and re-create it but something is definitely wrong when you subsequently add birthdays after making that calendar.
Right, one thing I've found is that the birthdays I've added on the phone have NOT made their way back into Google's cloud. I've re-entered them in GMail online and re-created the calendar to show birthdays but they still aren't showing, not online and not in my phone!
Right, just re-added the calendar again online and it's now showing in the web calendar. After a refresh of the calendar on the phone, it's now showing there too.
So numerous bugs. If you want to see your birthdays, the process seems to be:
1) Enter them all online in your Gmail contacts
2) Delete then recreate your "friends birthdays" calendar in Google Calendar online
3) Refresh your phone
If you add any new birthdays, you'll need to do this all again. Pretty poor
tifosi256 said:
Right, just re-added the calendar again online and it's now showing in the web calendar. After a refresh of the calendar on the phone, it's now showing there too.
So numerous bugs. If you want to see your birthdays, the process seems to be:
1) Enter them all online in your Gmail contacts
2) Delete then recreate your "friends birthdays" calendar in Google Calendar online
3) Refresh your phone
If you add any new birthdays, you'll need to do this all again. Pretty poor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sounds like a horror story - here was i thinking that someone would have written an app to read birthdays from built-in phone contacts ... :-(
mrdo said:
sounds like a horror story - here was i thinking that someone would have written an app to read birthdays from built-in phone contacts ... :-(
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
tifosi256 said:
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks tif I will try it later. Got that birthday program and its cool but I'd like to see them in my calendar too!
tifosi256 said:
Well, it's certainly sub-optimal. I'd say the main bug is the phone not sending birthdays entered on it back to Google. The non-refreshing calendar thing I can kind of understand. I guess the additional calendars are assumed to be static (like UK Public holidays etc). Just a guess. I'd heard about the birthday syncing bug on another android phone, kinda hoped it would be sorted on the Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me it takes about 12-18 hour until birthdays are synched with my calendar, but only when i refresh the calendar manually (menu -> more -> refresh)
Try to add a birthday @ google contacts, wait 24 hours, refresh the calendar.
The only way it works for me.
When i add a birthday to a contact (when creating the contact), the contact disappers lol.
@meson1: I thank you for your post, and I guess it could be helpsome for someone but as I said in the original post. I know that you can do that, bit I don't want that.. Don't want to go through and manually add a hundred people to my Google contacts.. First there are already too many posts in there, second: too much work for too litle result and för something that more or less should be given..
I will check out that app. But I'm still looking för a good solution to this problem.. (anybody know if there's än API för the calendar?)
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
ChaosOfChris said:
@meson1: I thank you for your post, and I guess it could be helpsome for someone but as I said in the original post. I know that you can do that, bit I don't want that.. Don't want to go through and manually add a hundred people to my Google contacts.. First there are already too many posts in there, second: too much work for too litle result and för something that more or less should be given.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm afraid I don't know a way to do this for all your contacts enmasse. My experience with this stuff is limited. I looked into all this shortly after I got my Desire not having had any experience of Google Mail or Android before. After some experimentation that is what I have found.
I do agree that this part of the functionality is extremely lacking and it seems from other peoples' posts that it is also extremely buggy too. I do not like having to go via Google to do this stuff. I think this stuff should be integrated into the phone by itself and then linking to Google and anything else should be an extra.
It's all the more annoying that it's an obvious function to include, but that no-one has connected the dots. Or at least connected them in a technically competant fashion.
If I knew how, I'd knock up a really simple app to let you sync birthdays and anniversaries in the contacts to the calendar. As it is I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Android SDK and Java let alone doing anything practical.
Perhaps there's someone out there that is further up the Android Development learning curve that can put something together.
If I had the time (and not already too many projects to work with) I could perhaps put something together (If I knew there was some nice APIs)...
But I tried eboBirthday and it works ok.. (Far from ultimate and I can't even call it "good"..). First it downloaded all the birthdays from Facebook (and displays it in a extremely plain interface). But I can't say that it went smooth.. It was a bit "buggy" and I got an error at the end (even if it seemed to have downloaded all the info fine).
Then by using eboBirthday Contact Sync (also free in the market) that match my Google Contacts with my Facebook contacts and updated them..
And when I looked at my Google Calendar, the info was already there (no need to remove the Contacts birthdays calendar etc).
And then I just synced my calendar in the phone and now, at least, got all the birthdays for my Google Contacts in my calendar (plus reminders from eboBirthday).
My Desire seems to want me to really celebrate my friends birthdays!
I am syncing my contacts and calendar items from my PC. This includes all my contacts birthdays. I am using Outlook (2007) but no Exchange.
In many cases, I have between 5 and 10 duplicated birthday items in the calendar for the same person. However, when I look on the PC, there is only 1.
Looking on the phone under Calendar>Menu>Settings>More>Calendars, there are 3 calendars listed - My Calendar (no idea what that is?), one called my name (which appears to contain the items I have added on the phone) and PC Sync. The PC Sync is the one which generates the multiple entries, because if I untick this, all the multiple entries disappear.
I suspect the problem is to do with a combination of syncing and multiple calendars (although to my knowledge I only have one calendar on the PC).
Debating just removing the lot and starting again! Not ideal!
Any thoughts on how to rectify this problem?
Noone else?
I take it noone else is seeing this problem?
If I scrap syncing to Outlook Calendar, does Desire <-> Google Calendar work ok?
PeteW said:
I take it noone else is seeing this problem?
If I scrap syncing to Outlook Calendar, does Desire <-> Google Calendar work ok?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have exchange at all but have found the google calender to be excellent so far. If you want more specific options for an event, you get more on the web page than in the android options. However, it's synced fine and works very well so far for me.
I'm sure that it's a simple options issue being the reason you're getting loads of birthday entries but I don't know how to help on that.
What I do like about the google calender is that I can select which calenders I want to show on my phone and which I don't. Also I have a little call tracker app that posts all my calls and missed calls in a separate calender online... works great.
what's that tracker app called? Sounds useful - in app store?
Mark One: I use CallTrak, pretty good ...
and you might also want "SMS Backup", the same for SMS ...
Thanks - looks great. Dumb question (android noob) - how do you set it up to sync with another calendar. I have created a new calendar on the same google account but it doesn't show up as an option in CallTrak - I can only see my main calendar or UK Holidays.
Thanks, M1
No worries - I didn't leave enough time (like half an hour!) for the new Gmail calendar I created to sync with the phone.
Now working as it should. Thanks.
I'm having problems synching multiple Google calendars to my phone...
Under "My Calendars" in Google calendar (when viewing Calendar Settings via the desktop) I have my own named calendar. Under "Other Calendars" I have my wife's calendar, "Contacts' birthdays and Events", "UK Holidays" and I've just added a Google calendar called "England" which contains the upcomming World Cup Fixtures.
Everything in my original four calendars syncs fine - and if I use the "Create New Calendar" button to add another calendar under "My Calendars" that too appears on the phone, but try as I might I can do nothing to make the "England" calendar appear.
I actually had a similar problem just after getting the phone - but then it was with the "Contacts' birthdays and Events" calendar which I'd just added. It seems to me that whatever calendars are there when the phone first syncs will appear just fine, but if you add any extra "Other Calendars" they never show up.
I fixed the previous issue by doing a full system reset and starting over. That was fine then, because I'd had the phone less than a day, so hadn't set much up, but I don't want to keep doing this every time I want to add another calendar!
I found another discussion on the Google forums with a link to a solution that involved the following...
Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications
com.android.providers.calendar -> clear data
Forced a Calendar Sync and got all my Calendars
Trouble is, that was for a HTC hero, and there doesn't appear to be a com.android.providers.calendar app on the Desire!
I have tried...
Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications
Calendar storage -> Clear data
...That did clear everything and force a re-sync, but still the "England" calendar does not appear.
I've also checked it's not listed on the phone's calendar app under Calendars, and I've tried the "Add calendars" option there too, but that does nothing.
Has anyone got any ideas how I can resove this? I realise I could copy all the events from another calendar to my own one, but I'd rather be able to sync things automatically.
Thanks,
Matt
I've seen a few similar issues posted on various boards, without any concrete solutions, so I'm guessing it may well be affecting others too - although admittedly, it's probably not a major issue, as how often do people chop and change their calendars?
Would someone be prepared to try adding another calendar (via their Desktop) and seeing if they can see it on their Desire? (i.e. From Google Calendar, select Other Calendar's, Add, Browse Interesting Calendars, then pick one to try - you can always remove it later.)
I also tried...
Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications
Calendar -> Clear data
...but this didn't help either.
My only other thought was that perhaps I'd hit a limit on the number of calendars, but I'd be surprised if that was the case already?
If I go into the calendars option on the phone I see...
My Calendar
<My named calendar>
Contact's birthdays and events
UK Holidays
<Wife's calendar>
PC Sync
If this is an issue for other people too, then perhaps it could be added to the "Flaws & annoyances with the HTC Desire..." thread.
Any assistance appreciated.
Instead of clearing the calendars data, look for 'Calendar Storage' and clear the data for that, followed by a reboot.
TractorMatty said:
If I go into the calendars option on the phone I see...
My Calendar
<My named calendar>
Contact's birthdays and events
UK Holidays
<Wife's calendar>
PC Sync
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On mine I see:
My Calendar
<My named Calendar>
Contact's birthdays and events
UK Holidays
PC Sync
My cousins calendar does not appear either.
Also, whats the difference between My Calendar, My Named Calendar and PC Sync?
Thanks Rusty, but I tried that the first time around with no luck.
Just to be sure, I just did so again and then immediately rebooted, but I still only get my original set of calendars back - no sign of the England world cup fixtures.
Psy-Blade said:
On mine I see:
My Calendar
<My named Calendar>
Contact's birthdays and events
UK Holidays
PC Sync
My cousins calendar does not appear either.
Also, whats the difference between My Calendar, My Named Calendar and PC Sync?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think My Calendar is local to the phone (i.e. not synched to a Google account, so you won't see stuff in there if you look online), and <My Named Calendar> is the Google one.
PC Sync is presumably one used if your using HTC Sync or some other program to sync with a calendar stored locally on your own PC. (I don't use HTC Sync though, as I've no need for it.)
I've got 2 calendars showing on the phone, my one and the UK Holidays one I picked out from the interesting list a while ago.
Just tried adding Englands WC fixtures and it's not showing in the list, but working fine on the desktop. Forced it to sync up and it made no difference.
Thanks for trying this Rusty - it seems to confirm that this is an issue, and not just me...
As far as I can tell it seems to be a problem adding ANY additional calendars, as I also tried adding ones that had events today - just in case it was something to do with nothing being in the calendar for a few weeks ahead (as is the case with the World Cup Fixtures).
As mentioned in my original post, it looks like this problem may not be Desire specific, but it looks like we could do with a Desire specific solution/workaround, as the Hero one's not appropriate for us.
I may look into an alternative calendar app.
As far as I can see the built in one doesn't allow adding a new event and having it set to private?
It doesn't sync tasks either
I'm just worrying about having 3 different push connections (google for contacts, k-9 email for email and whatever calendar app for calendar) and its affect on battery life.
Had the same problem,it didnt sync right away, the next day it did though... weird.
KrewCial said:
Had the same problem,it didnt sync right away, the next day it did though... weird.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also read of possible delays syncing, and thought that may be the case here. I've had these extra calendar(s) on for several days now and despite reboots, clearing data and re-syncing, still nothing's appeared.
I'll keep an eye on mine for a couple of days and let you know it it appears.
TractorMatty said:
I also read of possible delays syncing, and thought that may be the case here. I've had these extra calendar(s) on for several days now and despite reboots, clearing data and re-syncing, still nothing's appeared.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Another issue I noticed was that events added before a certain date would not get synced. Simply opening an event on the pc and editing it, saving, then undoing the changes would get it synced. Luckily I only started using Google Calendar a couple months ago, so I didnt have that many events saved before this certain date and went through each one of them editing, saving then undoing the changes. Afterwards, all events synced ok.
KrewCial said:
Another issue I noticed was that events added before a certain date would not get synced. Simply opening an event on the pc and editing it, saving, then undoing the changes would get it synced. Luckily I only started using Google Calendar a couple months ago, so I didnt have that many events saved before this certain date and went through each one of them editing, saving then undoing the changes. Afterwards, all events synced ok.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a similar issue with some repeating events that began many months/years ago. In that case what I did was stop the repeating event then re-add them as new ones going forward. That wasn't such a pain as I only have about four of these for specific days, but at least there was an easy workaround!
A workaround for adding additional calendars that does not involve completely resetting everything on the phone would be nice.
TractorMatty said:
A workaround for adding additional calendars that does not involve completely resetting everything on the phone would be nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A full reset wouldn't help either.
This is actually a Google limititation that only affects (their) sports calendars. They even state (expand Sports to see it) it outright:
Google said:
Keep in mind that it's not possible to sync sports calendars with other calendar applications at this time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried adding a moon phase calendar via "Browse interesting calendars - more", and that did show on the phone as it should.
This thread also mentions the same issue.
Regards
-Øyvind
Sports and random calendars may not be able to sync but I still can't get my cousins and gf's shared calendars to sync to my phone
Psy-Blade said:
Sports and random calendars may not be able to sync but I still can't get my cousins and gf's shared calendars to sync to my phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try to clear calendar storage to see if that fixes it?
Not sure if that did anything but while messing around I hit Menu > Add Calendars and they're all there available to sync.
My bad, first time android user is my excuse heh. Thanks
mroek said:
A full reset wouldn't help either.
This is actually a Google limititation that only affects (their) sports calendars. They even state (expand Sports to see it) it outright:
I tried adding a moon phase calendar via "Browse interesting calendars - more", and that did show on the phone as it should.
This thread also mentions the same issue.
Regards
-Øyvind
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well ain't that interesting, good spot!
Good job there's an option to copy events from said sports calendars to you main calendar.
mroek said:
A full reset wouldn't help either.
This is actually a Google limititation that only affects (their) sports calendars. They even state (expand Sports to see it) it outright:
I tried adding a moon phase calendar via "Browse interesting calendars - more", and that did show on the phone as it should.
This thread also mentions the same issue.
Regards
-Øyvind
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this! We live and learn - I'll update the other "issues" thread to make sure everyone's in the picture.
Does anyone know how to get google calendars to sync events 1 year plus? currently only recurring events sync past 1 year, but not individual events
You are lucky. I have only 6 weeks back.
How did you enable 1 year?
Mine has always sync'd +/- one year... no settings seem to be available to change this, so not sure why you have less... I need two years!
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
I have this issue too... have calendar events going back 2-3 years, and recently I can only sync 6 weeks on my Desire. Google Calendar shows all my events going back to 2009.
Hi all,
Found a method that did the trick for me.
Turn Auto and background sync off.
Delete data for Calendar and Calendar Storage.
Change date to something like 1 Jan 2009.
Turn sync back on.
After a few minutes it will resycn all calendar data.
Change date back to auto
With a custom app you can sync in any range .... I use "Business Calendar". Definitely better than the stock app !
Wow -- I'm shocked that there's no way to change the synced date range within Google's app.
--Alan
I would use something else, but I like the HTC Sense Calendar app.
Will take a look at "Business Calendar" though.
theliquid said:
With a custom app you can sync in any range .... I use "Business Calendar". Definitely better than the stock app !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you do that? The BC forum suggests using something like Synthesis syncML, and I've tried that, but I don't understand how to configure it.
I tried that business calendar but found if you store contacts birthdays then close app then open again it has deleted info not sure why because if you store it as pc sync they are ok.
G'day Team,
Has anyone found a way to get the Always on Display to show the next event from your Outlook Calendar?
I understand it will show the next event from the Google Calendar in Android 9 and have this working correctly however I want to display my Outlook calendar.
I've tried adding my outlook calendar to the Google calendar from within the app (which works in terms of showing the appointments within the app) but the Always on Display will only display events created within the Google Calendar directly.
I love this feature (as an ex-Windows Phone user) but use Office 365\Outlook not Google Calendar.
Any suggestions on how to get around this??
Many Thanks!
I am looking for the same, but I guess AOD is designed to show only Google Calendar events. On a side note, how did you manage to add outlook calendar within Google Calendar app?
tim3g said:
G'day Team,
Has anyone found a way to get the Always on Display to show the next event from your Outlook Calendar?
I understand it will show the next event from the Google Calendar in Android 9 and have this working correctly however I want to display my Outlook calendar.
I've tried adding my outlook calendar to the Google calendar from within the app (which works in terms of showing the appointments within the app) but the Always on Display will only display events created within the Google Calendar directly.
I love this feature (as an ex-Windows Phone user) but use Office 365\Outlook not Google Calendar.
Any suggestions on how to get around this??
Many Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you need to share your outlook calendar with either the google calendar or samsung calendar, you can go in google calendar, settings, manage calendar, add ouutlook calenar (put in your username/passoword) if its your personal email calendar, it will show up, if its your corporate calendar, your company would have disabled sharing of calendar for security reasons, and it will give error. check if you can share your corporate calendar to your gmail id. usually its blocked.
was able to successfully show the corporate calendar on AOD, go to the outlook app on your android, and select sync calendars, enable the toggle. it will sync the outlook calendar with the samsung calendar and it will show up on your AOD, just tried it on my s22 plus it works. after hrs of tinkering around.
ssmantri said:
was able to successfully show the corporate calendar on AOD, go to the outlook app on your android, and select sync calendars, enable the toggle. it will sync the outlook calendar with the samsung calendar and it will show up on your AOD, just tried it on my s22 plus it works. after hrs of tinkering around.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Considering the Pixel 2XL isn't a Samsung device and doesn't have Samsung apps on board, he'd have to share the calendar with Google Calendar.
Not to mention that we both replied to a post that was dead and buried four years ago.