Getting started

Getting started: your first events

The screen is only as useful as what is on it. Here is how to add the first few things well, and how the different kinds of information appear.

By Phil Martin, founder of Daily View · 7 minute read

Add the first event

1. On Today or Calendar, select Add event.
2. Give it a short title, a date and, if it has one, a start time. Leave the times empty for something that lasts all day.
3. Leave Show on Daily View ticked so it appears on the screen.
4. Save. It appears in the preview on Today straight away, and on the screen within about a minute.

Then add two or three more, so tomorrow and the day after look right too.

What shows on the screen

The screen shows today: the day, date and time, the time of day, and today’s events, with the next one highlighted as NEXT and a gentle countdown such as “in about 45 minutes”. Events that have finished are greyed out. To keep it calm, it shows only a few events at once (three to start with; you can change this in Settings).

Repeating events

When you add an event you can choose Repeats: every week, every 2 weeks, every 4 weeks, every month, or every year (good for birthdays). You set it up once. Later you can change just one occurrence, or the whole series, and stop it from a given date.

Coming up: advance notice

Some things are worth knowing about before the day. Daily View can show one item at a time as COMING UP. By default, yearly events (like birthdays) appear a few days before, monthly ones the day before, and weekly ones not at all (they would be there almost every day). You can change this for any event under Show a reminder on the screen beforehand.

Messages

A message is a short note (up to 220 characters) shown on the screen alongside the day, such as “Sarah’s train is late. She’ll be with you at 3pm.” Add one from Messages. You can choose when it starts and stops showing, so it doesn’t linger once it’s out of date, and pause it at any time.

Keeping something off the screen

Untick Show on Daily View for anything that should stay on the family calendar only, such as a surprise, or an appointment that might cause worry if seen too early.

When plans change

Open the event and change it. Use Cancel when something isn’t happening (it leaves the screen but stays in your records) and Delete to remove it altogether.

Need a hand? Email support@dailyview.org.