Fantastical Version 3.5

Flexibits released a nice update to Fantastical. This update continues to put the pedal down and simplify virtual meetings with the addition of Webex integration. This version also improves the toolset for big meetings with public meeting proposals via URL, granular control over guest permissions in Google events, and general performance improvements when dealing with lots of invitees.

My favorite thing about the new version, however, is the Shortcuts support. The Fantastical developers jumped in with both feet with their Shortcuts for Mac integration with a pile of new actions. If you want to automate calendar events on your Mac, make sure to check out this update. (I’ll be covering all of these Fantastical actions in the upcoming Shortcuts for Mac Field Guide.)

Appointments in the Menu Bar

I routinely keep my appointments listed in my menu bar when working on my Mac. As someone who does a lot of block scheduling, this is just one more reminder of where I should be as I work through the day. I also use Bartender to thin down the menu bar so truly useful data, like this, can be visible.

Screen Shot 2021-03-10 at 20.40.52.png

There are a few ways to pull this off. Fantastical has a setting that lets me put the next appointment in my menu bar with the "Show Upcoming Item in Menu Bar" checkbox in the Appearance settings. Fantastical also gives you a calendar and list of events if you click on the menu bar icon.

There are also some apps to scratch this itch. MeetingBar is my favorite. It gives you plenty of control over exactly what will show up and also a nice scrolling list if you click on the menu bar item. Both MeetingBar and Fantastical work with the meeting services like Teams and Zoom so you can launch meetings from the menu bar. Also, MeetingBar has a cool flip board-inspired icon, and I dig flip boards.

Meeting Bar.jpg

Hidden Fantastical Settings

There are only so many settings a developer can put in a setting screen. Along the road of development, there are often niche settings that don’t make the cut. For better apps, developers often leave hidden settings to access via Terminal or URL callback.

I set many calendar events via Fantastical, and many of them are block schedules that I sometimes delete. That deletion always requires a confirmation, which was making me nuts. I asked the team at Flexibits about this, and they turned me on to the URL below, which, when you put in Safari and execute, turns off the deletion confirmation in Fantastical. Note the SkipDeleteWarning name and the value=1 (which means “Yes”).

To make this work, quit Fantastical, paste what’s below in Safari, and press return:

x-fantastical3://defaults?key=SkipDeleteWarning&value=1&type=bool&group=1

After running this, I can delete calendar events with abandon.

To turn this off, you would run the same command, setting the value to 0, like this:

x-fantastical3://defaults?key=SkipDeleteWarning&value=0&type=bool&group=1

There are more cool Fantastical hidden preferences.

Full All Day Row in Display. This puts all day events in one row rather than showing multiple all-day events on one line. This one is iOS only.
x-fantastical3://defaults?key=FullAllDayRowInList&value=1&type=bool

Always Show All: Set to YES (“1”) to have the details always visible in the event and reminder popover.
x-fantastical3://defaults?key=AlwaysShowAll&value=1&type=bool&group=1

Dim All Past Items: Set to YES to dim all events and tasks on days in the past. This affects Mac and iOS, List, Month, Week, and Day View.
x-fantastical3://defaults?key=DimAllPastItems&value=1&type=bool&group=1

Do Not Dim Passed Events: Set to YES to not dim passed events in the list.
x-fantastical3://defaults?key=DoNotDimPassedEvents&value=1&type=bool&group=1

Hide Location In List: Set to YES to hide event locations and reminder geofences in the list.
x-fantastical3://defaults?key=HideLocationInList&value=1&type=bool&group=1

Default Event Duration: Specify the default event duration in seconds (gives finer control than the presets in the app). For example, to make a default event duration of 25 minutes, use 1500 seconds.
x-fantastical3://defaults?key=DefaultEventDuration&value=1500&type=int&group=1

Days Per Week: Change the number of days per week in Week view. This can be set to anything between 3 and 21 (gives finer control than the app’s presets).
x-fantastical3://defaults?key=DaysPerWeek&value=10&type=int

My thanks to Michael and Kent at Flexibits for passing along these additional settings.

Fantastical: Apple's Mac App of the Year for 2020

Fantastical Mac App of the Year

Congratulations to Fantastical for earning the “Mac App of the Year” award from Apple. I pay a lot for app subscriptions. Sometimes I feel like I’m getting ripped off but not with Fantastical. In the year since they’ve gone to the subscription model, they’ve continued to keep the gas down on improvement and new features and this honor from Apple is well-earned.

Fantastical 3.2's Calendar Widgets

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Flexibits has released Fantastical Version 3.2, with 12 new widgets for iOS and iPadOS 14 and Scribble support for iPadOS 14.

You can now customize the exact views of Fantastical how you want on your Homescreen with 12 unique widgets to choose from. Do you want small widgets to simply show the date or the next upcoming event or task? Maybe you would prefer medium widgets to show a bit more information or side-by-side monthly calendars? How about large widgets that provide an in-depth agenda? Goldilocks this and find out what works best for you. 

Of course the Fantastical widgets are gorgeous. I immediately kicked the Apple Calendar widget off my home screen and replaced it with the one from Fantastical. It displays my calendar data better, includes the current date on my home screen, and adds the weather to boot. One final advantage, putting it on as widget allowed me to pull the app out of my dock. Win-win.

Last year I built an intricate Shortcut to turn my agenda into a PDF and then save it as the home screen. It all fell apart when Apple pulled the rug from under me by removing the “Set image as wallpaper” shortcut action. Having Fantastical on my home screen is way better.

Fantastical 3.1 Releases and New Videos

Today Flexibits released a major update to Fantastical with version 3.1. This is the “working from home” update with a bunch of new features aimed at people surprised to find themselves working from home:

Time-Based Calendar Sets

Calendar sets have always been a cool feature. Now you can have them trigger automatically at a specific time of day.

Better Conference Calling

Fantastical’s Zoom integration is excellent. You can add a zoom call straight from the app. With this update, Fantastical can now auto-detect conference calls with several popular conferencing services, and it adds a one-click “join” button to your calendar (and your menubar) as the event approaches.

And More Improvements

They also added new Mac appearance options customized for both light and dark mode, added iMessage stickers, and made several other improvements and optimizations.

This is a free update for Fantastical subscribers. I made a few videos for Flexibits showing off the new features. Below is one, but you can find several more on Fantastical’s website. I like the way Flexibits has continued to release features of consequence since the app launch. I am using both the new time-based calendar sets and zoom integration daily. Learn more about Fantastical at their website.

If you subscribed to the Fantastical Field Guide, these new videos are also now available in the course for viewing and download.

Fantastical 2.5 for Mac and New Video

Today Flexibits released Fantastical 2.5 for the Mac. There are several notable new features with the new version including Meetup.com integration and support for sending and receiving time proposals for meetings via Exchange, Google, and iCloud.

I run Fantastical on my 27" iMac in its own screen with 14 days displayed in week view. I think of it as my calendar control center. It's the only full-screen app I run on my 27" iMac and it's glorious. With version 2.5 they've added a bunch of great keyboard support to let you move and change events with just the keyboard. That is definitely my favorite feature in the new version. I demonstrate all of the new features in the video below. It's a free update if you already are a Fantastical for Mac user. 

Fantastical 2.4 for Mac Gets Travel Time and More

Today Fantastical for Mac released a significant update with several new features:

  • You can now view, create, and edit attachments on iCloud and Exchange
  • Travel Time! Receive notifications when you need to leave to reach an event on time
  • Fantastical will now combine identical events that are on multiple calendars
  • Undo and redo got a lot more powerful

There are quite a few more new features. Indeed so many updates that I made a few videos for the Flexibits team showing off the new features. Below is the “What’s New” video. I’ve been running this update since its early betas, and it’s solid. Head over to Flexibits to learn more.

iCloud Authentication Video

Apple has recently announced that starting June 15, any Mac app needing access to iCloud data is going to need an app-specific password. While this is a bit of a pain, it provides a significant increase in your security and I'm all for it. The gang at Fantastical asked me to make a video explaining exactly how to make an iCloud app-specific password. This video is for Fantastical, which is my calendaring weapon of choice, but you'll be going through the same steps with any third party app starting June 15.

Fantastical for iOS 2.8

Fantastical for iPad and iPhone updated today to version 2.8. The new update includes rich notifications and and haptic feedback on iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Now in Fantastical on the iPhone 7, when you scroll dates or times, you feel a nice little click under your finger. I like the way developers are doing haptic feedback in their apps. It's subtle, but useful. I hope other developers follow suit.

The new version also adds a sticker pack with a calendar-themed stickers. They're animated and useful for doing things, like inviting a friend to lunch. Learn more here.

Fantastical Version 2.2 Ships

Today Flexibits released version 2.2 of Fantastical for the Mac. They could've easily named this update version 3.0. There are a lot of new features in this update including:

  • Microsoft Exchange support
  • Attendee availability support
  • Dual timezones – Your timezone on the left and your co-worker’s timezone on the right. It’s super-useful.
  • Background visual refresh
  • Multiple selections
  • Better location search

There is a bunch more. Below is a short video I made for the gang at Flexibits showing off the new features of Fantastical version 2.2.

Download the 21-day free trial now: http://flexibits.com/fantastical Find out what's new in the 2.2 update for Fantastical 2 for Mac.

Fantastical for iOS 2.5

This week the other penny dropped for Fantastical. On the heals of their Mac update comes Fantastical for iOS 2.5. There's a long list of updates and new features including things like 3D Touch on the new iPhones and multitasking. 

For me, the big story here is the Apple Watch app. It's always looked better than the native Calendar app but also been hampered by the fact it's not a native application. It is now. The native app is much faster, now includes a Fantastical complication, and retains that clean Fantastical design. I've switched all my calendar complications over to the new Fantastical.

Fantastical 2.1

I spent most of today with my head down on a calendar intensive project. That gave me a good opportunity to kick the tires on the newest version of Fantastical for Mac. Version 2.1 released yesterday and it’s the biggest update since they launched version 2. The new version supports OS X El Capitan, which will be landing on your Mac later this month. So far, my personal favorite new feature is the ability to cut, copy, and paste events and reminders. Quite often I have need to duplicate an event and being able to copy and paste an event with my keyboard is golden.

Navigation is also easier. You can scroll to a specific day or week using the trackpad and you can expand the scope in week and day view by pinching on the trackpad. Related, arrow keys can also now navigate the day, week, and month views.

There is a whole bunch more and you can read the release notes here. If you haven’t played much with Fantastical, I recommend watching my screencasts on the app. You’ll see why I use every day.

Fantastical 2.4 - Draft Events

Today Flexibits released Fantastical version 2.4 for iPhone and iPad. The big new feature is draft events. You can now save an event as a draft in the middle of event creation and then come back to it later to finish it off. I frequently have need to consult my calendar after I start creating a new event and this feature is really useful. I liked it so much, I made a screencast demonstrating how it works.

Fantastical on My Wrist

Today was meeting day. I drove all over southern California meeting with clients. As it turns out, today was also Fantastical for Apple Watch day. 

Flexibits just recently updated Fantastical (App Store)(Website) for iPhone including Apple Watch support and in my travels today I got to use the new Fantastical for Watch App under fire. I like it.

Better Glance

The Apple Calendar glance view feels odd on the Apple Watch. It displays your next event as a block calendar entry with a lot of pixels devoted to drawing the “card” around the text, making the text smaller and the view less attractive.

Fantastical removes the card paradigm and instead gives you a count-down to your next appointment in large text with the event name underneath in slightly smaller text. There is also a view across the top showing your events for the day graphically. Fantastical’s glance view seems more native on the Apple Watch than Apple’s Calendar app.

Apple Calendar on left. Fantastical on right.

Apple Calendar on left. Fantastical on right.

Better Appointment List

Moving in to the Fantastical App, it follows a lot of the same principles as Fantastical’s iPhone App’s with a list of all upcoming events scrollable with your finger or the digital crown. Fantastical does a bang-up job of displaying event lists on all platforms. The Apple Watch is no different.

The Apple Calendar app does something similar but instead of a list view, it draws your events on a long scrolling view that includes all the blank areas where there are no events. Using Apple Calendar, if you have a meeting in the morning and nothing else until the next day, you’ll have a whole ‘lotta scrollin’ to see what’s up the following day. 

In my mind there is no question between these two implementations. Fantastical’s is better by a long shot.

Update: @JeffCarlson points out Apple Calendar will do a list view following a force touch. I'd still argue that should be default behavior.

Apple Calendar on left. Fantastical on right.

Apple Calendar on left. Fantastical on right.

Reminders

I’m still scratching my head on how the Apple Watch shipped without an app to view reminders. We use the Apple Reminders app in our house for several shared lists. Looking at these on my list while I’m in the grocery store makes perfect sense. Now I can see (and check off) reminders on my Apple Watch with the Reminders support in Fantastical.

Force Touch For Event Creation

While in Fantastical you can create new events by tapping on the screen and dictating the event. You can even use the Fanstical syntax. For instance, saying “Write Blog Post about Fantastical at 6pm alarm 15 Slash MS” created an event at 6pm with an alarm 15 minutes earlier and put it in my MacSparky calendar. (If that last bit sounds like sorcery, watch these videos.) One issue with this is that the Apple Watch likes to turn itself off and sometimes does it right in the middle of event creation, which is a drag.

Overall, I prefer the Fantastical interface and design on the Apple Watch over the built-in Apple Calendar application. It does a better job of giving me the calendar and reminder information I need. 

The only down side is that Fantastical is not a native app on the Apple Watch. It has to connect with my iPhone to get its data and sometimes you’ve got to watch the spinning animation while it does so. Hopefully we get news of that changing next week at WWDC.

Fantastical 2 For Mac

For several years now, Fantastical for the Mac has been the best place to quickly create text-based calendar entries. The application existed in the menubar and had the uncanny ability to create new calendar entries with just a few words. One of the application's innovations is the way it physically animates the creation of the event while you type in the text. That way, you can see exactly how the computer interprets what you are writing. You don’t have to do this very long before you you learn to create new events as easily as typing a sentence. 

I take this for granted now but thinking back to the days before Fantastical, creating a new calendar entry was a hairy mess of inspectors and mouse clicks. Fantastical changed all of that.

While this has dramatically increased the speed at which I create calendar events, I always thought of Fantastical more as a utility than a calendar application. It sat in my menubar and made new events really quickly. It was not, however, my calendar app. There was no way to see my week view, and it didn’t provide the types of tools that, frankly, I needed to run my calendar.

That is no longer the case.

Today Flexibits released Fantastical 2 for Mac. That menubar view still exists and you can still quickly add events but there is so much more, starting with a big-boy calendar.

The Full Calendar Application

This new version of Fantastical 2 includes a full screen calendar application. It has all of the expected bells and whistles including daily, weekly, month, and year of views. 

Flexibits spent some time making these views look great. With features like heat-mapping the year calendar and a week view that can display 5, 7, or 14 days, you’ll find Fantastical 2 is up to the task of managing your calendar. Also, the design looks great on Yosemite with light and dark themes. One Apple Calendar feature that I’d like to see them add with a future update is travel time.

One of my favorite features with the new full calendar menu is the infinite scrolling list of events. This is largely the reason why Fantastical 2 took over on my iPhone as my main calendar application. I really appreciate the ability to scroll through future events and see what’s coming up and I think Flexibits has cracked this nut better than any of its competitors. They took a lot of those same design cues over to the Mac with this new version.

I’ve been using the application for a few months as Flexibits wrapped up the beta process (and I produced the attached videos) and Fantastical 2 has already taken over as the primary calendar app on my Mac.

Calendar Sets

One of the most innovative new features with this application is the addition of calendar sets. I use a lot of calendars. I have calendars for each of the members of my family, my legal work, my geek work, and even more that you couldn't possibly be interested in hearing about. I frequently find myself going in and tweaking which calendars I’m going to see at any one time. For instance, I don’t normally need to see the calendars for my wife and kids and I find it tedious going into the calendar settings to turn them off and on.

Fantastical 2 for the Mac solves this with Calendar Sets. Using this feature you can designate groups of calendars as a “set”. Spend a little time and you can create multiple sets of calendars and then you can easily toggle between them in the application with the mouse or keyboard combination. As an example I have a family set, a work set, and a geek set. Not only can you toggle between these manually, Fantastical 2 can also pay attention to the location where your Mac located and toggle them automatically. For example, you could have it display your work set of calendars when you arrive at the office and your home set of calendars when you arrive home. Once you figure it out, it feels like magic.

Text Parser Improvements

The Fantastical 2 text parser also got some additional fairy dust with this new version. You can now set an alarm with the syntax “alarm x” where xdesignates the number of minutes.

For example:

“Call Katie about MPU themed vuvuzela horns tomorroaw at 10am PST alarm 30” 

The new version also got better at repeating events, letting you type something like “family game night on the last Saturday of every month at 7 PM” and Fantastical 2 will obligingly create a repeated event on the last Saturday of every month. 

Reminder Support

One problem I always had with the prior version of Fantastical 2 was the way it displayed reminders. They used to go in line with appointments, which I found too noisy for my taste. As a result, I used to always turn reminder support off. This new version solves that problem. Now Fantastical 2 keeps a separate list for reminders except for those reminders that have dates attached to them. Only those with dates attached will appear in line with your appointments, which makes sense. The reminders in the full screen calendar application also display separately.

Overall

There’s a lot more to explore with this new version. There’s a today widget, share extension, and action extension. Time zone support got even better, allowing you to search out a time zone based on city. The application works with iCloud, Google, Yahoo, and any other calendar you’ve added to your Mac’s built-in calendar (like Exchange). You can also attach custom CalDAV accounts to Fantastical 2.

This new version of Fantastical 2 is not simply an update but a brand-new application. The addition of the full screen calendar view adds so much more power to the application. Put simply, Fantastical is no longer just a utility. Now it’s a calendar application.

I made a series of videos for Flexibits all about the new application and I’ve sprinkled a few in this review but there are 12 in total that you can watch right here. The new version is $39.99 and available now in both in the Mac App Store and directly from Flexibits.