Methods and systems for managing an electronic calendar

• US 9,058,595 B2
• Filed: 08/04/2006
• Issued: 06/16/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Coffman, Patrick L., Christie, Gregory, Colom, Manuel
• Primary Examiner(s): Miller, Alan S
• Application Number:
  US11/499,406
• Publication Number:
  US 20080033779A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,238 Days
• Field of Search: 705 711- 742, 707733-748
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment

Abstract

Methods and systems for managing an electronic calendar are described. One exemplary method includes displaying a calendar on a display device, the calendar having at least one time range, and displaying an invitation, before it is accepted, on the calendar in the at least one time range with other events which are already accepted. Another exemplary method includes displaying a calendar on a display device and displaying a list of user-selectable calendars comprising an invitation calendar which presents invitations which have not yet been accepted or declined on the invitation calendar. Other methods are described, and machine readable media and systems are also described.

Claims

1. A machine readable non-transitory storage medium containing executable program instructions which cause a data processing system to perform operations comprising:

displaying a calendar view which includes a list of user-selectable calendars on a display device, the calendar view being configured with at least one area corresponding to a time range;

displaying, within the calendar view, an invitation calendar control to control the visibility of an invitation calendar that displays all invitations within the calendar view prior to accepting or declining the invitations and separately controllable from any other user-selectable calendars in the list of user-selectable calendars;

receiving a notification having an invitation for an event within the time range; and

displaying the invitation, before it is accepted or declined, within the invitation calendar on the area of the calendar view in response to a user input selecting the invitation calendar control, wherein the notification is indicated on the display device to invite a user to select the invitation calendar control if the invitation is not visible within the calendar view, and

wherein the invitation, if accepted, will display within a different user-selectable calendar of the list of user-selectable calendars.

2. A medium as in claim 1 wherein the at least one time range comprises one of at least a portion of a day, a week, a plurality of weeks, a month, and a plurality of months, and wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a user input, via the invitation calendar control, to display the invitation within the invitation calendar, before it is accepted or declined, on the calendar view along with other events, already accepted, and displayed in association with other calendars of the list of user-selectable calendars on the calendar view.

3. A medium as in claim 1, wherein the notification is automatically converted for the display of the invitation on the calendar view.

4. A medium as in claim 1, the operations further comprising:

displaying a user interface to allow a user to accept or decline the invitation.

5. A medium as in claim 4 wherein the user interface comprises an accept icon and a decline icon displayed on the invitation on the calendar view.

6. A medium as in claim 4 wherein the operations further comprise displaying the invitation in a first state within the invitation calendar on the calendar view before accepting or declining the invitation;

and wherein accepting the invitation causes the invitation to be displayed on the calendar view associated with a different user-selectable calendar and in a second state to show it is accepted.

7. A medium as in claim 4 wherein the invitation is presented differently on the calendar view than other events, already accepted, on the calendar view.

8. A medium as in claim 7 wherein the invitation is visually distinguishable from the other events and the time span of the invitation is shown on the calendar view in the same manner as the time spans of the other events which are shown on the calendar view and wherein accepting the invitation causes an acceptance message to be sent to a source of the invitation.

9. The medium as in claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise removing the invitation from the area of the calendar view in response to a second user input un-selecting the invitation calendar control to not visible, wherein the invitation remains not accepted or declined.

10. The medium as in claim 1, wherein the displaying the invitation includes displaying multiple invitations,

wherein the invitation visibility input controls the visibility of the multiple invitations without accepting or declining the invitations, and

wherein the multiple invitations, if accepted, become associated with one or more other calendars in the list of user-selectable calendars.

11. A machine implemented method comprising:

displaying a calendar view on a display device, the calendar view being configured with at least one area corresponding to a time range and displaying at least one calendar from a list of user-selectable calendars;

receiving a notification having an invitation for an event of the time range;

receiving user commands to set an invitation calendar control to control the visibility of an invitation calendar that displays all invitations prior to accepting or declining the invitations, wherein each of the one or more invitations has not been accepted or declined and wherein the one or more invitations include the invitation in the notification;

displaying the invitation, before it is accepted or declined, on the area of the calendar view, if the invitation calendar control is set to visible by a first user command; and

wherein the invitation calendar is separately controllable from any other user-selectable calendars and controls the visibility of all invitations recited by the machine.

12. A method as in claim 11 wherein the at least one time range comprises one of at least a portion of a day, a week, a plurality of weeks, a month, and a plurality of months, and wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a user command to display the invitation within the invitation calendar, before it is accepted or declined, on the calendar view along with other events, already accepted and displayed in association with other calendars of the list of user-selectable calendars, on the calendar view.

13. A method as in claim 11, wherein the notification is automatically converted for the display of the invitation on the calendar view.

14. A method as in claim 11, the method further comprising:

displaying a user interface to allow a user to accept or decline the invitation.

15. A method as in claim 14 wherein the user interface comprises an accept icon and a decline icon displayed on the invitation on the calendar view.

16. A method as in claim 14 wherein the method further comprises accepting the invitation causes the invitation to be removed from the invitation calendar and causes the invitation to be displayed on the calendar view associated with a different user-selectable calendar and in a form to show it is accepted.

17. A method as in claim 14 wherein the invitation is presented differently on the calendar view than other events, already accepted, on the calendar view.

18. A method as in claim 17 wherein the invitation is visually distinguishable from the other events and the time span of the invitation is shown on the calendar view in the same manner as the time spans of the other events which are shown on the calendar view and wherein accepting the invitation causes an acceptance message to be sent to a source of the invitation.

19. The machine implemented method of claim 11, further comprising removing the invitation from the area of the calendar view in response to receiving a second user command input un-selecting the invitation calendar control to not visible, wherein the invitation remains not accepted or declined.

20. A data processing system comprising:

means for displaying a calendar view on a display device, the calendar view being configured with at least one area corresponding to a time range and displaying at least one calendar from a list of user-selectable calendars;

means for receiving a notification having an invitation for an event of the time range;

means for receiving commands to set an invitation calendar control to control the visibility of an invitation calendar that displays all invitations received by the data processing system prior to accepting or declining the invitations, wherein each of the one or more invitations has not been accepted or declined and wherein the one or more invitations include the invitation in the notification;

means for displaying the invitation, before it is accepted or declined, on the area of the calendar view, if the invitation calendar control is set to visible by a first user command; and

means for removing the invitation, if accepted or declined, from the invitation calendar and, if accepted, displaying the event associated with the invitation in a different calendar of the user-selectable calendars.

21. The data processing system of claim 20, further comprising means for removing the invitation from the area of the calendar view in response to receiving a second user command input un-selecting the invitation calendar control, wherein the invitation remains not accepted or declined.

22. A machine readable non-transitory storage medium containing executable program instructions which cause a data processing system to perform operations comprising:

displaying a calendar view on a display device, the calendar view having at least one time range;

displaying a list of user-selectable calendars comprising an invitation calendar wherein each invitation received by the data processing system is included in the invitation calendar until the invitations are accepted or declined, the invitation calendar containing no accepted events or declined events;

in response to receiving a message having an invitation for an event, updating the invitation calendar with the event before the invitation is accepted or rejected;

displaying the invitation on the calendar view, if the invitation calendar is selected from the list of user-selectable calendars, before the invitation is accepted or rejected

receiving an acceptance of the invitation; and

in response to the receiving of the acceptance, removing automatically the invitation from the invitation calendar.

23. A medium as in claim 22 wherein the operations further comprise:

displaying, for each user-selectable calendar in the list, a user interface to cause events from a corresponding calendar to be displayed or not displayed on the calendar view, and wherein the at least one range comprises one of at least a portion of a day, a week, a plurality of weeks, a month, and a plurality of months.

24. A medium as in claim 23 wherein when the user interface for the invitation calendar is set to cause invitations from the invitation calendar to be displayed, then the invitations are displayed on the calendar before the invitation is accepted, and when the user interface for the invitation calendar is set to cause invitations from the invitation calendar to be not displayed, then the invitations are not displayed.

25. A medium as in claim 24 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying an alert associated with the invitation.

26. A medium as in claim 25 wherein the operations further comprise:

displaying a user interface to allow a user to accept the invitation.

27. A medium as in claim 26 wherein invitations, when displayed on the calendar view before being accepted, are visually distinguishable from events from other calendars in the list of user-selectable calendars.

28. A medium as in claim 27 wherein the user interface for each selectable calendar is selectable independently of the other user interfaces for other calendars in the list.

29. A machine implemented method comprising:

displaying a calendar view on a display device, the calendar view having at least one time range;

displaying a list of user-selectable calendars with the calendar view, the user-selectable calendars comprising an invitation calendar wherein each invitation received by the data processing system is included in the invitation calendar until the invitations are accepted or declined, the invitation calendar containing no accepted events or declined events;

in response to receiving a message having an invitation for an event, updating the invitation calendar with the event before the invitation is accepted or rejected;

displaying the invitation on the calendar view, if the invitation calendar is selected from the list of user-selectable calendars, before the invitation is accepted or rejected

receiving an acceptance of the invitation; and

in response to the receiving of the acceptance, removing automatically the invitation from the invitation calendar.

30. A method as in claim 29 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying, for each user-selectable calendar in the list, a user interface to cause events from a corresponding calendar to be displayed or not displayed on the calendar view, and wherein the at least one range comprises one of at least a portion of a day, a week, a plurality of weeks, a month, and a plurality of months.

31. A method as in claim 30 wherein when the user interface for the invitation calendar is set to cause invitations from the invitation calendar to be displayed, then the invitations are displayed on the calendar view before an invitation is accepted, and when the user interface for the invitation calendar is set to cause invitations from the invitation calendar to be not displayed, then the invitations are not displayed.

32. A method as in claim 31 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying an alert associated with the invitation.

33. A method as in claim 32 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying a user interface to allow a user to accept the invitation.

34. A method as in claim 33 wherein invitations, when displayed on the calendar view before being accepted, are visually distinguishable from events from other calendars in the list of user-selectable calendars.

35. A method as in claim 34 wherein the user interface for each selectable calendar is selectable independently of the other user interfaces for other calendars in the list.

36. A data processing system comprising:

means for displaying a calendar view on a display device, the calendar view having at least one time range;

means for displaying a list of user-selectable calendars comprising an invitation calendar wherein each invitation received by the data processing system is included in the invitation calendar until the invitations are accepted or declined, the invitation calendar contains no accepted events or declined events;

in response to receiving a message having an invitation for an event, means for updating the invitation calendar with the event before the invitation is accepted or rejected;

means for displaying the invitation on the calendar view, if the invitation calendar is selected from the list of user-selectable calendars, before the invitation is accepted or rejected

means for receiving an acceptance of the invitation; and

in response to the receiving of the acceptance, means for removing automatically the invitation from the invitation calendar.

37. A machine readable non-transitory storage medium containing executable program instructions which cause a data processing system to perform a method comprising:

displaying a user'"'"'s calendar view on a display device;

displaying a list of calendars comprising an invitation calendar, each of the calendars in the list having at least one time range, wherein each invitation received by the data processing system is included in the invitation calendar until the invitations are accepted or declined, the invitation calendar containing only invitations representing unaccepted or un-declined events;

displaying a selection interface for each calendar in the list of calendars, each of the selection interfaces to cause events from a corresponding calendar to be displayed or not displayed on the user'"'"'s calendar view;

in response to receiving a message having an invitation for an event, updating the invitation calendar with the event before the invitation is accepted or rejected;

displaying the invitation on the user'"'"'s calendar view, if the invitation calendar is selected from the list of calendars, before the invitation is accepted or declined;

receiving an acceptance of the invitation; and

in response to the receiving of the acceptance, removing automatically the event associated with the invitation from the invitation calendar.

38. A medium as in claim 37 wherein each selection interface is a toggle for a corresponding calendar, and wherein a calendar'"'"'s events are displayed in the user'"'"'s calendar view when its toggle is activated and wherein more than one calendar in the list of calendars can be toggled to an activated state and wherein events contained in all toggled on calendars are displayed concurrently with the user'"'"'s calendar view.

39. A medium as in claim 38 wherein invitations from the invitations calendar, when toggled on, are displayed with the user'"'"'s calendar view before the invitations are accepted by the user.

40. A medium as in claim 39 wherein deactivating an activated toggle for a first calendar causes events from the first calendar to be removed from the display of the user'"'"'s calendar view.

41. A medium as in claim 40 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying an alert associated with the invitation.

42. A medium as in claim 41 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying a user interface to allow a user to accept the invitation.

43. A medium as in claim 42 wherein invitations, when displayed on the user'"'"'s calendar view before being accepted, are visually distinguishable from events from other calendars in the list of calendars.

44. A machine implemented method comprising:

displaying a user'"'"'s calendar view on a display device;

displaying a list of calendars comprising an invitation calendar, each of the calendars in the list having at least one time range, wherein each invitation received by the data processing system is included in the invitation calendar until the invitations are accepted or declined, the invitation calendar displaying only invitations representing unaccepted or un-declined events;

displaying a selection interface for each calendar in the list of calendars, each of the selection interfaces to cause events from a corresponding calendar to be displayed or not displayed on the user'"'"'s calendar view;

in response to receiving a message having an invitation for an event, updating the invitation calendar with the invitation before the invitation is accepted or rejected;

displaying the invitation on the user'"'"'s calendar view, if the invitation calendar is selected from the list of calendars, before the invitation is accepted or declined;

receiving an acceptance of the invitation; and

in response to the receiving of the acceptance, removing automatically the invitation from the invitation calendar.

45. A method as in claim 44 wherein each selection interface is a toggle for a corresponding calendar, and wherein a calendar'"'"'s events are displayed in the user'"'"'s calendar view when its toggle is activated and wherein more than one calendar in the list of calendars can be toggled to an activated state and wherein events contained in all toggled on calendars are displayed concurrently in the user'"'"'s calendar view.

46. A method as in claim 45 wherein invitations from the invitations calendar, when toggled on, are displayed in the user'"'"'s calendar view before the invitations are accepted by the user.

47. A method as in claim 46 wherein deactivating an activated toggle for a first calendar causes events from the first calendar to be removed from the display of the user'"'"'s calendar view.

48. A method as in claim 47 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying an alert associated with the invitation.

49. A method as in claim 48 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying a user interface to allow a user to accept the invitation.

50. A method as in claim 49 wherein invitations, when displayed on the user'"'"'s calendar view before being accepted, are visually distinguishable from events from other calendars in the list of calendars.

51. A data processing system comprising:

means for displaying a user'"'"'s calendar view on a display device;

means for displaying a list of calendars comprising an invitation calendar, each of the calendars in the list having at least one time range, wherein each invitation received by the data processing system is included in the invitation calendar until the invitations are accepted or declined, the invitation calendar controls display of no accepted events or declined events;

means for displaying a selection interface for each calendar in the list of calendars, each of the selection interfaces to cause events from a corresponding calendar to be displayed or not displayed on the user'"'"'s calendar view;

in response to receiving a message having an invitation for an event, means for updating the invitation calendar with the invitation before the invitation is accepted or rejected;

means for displaying the invitation on the user'"'"'s calendar view, if the invitation calendar is selected from the list of calendars, before the invitation is accepted or declined;

means for receiving an acceptance of the invitation; and

in response to the receiving of the acceptance, means for removing automatically the invitation from the invitation calendar.