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Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Google Calendar: how to display more hours without scrolling







When viewing Google Calendar in a web browser on a computer, it's annoying that it doesn't let you set how many hours to show starting from what time (e.g. I'd like it to show 9 am to 9 pm as standard).

I love Google Calendar (especially now I have a G1 Android mobile phone so I can sync with it from the cellphone, i.e. check and update my schedule anywhere) but I hate that you have to scroll the calendar to get to see more than about 5 hours at a time.

And you can't scroll with the keyboard until you click in the scrollbar with the mouse first, which rather defeats the object of wanting to be able to use just the keyboard (very frustrating if you're a keyboard shortcuts fan like me). No amount of pressing the Tab key will get me anywhere that lets me scroll with the keyboard cursor or page down etc keys.

So, here's a tip, a simple "Gordian knot" kind of solution: just view the browser in full screen by hitting F11 (works in both Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers). This shows you about 10 hours' worth of events / appointments for each day, on my computer at least - not exactly 12 hours, but much better than 5. Press the F11 key again to restore the original browser view / window size. Here's the improved view:

I hope Google will fix things so individual users can set the number of hours they want to view by default (and the starting hour) - it's been a feature desired by many for ages. And I also hope that after you've chosen to view one calendar only ("Display only this calendar"), you can with one click select to view all of them (at the moment you have to tediously click on the name of each calendar that you want to get it back, which many have complained about also - though there's a workaround, see the 2nd post there).

If Google can sort those issues out, with their recently-launched Tasks functionality in Calendar Google will bid fair to rival or outdo Outlook on the diary / personal information management (PIM) front - especially if they can also get their Tasks to integrate fully with Lightning tasks in the free Mozilla Thunderbird.

4 comments:

Stephen Weldon said...

Yes, this is very important. Isn't this fixed yet??

Unknown said...

I concur, annoying.

Anonymous said...

You can also press Ctrl/- to make your screen font smaller and be able to see more hours.

metaf said...

Your F11 suggestion SAVED MY LIFE. Seriously. The scrolling / inability to bracket hours desired was driving me crazy! Too bad it takes users' own ingenuity and not Google's well-paid engineers to improvise these small but crucial fixes. Thanks again!