Reminders before dates¶

Remembering "on the 30th" is what fails most: time-based remembering is impaired in autism and in adult ADHD, much more than remembering on a cue (Landsiedel, Williams & Abbot-Smith 2017; Altgassen, Kretschmer & Kliegel 2014), and reminders work where memory is the bottleneck (Jamieson et al. 2014, d = 1.27). So Sioul carries the dates, and says each one once, quietly.

Code: crates/sioul-core/src/reminders.rs (what to remind, when), crates/sioul-core/src/attention.rs (what each kind of notification does at each time: attention.md), crates/sioul-app/src/remind.rs (the window), crates/sioul-app/src/eventalarms.rs (a phone's alarms), crates/sioul-cli/src/remind.rs (sioul remind).

What is reminded, when¶

• Working days are those of your working hours, less days off; without working hours, Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00.
• Once: each reminder is marked when told ($XDG_STATE_HOME/sioul/reminded/, a small file each, forgotten after two months). Never repeated, no count of what was missed, no red.
• Not for what you just made: a task made after its reminder's time, an event changed after it, is not reminded: you just saw it.
• Late, but not too late: a computer asleep at the time reminds on waking, while it still makes sense: before the event begins, before the day asked ends, within a week of a wait's end.
• Nothing while you sleep, as usual (what comes when): from winding down to waking, and during a nap (areas.md, "Sleep"), no reminder is told, yours included: each waits for waking, and comes then if it still makes sense (reminders::Wait::Sleep). One exception: an event's own reminders (its alarms, Sioul's before it) when the event itself falls in that sleep. An event at 03:00 is a choice you made: it is reminded at 02:45. Doses are Health's, and come all the same unless you asked them to stay silent (health.md, "Do not disturb").
• The pauses (pauses.md), as usual: in a pause, an event's own reminders come (the event falls in the pause as far as anyone knows: it has not begun), everything else waits for your return (Wait::Paused); in Free time, an event's own reminders come when the event falls in it (before the night's start or midnight, when Free time ends), the others wait for its end (Wait::Free).
• Not reminded: tasks done or cancelled; events cancelled, and those you declined (one of your addresses among the guests, "declined"); the day before and Sioul's reminder before for calendars you only read (holidays, subscriptions), their alarms still told; debits that leave by themselves (presets). A payment reminder that ignores the balance can push an account into overdraft (Medina 2021): the money watch says when the account will not hold a debit, which a reminder alone cannot.

What comes when¶

When each reminder may come is the one matrix of what reaches you (attention.md): a row per kind of Sioul's own (codes, doses, an event's alarms, Sioul's reminder before it, the working day before, dates, Health's notices, the pause to move, the end of work, the time running, sites, other apps), seven times and two layers across, set in Settings ▸ What reaches you ▸ Sioul's own. As usual: an event's own reminders come at once, but in sleep and Free time, where they come when the event itself falls then (◐); the working day before and dates wait in sleep, a pause and Free time; an event's alarms are fixed at once in a pause and under do-not-disturb. reminders::Holds asks the matrix for each reminder, with the moment's span for ◐ and the reminder's area for work's (they wait while work rests); the layers (time for you, do-not-disturb) are read from their files in every process (hours::with_layers, Holds::of), so the watcher with the window closed decides as the window does.

Before an event¶

• The usual time: Settings ▸ Reminders ▸ Before an event: none, 5, 10, 15 (the default), 30 minutes, 1 or 2 hours ([reminders] before_event, in minutes). It is counted before the event's margin "before" (getting ready, getting there: X-SIOUL-BEFORE, tasks.md, "In the standards"): an event at 14:00 with 30 minutes to get there is reminded at 13:15 by default.
• Each event its own: Remind in the event's form (folded with its details), and in its details on the Agenda: as usual, not this one, 5 minutes … 2 hours before. For every time a repeating event comes.
• What it says: "14:00 · Dentist, in 45 minutes", then, with a margin, "Getting ready, getting there: from 13:30.", then the place; with Open where the platform's notifications take buttons. Said as it is when told: at waking, the time left is less, and "now" when the margin has begun. Another day than the event's: its day too ("Mon 12 Oct 01:00 · …").
• Each time: a repeating event is reminded at each time it comes (before:<UID>:<start>); a time moved by itself (RECURRENCE-ID) keeps the series' choice unless it says its own.
• Not for: a whole day (the working day before tells it; a quarter of an hour before midnight would only wake you), "not this one", events cancelled or declined, calendars you only read unless the event asks. A task's time block is an event like any other (tasks.md, "Pinned to a time").
• Kept in the event's own file: X-SIOUL-REMIND, absent as usual, NONE for not this one, 15 for minutes, beside X-SIOUL-BEFORE. Not a VALARM: your other calendar apps (your phone's, Thunderbird) would ring a VALARM too, and Sioul's reminder would come twice; a VALARM cannot say "not this one"; and Sioul tells the alarms others write already. A Sioul property travels with the event to your other devices running Sioul (CalDAV servers keep unknown properties), and other apps leave it alone.
• Once per moment: an alarm the event carries and Sioul's reminder within five minutes of each other are told once, at the earlier; further apart, both come (an alarm a day before, Sioul's a quarter of an hour before).
• On each device: your computer and your phone each tell it, the phone in its quiet "Events" channel. Not "the device you used last", as for new mail: a reminder held back on the phone because the computer was used a moment ago, then shown on an empty desk, is an appointment missed; a quiet reminder twice costs less. Within one computer, the window and sioul remind --watch share the marks: once.

With the window closed¶

• While the window is open, it looks each minute.
• Settings ▸ Reminders ▸ With Sioul's window closed writes an entry your session starts at login (~/.config/autostart/sioul-reminders.desktop; on macOS ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.sioul.reminders.plist) and starts it now: sioul remind --watch, a small watcher that reads the same files each minute and tells the same reminders. Nothing else runs; no mail is fetched. Unticked, the entry goes and the watcher stops. One watcher at a time (a lock in $XDG_STATE_HOME/sioul/remind.lock).
• Both may run: whichever marks a reminder first tells it.
• Not on Windows yet: reminders come while the window is open.

In the terminal¶

• sioul remind: what comes in the next two weeks, and what was told.
• sioul remind --watch: the watcher.

The notification¶

One quiet desktop notification, no sound. From the window it carries "Open" where the desktop's notifications take buttons (Linux): the task, the event or the budget, shown; on Windows and macOS, and from the watcher, it is its text alone.

On a phone, the events' reminders come (before an event, the working day before, its alarms), Sioul open or not: Android's alarm clock is given them ahead and asks Sioul at their time (android.md, "Events"), in the quiet "Events" channel, a tap opening the event. The other reminders (dates asked, waits, payments, papers, contracts, the money watch) come on a computer only.

Tested¶

cargo test -p sioul-core reminders: an event the working day before (a short Friday) and at its alarm, a date asked two working days before, a wait over on a weekend told on Monday morning, a bill, each told once; work waiting while work rests; too late, nothing; a task made after its reminder's time, and one done, not reminded; days off moving the working days (in French). Before an event (before_an_event): a quarter of an hour, and before a margin of 30 minutes (13:15 for 14:00), the words in English and French, told late at waking; the event's own choice (not this one, 10 minutes, the usual time none); written into the file, read back, changed and taken away; not for a whole day, a calendar you only read, an event cancelled or declined; a time block reminded; an alarm within five minutes told once, at the earlier; an event in the night reminded during sleep, one after waking at waking; the pause and Free time; a repeating event each time, a time moved keeping the series' choice. what_waits_now: sleep, the pause, Free time, work resting, and what Holds reads of them. the_usual_matrix_holds_as_before: every kind of reminder at every time, as the rule before the matrix decided; the_matrix_changes_what_waits: a reminder before an event during sleep and in a pause, an event's alarms held, the working day before during do-not-disturb, dates in the evening. cargo test -p sioul-core notify: the usual matrix cell by cell (the_usual_values_are_what_sioul_did), and against the code it replaced at every time, with and without each layer (the_usual_matrix_decides_as_the_code_did); rows read from the configuration (French words, a value not offered, a fixed cell, the older switches); times together and layers; fixed cells; a row written whole and the doses' older switches beside it; the grid's words in English and French. cargo test -p sioul-core appnotes: do-not-disturb's list whatever who may reach you says, messages held in Free time, automatons not gathered in working hours. In the window: the settings, and the watcher started and stopped from them. cargo test -p sioul-app eventalarms: when a held reminder is asked about again.