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Recurring events

A recurring event is one event plus a rule. The rule generates the rest, and a scheduled task keeps topping the series up, so a weekly meetup is set up once rather than fifty-two times.

The presets and the custom rule

The Recurring dropdown on the event form offers Daily, Weekly, Every 2 weeks, Monthly and Yearly. When none of those is the shape of your meetup, "Custom..." opens a dialog where you build the rule yourself - the third Tuesday of every month, the last day of every quarter, and so on. The Schedule line above the form always shows the rule in plain words, with an edit link next to it.

The custom recurrence dialog, with the Repeats period selector, the weekday and day-of-month options, and the starting date and times.
Custom recurrence. The current rule is spelled out in words at the bottom of the dialog.

The custom recurrence dialog

Repeats
The period the rule turns on: Day, Week, Two weeks, Month, Two months, Quarter or Year.
Every
Which weekday or weekdays, combined with an ordinal - first, second, third, fourth or last. Hold Ctrl or Cmd to pick more than one.
On day
The other mode: a day number instead of a weekday. "Last day" is offered as its own choice so a rule can always land at the end of the month.
Starting at
The date the pattern starts from. It becomes the event's own start date, and for a yearly rule it also decides the month.
Start time / End time
The clock times each occurrence runs between. They apply to every event the rule generates.
Current rule
The rule written out as a sentence, updating as you change the controls. If it does not read the way you meant it, the rule is wrong - fix it before applying.

Setting up a series

  1. 1

    Pick a preset, or Custom

    On Create New Event, choose from the Recurring dropdown. Most groups meet on a pattern one of the five presets already describes.

  2. 2

    Build the rule if you need Custom

    Set Repeats, then the weekday or day of month, then the start date and times. Read the sentence at the bottom before pressing Apply.

  3. 3

    Name the series

    Series name describes the whole run - "Monthly Film Night" - not one evening.

  4. 4

    Save

    Nothing is stored until the event is saved; the dialog says so. Afterwards the scheduled task generates the upcoming occurrences and keeps adding more as time passes.

Changing the schedule of a running series drops RSVPs

Editing the date, time or rule with "Update all following" ticked opens a confirmation screen that lists every future event and what will happen to it. Occurrences whose date moves lose their RSVPs - people agreed to a specific date, not to a pattern. Locked and cancelled events keep their dates and are left alone, and nothing is deleted: if the new pattern needs more events the scheduled task adds them.

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