Overview
Version 9.1 adds an option to display each calendar in a separate Month view on separate pages when printing the Monthly layout. In previous versions, calendars were always overlaid in the Month view. In addition, the Day and Week views have been improved when calendars are displayed in separate columns instead of being overlaid in the same column. Options have been added to group date columns within calendar columns, or vice versa.
Overlay Mode in the Month View
On the Month Settings menu, a new "View in Overlay Mode" option has been added. Overlay mode is enabled by default. This means all calendars listed in the "Calendars" tab on the left side of the screen will have their events merged into a single Month view. If you have many calendars, or if you prefer to only work on one calendar at a time, you may prefer to view the calendars separately. In previous versions, this was not possible. The checkboxes next to the calendar names could be used to show or hide calendars, but this could become tedious if simply attempting to switch which single calendar is visible. In version 9.1, the new "View in Overlay Mode" option addresses this issue.
Unchecking this option will result in each calendar being shown in a separate "page" of the Month view. The currently displayed calendar's name will be shown at the top of the Month view. The background color of the Month view will also change to reflect the color associated with the calendar, making it easier to tell which calendar is currently shown.
In the example below, there are 3 visible calendars (US Holidays, Good to Know, and Dan's Calendar). They are initially overlaid in the same Month view, which is how calendars were always presented in previous versions.
After toggling the "View in Overlay Mode" option, the Month view is updated to only show one calendar at a time. In this case, the "Good to Know" calendar is displayed. Notice how the background color is changed to a light blue, to coordinate with the dark blue color of the calendar. The calendar title is shown at the top of the Month view and a scroll bar is added at the bottom for switching to display the other calendars. The calendar name in the list of calendars can also be clicked to make its page appear in the Month view.
Printing the Monthly Layout
If overlay mode is unchecked in the Month View settings, each visible calendar will be printed on a separate page when using the Monthly print layout. To save on ink, the background color will remain white for each calendar. However, day border colors will use the associated calendar's color. Here's how it looks in the Print Preview window. Notice how there are 3 pages, one for each calendar, even though only one month is being printed.
Grouping Calendar Columns in the Day and Week Views
Unlike the Month view, the previous version did support toggling overlay mode in the Day and Week views. When overlay mode is turned off, calendar columns are added to the view. When the Day view is configured to show multiple days, or when using the Week view, days are also arranged as columns. There are two types of columns - days and calendars. In the previous version, the calendar columns were embedded within the day columns. Version 9.1 adds an option to reverse this, so day columns can be embedded within calendar columns instead of the other way around. For the Week view especially, this makes it easier to see and compare activities for each calendar side-by-side.
It's a difficult concept to explain in words, but it's really simple to see how these two options work. Below is an example of the Week view. In the first screenshot, the "View Separate Date/Calendar Columns" option is enabled. This is equivalent to how columns were presented in version 9.0.3 and earlier. Each day of the week is a primary column, and each visible calendar is presented as a sub-column within each day column.
Admittedly, this is not the most useful way of arranging columns, especially if there are a large number of calendars visible or the screen resolution is small. Version 9.1.0 improves this by adding the "View Separate Calendar/Date Columns" option. After enabling that option, here's how it looks:
You're free to decide which column layout you prefer, since the settings menu in 9.1.0 allows switching between either layout, or overlaying the calendars into a single column.
Conclusion
Version 9.1 significantly improves the Month view by adding an option to display or print calendars in separate pages. For users that have dozens of calendars containing many events, where those events wouldn't all fit when overlaid into the same Month view, this new feature will drastically improve the usability of the software. The column options added to the Day and Week views provide an alternative style of grouping columns, which some users may prefer for easier readability. We hope you'll enjoy this improvement. If you think of any other ways the layout could be improved, please let us know!
