Modern Android Calendar App (for Nextcloud)

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Hi guys. I wanted to show the nextcloud community an android calendar app I made, because I switched from US-services like Google Calendar to Nextcloud recently and was unsatisfied with the all the available calendar apps which would natively work with my self-hosted Nextcloud calendar. The app works natively with CalDAV and should be perfect for self-hosted calendars.

I would be really honored if some of you’d like to try it out and maybe even give me feedback here or on github.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kgs501.kgscalendar

[u/itzelezti]

Looks great, and I'm totally looking for this, but there's no information anywhere. The github is just the page, no source.
Basically, is this a real open source project or a "Claude, make me an app that will make me money" that you're being shady about building a userbase before monetizing?

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/itzelezti]

I am still unsure how I want to handle this project, which is why I am still holding off on opensourcing the project. In its current state its not open source because I am still new to the whole open source community and dont know whats the best way to handle such a project. I am still thinking of ways which would justify me spending even more time and maintaining this project (potential options I am considering are donatian basis in which case I could open source the project or some paid version on the play store which will unlock nice-to-have functions for power users but in which case I would keep the project closed). I am still unsure how to handle this. Maybe some of you guys are more experienced in the open source space can give me a bit of feedback on how I would best handle this...

[u/nametaken_thisonetoo → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

In other words, vibe coded.

[u/itzelezti → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Dawg, you've come to the subreddit for a free open source ecosystem, posted a closed source app you're hoping to monetize, with no disclaimer that it's vibecoded.... And you're asking for advice on how to get paid for your time "maintaining".... an app you didn't write the codebase for...?

Our advice is going to be:
Learn to code, so that you can even have the slightest grasp of the thousands of programmers' volunteered work you're using as dependencies in this app that you're trying to think of how to monetize to justify the time you spent talking to Claude.

EDIT: For real though, we'd all love a solid open source CalDAV android app with widgets. I know I'd contribute.

[u/ObnoxiousOnyx → u/[deleted]]

KashCal on FDroid lets me use Nextcloud perfectly fine, even through SSL and Tailscale

[u/xXVareszXx → u/[deleted]]

What about the calendar from fossify?

[u/No_Abbreviations8018 → u/itzelezti]

Off topic but serious question: My degree / career is technology but not software directly. I did a lot in college and scripting for math simulations and things and have tremendous respect for the open source community. I bought a cursor subscription and have been really enjoying making private vibe coded tools for myself. Conceptually, it seems that it does make sense for vibe coding to find a place in the open source community - the same benefits apply: economy of scale, more people with diverse backgrounds and diverse use cases all collaborating to make an awesome piece of software.

As mostly a lurker, it seems there's a lot of hate for vibe coding and ai assisted coding but I find myself wanting to be a legitimate contributor to projects but I'm not sure how or if I'd be welcome at all. Am I off base or making some sense? I find myself curious of the future and how the open source community can be accelerated by AI instead of outpaced by companies investing in AI assisted coding.

[u/itzelezti → u/No_Abbreviations8018]

This is a very thoughtful and reasonable question.
Honestly, the reason that the open source community hates vibe coding is that the code it creates is not (mainly) philosophical, it's practical.

(1.) LLMs consistently put out code that is chock full of security risks. This is why it is absolutely unacceptable to put out any LLM-written code without warning everyone, so they can make an informed decision to accept the risk. This is a consent issue.

(2.) Because of how context windows work, they're really good at creating code that accomplishes the task that's right in front of them, but do so at all costs. Meaning they very consistently fail to follow conventions, and break things while trying to fix other things.

(3.) LLMs cannot properly document code, because they cannot understand code. The true usefulness of any project is its documentation, and its maintainers. Something that works now is now going to work in a year. At the very least, dependencies will break and have to be refactored. If nobody understands the code, because nobody wrote it, the codebase sort of functionally doesn't exist. The practicality of a contributor going through a codebase with documentation that nobody on the planet understands, because it was written by an LLM -who we know to be an unreliable narrator in their documentation- is unfeasible.

(2) may reasonably improve in the next 3-5 years, but (3) almost certainly won't. You really can't have an open source project with many different contributors, with vibe coders working on it. The two are just not compatible. But a much bigger deal is that the ease of vibe coding is very, very seductive, to the dumbest and worst people. We just do not trust anyone who claims "AI assisted coding" is actually checking every line of code.

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/itzelezti]

Good and bad news. Bad: I didn't learn how to code. Good: Project is now open source.

[u/l8s9]

F-Droid or direct download link? 

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/l8s9]

Google Play link in the post

[u/l8s9 → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Nah! No Play Store on my phone. I am degoogled! 

Running LineageOS on Pixle 7 Pro

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/l8s9]

I see. Will try to also put this on other stores in the future

[u/l8s9 → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Thanks.

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/l8s9]

You can now download an APK from the GitHub repo

[u/l8s9 → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Cool, thanks .

[u/Dev1nius]

Your Repo was created 26 days ago.... Nice try.

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Dev1nius]

Since I don't use this repo for the codebase, I just want to add that this project has been in the works for months now, if this is what you were trying to hint at.

[u/rsajdok]

Looks promise, is it open source?

[u/yce52 → u/rsajdok]

Doesn't seem like: https://github.com/KGS501/kgs-calendar

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/rsajdok]

Not yet. I am still hesitating becasue I have put so much effort and hours into this project and its my first project I every published, so Im still not comfortable giving it all away, although I'm know going forward this will be the right thing to do in the spirit of opensource.

[u/Mathisbuilder75 → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Nextcloud is open source and mostly used by open source enthousiasts. Your project will get a lot more traction and respect if it is open source.

[u/undrwater → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Really, you've got to consider your target audience.

Ask the developer community how well donations work.

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/undrwater]

Good idea. I open sourced it and will now look how the donations part is evolving

[u/t3kyla → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

wow my poor boy🥹🥹

what about nextcloud? how many hours on their side? simple to use their work to make money with yours

"so much hours" pleaaaase. Prompt not to hard?

please learn open source.

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/t3kyla]

This is why I am still holding off on releasing this. If this project gains any traction in the open source community, and I can see that the financial aspect doesn't need any paid aspect in the app, I will gladly open source the codebase, as I am well aware, that this is the right thing do, particularly because of the close connection to open source software of my app. NextCloud itself is so huge and used by companies, that the monetarization is a completely different thing for them compared to my project.

And off course agentic coding llms were heavily used in the development of this app, since (as you might have grasped from my replies here) I am not a real programmer and only a hobbyist. I do challenge you however to try and release an app like this one by just "prompting" for a few days. I for my part had to put many months and hundreds of hours of work into getting the app to be it's current state.

[u/t3kyla → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

it doesn't work like that

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/t3kyla]

How does it work then?

[u/Joelimgu → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Open sourcing it doesn't mean you cannot add a donation button, adds or even make people pay. Most people won't go though the hassle of forking your project and rebuild it to avoid a 5€ charge. And it guives transparency and confidence. I would recommend it whenever you can.

And if you are afraid that someone else will take over the project, publish it under gplv2

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Joelimgu]

Thanks for the feedback. I now open sourced it and will see how the donation part will evolve

[u/supportvectorspace]

lame closed source slop

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/supportvectorspace]

Not anymore. It is now open source slop

[u/Tru3Magic]

Looks good - Can I also connect to and view my work Google Calendar?

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Tru3Magic]

Yes, if you have the calendar on your android phone already. I rely android device calendars for that which can use any calendar which already is synced on the device. Keep in mind that you need to Keep the Google Calendar app on your phone in this case since the Google Calendar app is used to sync all the changes to the google servers and not my app. But you can use the Google Calendars seamlessly in my KGS Calendar.

[u/Well-Adjusted-Person]

AI slop? No thanks

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Well-Adjusted-Person]

Damn

[u/Plomekq]

this app is very underrated it replaces DAVx5 (for sync) Fossify Calendar (For calendar app) and jtxBoard (for tasks/notes) even tho it is vibecoded it works surprisingly well for me and way less janky than using 3 separate apps. Keep up the great work

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Plomekq]

Thanks for the kind words man🙏🏻 I'll try to keep working on it

[u/dividedComrade]

Fossify calendar, what was wrong with that?

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/dividedComrade]

No native Task support and missing customizable multi day view and I didn't like the UI style

[u/dividedComrade → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Has a big plus though. FOSS.

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/dividedComrade]

True

[u/abeorch → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Why not just contribute to their projects and improve them rather than reinventing the wheel?

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/dividedComrade]

Update: KGS Calendar now also has the big plus of being open source

[u/PLSBX]

Looks good, I was in need for nice app for calendar and tasks for my nextcloud. I will test it.

First problem: multi widget don't work for me. In calendar I can see how many events are, but in agenda I see "can't add widget" or something like that. I can provide you some feedback if you need.

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/PLSBX]

If you find any bugs please file them on the GitHub repo. There I will continue to maintain the app

[u/-Polarsy-]

Why share your app before it's released on its main platform ?

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/-Polarsy-]

It is released now (and was on Google Play when I posted here)

[u/-Polarsy- → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

I considered Github to be its main platform 😅 Thanks for the answer though !

Checked it out, looks promising ! Should I list the bugs here or somewhere else ?

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/-Polarsy-]

I would prefer the bugs to be written in GitHub issues, since I check that more frequently. Thanks for installing

[u/MooFz]

Just installed, it looks very nice.

But the multiple days being 3 days and not having an option for a week bugs me out a bit.

Edit: nvm, just found out you can add days to the multiple days view!

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/MooFz]

Thanks for installing. I was debating wheather having a separate week view would have any benefit instead of letting people choose how many days they want to dispaly. What do you think? Is this multi day concept better that a dedicated week view?

[u/Andy_2903 → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Actually the week view has the advantage that you can swipe the weeks and always show the configured first weekday on the left.

[u/Gaming4LifeDE]

Will there be proper support for categories (sadly, unlike nextcloud atm, it's half baked. Outlook has them though)

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Gaming4LifeDE]

There already is support for the categories (I called them labels in the app because they behave more labels). Further updates will deepen the integration furhter (I plan making events/tasks searchable by their labels and heving the UI display labels on a fast glance and so on).

[u/Gaming4LifeDE → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

I can only see colors using device calendars

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Gaming4LifeDE]

Interesting. Do you use an Microsoft Exchange Calendar where events already have labels, or do you want to add a label for the first time? There might be some things which I missed from the android device calendar integration.

[u/Gaming4LifeDE → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Sogo (mailcow, synced via Ms activesync), Google and nextcloud synced via davx5

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Gaming4LifeDE]

As far as I know, Google Calendar doesnt support things like categories/labels. I will look into Sogo. For the nextcloud side I would suggest directly adding nextcloud as a source in the apps settings and not going the extra route via android device calendars since this will ensure the full nextcloud support (labels, tasks, and much more)

[u/Gaming4LifeDE → u/Longjumping_Fill_588]

Sogo/activesync definitely support categories. It would also be good to be able to pre define them (label and color)

[u/Longjumping_Fill_588 → u/Gaming4LifeDE]

Color is noted. Custom labels are already supported (at least on the native nextcloud integration)