Quickly edit events and to-dos in Leopard iCal
In the quest for interface purity, Apple has taken the information pane out of Leopard iCal. A cleaner look for sure, but also an inconvenience for users.
In Tiger you could edit events and to-dos from the information pane. Now, to edit an iCal item, you need to double-click it, wait for the details pane and then click again on the edit button on the bottom.
These extra clicks add up over time. Especially if, like me, you live in a fluid world in which tasks and meetings are always changing. Plus, of course, there’s the principle: It ought to be more efficient. Lots of Mac users are grumpy about it as you can from a very long thread 
on Apple’s Discussions site.
Luckily, there is a short cut to get straight to editing an event or a to-do.
Click once on the item to highlight it. Then press ⌘-e (Command + ‘e’) and you launch into an edit dialog straight away. Nifty!
[Via Dan Miller via Daring Fireball ]
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Tags: Apple Mail Tips, editing events, iCal, interface purity, Productivity, to dos
November 4th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Strangely, if an event has recipients, double-clicking it opens a window that is fully editable. The ‘Edit’ and ‘Done’ buttons are replaced with a single ‘Send’ button.
November 4th, 2007 at 4:50 am
Oops, I meant to say ‘Attendees’, not ‘recipients’.
November 4th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Awesome tip. Thanks!
I really didn’t like the floating edit pane. It was always in the way. This tip makes it work the way it always should have.
November 4th, 2007 at 8:01 am
@Paul — Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn’t noticed. Clearly I need more work colleagues! ;-)
November 7th, 2007 at 12:09 am
In the name of interface purity and consistency, I wonder why they didn’t choose Command-L, the Edit Card command used in Address Book and Safari (to edit the URL field)?
November 11th, 2007 at 4:32 am
Now we have a shortcut for the Edit button. What about the Done button? Do we really have to reach for the mouse to hit Done?
November 11th, 2007 at 7:36 am
The Escape key does the job for me, although I tab onto the next field after the one I have edited just to be sure.
November 12th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Escape! ;D Great
November 14th, 2007 at 7:28 am
There is also no good way to edit the time (hours, days, weeks.) Arrow keys no longer change the value and you can’t delete the first digit. For example if you choose to be reminded 5 days before event, you have to choose “1 day before”, change 1 to 51 and delete the 1. Nasty bug.