VSO Calendar - Events - Categories Colors

[lizrs]

How can you change the colors of the Events /Categories in the calendar? For example: I'm trying to show all the work items of each team in a different color and one color for the org items. All Teams event = Green color, Team A = Purple, Team B = Red, etc

[Sarmiite]

Hi! When we could expect to have this done? It's realllly required, because items are getting random colors which are really confusing users.

[willsmythe]

We are in the process of prioritizing feature for the next update. This is on the list.

[AlexKnowles]

Any updates on the priority of this feature / when it will be added?

[Tamra]

Any idea when this feature will be available?

[pabrams]

We've implemented something like what you want in our private fork. We might submit a PR, if our organization ever signs the paperwork to let us do that...

[zkarj735]

Still no movement on this? I only need four categories and it has chosen only two colours, each shared between two categories. As I cannot remove categories nor set the colours and the chosen two are a pale blue and pale green, everything looks the same! They may as well all be monochrome.

This shouldn't be an enhancement because it is a usability nightmare, particularly if the system cannot even choose different colours.

[v-josede]

Could you please provide an update on this request?

[zkarj735]

I have since discovered that the root cause of this problem is the whole category system in the calendar is seriously broken. It needs tearing down and rebuilding from scratch. I honestly don't know how it ever shipped.

[pabrams]

I have since discovered that the root cause of this problem is the whole category system in the calendar is seriously broken. It needs tearing down and rebuilding from scratch. I honestly don't know how it ever shipped.

I dont think its quite that bad - it does work, for yhe most part. Its just no frills. You get random colors. And thy dont persist month to month. But they are at least unique, per catwgory

[pabrams]

Could you please provide an update on this request?

Update: its not implemented, yet.

[zkarj735]

I dont think its quite that bad - it does work, for yhe most part. Its just no frills. You get random colors. And thy dont persist month to month. But they are at least unique, per catwgory

I disagree. The colours are not unique. Starting with nothing, if you add CatA, CatB, and CatC in January you get three unique colours (though some are tonally quite close). If you then move to February and add CatD, it will re-use a colour. The workaround I came up with was to go back to a month well in the past and create all my categories there on dummy appointments. Any time I need to add a new category I have to remember to go back to that month to do it. If I don't, then it will re-use a colour that is not present on the month I am editing.

But... seeing it took me several goes to figure out what on earth it was doing, and the fact you cannot delete categories, I now have multiple sets of useless categories that colleagues keep asking me about as they pop up in the selection list.

In short, it is a total mess. I've tried plenty of calendar software — local and online — and never come across a feature quite as broken as this. Actually, broken is probably not the correct word. It's bad design.

[pabrams]

Im not saying its good. I havent run into the data issue you dedcribe, though. Is thete an issue open somewhere on hpw to reproduce that bug? If not, it would help.

[pabrams]

That paragraph you just wrote starting with "i disagree" seems to me the opposite, sincce afaict, youre describing the interaction of the two issues i mentioned ( cannnot choose colors, and colors do not persist month-to-month) They are unique per montg per category, for me

[zkarj735]

They are unique per montg per category, for me

Find two months in the past that have no entries. On the first month, create an entry with a new category "A". Move to the second month and create an entry with a new category "B". Now go back to the first month and add an entry with category "B". You now have two categories in use on a single month with the same colour.

It sounds like you live in a month, then move to the next one. I was using it to plan out 6 months of work and we spent a considerable amount of time going back and forth between months and thinking of related events that needed to be shown, thus realising we needed more categories.

[zkarj735]

And the dual issues are related. Because of the very weird behaviour of categories it is highly likely that spurious categories will result. And those cannot be deleted.

[pabrams]

Find two months in the past that have no entries. On the first month, create an entry with a new category "A". Move to the second month and create an entry with a new category "B". Now go back to the first month and add an entry with category "B". You now have two categories in use on a single month with the same colour.

I haven't tried this yet, but what is the actual result? You're saying that category A and category B have the same colour in the first month? If so, is there an issue created for this bug?

[pabrams]

It sounds like you live in a month, then move to the next one.

Yes, of course I do. That's how pretty much everyone lives. Most people don't live in past months.

I was using it to plan out 6 months of work and we spent a considerable amount of time going back and forth between months and thinking of related events that needed to be shown, thus realising we needed more categories.

Yes, perhaps it was an assumption made by the developer, that it wasn't a requirement to hop around adding new categories to past months. A huge percentage of users would not have that use case.

[pabrams]

it is highly likely that spurious categories will result. And those cannot be deleted.

Hasn't been a problem for me, so I question your assertion that it's "highly likely", except perhaps in your particular, rare, use case.

However, getting "Category A" and "Category B" in the same month with the same colour is obviously a bug. You should create an issue with the exact repro steps. Maybe if someone fixes it for you, they will also redesign the categories completely.

[zkarj735]

I don't think using a calendar to plan future events is really an edge case. We had to plan our required activities against various restrictions that would dictate when they could not be done, along with some "what if" scenarios that then required us to move stuff around. After getting part way through this process we realised other types of events we had to cater for, hence new categories.

Understanding the limitations of the calendar ahead of time would have allowed me to avoid the problem of duplicate colours through the silly workaround of reserving a past month for category creation, but in my 30 year career this is not the sort of problem I've ever hit before.

[melance]

Having the colors of the categories being set automatically without any way to change them is definitely causing issues. I need a single category to maintain the same color over time to help reporting be more manageable. Is this request still being looked at or is it effective dead in the water?

[pabrams]

Having the colors of the categories being set automatically without any way to change them is definitely causing issues. I need a single category to maintain the same color over time to help reporting be more manageable. Is this request still being looked at or is it effective dead in the water?

The last commit was 2 years ago... you tell me

[JGPease]

We would also like to see this implemented.

[Sammi-NZ]

Any update on this - I would like to change a colour assigned to an event category - I have 3 event categories this month - one, Holidays, is blue the other two, Work Stream A & Work Stream B, are both orange. I'd love to change one Work Stream to a not orange colour.

[MOlausson]

We are back to actively maintaining the extension, we're going to triage this one against other work so no promises on when it will be done yet.

[WillemijnMartens-Visser]

Any update on this - I would like to change a colour assigned to an event category - I have 3 event categories this month - one, Holidays, is blue the other two, Work Stream A & Work Stream B, are both orange. I'd love to change one Work Stream to a not orange colour.

Any news on this? I also would like to change colors of the categories that I am using

[ChemKroonri]

I like this add-in but please add a way for us to select colors for events.