What is happening to the text in the Create Event Description field

In December I spent several hours entering meeting events complete
with agenda items in the description field. Every thing was fine
until a couple of weeks ago I noticed that all of the "New Line" characters
had been replaced with "Space" characters".

In fact even new entries were changed after updating and and returning
to view them. For example if I entered the following:

1. Apples
2. Oranges
3. Peaches
4. Pears

and then update it would be changed the the following:

1. Apples 2. Oranges 3. Peaches 4. Pears

Today (February 11th) however it is working correctly but all of the prior
entries are still bad.

Hopefully this was a temporary problem but I would like to know if it is
fixed before spending time correcting the bad entries.

It's probably related to the release, retraction and re-release of the latest version of the calendar.

I can't remember the details, but I know there were cases where line breaks in the description were creating problems with the sync functionality.

In January 2012 this problem was intermittent. Now (August 2012) the problem occurs every time. Enter some simple text in the event description with simple line feeds for clarification. Create or Update. Reopen the event. The intended line feeds are removed and new ones entered at different locations! I hope this is not a permanent enhancement.

The user's text entry in the calendar event description field is modified by the system upon create or update. I see no reason for the system to change what is in this field.

For example the following text:
1. Jerry Setup
2. Jim Salad
3. Bill Main Dish
4. Joe Desert
5. Dick Cleanup

Is changed by the system to:
1. Jerry Setup 2. Jim Salad 3. Bill Main Dish 4. Joe
Desert 5. Dick Cleanup

If you want to modify the text for the mouse-over display; fine, but do not save it back in the field.

Please let the user control this field.
Thank you for all of your good work.

wxrwxr wrote:The user's text entry in the calendar event description field is modified by the system upon create or update. I see no reason for the system to change what is in this field.

This seems to be a recent change introduced by Version 2.2 of the Calendar. I have events that I created with distinct paragraphs in the description, and I edited those descriptions as recently as June. But now if I edit the event, the description is is reformatted in a way that destroys the layout. A description that once looked like:

The potluck dinner will be held at the pavilions at the stake center at 123 Elm Street.

Please bring a salad if your last name starts with A-M, and a dessert if your last name starts with N-Z. The ward will provide the hamburgers, hot dogs, buns, and condiments, as well as paper goods and drinks.

Please invite your neighbors -- this will be a good missionary opportunity.

now looks like:

The potluck dinner will be held at the pavilions at the stake
center at
123 Elm Street. Please bring a salad if your last name
starts with A-M,
and a dessert if your last name starts with N-Z. The ward
will provide
the hamburgers, hot dogs, buns, and condiments, as well
as paper goods
and drinks. Please invite your neighbors -- this will be a
good
missionary opportunity.

Indeed, the former paragraph breaks are gone, and new line breaks appear at unexpected locations. This is a definite step backwards from Version 2.0.

[Moderator note: I moved this most recent post from a newly created thread in the Feedback forum, to this existing thread (created by the same person) in the Calendar forum, where it is much more likely to be seen by the Calendar team. It's against the Code of Conduct to post the same topic in two different threads.]

Agree with aebrown

Thanks for catching this. I've logged an issue to have this fixed in a future release of Calendar. Thanks again.

Why is it not possible to have Rich Text Format similar to the formatting in this reply thread. The newsletter also has this capability. That way bold, underline, colors, etc. would be possible.

While we are on the subject, attachments also so maps, agendas, flyers etc. could be included in the calendar event...

Thanks

I just spent a good deal of time entering details for our Temple assignments, but the format was destroyed for every entry. I have had members complain this is hard to read when jumbled up. I hope there is a fix on the radar for this soon. Thank you.

Did a couple searches and didn't see an answer to this...

I'm wondering if there's a way to input line breaks into event descriptions. When I input information with multiple "hard returns" it show up correctly in the input field for the event, but once saved it displays all of the details information in one continuous string of text. I've also tried the backup "Shift-Return" combo that's worked for me in the past, to no avail. Is this even possible, and if so how can I make it work?

Thanks in advance for your help!

To my knowledge, there is not a way at present that works. This is a request that has been made to the Calendar developers.

wgharper wrote:Did a couple searches and didn't see an answer to this...

I'm wondering if there's a way to input line breaks into event descriptions.

[Moderator note: I moved your post into the existing topic covering this issue.]

According to this post, the bug is acknowledged and on the list to be fixed, but we know no details about when that might happen.

It has been more that a year since this problem was first reported. The fix is simple. Just eliminate the code that removes user's "new-line" characters. Hopefully this can be accomplished soon so the the description field can be a powerful function of the calendar.

You can use the sequence <br> to input line breaks into event descriptions. For example the entry:
1. Jerry Setup<br>
2. Jim Salad<br>
3. Bill Main Dish<br>
4. Joe Desert<br>
5. Dick Cleanup<br>

will show as:
1. Jerry Setup
2. Jim Salad
3. Bill Main Dish
4. Joe Desert
5. Dick Cleanup
in the "mouse over" window in the calendar for the event in "Month" mode.

The <br> characters will still show in the "Edit Event Details" window but it is still much better that having it changed to:
1. Jerry Setup 2. Jim Salad 3. Bill Main
Dish 4. Joe Desert 5. Dick Cleanup

Is there any update to this issue? As a stake presidency member I put our temple recommend schedule on the stake calendar and get quite a few questions as to when and where interviews are held as members are confused when and where we will be because "the calendar description is too confusing.

we really need to enable some basic formatting. Any update is appreciated.

jbowne wrote:As a stake presidency member I put our temple recommend schedule on the stake calendar and get quite a few questions as to when and where interviews are held as members are confused when and where we will be because "the calendar description is too confusing.

Why put the when and where in the description when you can use the date, time, location and room sections when scheduling your event.

The point of his post is not what he is entering but that the description field should not be re-arranged by the system. There are many reasons to use the description field but clear entries become confused when scrambled by the system. This limits the functionality of the calendar.

Gary_Miller wrote:

jbowne wrote:As a stake presidency member I put our temple recommend schedule on the stake calendar and get quite a few questions as to when and where interviews are held as members are confused when and where we will be because "the calendar description is too confusing.

Why put the when and where in the description when you can use the date, time, location and room sections when scheduling your event.

Thanks wxrwxr - you are correct there is a fundamental issue with the text in the description field that causes confusion in members when more than a couple sentences are entered or if you attempt to use some text structure like bullet points to make things quick and easy to read and understand.

To answer your question Gary - I do put in the location / date of the temple recommend interview - however to help the members I put in the entire schedule for the month into the description of each entry. this way a member has another way to understand the schedule. The mashed up text is causing more issues than benefits right now. Is there any schedule to get this corrected? I don't feel this is an improvement request - it is more of a bug request, but that is my opinion. Thanks!!

jbowne wrote:Is there any schedule to get this corrected?

No. We rarely get a schedule of any kind. And this thread is now 7 months old.

I would also like to see this problem fixed. I have submitted feedback on lds.org, but thought I would put my 2¢ worth here as well. I appreciate the suggestion by wxrwxr to include code for line breaks and also agree that while the <br> isn't ideal it is better than the jumble we get otherwise.

Good work! The version in use 11/24/2014 in finally handling the calendar description field correctly. The user can now format the entry without the system removing the newline characters.