iCal Lion is infuriating. How can I add a new event in a chosen calendar without having to create it in my default then edit it?

I'm not understanding what the problem is... I must not be.

I chose default calendar as last selected, then all I do is click on Calendars, select the Calendar I want to create an event in... then double-click to add the event. It creates it in the calendar I selected under Calendars.

I am seriously not understanding how that behaviour is different than in SL iCal. Sure, you have to change default calendar to whatever you have selected in Calendars... but the behaviour is the same afterwards.

I think ical in Lion has much more serious probs than the leather look. And I think that any upgrade/new version, although having to move forward in relation to earlier versions, also and ALWAYS should keep useful basic features.

Shortcommings (stand alone and in comparison to SL version):

- You can not move appointments without having to go to edit mode. Not by drag and drop or by ctrl arrow (which previously moved appointments 1 day at a time)

- If I decide to move an appointment in edit mode under the appointment say to some day in December, I have no idea whether that is a weekday or a weekend, as you can only change the date/number (no overview calendar)

- In week view you can no longer have the month overview calendar down in the corner (this is really frustrating), as it was my main view and I very often needed to get an idea of certain dates in the future. This alone almost makes it useless to me. If I have to check a date a couple of months ahead I now have to go into month view, scroll months forward, chose weekview again and then today

- In the new dayview, which I by the way like the look of, one should be able to scroll in the "month-overview-box" in the top of the page, giving me the opportunity to check or go straight into a specific date months ahead without having to go via monthview. Very very basic in my opinion. When you have advantages in comparison to a good old desktop physical calendar THEN USE THEM ........

All in all not a step fwd, but a step backward imo. If I have overseen something and there are solutions to my issues, please let me know.

lescure, I was able to do the first item that you listed.

On my older MacBook Pro laptop, I held down my trackpad's bar while I clicked on an appointment in Month view and dragged it from its original date to another date in the same month.

The process I am seeing is double-click on a day (in month view) and it creates a new event that I can put a title on. Then I have to double-click the new event to edit the settings inside the event. This is called quad-click. Twice as many clicks as Snow Leopard or any other previous OS.

To create new event on my iPhone (which is always set to Month view) I click desired date (1 click) then click the Day button (1 click) then click the + sign (1 click). OK that is triple-click. Only saving one click on the iPhone.

Then if you want to change the date on the iPhone calendar it is a major task of rotating the date wheels almost forever. Much easier in Mac iCal by just changing the numbers in the settings dialog box. The iPhone does not have a copy/paste for multiple similar events.

You might try leaving the inspector window open. Go to Edit->Show Inspector, and reposition the inspector and calendar windows conveniently. Create new events simply by double-clicking as you might have in snow leopard, but edit it in the inspector.

iCal will remember the positioning of the inspector window between restarts. This is useful generally if you're going to want to switch more complicated settings that you don't want to type out longhand (such as which calendar an event should be added to).

Sort of stupid that you have to leave the window sitting there all the time, but at least it gets you all the options you used to have when creating events.

THAT'S the solution! Thanks.

The answer is to click the + button and hold the button down briefly. It will pop down a list of your calendars to choose from.

Terribly hard to discover this, but there you go.

Here's the solution that is most similar to Snow Leopard and best addresses the original question. Set the Preferences > General > Default Calender: Last Selected Calendar. Then when you want to create a new event in a specific calendar. Find an existing event in that calendar color and just click on it once. This will make that calendar your 'last selected calendar'. Then just double click wherever you want to create the new event and it will be in that calendar. For this to work all of your calendars probably need to be in different colors.

Actually, I'm using this technique together with the show inspector solution and it works well to enter reminders, etc. Saves a couple clicks every time.

The difference with Leather Cal is that when first run it reverts to a default everytime, even if that calendar is switched off. For a user of previous iCal that just seems wierd. Why would you want every event in the first calendar you made?

When selecting a calendar on the drop down list (ie. "Calendars" not "+"), why would the event you then enter be in another calendar? There'd be no point having any other calendars. It seems like a bug. I updated software. Nothing.

When you look up preferences, the "last calendar used" option is hidden underneath some actual calendars. Only when you look further do you find the option of "last … used".

Bring back the side bar. Ditch the leather. Make it "just work".

I had the exact same annoyance and this little tip got it fixed.

Big up !

Add events to a calendar You can add any kind of event to your iCal calendars. For example, you can add meetings, doctor appointments, and family activities. You can’t add events to a calendar you subscribed to. Open iCal Click Add ➕ at the top of the iCal window or press Command (⌘)-N. Events are added automatically to your default calendar. If you want to choose a different calendar for the event, hold down the Add button (+), and then choose a calendar. To change your default calendar, choose iCal > Preferences, click General, and then select a calendar from the Default Calendar pop-up menu.

This worked for me, too! Thank you, it's been driving me batty for way too long.

Calendar > Preferences : Default Calendar : Selected Calendar