How taps work
A tap on a widget does one of two things. It either moves the widget (picks a day, steps a week or a month, ticks a task), which happens at once and opens nothing, or it opens a sheet over your home screen: an event, a task, the calendar, quick add. The app itself only opens from the cog.
This page describes NextUp as it comes: events and days open in NextUp's own sheets. If you chose another calendar app on the dashboard, see Opening another calendar app.
The action row
Every widget carries one row of icons, at the bottom by default, where your thumb reaches. Each icon can be switched off in the widget's Widget actions settings.
| Icon | Its switch in Settings | What a tap does |
|---|---|---|
| Move history PRO | None: it appears by itself after a move | Lists the moves of the last 24 hours, each with Undo. See Move history and Undo. |
| Move PRO | Quick move icon | Turns Move mode on and off. With Auto-exit Move mode on, the mode ends by itself after a move. |
| Calendar | Calendar icon | Opens the calendar on today, in the view you used last. |
| Add | Quick add icon | Opens quick add: Event or Task PRO. On a Week or Month with a day picked, it adds on that day. |
| Refresh | Refresh icon | Redraws now and fetches Google Tasks again. Calendar changes arrive by themselves; this is for a task changed in another app. |
| Settings | Settings icon | Opens the app on this widget. If another widget's Settings or Style tab was open, you land on the same tab for this one. |
Top or bottom
Icons at the top, in Widget actions, moves the row above the content. Quick add then drops in from the top of the screen, the side you tapped; every other sheet still rises from the bottom.
When the widget is narrow
A row with no room for every icon leaves some out, in this order: the Move history first, then Move, then Refresh. The calendar, Add and Settings icons are never left out. On the smallest NextUp (3×2) the row is those three. Where Move has no room, Move mode is off; make the widget one cell wider and it is back.
Rows and tasks
The Agenda, and the lists under a Week and a Month, are made of the same rows. Each part of a row is its own target.
- A day header opens the calendar's Day view on that day.
- An event opens its sheet: the details, and Edit, Move and Delete.
- Join PRO opens the meeting straight away. It shows on any event with a Zoom, Meet, Teams or Webex link, until the event ends.
- A task's box PRO ticks it. The tick shows at once and is sent to Google Tasks.
- A task's title opens its sheet, to edit it, change its day or delete it.
- An empty day opens that day, like its header.
- The triangle beside a task marks it overdue. An open overdue task is carried onto today, so it never drops out of sight.
- The event on now has a bold title, and a dot if you turned on Current event dot.
- In Move mode, the Join pill gives way to a Move pill on every event and task.
- The list scrolls with your finger. If your launcher blocks the swipe, turn on Scroll arrows.
Agenda FREE
A scrolling list of the days ahead, each under its header. Everything in it is a row, so the taps above are all there is to learn. With nothing at all coming up, the one line Nothing coming up opens today.
How many days it lists, whether empty days show and what each row prints are in its settings.
NextUp PRO
NextUp shows one thing big: what is on now, or what comes next. It decides by itself which of four faces to wear, and changes as the day goes.
What a tap does on NextUp
- The header, a section's label and any empty space open today in the calendar's Day view.
- The headline opens that event's sheet.
- Join opens the meeting. It shows from the moment the meeting is the headline until it ends.
- A row in the list opens its event.
- The task count, the Tasks label and +N more tasks open the task list.
- A task's box ticks it; its title opens it.
Where your tasks go
Tasks have a day and no time, so they are never "now" or "next". NextUp keeps them apart, as a reminder, and events always come first:
- On a small NextUp (the usual 3×2), a count beside the date: the open tasks due today or overdue.
- On a taller one, a Tasks section of up to five lines under today's events, the last becoming +N more tasks.
- Tomorrow's tasks are listed with tomorrow's events, once tomorrow is shown.
Each widget chooses its own accounts, under Google Tasks in its settings: switch them all off on a NextUp and it stays events-only while your Agenda shows tasks.
Week PRO
Seven columns, one per day, with a bar for every event and task: the busy days and the free ones show before you read a word. Made taller, the Week lists the day you pick under the columns.
- Tap a column to pick its day. The column is boxed and the list follows.
- Tap the picked column again to open that day in the calendar's Week view.
- ‹ and › step a week. The Week has no other way to another week, so the arrows are always there.
- The dates in the heading bring this week back, or open today when you are already on it.
No list, no second tap. At its smallest size (4×3) the Week has room for the columns only, so there is nothing to pick a day for: every column opens its day at once. The same happens if you turn Jump to day on tap off.
Month PRO
The month as a grid, with the days ahead listed under it once the widget is tall enough.
- Tap a day to pick it. It is ringed, and the list under the grid restarts at that day. A day with nothing on still heads its own list.
- Tap the picked day again to open it in the calendar's Month view, selected.
- ‹ and › step a month, if Month switcher is on.
- The month's name undoes your browsing one step at a time: back to this month, then back to today's list, then it opens today.
- The list behaves as every list: a day's name opens the Day view, a row opens its event or task.
When one tap is enough. A day opens at the first tap whenever there is no list to move: on a Month too short to show one (a phone's 4×3), under Titles, with Jump to day on tap off, and for a day past the last one that has anything on.
NextUp for today
On a tall Month (about 4×5 on a phone), today's list is replaced by NextUp's card: what is on now or next, the rest of today, then tomorrow. Pick another day and the plain list is back; tap today or the month's name and the card returns.
- A row on the card opens what it names, an event or a task.
- A section's label and its +N more open that day's whole list in the widget, under a ‹ Back to Next up row. Left alone, it goes back by itself after a few minutes.
- Switch it off with NextUp for today, in the Month's Event list settings.
Under Titles: weeks in pages
With Show events as set to Titles, each day shows its event titles and there is no list. A Month too small for six weeks of titles shows one, two or three weeks at a time, with arrows under the grid to page through them: on a phone, one week at 4×3 and the whole month from about 4×6. The arrows beside the month's name still step a whole month.
Three views, one tap away
The calendar has three views, and a Month widget with its list showing reaches each of them in one move:
| You tap | The calendar opens on |
|---|---|
| A day in the grid, twice | Month, with that day selected |
| A day's name in the list | Day, on that day |
| The calendar icon | Today, in the view you last switched to |
The first two always open the same view, and neither changes what the icon remembers. So switch the calendar to Week once and leave it there: from then on the grid gives you the Month, the list gives you the Day, and the icon gives you the Week. All three are a tap away, and you never touch the view switch again. Try it in the picture above.
On a Week widget the same idea works the other way round: a column tapped twice opens the Week, a day's name opens the Day, so leave the calendar on Month for the icon.
What the icon remembers is the view you last chose inside the calendar, with its three-icon Day, Week and Month switch or by opening a day from its Month or Week. It is one memory for all your widgets.
What each size shows
Every widget can be resized, and its size, not a setting, picks the layout. Sizes are in home-screen cells, columns × rows; a launcher with unusually tall or short cells shifts the thresholds a little.
| Widget | Smallest | As it grows |
|---|---|---|
| Agenda | 4×2: the list, a few rows of it | More rows. The list always scrolls to the rest. |
| NextUp | 3×2: the headline, a line or two under it, and the task count beside the date | Wider (4 cells): time, place and Join share one line. Taller: the rest of today, then a Tasks section, then tomorrow. |
| Week | 4×3: the seven columns, three bars a day, then "+n" | From a little over 4×4: the picked day's list under the columns. The columns grow too, and show more bars. |
| Month | 4×3: the grid alone | Taller: the list under the grid, then (about 4×5) NextUp's card on today. Wider than tall, as on a tablet: the list beside the grid. |
Locked and blank widgets
- A Pro widget without Pro shows its name and a PRO mark. A tap opens a preview of it with your own calendar, and from there the purchase.
- Allow calendar access means NextUp can't read your calendars. A tap opens the app, which asks for the permission.
- Tasks unavailable — tap for details, as a line above the content, means Google Tasks could not be fetched. A tap opens the app; usually the account needs reconnecting.
- A blank, see-through widget for a moment after you place it is normal: nothing is drawn until NextUp knows its look.
Opening another calendar app
On the dashboard, Open events in and Open tasks in send taps to another app instead of NextUp's sheets. This is what changes, on every widget:
| You tap | Set to NextUp | Set to another app |
|---|---|---|
| An event | The event sheet | The event in that app |
| A day header, an empty day, a grid day or column | The calendar, on that day | That day in that app |
| Add, then Event | NextUp's event form | That app's new-event screen |
| A task | The task sheet | Google Tasks, or Google Calendar's task view |
| +N more tasks, NextUp's task count | The task list | Google Tasks, or Google Calendar's day |
| The calendar icon, Join, Move | Always NextUp's calendar, the meeting, and Move | |