Getting started

Your first event, and the one rule that explains most surprises

Type a sentence

The bar at the bottom of every screen is the whole app. Type the plan the way you would say it out loud and Chrona parses it as you type, colouring each part it recognised and showing a preview card of exactly what it is about to create. Press return to save it.

Coffee with Sam tomorrow at 9am

That makes a one-hour event tomorrow morning, titled “Coffee with Sam”, on your default calendar. Sam's name stays in the title — Chrona never mistakes a person for a place.

The one rule to remember

A clock time makes an event. No clock time makes a task.

“Call mom tomorrow” has a date but no time, so it becomes a task due tomorrow rather than a mystery block on your calendar. “Call mom tomorrow at 2pm” has a time, so it goes on the calendar. This single rule accounts for most of the “why did it do that?” moments in the first week.

If you want a task and a time — a task you intend to block out — start the sentence with todo, or give it a #tag or a >Project. Any of those keeps it a task.

Watch the preview, not the syntax

You do not have to memorise anything. The preview card above the bar always shows the real result — the date, the time, the calendar, the repeat — before you commit. If the card says something you did not mean, edit the sentence and watch it change. Anything Chrona did not understand simply stays in the title, so nothing is ever silently dropped.

Where to go next

Skim the syntax reference once. It is one page, and it is the whole vocabulary.

Still stuck? Email brendan@everlight-digital.com or see Chrona support.