By Graham K. Rogers

I have been using Apple's Calendar app (previously iCal) for a while, especially because of the way it allows me to sync data between devices. I have a number of calendars to help me organise my work, teaching and private life and keep the parts separate. The color coding of the different calendars helps me see at a glance the relative importance of each event.

For example, a catch-all calendar I named, "Work" has a number of events related to non-teaching items at the university; while I also have calendars for special events like Formula 1 and MotoGP racing: my Sundays tend to revolve around the (usual) early evening or afternoon races.

There are also other events such as those that involve Apple, for example the special event that is being held in Cupertino (Flint Center), which appears on my calendar as just before midnight Tuesday. The Apple calendar is red.

When we create a new calendar, the application itself selects the colour automatically. The Work calendar is the most often-used, but every time I look at it, I am bored by the drab nature of the green that it uses. I decided to change the colour, but could not find this initially. It is not hidden, but takes a small effort to find.

When the specific calendar is highlighted in the sidebar, an item in the Edit menu, marked Information (Command + i) reveals a panel. This can also be accessed by clicking on the specific calendar with the Control key pressed and using the panel that this combination reveals. This is expected to be updated to include quick color selection with the next version of OS X.

At the top of the Information panel is the calendar name, which can be edited. Alongside the name is a button for selecting the color. The standard 7 colors are shown with "Other" at the botom.

Clicking on "Other" reveals a panel which gives the user several ways to select colours (wheel, sliders, palettes, image palettes, and crayons). Clicking on a default color, or one from the palettes changes the calendar colour.

My Work calendar now sports a different (experimental) shade and I will see how I get on with that. As the calendars are synchronised via iCloud, the colour change also appeared on my office iMac and the iPhone. There are expected to be changes to the way this feature works in OS X 10.10, Yosemite.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.