ICal vs. Mail

Question

Hi all,
Does anyone have the faintest idea why iCal keeps quitting every time I send an e-mail?
iCal is open in the background. I compose and send an e-mail (having no involvement with iCal at all). Then just before I hear the "swoosh" of the e-mail having been sent, iCal disappears. There's no dialogue saying that application has quit and would I like to re-open or anything.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Paul C.
iMac G5   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

Answer 1

No, no, I got it. I don't mean I can't find the date on which to drop it. I know the app will file it in the correct place.
I mean I don't know what date it's going to when I let it go, and if that date appears outside whatever view setting I'm using to look at my calendar, that is when I have to go play hide & seek.
I mean, seriously, wouldn't it make more sense If it opened a dialog box instead, to alert the user when a date was being requested? Offer them a look at the date in question, so they can decide if they want or are able to throw it on their calendar? Instead of assuming that by interacting with this heretofore unreadable calendar object you intend to accept it? Mind you the .ics icon does not tell the user what date is being requested--Mail does not communicate the date to the user unless and until it's viewed through iCal, and in the workaround you suggest, it assumes the user doesn't mind blindly throwing darts at their calendar. Open Drag Trust? The lack of an inspect-and-accept step in there disregards the user's needs.
I'm not a UI expert by any means, but this seems poorly executed. I appreciate this conversation. But it seems like we're talking about nuances of the problem that aren't the whole problem. I do feel like we're wandering in the wilderness together a little bit, and arguing about whether that's rain falling on us or ...I don't know, I guess I'm saying it's urine? Wow, this analogy is regrettable now that it's reached the conclusion. Either way, we're getting wet.