Upcoming Events Screensaver
The Upcoming Events screensaver shows an agenda of what's coming up on a published public calendar, gathered by the background pipeline. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
How the Upcoming Events screensaver works
The background pipeline downloads a published public iCal calendar and parses out its upcoming events.
Events are listed as an agenda with a date chip, the day of the week and how far away each one is.
Anything already past is dropped, and repeated entries on the same day are removed.
The calendar is configured by the site pipeline — it is never your personal calendar.
A worked example
The agenda lists Labor Day 43 days out, then Columbus Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving beneath it, each with its weekday and a countdown, so you can see the shape of the months ahead at a glance.
Settings & tips
- The calendar shown is configured by the site's pipeline, not chosen in your browser.
- Events already past are automatically dropped.
- Run
automation/run.py publiccalendarto refresh the agenda.
Frequently asked questions
- Does this read my calendar?
- No. It reads a published public calendar configured by the site's pipeline. Nothing personal is accessed, and nothing is stored in your browser.
- What calendar is shown?
- By default a public holidays calendar, but the pipeline can point at any published iCal feed — launch schedules, sports fixtures, academic terms.
- Are repeating events supported?
- Only their first occurrence. The parser deliberately doesn't expand recurrence rules, which suits published date calendars rather than personal ones.
- Is a key needed?
- No — public iCal feeds are read key-less.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.