Suggest changes: Moodle Desktop Calendar & Native Linux Deadline Reminders

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For university students, missing an assignment deadline is rarely caused by a lack of effort—it happens because university learning management systems like **Moodle** hide crucial submission dates across dozens of fragmented course tabs, buried syllabi PDFs, and nested forum threads.

Logging into a slow web portal multiple times a day just to check whether an assignment is due at 23:59 creates unnecessary friction. Students need immediate, ambient awareness of their deadlines directly within their desktop environment.

I built **[everything-in-one-place](https://github.com/PedroCaballero741/everything-in-one-place)** to solve this problem for Linux users. It is an interactive desktop calendar widget and automated background notification engine built with **Python**, **GTK 4**, and **Libadwaita**, designed to feel like a first-class Ubuntu/GNOME core application.

---

## Architectural Goals

1. **Ambient Awareness:** Deadlines should be visible at a glance without opening a web browser.
2. **Native GNOME Integration:** Built using GTK 4 and Libadwaita widgets adhering strictly to modern Ubuntu styling.
3. **Automated Reminders:** Background notifications (`notify-send` / `GNotification`) that alert students well before submission windows close.
4. **Direct Course Navigation:** One-click links from the desktop widget straight to the specific Moodle assignment submission page.

---

## System Overview

```mermaid
flowchart TB
 subgraph Upstream ["Institutional LMS (University Platform)"]
 MOODLE_WEB[/"Moodle LMS Portal"\]
 AUTH_TOKEN[("Moodle Session & Auth Tokens Encrypted local credential store")]
 CALENDAR_FEED["Calendar Export & JSON Feed Fragmented course deadlines & syllabi"]

AUTH_TOKEN --> MOODLE_WEB
        MOODLE_WEB --> CALENDAR_FEED
    end

subgraph Ingestion ["Ingestion & Normalization Engine"]
 direction TB
 SCRAPER["Session Scraper & API Client Fetches raw events across enrolled courses"]
 SANITIZER["Event Normalizer Strips HTML, resolves timezones, extracts course IDs"]

CALENDAR_FEED --> SCRAPER
        SCRAPER --> SANITIZER
    end

subgraph UrgencyEngine ["Dynamic Urgency & Priority Engine"]
 direction TB
 DELTA["Time Delta Calculator <code>delta = due_date - now()</code>"]
 BUCKETS{"Urgency Classifier"}
 OVERDUE["Overdue Bucket <code>delta < 0</code> (Error Badge)"]
 DUE_TODAY["Due Today Bucket <code>delta <= 12h</code> (Warning Badge)"]
 DUE_SOON["Due Soon Bucket <code>delta <= 3d</code> (Accent Badge)"]
 UPCOMING["Upcoming Bucket <code>delta > 3d</code> (Neutral Badge)"]

SANITIZER --> DELTA
        DELTA --> BUCKETS
        BUCKETS --> OVERDUE
        BUCKETS --> DUE_TODAY
        BUCKETS --> DUE_SOON
        BUCKETS --> UPCOMING
    end

subgraph DesktopGUI ["Interactive Desktop Application (GTK 4 / Libadwaita)"]
 direction TB
 subgraph LeftPane ["Left Pane: Calendar Overview"]
 GTK_CAL["Gtk.Calendar Widget Active assignment dot markers on days"]
 DATE_PICKER["Day Filter Event Filters right pane to selected date"]
 GTK_CAL --> DATE_PICKER
 end

subgraph RightPane ["Right Pane: Filtered Task Stream"]
 TABS["Filter Tabs <code>All | Upcoming | Today | Urgent</code>"]
 FEED["AdwActionRow Feed Assignment title, course name, urgency badge"]
 OPEN_BTN["'Open in Moodle' Action <code>Gio.AppInfo.launch_default_for_uri</code>"]

TABS --> FEED
            FEED --> OPEN_BTN
        end

DATE_PICKER -.->|Filter stream| FEED
        OVERDUE --> FEED
        DUE_TODAY --> FEED
        DUE_SOON --> FEED
        UPCOMING --> FEED
    end

subgraph BackgroundService ["Autonomous Alert Daemon"]
 direction TB
 DAEMON["Background Interval Monitor Checks deadlines every 15 minutes"]
 THRESHOLDS{"Threshold Trigger? 24h, 3h, or 30m remaining"}
 NOTIFY["notify-send / GNotification <code>-u critical -a 'Moodle Reminders'</code>"]

DUE_TODAY --> DAEMON
        DUE_SOON --> DAEMON
        DAEMON --> THRESHOLDS
        THRESHOLDS -->|Interval Match| NOTIFY
    end

OPEN_BTN --> BROWSER(["Default Browser Direct to submission page"])
 NOTIFY --> SHELL(["GNOME Desktop Notification Shell"])
```

---

## 1. Dynamic Task Classification and Urgency Metrics

Assignments vary widely in their urgency. A deadline due next Friday requires casual planning, while an assignment due in three hours requires immediate action.

`everything-in-one-place` classifies incoming events into distinct priority buckets and calculates human-readable relative countdowns:

```python
# urgency.py: Classifying task urgency
from datetime import datetime, timezone

def calculate_urgency(due_date: datetime):
    now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
    delta = due_date - now

if delta.total_seconds() < 0:
 return "overdue", "Overdue", "error-color"
 elif delta.total_seconds() <= 3600 * 12:
 hours = max(1, int(delta.total_seconds() // 3600))
 return "due_today", f"Due in {hours} hours", "warning-color"
 elif delta.days <= 3:
 return "due_soon", f"Due in {delta.days} days", "accent-color"
 else:
 return "upcoming", due_date.strftime("%b %d, %H:%M"), "neutral-color"
```

In the GTK user interface, these urgency levels translate into visual badge colors and priority sorting, ensuring that critical tasks always sit at the top of the feed.

---

## 2. Interactive Libadwaita Desktop Widget

The user interface is structured around a dual-pane layout:

- **Left Pane (Monthly Calendar):** Built with `Gtk.Calendar`, rendering dots beneath days that have active assignments. Clicking any date filters the task list to that day.
- **Right Pane (Task Feed):** Features filter tabs (`Upcoming`, `Today`, `This Week`, `All`). Each item is rendered as an `Adw.ActionRow` containing the course title, assignment description, urgency badge, and a direct button:

```python
# widget.py snippet: One-click submission navigation
class AssignmentRow(Adw.ActionRow):
    def __init__(self, task):
        super().__init__(title=task.name, subtitle=task.course_name)
        
        open_btn = Gtk.Button(label="Open in Moodle")
        open_btn.connect("clicked", lambda _: Gio.AppInfo.launch_default_for_uri(task.url, None))
        self.add_suffix(open_btn)
```

Clicking *"Open in Moodle"* bypasses the home dashboard and opens the default browser directly to the file submission form.

---

## 3. Background Notification Daemon

Missing an assignment often happens when a student is engrossed in code or research and forgets to check the widget.

`everything-in-one-place` runs a lightweight background daemon that monitors upcoming deadlines and dispatches system notifications at configured intervals (e.g., 24 hours prior, 3 hours prior, and 30 minutes prior):

```python
# daemon.py snippet: Dispatching desktop alerts
import subprocess

def notify_user(task):
    subprocess.run([
        "notify-send",
        "-u", "critical",
        "-a", "Moodle Reminders",
        f"Upcoming Deadline: {task.name}",
        f"{task.course_name} is due in 2 hours! Click to submit."
    ])
```

---

## Conclusion

Personal utility software doesn't need to be complex to have an outsized impact on productivity. By pairing native Linux UI frameworks with automated scraping and scheduled alerts, `everything-in-one-place` transforms an opaque university portal into an actionable, ambient desktop companion.