ThinkingRock Forum

In version 1.2.3, I was able to name a specific iCal file, not just pathname, to save my calendar to. In this way I was able to create a calendar in iCal, and specify the corestorage.ics file that iCal had created as the output file from TR. Doing this, all my task, scheduled or not, automagically appeared in iCal, and thence into my Google calendar via Spanning Sync - wonderful.

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work in version 2.0. Even allowing for the fact that the current version doesn't allow spaces in the file pathname, I cannot specify a filename, only a path, and then the file 'thinking-rock.ics' is created.

Was what I was doing in 1.2.3 a feature, or a lucky accident, and either way, is this going to be recreated in a later version of 2.0?? (Please...)

Thanks, and keep up the good work,

Rimoff

It was a lucky accident.

I am completely ignorant about iCal (sorry cannot know everything) so could you explain why the default name 'thinking-rock.ics' is not good and what you need/did in v1.2.3. Your solution, including importing into Google calendar (which has been requested many times), seems great so if you let us know what you do and what you require, we will try to include it 'back'.

Thanks,

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Claire
ThinkingRock Analyst and Tester

Just curious - when does it make an iCal file? Is it automatic or does the user have to do something?

The iCalendar file is created after each data file save - if the user preferences are set to do so.

I think that the ability to specify a file name was deliberate but was somehow lost in the move to 2.0. I think it will use the data file name with the ics extension at the moment.

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ThinkingRock Developer

Jeremy,
Which preferences are you referring to in order to publish after each data file save? In the Misc Calendar area I only see a publish folder.
Thanks.

There is also the "Publish iCalendar file" check box - which if checked the iCalendar file will be created.

When a calendar is created in iCal (Mac OS), it creates a file called corestorage.ics, in /username/library/Application Support/iCal/Sources/calendarID.calendar/

The calendar ID seems to be generated by iCal, and how it is generated is a mystery to me. By having TR 1.2.3 write the file in that location, with the correct name, the file created by iCal is overwritten, and the TR items then show up in iCal....

It's kind of a cludge, but it was working pretty good for me in the previous version. Obviously it is a one-way thing, in that if you add something to the calendar in iCal, it doesn't show up in TR, and will disappear next time TR writes the file, but it is still handy.

Rimoff

bidirectional iCal support is something I'd really like to see someday.

It is on the list. Don't worry. For release 2.1.

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Claire
ThinkingRock Analyst and Tester

Wow, really? I'm thrilled!

yes!! PLEASE!!
and usable with google-calender (ical)!

Hi everyone,

I have a possible workaround for the iCal integration:

- Go to the System Preferences > Sharing and activate Personal Web Sharing. This activates the Web Server inside OS X, so you can access any file on your harddrive via http.
- Go to iCal, Menu Calendar > Subscribe...
- Enter "http://localhost/~yourusername/pathtofile/thinking-rock.ics", eg. for me it was "http://localhost/~duchovka/Sites/thinking-rock.ics"

This subscribes to the calendar. Don't turn off the subscriptions to the Events, set it to automatically refresh every 15 minutes, so everything should be in sync.

Please post your experiences, because it works for me but there might be some issues with the permissions to read certain folders via http, perhaps I can help resolving them.

I am very much looking forward to a bidirectional support for iCal, too!

And btw for everyone who wants to sync to Google Calendar, too, there is a beta of a promising application named gSync at http://www.macness.com/blog/

I'm thrilled as well to hear that the two-way synchronizing of iCal files made it in the upcoming features list.



For those interested in a bidirectional iCal <-> Google Calendar (gCal) integration, you might want to take a look at GCalDaemon (http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net/)

Some notable features:

Open source and completely free of charge
OS-independent standalone application (Java 1.5)
Bidirectional sync between iCalendar and Google Calendar
View and edit your Google Calendar offline

charlieMOGUL

Thx a lot! After some problems I got it to work. Seems like this does not work with the users nickname nor with a username containing spaces. And I still do not know where I find "~" on my macbook pro

Volker

If the username contains spaces, just replace the spaces with %20, like on a normal website.
On the german mac-keyboard, the "~" is alt-n followed by a space.

Glad you got it to work. It's actually not my invention, I found it somewhere in this forum, but I thought it matches the topic, so I put it here, to so more people might find it.
In the original post, it mentions that with this workaround, everyone on the internet might be able to see this .ics file. For me, this is not true, because I'm behind a router, but you might check this for your setting, too, if you are concerned.