TOPIC: Calendar module

Hi jfontana,

Sorry it's taken so long to respond--I've been on the road for a week.

I think the shortest answer to your question (how did I get GCal Daemon to work) is that I've been syncing only in one direction. I couldn't figure out mentally how a two-way configuration would work with TR involved, so I assumed there was no way it would work in terms of software code and decided never to add anything to Google Calendar. Instead, I just use it to represent what I've entered into TR.

It wasn't easy getting there either. I just kept trying different configurations until it finally worked. I can't recall what it was that finally did the trick. It sounds like you are way more sophisticated about these things than I am anyway. (I'm using Vista, by the way, if that's any help.)

Have I answered your question? If I haven't, please post a follow-up question and I'll do my best.

Hi,

No problem. Thanks for responding.

I have been able to figure out gCal daemon pretty well. It is useful but I won't be able to implement the system I had in mind. There are different kinds of problems.

One is that the iCal created by TR cannot be modified from an outside application. So if I add some event in Google Calendar, this won't make it into the TR iCal.

It's funny because I have the iCal created by Thinking rock (let's call it my TR calendar) as my default calendar in Thunderbird-Lightning (simply by linking the same file). When I run gCal daemon, I can see the events added in Google calendar in this calendar. So there is some two way synchronization going on and it seems that the TR calendar gets modified by gCal daemon.

However, when I open ThinkingRock and save it again, the entries that were added from Google calendar (or that I could have added from within Thunderbird-Lightning), disappear.

The other problems have to do with the application to sync Google calendar with Outlook. It has some serious problems. All of a sudden it tells you that a lot of events have been deleted from Google calendar and asks you if you want to delete them from Outlook. Some people have lost all their Outlook appointments because they clicked yes by mistake.

So the connection between ThinkingRock and my portable device is still a big problem which I don't know how to solve.

While the calendar would be cool I think it would bring with it a plethora of new functionality requests that are normally handled by a dedicated calendar app. As long as the focus remains on GTD and the built-in calendar is basically just another view of the data, I'm all for it.

I think it has been mentioned, but adding support for TR to handle emails which are meeting requests, both receiving and generating, would go a long way towards helping integration with other calendars. At least that's my best understanding right now.

I just started using TR and also need to have a visual view of my calendar events. I set the option to have TR export scheduled action data to an .ics file. I then use Mozilla Sunbird to open that file and keep it opened alongside TR. By changing the refresh option in Sunbird to reload every minute, I have a near-realtime calendar view of my TR scheduled actions.

This scheme works well for scheduled actions that have an intended start time. The problem I'm facing is for what David Allen calls day-specific actions--those that have to be completed on a given day, but not at any particular time. I often get requests to complete a task by "close of business," so I need to see these COB entries in my calendar view.

COB actions can map to a Sunbird "All Day Event." While not exactly the true meaning of an all-day event, I can live with it, for Sunbird does place such events at the top of the listing for any day in view. The problem is that TR has no "all day event" flag for Scheduled actions. They get created with a default start time of Midnight come over to Sunbird as as such. So giving TR scheduled actions a "Day-specific" flag and mapping that to the iCAl file would be good.

As a current work-around, I noticed in the TR help for the Calendar option:

The iCalendar file... will be populated with... Delegated Actions with a follow-up date as All Day Events...

So to make a day-specific / COB action, I'm currently using the practice of making such actions with Status = Delegated and including a follow-up date. For "real" delegated actions, I leave the Follow-up date blank and set a Due date instead, adjusting my Action Tabs accordingly.

I understand from the Forum that a new iCal export capability is in the works, and I'm looking forward to seeing that. In the meantime, I'm open to hear how others are handling the situation.

There have been interesting posts here so far how to get a functional calendar but the problem with external calendars to handle TR settings well seems still to be a problem. Why not having one more tag in the main window with a simple calendar. This calendar could be read-only. This simple read-only calendar would provide exactly the overview which is presently missing.

iPhone sync a breakthrough?

I don't know, how many people use / have one anyway? ;)
Maybe I will buy one, but for now, most users and potential users don't have one.
(I think :blush: )

Internal Calendar and Gantt charts views on the otherhand wiil improve a lot in terms of planning "visibilty". :blink:

The exchange between TR and Sunbird for instance, is very limited. :angry:

Just like in Actions view...
Sometimes I don't want to see certain projects or actions (meaning Context, priority or topic).
In Sunbird everything shows up.:woohoo:

Any news on the development plans? B)
ICS improvement or MigCalendar?