ForumsQuestionsiCal feed suggestion


iCal feed suggestion
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mike

Posted: Jul 07, 2009
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I currently use the iGoogle gadget to maintain my todo list but like to view the tasks along with appointments in Google Calendar so use the iCal feed. Almost everything about the feed is good but for one thing - I dislike the way multi-day tasks are implemented.

For example: each quarter I have to complete my company's Business Activity Statement - I have 28 days from the end of the quarter. As I like the warning, I set the start date to the first of (say) January and the due date to the 28th. Unfortunately this appears in Google calendar as a 28 day, all day event - add a few appointments and other tasks and it gets messy.

I'd like to suggest that an option be added for the iCal feed format to allow such tasks to display just on the current day and the due day with the due date pre/post-pended to the text so that today shows current tasks without cluttering up the surrounding ones.

The same principle could also be applied to overdue tasks - they continue to display on the due day but also stack up on the current day (with the due date displayed again) as a visible reminder.

The additional flexibility would, in my personal opinion, make a great tool truly excellent.

Cheers,
Anders

Posted: Jul 07, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Good ideas. I think the multi-day task thing would be difficult with Gcal simply because, at least for me, Gcal does a poor job of diplaying changed tasks. The best way I can describe it with my limited technical understanding is that their servers seem sticky. Once something is on there it is difficult to get it off. For instance if I delete a past task from Toodledo, it will stay on Gcal, most likely forever, though sometimes they eventually disappear. I would be interested to know if I am the only one who experiences these Gcal frustrations.
mike

Posted: Jul 07, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I've spent a little while looking at the iCal file format this evening and would suggest that the stickiness is purely that Google Calendar cannot remove a task simply because it disappears from the feed - without gCal recording and reconciling the source of each event, it's just not possible without the feed containing a 'Deleted' marker.

Moving a task should be less of a problem since each task contains (or is supposed to) a UID - therefore, as long as toodledo maintains a unique id for each task, gCal should be able to match up and therefore update a changing date.

Given the 'sticky' problem, it is probably more appropriate just to have one moving task entry for each task rather than one of the due date and one on the current.

I haven't managed to test it fully yet as I can't seem to get gCal to accept my test data files at the moment - keep getting "Processed zero events." but I'll try a few alternatives and let you know my results.


This message was edited Jul 07, 2009.
Anders

Posted: Jul 07, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Thanksfor the info.
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