IcalSrv clients status and supported features

Author:
JVL
Date:
20060427
Version:
0.9.37
Todo:
edit and update the IcalSrv client information document. Especially with info on the two use case scenarios.
On this page you will find some first reports on the use of Egroupware and IcalSrv with specific clients.

A short note on supported features in the clients

Whether some feature, like e.g. importing recurrent events from a specific client into Egroupware is supported or not, can in principle depend on three things: 1) does the client allow setting this, 2) does egroupware provide a method for setting and using this and finally 3) is the IcalSrv service capable of converting this specific info from the client to egw and possibly vice versa?

A small example of a week view in Egroupware

In Egroupware I filled a week calendar with

egwcalweek-small.jpg

The egw calendar filled in weekview

And in Egroupware Infolog I added a Task and a subtask

This shows up in egroupware as in the picture below:

egwinfolog-small.jpg

The egw infolog list view with 2 tasks

Client: Korganizer 3.5.0 (or Kontact)

Korganizer is the KDE agenda and todo client. I used the 3.5.0 version for most of the testing (so it should work well ;-) )

Korganizer: setting up a "remote icalendar".

To access the IcalSrv for Egroupware calendar and tasks, you have to add a socalled kresource to the resources. You can do this either via a wizzard or by doing an Add(resource) in the left-under pane.

The resource must be of the type remote iCalendar and for reading and writing the same URL should be used. When done so, both events and tasks will get imported and exported from Korganizer via the same kresource.

Korganizer: handling Authentication

To authenticate to the IcalSrv from within korganizer. you can just set the Download From and Upload To fields of the created kresource to one and the same URL as something like: http://myserver.myorg.org/egroupware/icalsrv.php

Later on, when you do a reload or a save, a popup window will appear that ask you for authentication info. Fill this in and set "remember info on local computer" or so and your done.

Korganizer: Reloading and Publishing

Can be configured as automatic, time triggered or manual.

.....TBW....... Below an excerpt from a posting of mine:

However for using it as a handy and fast remote (semi online) interface for EGW, as alternative to the webbrowser, icalsrv works great. IMHO...

Korganizer: week view of the example.

Korganizer connected via IcalSrv to our example account in Egroupware show us the view below:

korganizerweek-small.jpg

Korganizer weekview via the remote icalsrv connected to egroupware.

Notice that:

Korganizer: problems

....TBW...

Client: Sunbird

Sunbird is the standalone calendar application from the Mozilla project.

.....TBW....

Sunbird: setting up a calendar.

......

Sunbird: handling Authentication

....TBW........

Sunbird: Reloading and Publishing

............

Sunbird: Week view of the example.

On connecting Sunbird to our egw account via icalsrv, this gives us the view below:

sunbirdweek-small.jpg

Sunbird weekview via the remote icalsrv connected to egroupware.

Notice that:

Sunbird: problems

Evolution 2.x

Evolution provides in its 2.x versions utilities to handle calendars and tasks. For some strange reason it seems that in the versions that I tried (v2. ??) only reading from remote iCalendars is implemented!

For implementing writing via iCalendar there even seems to be a pending bounty available... (status: end 2005) Strange if you know that evo does have a more or less working caldav-plugin..

Evolution: setting up a "On The Web Calendar".

Both Calendars and Tasks can be read using, what Evolution calls the webcal protocol. To setup a remote calendar do the following:

Evolution: handling Authentication.

You can authenticate to the IcalSrv from within evolution by setting in the properties field of a (remote) calendar the URL as something like: webcal://username:passwd@myserver.myorg.org/egroupware/icalsrv.php

I didnot find any other method.

Evolution: setting up remote tasks

Setting up task access via IcalSrv is quite analoguous to the "On the web" calendar setup:

Go to the Tasks pane, select new tasklist, select "On the Web". Then via the properties menu of the new "on The Web"-tasklist set the correct URL again.

Evolution: Reloading and Publishing

There seems to be no direct manual reload available, though quitting the application and restarting online work seems to do a reload too.

Automatic (repeatedly after some duration) reloads can be set.

Evolution: week view of the example.

Evolution connected to our egw example account , gives the view below:

evolutionweek-small.jpg

Evolution weekview via the remote icalsrv connected to egroupware.

Notice that the task hierarchy display (task and subtasks) and the percentage complete is not available in Evolution.

Evolution: problems

....TBW....

Apple Ical client

The famous client for the mac: iCal see http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ical/

Apple Ical client warnings

Here are some observations (thanks to sfque)

Outlook with RemoteCalendars plugin

Since early 2006 there is a sourceforge project that leverages the Outlook2003 program by providing a plugin to do ical over http:

Outlook with RemoteCalendars-plugin see http://sourceforge.net/projects/remotecalendars

......

Further Clients

... I hope to get reports of other clients too.

Good luck.

JVL

etc.


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