iCalendar Subscribe

Just a few weeks ago I finished TPcal. One of the features of TPcal is that you can subscribe to your calendars from any iCalendar capable application. Being an avid Mac OS X user, I sought to find a dashboard widget that could handle an iCalendar subscription. The closest thing I found was iCal Events, but using that I had to subscribe to my calendars from Apple's iCal, and then launch iCal once a day so this widget could update. Since I could not find anyone else who has done this, I set off to create my own widget.

This is the first widget I have ever created, so it was a nice learning experience. The widget works by making a call to a ruby script that retrieves the iCalendar, parses it, and returns the output as html. Rather than writing my own iCalendar parser, I made use of the Ruby Gem iCalendar. Right now it only shows non-recurring VEVENTS, but I might add more functionality to it later (ie: VTODO)

If you need help, encounter an error, want to make a suggestion, or just say "hey", shoot me an e-mail. I've also created a help page that should clarify what an iCalendar is, and what TPcal is

• • iCalendar URL
  • The URL of the iCalendar file that you want to display
• • Days to show
  • Show events up to this many days out from today
• • Display Name
  • Simply the text that shows at the top of the widget. It is useful to give each calendar a unique display name when you have multiple instances of the widget running
• • Update Interval
  • Automatically retrieve an updated calendar this often
• • Font
  • The font that will be used to display the events
• • Color
  • The color scheme that the widget will use (see below)
• • Show end time / duration
  • If this is checked, the end time or the duration of the event will be displayed in italics underneath. According to the icalendar standard events can either have an end-time, a duration, or neither. I haven't seen too many calendars that are making use of duration, but the option is there should you want it.

→ Download iCalendar Subscribe 1.3 - (9/3/2007)

• • Fixed bug that didn't allow certain characters (ex: &) in URLs

→ Download iCalendar Subscribe 1.2 - (7/11/2007) - updates include

• • Choose from any font you have installed
• • Choose from one of 8 color schemes
• • Automatically checks for new version
• • Option to show end-times & durations
• • Handling of webcal:// URLs
• • Various Bug Fixes

"Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is required. If you're using Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget's icon in the Widget Bar to open it. If you're using a browser other than Safari, click the download link. When the widget download is complete, unarchive it and place it in /Library/Widgets/ in your home folder. Show Dashboard, click the Plus sign to display the Widget Bar and click the widget's icon in the Widget Bar to open it."