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Use Your Mac to Share iCal Calendars

Posted by pudge on from the diy dept.

mcwetboy writes "Calendar publishing with iCal requires a .Mac membership or a WebDAV server. Most ISPs and hosting companies don't offer WebDAV -- or at least mine don't -- but you can run WebDAV under Apache on your Mac, and publish calendars and share them among a local network or among multiple users of a single computer. Already two different tutorials explaining how to do this have appeared on the Web: this one at Mac OS X Hints and this one courtesy of Shawn Wall. I'm sure Slashdot readers could offer even more suggestions." I set up mod_dav for the first time within an hour of downloading iCal the other day, with help from this article. Now, if only iCal weren't really slow and buggy ...

20 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. WebDAV and PHP by qengho · · Score: 3, Informative

    I kept getting XML errors when restarting httpd after enabling WebDAV. Turns out it's a conflict between Marc Liyanage's otherwise excellent PHP4 module for OS X.

    If you need to run both WebDAV and php, use Apple's php module.

  2. Using FTP to upload calendars instead of WebDAV by wka · · Score: 2, Informative
    calSync, a shareware application, allows uploading of iCal calendars via FTP instead of webdav. iCal FTP is a freeware app that does the same thing.

    I haven't tried either. Reviews for each (calSync, iCal FTP) on VersionTracker are mixed.

  3. Calenders served by Apple by cbuskirk · · Score: 2

    Apple has a decent selection of calenders up on their site at . They have lots of great sports and movie release calenders that you can subscribe to for free.

    1. Re:Calenders served by Apple by rakerman · · Score: 2

      except apparently we hard-working Canadians have no holidays

    2. Re:Calenders served by Apple by daeley · · Score: 2

      Check out my last journal entry, with a link to get the Canadian holidays. Also, I put together NHL season schedules for each team for download, also linked there. :)

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  4. Privacy, privacy, privacy by adb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Apple promised WebDAV over SSL in Jaguar, but didn't deliver as far as I can tell. I'm stuck dragging stuff back and forth to Goliath instead of being able to edit it directly in Emacs, and I can't use my secure WebDAV server to share my iCal with only my friends rather than everybody. This is terrifically irritating.

    1. Re:Privacy, privacy, privacy by foobar104 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you care so much about your personal calendar that you're concerned about transport-level encryption and digital certificates, your priorities may be completely out of whack. Better have them checked out by a qualified professional soonest.

    2. Re:Privacy, privacy, privacy by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      Dude, I think you said it best yourself:

      I can't imagine what conclusion a rational person would draw, being myself a stark raving paranoid loon.

      That pretty much says it all, I think.

    3. Re:Privacy, privacy, privacy by alangmead · · Score: 2

      You can run OS X's WebDAV client over non-standard ports, so you could run something like stunnel on the local machine to SSL encrypt the data before going to the web server.

  5. In a related story... by MoneyT · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Calendar Makers Association of America (CMAA) has filed a lawsuit against Apple for promoting the illegal sharing of calenders over the internet.

    Said a representative of the CMAA:
    "We can not allow the distribution of content without properly compensating the original creators."

    --
    T Money
    World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
  6. Another tutorial by mcwetboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    For the record, here's another iCal/WebDAV tutorial (via Forwarding Address: OS X ). They're cropping up all over the place, aren't they? Looks like quite a few people have decided that local publishing would be nice to have.

  7. Viewing on the web. by sammy.lost-angel.com · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd like the ability to view iCals on the web like .Mac lets you do. I already have the webdav server set up a la iDisk (from months ago). However, I need a pretty display program. I really don't have the time to do it myself right now, so are there any perl/php modules that can do this and have it look pretty?

    1. Re:Viewing on the web. by babbage · · Score: 4, Informative
      Check out Net::ICal, by Shane Landrum. The module hasn't been updated in a while, but now that Apple is basing this [apparently wildly popular] software around interfhance of .ical format files, it may get moving again. Net::ICal is available via CPAN, but also take a look at reefknot.org, the development site for Net::ICal & related materials. Lots of links, sample code, reference material, etc. there.

      Like everyone else in the Mac/Unix world, I'm finding this stuff fascinating and am trying to figure out how I can get interchange running between things like iCal, my Palm Pilot, my work-mandated Lotus Notes account, and other fun things on the side. iCal seems like a decent switchboard for a lot of these ideas, but automatiing things with Perl &/or Applescript is also going to be essential....

      --
      DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
    2. Re:Viewing on the web. by beagle · · Score: 2

      I totally agree. My company uses a homegrown calendar program, and I'm trying to get the IS director to allot some of my time to build a vCalendar interface so that those of us with OS X (i.e. the entire IS department) can use iCal and can sync our calendars with our PDAs.

      Like the user to whose post you replied, I too am looking for an ICS-enabled web calendar similar to the very nice one at .Mac. The only reason I want to use another is for security -- I want to be able to control who can look at my calendar.

      I found Net::ICal and Date::ICal, and I'm starting to look at them now. I know others are working on something simlar, in PHP. I set up my own WebDAV server, so now the only missing part is the ICS file parser.

      As for iCal & WebDAV calendar publishing: in traditional Apple fashion, they have taken applications many people want and use, and have made them work together, and beautifully so. It's just amazing, and the possibilities are endless.

  8. I need shared calendering on Mac and Linux. by bmetzler · · Score: 2

    Windows would help too, although I'm not too concerned about that. Oh, and I need to be able to sync it with my Zaurus. Can iCal do this?

    1. Re:I need shared calendering on Mac and Linux. by foobar104 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I have the perfect solution for you! It's something new that allows you to use your calendar while sitting in front of any computer; you can view it, add appointments, to-do items, or free-form notes quickly and easily, with total privacy and security, using an amazingly intuitive user interface!

      Check it out!

      (HHOS)

  9. Mozilla Calendar supports iCalendar/WebDAV also by lcarstensen · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'm suprised no one mentioned the Mozilla Calendar project's announcement and roadmap this week. This was posted to netscape.public.mozilla.calendar on news.mozilla.org.


    Hello everyone!

    Well, its been a long time coming, but I think that the calendar is finally at a release that I consider to be relatively stable, and that performs well. The XPI that is available right now fixes many selection problems, reads in Apple's iCal files from http://www.apple.com/ical/library/ and allows users to publish their events back to a webDAV enabled server. I'm calling this release 0.8.

    What this means:
    The 0.8 XPI will remain on the website until we release 0.9. We will continue to make XPIs available as they need to be (daily, weekly, whatever) but they may be more unstable than the 0.8 release.

    At the same time, we will work towards putting the calendar into the Mozilla default builds. Build issues are being resolved now, and we should be ready to go soon. I imagine we'll see calendar in Mozilla by their 1.5 release (I hope, and assuming all goes well).

    The 0.9 Mozilla calendar release will coincide with turning the calendar on by default in nightly builds.

    The 1.0 calendar release will hopefully coicide with the 1.5 release of Mozilla, at which point our numbering system will jump up and match theirs.

    Hopefully soon we'll have the target milestones in bugzilla. We will start to prioritize the bugs and see which bugs must be fixed for 0.9 and 1.0, and which ones can wait.

    Thanks. The latest XPIs are linked off the website. The 0.8 XPIs are available at:
    http://www.oeone.com/files/calendar08_linux.x pi
    http://www.oeone.com/files/calendar08_windows. xpi

    Mike

    Mike Potter
    Software Developer, OEone Corp.
    Mozilla Calendar Project
    http://www.oeone.com
  10. mod_digest and mod_auth_digest by nickovs · · Score: 2

    Since Jaguar has failed to provide the promised WebDAV over SSL support I'd like to get a little more security regarding the control of publishing versions of my calendar file. Since the published calendar is going to be public I'm not too fussed about who can see the file itself but I would like to use something other than Basic Auth to control access so that the password is not sent in the clear.

    Has anyone out there got mod_digest or mod_auth_digest to work with the OS 10.2 WebDAV? I'm using Apache 1.3.22 on a Linux server and I either get a "Password mismatch" if I use the older mod_digest or I get and "invalid nonce" error if I use the more recent mod_auth_digest.

    If anyone out there has got this working I'd love to know what you did.

    --
    If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
    1. Re:mod_digest and mod_auth_digest by nickovs · · Score: 2

      Did you get this working with iCal, or just with the Finder WebDAV mounting? I got it to go on the Finder but it still fails when I try to publish from iCal.

      --
      If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
  11. Re:ical, address book clutter by Knobby · · Score: 2

    Apple could make one application that bundles all these things together, by why would you want that? If I want to write a mail client that shares information with address book and iCal, I can without having to deal with Mail.app. Each application should be small, well suited to a particular set of tasks, and easily tied to other applications.. Apple's doing this pretty well..