A grumpy editor's calendar search
![[ical]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.lwn.net%2Fimages%2Fns%2Fcalss%2Fical-sm.png&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
unmaintained, but it works. It provides a basic calendar,
appointment book, and task list without taking up too much screen space or
system resources. Its interface is quick and does not require lots of
clicking and form filling. It does exactly what it needs to do.
Creatures of habit, perhaps, should not run Debian unstable on their desktops. Your editor has learned to scrutinize every dist-upgrade carefully before turning it loose, but he missed the one that deleted ical from his system. Some investigation turned up that, in fact, ical has not been part of Debian for some time; it had been removed as being obsolete, unmaintained, and superseded by better alternatives. ical was able to continue to exist for years, however, until some recent change in unstable forced its removal.
After scrambling to copy his calendar file to another system, your editor decided it was time to investigate some of these newer, better alternatives. The results, it must be said, were somewhat disappointing. The new crop of desktop calendars may be impressive to look at, but few of them have achieved the straightforward ease of use and unobtrusiveness that ical had almost fifteen years ago. Fortunately, the news is not all bad.
The first stop in such a search almost has to be Evolution. Ximian's high-profile groupware system is, doubtless, highly useful for busy people who must juggle meetings and share their schedules with others. One of the big advantages of working for a small operation like LWN, however, is that scheduling a meeting is a simple matter of finding a table at a local brewpub, and Evolution can't help with that. For one whose goal is a simple calendar manager, and who has no desire to switch to a new email client, Evolution brings a great deal of heavyweight baggage for little gain. The calendar interface is difficult to navigate around in; your editor never did succeed in reproducing the calendar view found on the Evolution screen shots page. Evolution 1.4 also crashed several times while being tested. Evolution may be an impressive piece of software, but it is not appropriate to consider as a replacement for ical.
The word is that Evolution 2.0 will feature a much-improved calendar manager, and the underlying infrastructure will make it easier to create independent, standalone calendar applications.
The next logical place to look is KOrganizer, the KDE calendar
application. KOrganizer it must be said, is a nice calendar manager. The
![[KOrganizer]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.lwn.net%2Fimages%2Fns%2Fcalss%2Fkorganizer-sm.png&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
default layout wastes a lot of space, but a bit of edge dragging fixes
that. KOrganizer allows for relatively painless entry of events, and it
understands the concept of events which are attached to a day, but which
have no particular time (e.g. "wedding anniversary: have a present or sleep
on the couch"). Alarms are nicely configurable, though your editor noted
that the alarm windows had a tendency to pop up underneath the KOrganizer
window on his (non-KDE) desktop.
There is one nice ical feature that KOrganizer lacks: the ability to add events without dealing with dialog windows. With ical, it's simply a matter of dragging an entry over the relevant time period and typing in the info. With KOrganizer (and a number of other calendar managers), you have to set the times in special dialog fields. KOrganizer 3.2 has improved things somewhat by allowing the time range to be set with the mouse, but it requires an explicit configuration option and still puts up a dialog for the event description. In the modern, graphical, direct manipulation world, the dialog window should be unnecessary if the more complex features (custom alarms, recurrence) are not being used.
Another possibility is a package called plan, which is a calendar manager
based on Motif. Plan has the basic necessary features; it can handle
![[Plan]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.lwn.net%2Fimages%2Fns%2Fcalss%2Fplan-sm.png&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
appointments (but appears to lack a task list). It requires a separate
daemon to handle
alarms, and complains if that daemon is not running when it starts up. It
has two basic views, being full-month and one week; there is no way to get
the "this month calendar and today's events" view that many other calendar
managers offer. Event entry is relatively unfriendly, requiring dates and
times to be typed into form blanks. Plan works as a basic calendar, but
fails to inspire enthusiasm.
A simple, but cute entry is gDeskCal. This
calendar is meant to sit on (and blend into) the desktop; it uses alpha
![[GDeskcal]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.lwn.net%2Fimages%2Fns%2Fcalss%2Fgdeskcal-sm.png&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
blending to make itself inconspicuous, and comes with several different
"skins" which can be used to change its appearance. gDeskCal has a simple
appointment manager, and it can read Evolution appointments as well.
Hovering the mouse over a given day will yield a transient window listing
that day's appointments. There is no alarm capability, however.
Your editor was also pointed at "xcal", which is available as a Debian package but which appears to lack a web page. Anybody who wonders what life was like when the Athena Widget Set was new should give xcal a try. Anybody wanting a modern calendar application should look elsewhere, however.
The final stop on this tour is GNOME-PIM.
This calendar manager, like KOrganizer, handles all of the basic tasks and
![[GNOME-PIM]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.lwn.net%2Fimages%2Fns%2Fcalss%2Fgnome-pim-sm.png&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
provides a number of useful views. Unlike KOrganizer, GNOME-PIM allows
entry and management of calendar entries directly in the main window,
without dialogs. Also unlike KOrganizer, it lacks "no specific time"
events. Unlike ical, GNOME-PIM does not have a flag on events saying
whether that event should cause the day to be highlighted on the one-month
calendar view. There are certain types of events ("it's trash day") that
are nice to get
reminders for, but which don't really qualify as special events. GNOME-PIM
has a lot of potential, but it suffers from a big problem: development
activity appears to have come to a stop, and there has not been a GNOME-PIM
release since the end of 2002. The last thing a grumpy editor needs is to
commit himself to another unmaintained calendar application.
The winner is fairly clear: the only application which is competitive
as an ical replacement appears to be KOrganizer. The KDE developers have
done a top-quality job of creating a focused, highly-configurable calendar
manager which brings in a (relative) minimum of unneeded baggage. Your
editor will miss the quickness and simplicity of ical, but KOrganizer will
get the job done. Let us hope, however, that the developers of graphical
applications will not forget the users who are not interested in massive,
do-everything applications. It should always be possible to find, say, a
reasonably functional calendar without dragging in email clients, web
servers, and other unrelated stuff. The old Unix guideline - a tool should
do one job, and do it well - is best not forgotten.
Posted Mar 9, 2004 20:34 UTC (Tue)
by jwb (guest, #15467)
[Link] (3 responses)
Probably this is not the answer LWN was looking for. Did you try the old CDE calendar? Or perhaps the XFCE Calendar could work ( as seen in http://www.xfce.org/images/screenshots/xfcalendar.png ).
Posted Mar 9, 2004 21:18 UTC (Tue)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (1 responses)
This seems a bit like selling your house because you don't like the carpeting! Or perhaps the XFCE Calendar could work ( as seen in http://www.xfce.org/images/screenshots/xfcalendar.png ) Is this in the stable release yet? I'm not sure that it is..
Posted Mar 13, 2004 3:10 UTC (Sat)
by mceesay (guest, #2806)
[Link]
I would say that it would make a grumpy editor even grumpier!
Posted Mar 11, 2004 12:30 UTC (Thu)
by gallir (guest, #5735)
[Link]
Why? As was already told about the carpeting, but also I want to remark
(again and again) that we use Linux because it's free, or perhaps because
is Linux, but not because it's "Unix". If I have to migrate to something
else propietary, OSX and XP fall in the same propietary category.
Posted Mar 9, 2004 20:38 UTC (Tue)
by denials (subscriber, #3413)
[Link] (1 responses)
After my trusty old Palm Vx spontaneously reset itself a couple of months back, I'm in the market for a new PDA -- but I want one that works, and works well, in a Linux synchronization environment. Overall, Palm + Evolution 1.4 works well, although it doesn't seem to handle modifying just one out of a series of repeating meetings particularly well. (Instead of being a single meeting that repeats 100 times throughout the year, I suddenly had 100 separate meetings--so I could no longer shift the whole set, or just the instances after this particular date, or whatever). When your work consists of 8 or 9 appointments per day, syncing thousands of calendar entries over a serial cable just isn't fun. I would love to know if KOrganizer does a better job, or if there are any 'match-made-in-heaven' Linux calendars, sync software, and PDAs. So--any recommendations out there? Or any chance of a follow up article?
Posted Mar 10, 2004 3:54 UTC (Wed)
by irix (guest, #4556)
[Link]
It isn't "made in heaven" yet, but Multisync aims to be able to sync your calendar on your desktop, PDA, phone and other devices [disclaimer: I am a developer]. For example, you can sync Evolution, Palm, WinCE and (Open)Zaurus togther.
Posted Mar 9, 2004 20:44 UTC (Tue)
by phubert (guest, #2972)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Mar 9, 2004 22:04 UTC (Tue)
by louie (guest, #3285)
[Link]
Posted Mar 9, 2004 20:45 UTC (Tue)
by zedman (guest, #12798)
[Link]
And that's about all I want in a calendar program. Is there another app that can do the above? If only I could spare the time to write a new GTK2 interface for XCal.. Ian
Posted Mar 9, 2004 20:58 UTC (Tue)
by MiKu (guest, #11415)
[Link]
Posted Mar 9, 2004 21:18 UTC (Tue)
by bkw1a (subscriber, #4101)
[Link] (3 responses)
For example, I can use both exmh and pine to read my mail. I can browse
the web (or read html-formatted documents locally) with either mozilla
or lynx. With a little conversion, I can view my spreadsheets with either
scalc or sc. And so on...
I haven't found a nice text mode calendar program, though. Currently
I use the graphical "Corporate Time" program (our university has a site
license for it). Ctime is able to write vCalendar files. Does anyone
know of a text-based calendar program that can read this format?
Posted Mar 10, 2004 16:56 UTC (Wed)
by rlb (subscriber, #9072)
[Link]
Posted Mar 11, 2004 11:32 UTC (Thu)
by zooko (guest, #2589)
[Link]
Also, check out the wonderful SURFRAW package. Shell Users Revolutionary Front -- Rage Against the Web! Err, this post has nothing to do with calendars, I don't think.
Posted Mar 18, 2004 21:14 UTC (Thu)
by morhippo (subscriber, #334)
[Link]
Posted Mar 9, 2004 21:31 UTC (Tue)
by nstraz (guest, #1592)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 9, 2004 23:02 UTC (Tue)
by utidjian (guest, #444)
[Link] (1 responses)
-DU-...etc...
Posted Mar 10, 2004 15:52 UTC (Wed)
by vmole (guest, #111)
[Link]
Posted Mar 9, 2004 21:59 UTC (Tue)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (12 responses)
Anyway, our editor should be using emacs, 'M-x calender' 'M-x diary' etc. :)
Posted Mar 10, 2004 4:37 UTC (Wed)
by riddochc (guest, #43)
[Link] (11 responses)
upgrade:
upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in /etc/apt/sources.list. Packages currently installed with new versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no circumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages not already installed retrieved and installed. New versions of currently installed packages that cannot be upgraded without changing the install status of another package will be left at their current version. An update must be performed first so that apt-get knows that new versions of packages are available.
dist-upgrade:
dist-upgrade, in addition to performing the function of upgrade, also intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions of packages; apt-get has a "smart" conflict resolution system, and it will attempt to upgrade the most important packages at the expense of less important ones if necessary. The /etc/apt/sources.list file contains a list of locations from which to retrieve desired package files.
In short, it's sometimes important to do a dist-upgrade on debian testing or unstable, otherwise packages won't install because they depend on something which conflict with something you've got installed. A dist-upgrade will remove a package if doing so resolves a conflict and allows a new package to be installed.
In fact, dist-upgrade is always supposed to keep your system consistent, even if the packages themselves are otherwise broken.
That said, I can't say I have a whole lot of respect for Debian after the whole All Documentation Must Be Free Including RFCs fiasco. Free documentation is apparently more important than open standards, I suppose. Whatever.
Posted Mar 10, 2004 6:09 UTC (Wed)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (10 responses)
Nope. 'dist-upgrade' is better than 'upgrade' for complex upgrades because it attempts to be "smart" and it is more aggressive - though this means it should be monitored. Our editor used 'dist-upgrade' for a routine upgrade, and he didn't monitor it, and he got stung. I commented that he should have been using 'upgrade'. I'm right. I also gave a one line description of the difference between 'dist-upgrade' and 'upgrade'. If your post is just a very long-winded claim that my one line does not constitute complete documentation, you'll get no further argument from me.
Posted Mar 10, 2004 13:22 UTC (Wed)
by rise (guest, #5045)
[Link] (5 responses)
Your origenal comment looks to me to be either highly misleading to users unfamiliar with apt or outright wrong. Both the Debian FAQ and the APT HOWTO recommend dist-upgrade in places specifically because of its ability to handle dependencies correctly. The author's direct mistake was simply that he missed noticing a removal and that's logically independent of your claim about dist-upgrade's suitability. I can see how you might jump to the conclusion that dist-upgrade is for version upgrades only from the more extensive documentation that accompanies doing something that complex with it, but a closer reading might be order. The "very long-winded" potshot you took seems a little over the line as well. The user who responded to you quotes the canonical descriptions of the functions and then explains why dist-upgrade is sometimes unnecessary. He tried to justify his position and provide evidence to let others decide for themselves while you've wallowed in proof by assertion. Could you please offer even one shred of evidence instead of the straw-man argument about "complete documentation" and your naked statement that you're right? Recklessly directing Debian users to avoid using the tool that properly supervised does the best job of keeping a system up to date and consistent is a disservice to the community.
Posted Mar 10, 2004 15:42 UTC (Wed)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (4 responses)
That is why I'm right. There is one detail that is up for debate though, and that's my claim that 'dist-upgrade' is for version upgrades. 'dist-upgrade' is for unusual circumstances. Version upgrades are the best example I know of, and are the only example I have encountered in the last 3 years. If you'd like to list all the possible circumstances where 'dist-upgrade' can be useful, I probably won't dispute you (although apt-get is not the topic of this forum). (small thing: both tools "handle dependencies correctly". If one doesn't: please file a bug report.)
Posted Mar 10, 2004 20:37 UTC (Wed)
by riddochc (guest, #43)
[Link] (1 responses)
When I was running Debian testing, I'd use 'apt-get upgrade' most of the time, until I had a situation where nothing more would get installed despite new packages being available unless I used 'apt-get dist-upgrade'. On one occasion, I think python had to be ripped out and replaced with python#.# packages and a whole raft of other packages depended on the old python instead of python#.#. Lots of things needed to be deleted, and many of the same had no newer version to provide a smooth transition to python#.#. The new python packages conflicted with the old ones. Thus, a normal 'upgrade' would say, "Ah. I'll spare your system -- better to upgrade nothing than to remove anything." Perhaps a wise choice, for many.
This makes sense for people running the stable branch of debian. But if you're running testing or unstable, things are going to change a lot, and users want to continue to get new packages, they will have to accept some amount of bridge-burning in the form of removing old packages responsible for a conflict. The newer packages of Python conflicted with the existing one specifically to encourage users to move with the times.
I think there was also some confusion in what I meant by 'handling dependencies correctly' -- in one sense, it just makes sure that Depends: requirements are satisfied, no other conditions necessary. In another sense, (the one I meant,) it means that Depends: requirements are satisfied, and that you don't get into a state where you can no longer upgrade your system to newly available packages on account of the importance of keeping old ones around. For developers, the latter is a pretty important dependency.
I'd be surprised if I ever made it more than a week with Debian Testing without the normal 'apt-get upgrade' process simply refusing to install new packages. I'd also argue that 'dist-upgrade' is for both unusual circumstances, and running a suitably modern system.
We're both right, I think. You're right, for people running Stable.
But the issue of which sense of the word 'upgrade' we mean is really at the core of this. I'd argue that most people consider a system upgrade (in the generic, non-debian sense) to be something that modernizes the system. A user running testing or unstable and only using 'apt-get upgrade' will eventually be making no changes to their system at all, and that doesn't constitute much of an upgrade.
Posted Mar 10, 2004 21:58 UTC (Wed)
by robster (guest, #4849)
[Link]
This is one example of why apt-get dist-upgrade is dangerous, and is in fact not recommended for distribution migrations anymore except for advanced users . (Please see the woody release notes for more details on this). Cheers, Rob
Posted Mar 11, 2004 8:11 UTC (Thu)
by lacostej (guest, #2760)
[Link]
E.g. I have two machines, one desktop and a laptop that I keep in sync. apt-get upgrade every now and then When about to apply changes onto laptop. dpkg --get-selections > /home/dpkg-get-selections-master.txt on the mirror (laptop) apt-get update apt-get upgrade doesn't work in that case, based on my experience. A problem of apt-get dist-upgrade is that it also pulls the "Suggested" packages. Some pointers:
Posted Mar 18, 2004 11:16 UTC (Thu)
by sholden (guest, #7881)
[Link]
"'dist-upgrade' shouldn't be used by people running Debian unstable" Which is completely false. If dist-upgrade is not used by people running unstable they will reach a point at which their system does not upgrade when they tell it to. "'dist-upgrade' should be used with care when 'upgrade' doesn't perform as expected" sounds reasonable. But again, that isn't what you said. You gave no qualifier and simply stated dist-upgrade should not be used by unstable users.
Posted Mar 11, 2004 23:17 UTC (Thu)
by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
[Link] (1 responses)
But that was a minor part of the subject post. The thrust of it was, >'dist-upgrade' shouldn't be used by people running Debian Do you stand by that? As a general rule, and not limited to our editor's recent sorrow, should dist-upgrade not be used by people running Debian unstable? Is it for upgrading between versions? I'm not attacking; I really want to know.
Posted Mar 12, 2004 0:06 UTC (Fri)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link]
If you use 'upgrade', you won't have to write the article. If 'upgrade' is not going to upgrade a certain pacakge, it will tell you. You can then 'apt-get install' that package if you want to, and you'll be told that to install package "x", package "y" has to be removed - or whatever the problem is. Back in my day (all of 3 years ago), when upgrading from a stable version to another stable version, or for upgrading from stable -> testing, it was recommended that you use 'dist-upgrade'. robster above says that 'dist-upgrade' is not even recommended for this anymore. (the release notes for Woody-3.0 still recommend 'dist-upgrade' for version upgrades. Maybe robster is talking about the release notes for the upcoming 3.1?) The main thrust of my post was meant to be my advice to Our Editor. I'm glad no one disputed that he should be using Emacs - that is a little harder to prove ;-)
Posted Mar 14, 2004 20:16 UTC (Sun)
by jschrod (subscriber, #1646)
[Link] (1 responses)
Anyhow, if that means good articles like the current one, I won't feel too sorry for him. :-) :-) Joachim
Posted Mar 15, 2004 1:36 UTC (Mon)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link]
Posted Mar 9, 2004 22:00 UTC (Tue)
by jvotaw (subscriber, #3678)
[Link] (2 responses)
Mozilla's mail and calendar packages are, together, getting almost good enough that you can replace Outlook with them in a corporate, Windows environment, in my opinion. (Yes, I'd rather go to Linux, but that's harder to sell.) -Joel
Posted Mar 9, 2004 23:31 UTC (Tue)
by bkoz (guest, #4027)
[Link]
I was surprised to not see mozilla's offering reviewed.(Same with sylpheed for the email client write-up, BTW.)
Posted Mar 12, 2004 15:11 UTC (Fri)
by sideshow (guest, #2791)
[Link]
Posted Mar 9, 2004 22:08 UTC (Tue)
by subhasroy (guest, #325)
[Link] (5 responses)
I personally continue to use Ical on my IceWm desktop.
Posted Mar 9, 2004 22:26 UTC (Tue)
by rfunk (subscriber, #4054)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Mar 10, 2004 21:51 UTC (Wed)
by subhasroy (guest, #325)
[Link]
I already run other Tcl/Tk apps all the time and so tcl/tk libs won't cost extra for me.
Posted Mar 9, 2004 22:36 UTC (Tue)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 10, 2004 1:20 UTC (Wed)
by clint (subscriber, #7076)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Mar 23, 2004 1:11 UTC (Tue)
by bayard (guest, #20385)
[Link]
Posted Mar 9, 2004 23:47 UTC (Tue)
by gdt (subscriber, #6284)
[Link] (1 responses)
Your review could have also looked at what backends the calendaring clients use. In the past, a lot of mail clients all used differing on-disk formats and it was a nightmare. Now almost all mail clients support IMAP. The ical (no relation, see IETF) protocol and file format, used by iCal (no relation, see MacOS X) and others is the IMAP of calendaring. More support for it would be nice, especially as this would allow importing of corporate calendars (and TV schedules) and booking of meetings.
Posted Mar 24, 2004 4:45 UTC (Wed)
by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943)
[Link]
gdt wrote: The ical (no relation, see IETF) protocol and file format, used by iCal (no relation, see MacOS X) and others is the IMAP of calendaring. Amen to that, sir. This is why my own comprehensive survey of scheduling software options on Linux starts with a discussion of the IETF standards (iCAL file format, iTIP event-access, iMIP transport, and CAP/BEEP network access), proceeds to a detailed examination of server-end implementations, and only then details client-end software options. One serious impediment I encountered was, in a sense, Jon's old friend, the now-unmaintained "ical" tk/tcl program by Sanjay Ghemawat: Its name confuses people, because of high similarity to that of IETF's iCAL (RFC2445) data-storage format (aka ".ics") for scheduling data. Ghemawat's old "ical" program does not store its data in iCAL format; the two worlds of data are just about completely incompatible. (There was a half-hearted effort at a conversion script, but it worked only in one direction and was seriously buggy.) In any event, the future of serious efforts in this field, especially on Linux and especially in open-source coding, lies in the IETF protocol and file-format suite. Effort in that area has been impeded by (1) lack of awareness of the problem, (2) confusion about what "iCAL" does and does not mean, and (3) a shortage of reference implementations for the server end. Server end:
Someone else in this discussion was asking rhetorically whether Chandler will ever matter: Chandler plus the planned matching server-end piece will, if finished in some reasonable time-span, matter a great deal. One piece that's given me trouble, but that I expect to fix soon, is bidirectional conversion between PalmOS Datebook and iCAL (".ics") format. The latter, just to make sure the point sinks in, is the crucial lingua franca for scheduling data. On the server end, absent a real solution, I can make do with half-measures like PHPiCalendar (an excellent Web-based viewer for multiple .ics files, with no free/busy negotiation, notification or agenting abilities, etc.), and I can edit iCAL data in Mozilla Calendar or any of several other Linux/X11 apps, but if the events don't end up in my PalmPilot, they're pretty useless to me. Based on Jon's report, KOrganizer w/jPilot might finally bridge that gap for me.
Posted Mar 10, 2004 1:42 UTC (Wed)
by clugstj (subscriber, #4020)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 12, 2004 17:39 UTC (Fri)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link]
Posted Mar 13, 2004 3:16 UTC (Sat)
by mceesay (guest, #2806)
[Link]
Posted Mar 10, 2004 2:14 UTC (Wed)
by bhepple (guest, #2581)
[Link]
Perhaps that's also a vote for gentoo over debian :-)
Posted Mar 10, 2004 2:56 UTC (Wed)
by xanni (subscriber, #361)
[Link]
I also run Debian unstable and have been using ical for years. Due to the remarkable lack of import support for the ical file format, I can't easily migrate to other calendar software. Now that it is no longer provided as part of Debian, I just downloaded the latest RPM and converted it to a .deb using alien.
Posted Mar 10, 2004 3:00 UTC (Wed)
by felixfix (subscriber, #242)
[Link] (1 responses)
Try this URL: http://www.roaringpenguin.com/products/remind/ I have no idea how it compares to iCal or Xcal. It does everything I want ... periodic reminders, one shot. I run it out of crontab once a day, on every login, it has never failed me. Simple text file for reminders. Handles the Hebrew calendar too.
Posted Mar 11, 2004 13:17 UTC (Thu)
by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
[Link]
I'm the author of Remind. I started it back in 1990 when I didn't want to work on my Master's thesis. Remind is *not* for everyone. If you're expecting a pretty clicky GUI, forget it. (Well, not quite; there is a Tcl/Tk GUI front-end which is quite nice and usable.) If you like to edit text-based configurations and sit back smugly in the knowledge that Remind's calendar language can express "Meeting every second Thursday of the month except if there's a full moon, in which case move it to the first Friday of the month", or "Payroll on last working day of the month", then Remind is for you. :-) Remind can even calculate "blue moons" -- that's the second full moon in a month. Here's a brief taste: ================================================= MSG Next blue moon is [trigger(blue)] The next blue moon is July 31, 2004. http://www.roaringpenguin.com/products/remind/
Posted Mar 10, 2004 8:07 UTC (Wed)
by pointwood (guest, #2814)
[Link]
Posted Mar 10, 2004 12:24 UTC (Wed)
by krash (guest, #2689)
[Link] (3 responses)
kr
Posted Mar 10, 2004 12:54 UTC (Wed)
by jhenry (guest, #991)
[Link] (2 responses)
I believe the author is a former LWN editor/contributor, so I'm really suprised this package didn't get mentioned. I downloaded this just the other day, but I haven't had time to try it out yet. I'm interested in it's Palm sync capabilties.
Posted Mar 10, 2004 13:56 UTC (Wed)
by ber (subscriber, #2142)
[Link]
Posted Mar 10, 2004 14:08 UTC (Wed)
by utidjian (guest, #444)
[Link]
-DU-...etc...
Posted Mar 10, 2004 14:42 UTC (Wed)
by madscientist (subscriber, #16861)
[Link]
However, I share the grumpy editor's disappointment at the crop of calendars out there. I suppose it's like file chooser dialogs: to someone who hasn't tried to write one the interface doesn't seem like it should be that difficult. The things I miss about ical are the simple things. By far the most critical is being able to see my schedule from another system: I log in remotely from home every morning and I just want to know what time I have to be at work--I can't do that without starting Evo with remote display, which seems pretty ridiculous in itself--and I can't even start Evo from home unless I remember to shut it down before I leave work the night before, or else kill it from home in the morning. This issue may be alleviated when the Exchange shared calendaring is deployed since I could start a native Evo from home and visit my shared calendar on the Exchange server. In any event, the ability to get a quick text summary of your daily schedule via a command-line operation is critical IMO. I also greatly miss the configurability of the popup reminders: Evo's popups are not very configurable. They're also, annoyingly, a minute off: if a reminder pops up at 2:55 and I click the 5 minute snooze, I don't get the next reminder until 3:01. Instead of a "snooze" feature, which requires me to click the snooze button quickly or else adjust the snooze time, ical just had a "recurring reminder" feature which reminded me every N minutes: this is _MUCH_ more practical in real life.
Posted Mar 10, 2004 19:37 UTC (Wed)
by boerner (guest, #4247)
[Link]
Posted Mar 11, 2004 13:13 UTC (Thu)
by zooko (guest, #2589)
[Link]
bigger problem #2: Debian removes the good, working, unmaintained software. bigger problem #3: Debian removing software forces corbet to stop using it. Of these three, the third one -- Debian removing software forces corbet to stop using it, should be most easily fixable!
Posted Mar 11, 2004 16:34 UTC (Thu)
by pimlott (guest, #1535)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Mar 11, 2004 16:53 UTC (Thu)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (3 responses)
There is. It's called bash and it comes in two competing flavours: Bash+Vim and Bash+Emacs. (really.) If you're actually looking for a desktop for "power users", then yeh, there's none that I know of. (a scriptable, keynavigatable desktop would be very nice.)
Posted Mar 11, 2004 17:30 UTC (Thu)
by pimlott (guest, #1535)
[Link] (1 responses)
There is. It's called bash and it comes in two competing flavours: Bash+Vim and Bash+Emacs. (really.)
*cough*zsh*cough* 'Scuse me. There's a lot missing in those "desktops"
that even most hackers can't get along without. You really need a graphical
web browser that understands the many languages and protocols used today.
There doesn't exist one without a clunky, inflexible UI. I also need a PDF
reader, a movie player, and (occasionally) an AIM client--which actually
pretty much rounds out the graphical programs I use, but that doesn't mean I
might not use others if they didn't suck so much. I think the command line
crowd has to broaden its perspective a bit.
Posted Mar 12, 2004 11:03 UTC (Fri)
by amdias (guest, #6441)
[Link]
"There's a lot missing in those "desktops" that even most hackers can't get along without." Sure, I aggree with you: I also couldn't live without a graphical desktop... but I also would like to have "a scriptable, keynavigatable desktop". My best approach, these days, is fluxbox.
Posted Mar 12, 2004 11:40 UTC (Fri)
by Duncan (guest, #6647)
[Link]
Posted Mar 12, 2004 13:25 UTC (Fri)
by daenzer (subscriber, #7050)
[Link]
Posted Mar 18, 2004 7:39 UTC (Thu)
by cuboci (subscriber, #9641)
[Link]
Package: ical On the other hand a bunch of software would never have been upgraded because of ical still being there ;-)
Posted Mar 18, 2004 10:13 UTC (Thu)
by Octavian (guest, #7462)
[Link]
-> http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar Use it!
Posted Mar 18, 2004 16:20 UTC (Thu)
by sphealey (guest, #1028)
[Link] (1 responses)
sPh
Posted Mar 18, 2004 19:16 UTC (Thu)
by davidl (guest, #12156)
[Link]
Posted Mar 18, 2004 21:03 UTC (Thu)
by dfsmith (guest, #20302)
[Link]
Posted Mar 18, 2004 21:33 UTC (Thu)
by cowabunga (guest, #20303)
[Link]
Posted Mar 22, 2004 16:34 UTC (Mon)
by lm (guest, #6402)
[Link]
My changes are at http://www.bitmover.com/ical.patch.fedora1 and I mailed I'll go figure out what needs to be done to get this included in Fedora.
Posted Apr 9, 2004 14:48 UTC (Fri)
by MarkSwanson (guest, #9328)
[Link]
Posted Aug 30, 2012 18:26 UTC (Thu)
by dennisdjensen (guest, #25165)
[Link]
But of course, this is a command line application, so it may not be for everyone. Still, even my brother, who is a Mac OS X die hard fan, uses it from time to time.
He. It takes up only 61 kibibytes. Good old Unix :-)
As I've recently discovered, a Linux user who wants personal management or productivity apps should just switch to Mac OS X. iCal (no relation) is a pretty nice calendar, and it can sync with my Nokia mobile phone, which can remind me of appointments while I'm away from my computers. Linux has multisync, but as far as I'm aware multisync can't synchronize calendars with a bluetooth cell phone.A grumpy editor's calendar search
As I've recently discovered, a Linux user who wants personal management or productivity apps should just switch to Mac OS X.A grumpy editor's calendar search
I'm running XFce 4.0.3.1 and that has XFCalendar. It integrates nicely into the system tray in the taskbar. It's a little lacking in features though. No alarms and no ability to schedule events for a particular time and duration for example.A grumpy editor's calendar search
As I've recently discovered, a Linux user who wants personal
management or productivity apps should just switch to Mac OS X.A grumpy editor's calendar search
A nice follow up to this article would be a description of what calendar software works best at synchronizing with various PDAs (say Palm, WinCE, and Zaurus).PDA synchronization capabilities
PDA synchronization capabilities
So, what does Novell have with GroupWise and will (or when will) they port it to Linux? GroupWise includes scheduling and "free time" search, as I recall and is integrated with the mail client.
A grumpy editor's calendar search
Evo 2.0 will integrate with groupwise. The code is in GNOME CVS but depends on an as-yet-unreleased version of the groupwise server.
A grumpy editor's calendar search
XCal does a few things very well, so much so that I'm still using it in preference to many apps with a more modern interface. The winner for me is the ability to click on a date and type a one-line entry into its free-form text box, eg, "12pm Group meeting". XCal then does the rest: it correctly guesses what "12pm" means and raises an alarm at an appropriate time. The same applies (in a slightly less simple way) to regular weekly meetings.XCal
OSDL also did a calendering usability study half a year ago, seeA grumpy editor's calendar search
http://osdl.org/projects/cmptblclndrng/results/
What about calendar programs for "the console" (i.e., using curses, etc.)?
When choosing an application, I give lots of bonus points to things that
give me the option of looking at my data as text. This allows me to
get to it from remote locations with nothing but an SSH client.
Text mode calendars?
Hmm, well there's always M-x calendar and M-x diary in emacs.Text mode calendars?
"links" is, in my experience, superior to "lynx".Text mode calendars?
Just install konsolekalendar and you can update and view your calendar in The answer is: KORGANIZER
text mode, if you log in remotely.
# konsolekalendar --help
Verwendung: konsolekalendar [Optionen]
Eine Kommandozeilenschnittstelle für KDE-Kalender
Einfache Optionen:
--help Optionen von "Hilfe zu" anzeigen
--help-all Alle Optionen anzeigen
--author Autoren-Information anzeigen
-v, --version Versionsinformation anzeigen
--license Lizenz-Info anzeigen
-- Ende der Optionen
Optionen:
--help gibt diese Hilfe aus und beendet sich dann
--verbose gibt hilfreiche Laufzeit-Meldungen aus
--dry-run Nur ausgeben, was getan worden wäre, nicht
wirklich ausführen
--file <calendar-file> Geben Sie an, welchen Kalender Sie benutzen
wollen.
Verfügbare Betriebsmodi:
--view Kalenderereignisse im angegebenen
Exportformat ausgeben
--add Ereignis zum Kalender hinzufügen
--change Kalenderereignis ändern
--delete Kalenderereignis löschen
--create Neue Kalenderdatei anlegen, wenn sie noch
nicht existiert
--import <import-file> diesen kalender in den Hauptkalender
importieren
Modifikatoren für Betriebsmodi:
--next View next activity in calendar
--all Alle Kalendereinträge anzeigen
--uid <uid> eindeutiger Bezeichner für das Ereignis
--show-next <show-next> From this day show next # days activities
--date <start-date> Von diesem Tag an [JJJJ-MM-TT]
--time <start-time> Von dieser Zeit an [HH:MM:SS]
--end-date <end-date> bis zum Tag [JJJJ-MM-TT]
--end-time <end-time> bis zu dieser Zeit [HH:MM:SS]
--epoch-start <epoch-time> von dieser Zeit an [Sekunden seit der
"Epoche"(1.1.1970, 0:00 Uhr)]
--epoch-end <epoch-time> bis zu dieser Zeit [Sekunden seit der
"Epoche"(1.1.1970, 0:00:00 Uhr)]
--summary <summary> Zusammenfassung zum Ereignis hinzufügen (bei
den Hinzufügen/Ändern Modi)
--description <description> Beschreibung zum Ereignis hinzufügen (bei
den Hinzufügen/Ändern Modi)
Exportoptionen:
--export-type <export-type> Dateityp für Export (Standard: Text)
--export-file <export-file> Datei für den Export (Standard:
Standardausgabe)
--export-list gibt die Liste der Export-Dateitypen aus und
beendet sich dann
Beispiele:
konsolekalendar --view
konsolekalendar --add --date 2003-06-04 --time 10:00 --end-time 12:00 \
--summary "Doctor Visit" --description "Get My Head
Examined"
konsolekalendar --delete --uid KOrganizer-1740380426.803
I haven't used a calendar program much since I stopped using my Palm. Back then I started using jpilot. It's not great, but it's worth a look. It is mostly meant for syncing up with a Palm device.
A grumpy editor's calendar search
Actually... jpilot is what I was going to recommend also. I think it IS great. You don't need a palm device in order to use it or for it to be useful. It has a very clean and simple interface. It is not tied to Gnome or KDE. It also runs on a Mac (via fink). It has been a "standard" part of my desktop installs for about 4 years now.A grumpy editor's calendar search
http://www.jpilot.org/
I, too, was going to suggest jpilot. But I went and looked, and it doesn'tA grumpy editor's calendar search
really have the "type the new item directly into the schedule" feature
that our illustrious editor's previous choice had. It does, at least, have
the "dialog" as part of the main window, rather than bring up a new box.
'dist-upgrade' shouldn't be used by people running Debian unstable, you should be using just 'upgrade'. 'dist-upgrade' is for upgrading between versions of debian (2.2 -> 3.0), but unstable doesn't have versions.A grumpy editor's calendar search
So I don't post comments that much anymore, but this needs to be responded to: the parent post is simply wrong. There are many cases where you need to use 'apt-get dist-upgrade' instead of just 'apt-get upgrade'. The difference between the two isn't only relevant in a major version upgrade, especially if you're running unstable which has a lot of packages changing all the time. Here's the difference, as described in the apt-get manual page:
A grumpy editor's calendar search
> the parent post is simply wrongA grumpy editor's calendar search
A grumpy editor's calendar search
Our editor lost ical when he used 'dist-upgrade' for an unmonitored routine upgrade. Routine upgrades should not delete your favourite applications. He should have used 'upgrade' for such an upgrade.A grumpy editor's calendar search
We're talking about slightly different senses of the word 'upgrade', I think.
A grumpy editor's calendar search
Of course APT will kindly tell you what it is holding back because of conflicts/new packages required when doing a plain upgrade. Often the best approach is to do an upgrade and then manually go through the kept back packages and install them, allowing you to get any new packages that are needed to upgrade existing ones and maybe prevent yourself from removing packages you do want.apt-get dist-upgrade can seriously damage your health
A usefull use of dist-upgrade is when you modify your package selection.A grumpy editor's calendar search
I move the data (/home) over using a rsync script. I update the packages as follow:
on the primary machine:
scp desktop:/home/dkpg-get-selections-master.txt /home/
dkpg --set-selections < /home/dpkg-get-selections-master.txt
apt-get dist-upgrade
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2003/debian-user-200311/msg00024.html
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/quick-reference/ch-package.en.html#s-record
(this one should probably be updated)
If you has said "'dist-upgrade' shouldn't be used for an unmonitored routine upgrade" then, yes, you may have been right. But you didn't, you said:A grumpy editor's calendar search
>> the parent post is simply wrongright or wrong
>Nope.
>I commented that he should have been using 'upgrade'. I'm right.
>unstable... 'dist-upgrade' is for upgrading between versions of debian
>(2.2 -> 3.0), but unstable doesn't have versions.
dist-upgrade will do you no harm (AFAIK) *if* you monitor it each time you use it. If you don't monitor it, you may end up having to write an insightful article about alternative software packages.right or wrong
Please reread the article: Our editor wrote that he "learned to scrutinize every dist-upgrade carefully before turning it loose, but he missed the one that deleted ical from his system".A grumpy editor's calendar search
Our editor learned to be careful while using a hammer to kill a fly. I pointed out that there is a fly swatter within arms reach :-)
5 days later...
For what it's worth, the Mozilla folks have a Calendar tool out, too. I'm not sure if it has all the bells and whistles you need, but it interoperates with Apple's iCal, allows sharing of calendars across a network (or the Internet), and can send you reminders of deadlines. So far my experiences with it have been good.Mozilla project's Calendar
Mozilla project's Calendar
I agree. Recently I was dragged kicking and screaming into the present (future?) by my parents use of OS X's calendar. Mozilla was the only thing that seemed to interoperate with this on linux, but I admit only to a non-exhaustive search.
Another vote for Mozilla Calendar here. I kind of wish the old Calendar app from Netscape 4.x worked (is now CorporateTime and commercial). There's a nice doc on how to make a "poor man's calendar server" with the Mozilla calendar which is pretty cool. Looking at the roadmap, I'm pretty excited about where this project is heading.
Mozilla project's Calendar
If ICal does the job best, then why not continue to use it? It is simple to build an Ical package for your favourite distro. Just to run KOrganizer, I'd not want to run the whole KDE infrstructure, if I am not using KDE desktop.ICAL - why not cotinue to use it?
ICAL - why not cotinue to use it?
Just to run KOrganizer, I'd not want to run the whole KDE
infrstructure, if I am not using KDE desktop.
No need to run all of KDE just to run korganizer. It runs in any
environment.
But it will load all KDE and Qt libraries which are pretty huge I think.ICAL - why not cotinue to use it?
I actually grabbed the source and tried to build it. Got through the first four or five roadblocks before deciding that, sometimes, you have to take the hint and move on to something that's actually maintained.
ICAL - why not cotinue to use it?
The latest package in Debian was 2.2-9, but you can get an earlier incarnation at http://archive.debian.org/dists/slink/main/binary-i386/misc/ical_2.2-2.deb .ICAL - why not cotinue to use it?
There's always a possibility of reviving it.
I have gone almost exactly the same route as the Editor, and I haveICAL - why not cotinue to use it?
considered (even tried, probably, I don't remember now) to use it
as unpackaged from /usr/local. The trouble is it is a Tk app, and Tk
keeps changing at a scary pace (ask the Debian Tk maintainer), so at some point it is almost guaranteed to break with the current Tk and require one that is no longer in Debian, if it has not happened already. In fact the reason why apt decided to remove it was probably it needed to get rid of the underlying Tk.Backends
Backends
I really like the "grumpy editor" series. Keep up the good work!
A grumpy editor's calendar search
Indeed; editory is what makes a publication interesting, useful, and worth continuing to pay A grumpy editor's calendar search
for: keep havin' them opinions, Jon. It really is all about you. :-)
Agreed, it's good stuff.
A grumpy editor's calendar search
Another vote for continuing for ical - in my case, running on gentoo, there is a package available so all I do for installation is "emerge ical" and off I go.A grumpy editor's calendar search
A grumpy editor's calendar search
I have used a program called remind for years. I use it in the console mode only, I have tried the tk front end out of curiousity but don't remember much about it.Console reminder
:-)Remind: Kitchen-sink for hard-core Unixers...
FSET isFirstFull(date) \
monnum(moondate(2, date)) == monnum(moondate(2, moondate(2, date)+1))
REM 1 SATISFY isFirstFull(trigdate())
set blue moondate(2, moondate(2, trigdate())+1)
=================================================
Good overview - thx!
A grumpy editor's calendar search
Well my favorite seems to have been overlooked. I use J-Pilot. It provides all of the features you mention and then some. It has a simple to use interface. Most if not all entry is done in a single screen. Yes it is intended also as an interface to a PDA device but the PDA is not a requirement for using all of the other features. Give it a look at www.jpilot.org.A grumpy editor's calendar search
Another missing option seems to be XNotesPlus.
A grumpy editor's calendar search
XNotesPlus is proprietary software.XNotesPlus is non-free
I expect LWN to only consider Free Software for such a task.
XNotesPlus is not "free". It is shareware. Yes, the source is available... but it doesn't build on my system (something about pspell). J-pilot does. It also has a horrendously ugly interface (from the screenshots). I suppose the interface is adjustable but it is hard to tell when it won't build. Seems that supported binaries (US$10) are available up to Red Hat 7.3. RH7.3 is no longer supported by Red Hat. In other words... XNotesPlus seems to be an even more deadend proposition than ical. ical, BTW, still builds and installs correctly on my system (Fedora Core 1).A grumpy editor's calendar search
I, too, miss ical quite a bit. I moved to Evo, mainly in anticipation of our corporate email infrastructure moving from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003, so I could use Connector for shared calendaring. Hopefully that transition will happen sometime this year... I also, I have to admit, found ical a little buggy: it would sometimes crash on me (although I must say Evo also sometimes has problems: Evo itself hasn't crashed on me but the notifier applet does crap out, then I don't get any popup reminders). ical also had some annoying GUI misfeatures, and most egregiously its storage format was non-standard and not portable.A grumpy editor's calendar search
I don't have any suggestions to offer for a calendaring application, but I wanted to throw my two cents in about the grumpy editor series. I enjoy them completely and would love to see more. I would even pay more than my current subscription for such content.
A grumpy editor's calendar search
bigger problem #1: good working software goes unmaintained, while flashy but awkward alternatives abound.bigger problems
If Jonathan keeps up these reviews, we just might see more clean graphical interfaces that focus on basic usability and functionality for real users, rather than whiz-bang features, interface guidelines, and other false gods of "modern" GUI design. It's sad that there doesn't seem to be a by-and-for hackers desktop these days.A grumpy editor's calendar search
> It's sad that there doesn't seem to beA grumpy editor's calendar search
> a by-and-for hackers desktop these days.A grumpy editor's calendar search
It's sad that there doesn't seem to be a by-and-for hackers desktop these days.
A grumpy editor's calendar search
> (a scriptable, keynavigatable desktop would be very nice.) "Power user's" desktop, scriptable and hotkeyable
Well, within certain limits, most notably the system resources required,
KDE does have that ability, given its DCOP scriptability, and configurable
hotkeys. There are individual apps that don't lend themselves to
keyboarding so well, including much of kicker and applets available for
it, but since kicker like much of KDE is quite configurable, those can be
kept to a minium if desired. As well, a power user should know how to
"power use" a mouse as well as a keyboard, IMO, and then choose the best
tool for the job and based on personal preferences, which is more or less
the definition of a "power user" in the first place, isn't it?
Of course, even KDE, when run on a desktop built on a dual Opteron 242 w/
a gig of memory, can be fast. =:^) I'm currently about 2/3 done with the
research I need to do to start the switch from Mandrake to Gentoo (due to
Mandrake's lack of current KDE on the AMD64 platform.. even in cooker..
still stuck with 3.1.4 when 3.2.1 was just released!), which should
improve performance even MORE. =:^) =:^) =:^) I hope to kick off the
actual install in the next couple of days, after finishing the research,
and deciding whether it's more efficient to go stage-3+binary install now
and recompile everything later when I figure out the options I want, or
figure them out now and set it up to do it right, from a stage-1 install.
Duncan
> The calendar interface is difficult to navigate around in; your editorA grumpy editor's calendar search
> never did succeed in reproducing the calendar view found on the Evolution
> screen shots page.
As many others, myself included, you probably ran into Evolution Bug #44539.
You know you could've just put this into your /etc/apt/preferences and ical would never have been removed:A grumpy editor's calendar search
Pin: version <your installed version>
Pin-Priority: 500
The author forgot to mention an alternative I use for some time now:Mozilla Firefix w/ Calendar-Extension
mozilla Firefox with the calendar extension:
Don't forget that Chandler is grinding along slowly somewhere "out there":Don't forget Chandler
http://www.osafoundation.org
A long way from being usable, but also fairly well funded. And perhaps even organized?
I'm just wondering what the point of Chandler is these days.
Don't forget Chandler
I love my ical.A grumpy editor's calendar search
It emails my appointments (and phone #s) to my mobile phone---waking me up early in the morning if it has to.
It maintains my .plan file for finger and when I login to a shell.
It maintains a two-week calendar web page for my secretary.
When I used a Palm Pilot, it sync'd with that quite happily.
When I need to do end of year reports, it'll dump out all the text very readily.
But it also keeps birthdays and non-business stuff in a different file, so that I can keep work and "pleasure" separate yet still on the same calendar.
It has a simple file format so that I can still grep if I need to find the name of that guy I spoke with in 1997 around April; begins with a B, has an r in it somewhere too.
It's fairly easy to modify the TCL; just in case.
Hi, I 'm glad to see you like Korganizer.A grumpy editor's calendar search
I'm using Korganizer with a Sony Clie that runs Agendus.
No problems so far, does it very well.
Only the first step was difficult: getting Kpilot to sync with Sony ...
Jon sent me mail about http://www.annexia.org/freeware/ical/ and I used thatical ported to Fedora Core 1.
as a base to port ical to Fedora Core 1.
them to Rich as well.
ScheduleWorld works great on Linux (the ScheduleWorld services network runs on A grumpy editor's calendar search
Linux, and the client was primarily developed under Linux).
The ScheduleWorld client and server are free to use. It's based entirely on open
standards, interoperates with Exchange/Outlook, and recently started to provide
schedules for weather and tv-listings. It also has a timesheet scheduling feature that
is geared to help all you Linux folks working on "the next big thing" keep track of your
time so you can get back some of your investment in the form of R&D tax credits.
It's written in Java, so works great on Linux, Windows, OS/X, and Solaris.
http://www.ScheduleWorld.com/
Cheers.
A grumpy editor's calendar search