This week an iCalMaker user sent a really useful Palm Desktop file. The file contained appointments dating back to 2000 and there must have been several hundred appointments. The file proved to be a really useful test for iCalMaker.

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Fun and games moving iCal files to Palm Desktop

iCalMaker is able to import appointments from iCal files and from Palm Desktop vCal files. However, the format of iCal and Palm Desktop vCal files is different, in fact iCal (ics files) use version 2 and Palm Desktop uses version 1 of the vCalendar Format.

So what? Well, version 2 of the vCalendar format is much more complicated/sophisticated than version 1 and in version 2 it is possible to construct some incredibly complicated repeating events (e.g. repeating every other year with certain years excluded or ‘ every Tuesday and Thursday for the next three months unless the Tuesday is the first Tuesday of the month’) that simply cannot be mapped backed to version 1 as version 1 does not have the ‘tools’ / ‘language’ to construct/describe such an event. When iCalMaker encounters such an event it puts up an error and will stop the construction of the vcal file.

Now the question is, how should this problem be dealt with? Should:

1. the event be ignored and the file constructed anyway?
2. the file not be constructed?
3. should the repeating event be expanded up to single non-linked events and included?

These questions/problems will be addressed in version 2!

iCalMaker 1.5.1 released

iCalMaker 1.5.1 was released today (download).

This release includes a number of bug fixes and a couple of new features:

New Features:

• Added support for the export of iCal "invitations" direct to Apple Mail, Eudora, Microsoft Entourage, Mailsmith and PowerMail
• Added direct support for the export of iCal files to PowerMail

Bug Fixes:

• Caught a bug that was causing some problems with the import of tab- and comma-delimited files
• Fixed a bug that caused some unicode text not to be exported correctly to iCal
• Corrected some broken links in the ‘Help System’
• Stomped on a bug that was causing some repeat event not to be correctly formated in vCal (Palm) export
• Solved a problem that was causing the return and delete keys from working as advertised
• Fixed a bug that would cause the program not to work if ‘Toast‘ was installed

Busy few days bug chasing and adding new features

Bugs are funny things. No matter how much you test a program you can be sure that there is some one out there with a computer set up in such a way that your program won’t work! And ever so often a user will say ‘does your program do X?’ or ‘it would be great if it did Y’, and you think ‘why didn’t I think of that!’ (if you have some idea, or bug reports, please send them to: bugs@mmisoftware.co.uk or feedback@mmisoftware.co.uk)

So a round up:

mailMaker: Added support for export to PowerMail. Also caught a really nasty bug which was causing the program to crash for some users on Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.2.8. There is also another weird bug that I haven’t been able to solve. It appears that if Toast is installed, and the default e-mail program is not running, then mailMaker cannot send the messages to the e-mail program.

JPEGCleaner: No bugs to deal with but support has been added for importing jfif files and exporting as jpeg.

iCalMaker: Added some new features such as support for the export of iCal "invitations" direct to Apple Mail, Eudora, Microsoft Entourage, Mailsmith and PowerMail, and direct support for the export of iCal files to PowerMail. Also caught a number of bugs.

The bugs:

• some problems with the import of tab- and comma-delimited files
• problems with unicode text not to be exported correctly to iCal
• some repeat events not to being correctly formated in vCal (Palm) export
• solved a problem that was causing the return and delete keys from working as advertised
• have all been squashed!

Also, corrected some broken links in the ‘Help System’.