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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I have just spent a couple of days exchanging e-mails with a user in the US that was having some problems with moving repeat events from iCal to a Palm using iCalMaker.

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iCalMaker updated to version 1.8 iCalMaker has been updated to version 1.8.

This update includes a number of new features:

• Major update/re-write of the code base to allow future development
• Added automatic version checking
• Added details of ‘Version Checking” to the help system

And a few bug fixes:

• Dealt with a drawer display bug
• Made minor improvements to version checking
• Solved a problem with the import of comma-delimited data (thanks to Ian Watson)
• Moved, and re-wrote, some of the code for handling ‘address book details’
• Made changes and improvements to the import and export of vcal files and caught a bug in vcal export (thanks to Paul Motz for spotting this and sharing the iCal file that caused the problem)
• Cleaned up a number of problems with uninitiated variables that may have caused rare crashes on certain computer set-ups (crashes not seen or reported on test machines)
• Solved an odd bug that was preventing some events from importing correctly (should reduce type 1506 type errors) (thanks to Ron McKinney for the file to solve this one)
• As part of the code update a couple of memory leaks were squashed

iCalMaker is a 516 KB download from MMISoftware.

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!

New releases of iCalMaker and Tunes Menu

On Monday 1st November 2004 new versions of iCalMaker and Tunes Menu will be released.

iCalMaker: The new version of iCalMaker, version 1.7.2, is a small maintenance/bug fix release. Specifically this release fixed:

- a bug that was only evident if iCal files contained events with different time zones was imported
- a small problem with handling of ‘comma-delimited’ files
- iCalMaker now handles some of the more ‘extreme’ formats better
- a bug in an Apple API that was causing some odd behaviour when dealing with ‘event duration’
- a small memory leak introduced in 1.7.1

iCalMaker will be available for download on Monday at MMISoftware and is a free upgrade for registered users. The program costs US$30 and can be purchased from our online store.

Tunes Menu: This release of Tunes Menu brings it to version 1.3.5.

The release includes a couple of new features:

1. The ability to do ‘manual’ searches, i.e. just open the manual search window and type in the details of the CD.
2. Amazon searches now show the price of used CDs in square brackets.

Tunes Menu will be available for download on Monday and is freeware.

PLEASE NOTE: TUNES MENU IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE AND IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED

Minor update to iCalMaker released

A minor update of iCalMaker has been released.

The update addresses a bug which was causing some problems with the appointment format in iCal files (this was causing the appointments not to be displayed correctly in iCal – this problem only occurred with direct exports to iCal but not if the appointments were saved to file first) [Thanks to Peter Hamburger for the report of this bug.]

The update also includes an update of the eSellerate integrated purchase engine.

iCalMaker 1.6 is finally released!

After some delay version 1.6 of iCalMaker has been released.

The program contains a number of new features:

New Features:

• Improved the handling of poorly formatted iCal (ics) files upon import
• Removed the ‘five-event-limit’ on the import of iCal appointments from iCal (ics) files and direct from iCal
• Improved error message reporting
• Added additional help information on error messages
• Added an updated eSellerate integrated purchase engine

Bug Fixes:

• Dealt with a 10.2/10.3 specific bug which was causing some problems with the import of comma/tab delimited data
• Complete re-write of the iCal (ics) import method (now has better error reporting and conforms more closely to the vcal version 2 standard format)
• Dealt with a rare bug that would cause some iCal file output to be incorrectly formatted
• Fixed a bug that was causing problems when importing some short duration events
• Minor correction to text export so that ‘shifted-repeats’ (repeating events where one or more of the events have been moved to a different date/time) are now correctly handled
• Fixed a bug that was causing occasional crashes on the export of events to vCal (vcal version 1) format (thanks to Martin Haas and Joshua M. Whitman for finding that one!)
• Solved a problem with the import of iCalMaker generated vCal files that would not import correctly in to iCal (thanks to Martin Haas for providing calendars that demonstrated this really weird bug!)

The program can be downloaded here and purchased using either the integrated eseller or at the secure MMISoftware webstore.

iCalMaker 1.6 – an update of progress

Work on the latest version of iCalMaker is continuing.

The new ‘parsing code’ for iCal (ics) files is now complete and has been tested with numerous iCal calendars (a big thanks to all the users that have sent in calendars for testing) and appears to be working as intended. The next thing to do is to update some of the export methods:

iCalMaker to iCal:

This is proving to be a bit of a problem. At present the appointments are passed to iCal (in most cases) using AppleScript. This only works for a limited number of types of appointment (and this is why iCalMaker will sometimes force an iCal quit and restart to pass some events) and the changes to the ‘parse code’ means the new event types have to be correctly caught and passed to the appropriate method, i.e. AppleScript or for direct export to the iCal file.

iCalMaker to iCal file:

Not a problem to code. The current code just needs updating to catch the new iCal appointment parameters that can be handled.

iCalMaker to vCal file:

This is a real problem. The iCal file (ics) format is really version 2 of the vcal format. The vCal file, as used by Palm, is version 1. Translating vcal version 2 data to vcal version 1 is not always possible as some of the vcal version 2 data format is not supported in version 1. Therefore the translation is ‘lossy’ and has to be handled carefully.

iCalMaker to tab- or comma-delimited:

Again, fairly easy, however, the conversion tends to be ‘lossy’ as there is not an obvious way to deal with repeating events etc. Should a repeater be repeated or should only the first occurrence be listed? What about attendess? Appointment status? etc….. (If you have any thoughts on this please e-mail: support@mmisoftware.co.uk) (N.B. Version of 2 of iCalMaker will give the user options on how the output in comma- or tab-delimited files is supported).

iCalMaker to text:

This is almost complete and just needs a few “tweaks” to deal with repeating events that have what I call ‘offset’ days, i.e. a repeating event where one appointment or more has been moved to a different time/date. Again, there is a question of how much information should be included in the output. This will be addressed with ‘preferences’ in version 2 of iCalMaker.

Busy time with iCalMaker and some websites…..

Busy few days!

iCalMaker:

Work is continuing on some major changes to the ‘internals’ of iCalMaker (this will be rolled out as version 1.6). Nothing will be obvious to the user but significant changes have been made to the import of iCal calendars which now has improved compliance with the vcal format. Work is also progressing on making some changes to the export features (principally the text export) so that repeating events, where one of the events has been moved, are correctly reported in the text output.

One question….. How should these ‘moved-repeaters’, indeed, any of the repeaters, be shown in tab- and comma-delimited exporters?

Websites

MMISoftware also helps to maintain a copy of websites, namely The Face of Henley and the Henley Pages, and some of the time in the last couple of days has been spent updating the sites.

Chasing bugs…

Just spent some time chasing three bugs.

One I don’t think I have nailed. It appears that on some machines users are experiencing a ‘white rectangle’ when the ‘order’ window appears during comma- or tab-delimited import. For some reason I cannot reproduce this problem and there is nothing obvious in the code. My guess is that a ‘redraw’ is not being correctly called, therefore, all I have done is rearrange some of the code in the hope that the change in call order will solve the problem.

The second bug seems to have resulted in a change in the format of some repeating events introduced by iCal 1.5. This bug has been found, and dealt with!

The third is a re-occurring problem with comma-delimited imports. It seems that the ‘rules’ on ‘comma-delimited’ format are some what flexible and dependent on the program that produces the ‘comma-delimited’ file. Having produced code that deals with several of these format variations I have now been faced with yet another. The code for ‘comma-delimited’ has undergone yet another re-write….

The build is now out with beta testers and if there are no reports of additional problems iCalMaker 1.5.2 will be released on Friday or early next week.