As usual all very interesting, Mervin. However the most annoying thing about iCal is the lack of compatibility with Outlook calendar events. I’m not able to import the events into iCal in an easy way.

When I print my iCal To Do List, the items appear in some weird, random order. I have’t been able once to get it to print in the same order as I’ve organized the items on sreen. Have you? And if so, how?

Waiting with bated breath …

My wife and I share a .mac account. We’ both use the same iCal calendar to keep track of the (way too many) appointments and events we have. It’s been great, and with the color coding on calendar events, we can see what each-other is doing before we accept yet another invitation or appointment. We use the notes feature a lot too, for details about events, reoccuring phone numbers and so on.

We have one item at the top of te To-Dos list that contains special characters (from the Edit -> Special Characters menu) so we can easily copy/paste them into flavor our calendar items.

Small tip, useful when you’re adding multi-day events: you can use the + and - keys (note that = doesn’t work, as in many applications, you must use +) to increment or decrement numbers in numeric fields.

iCal + moleskine = a beautiful partnership… (I print a month view at the ‘double postcard’ size, trim it up, and it fits perfectly at the front of my notebook.) I tried for a while managing my GTD system purely in iCal, but have recently gone back to the moleskine method backed up by my iCal (synched between work and home). Much more satisfying…

Big perk of ICal for working parents: having a separate calendar for Kid stuff; view, print, and/or post just that calendar when you need to have a look at who’s taking who to soccer, when the report is due, and so on… and then, whala, turn it back off when you’re in work mode.

While trying to synchronize 4 Macs (shouldn’t tell you the program I was using) I clicked the wrong button while in the middle of a phone conversation. As a result all Apple software was deleted from my Master iMac. I’ve succeeded in restoring them all with the exception of iCal. I’m not allowed to drag iCal over from another of my other 3 Macs. I ran the 10.4.7 upater hoping that would help. Nope. Then I went to the Apple downloads site. Ah, there it is - 1.5.5. But it said my Mac could not accept it. What? Oh, the one on Apple’s website is not compatible with 10.4. Huh? How long have we been using that system? Unfortunately, correcting stupid mistakes is proving irksome. So, anyone know where I can get the latest iCal that runs with 10.4.7?

On the Kid Calendar … I go this one better and have a calendar for each of my kids. The school calendar will go on each, and then I’ll add their own stuff. I’m looking into iCal Exchange to have them able to see these calendars when they are in their accounts — or is there something better? [I see the lack of cross-account on same Mac publishing a big problem.]

Next … finding a way to get my husband’s Window$ world to share a calendar with my Macintosh world.

—Liz, High-Tech housewife and Mother of the Chaos Cubs

Actually, there is a patch that lets you automatically add alarms: http://www.robertblum.com/articles/2006/02/16/icalfix-03 Install that. I get alarms by default 1 hour before every appointment unless i change it.

[…] Merlin Mann has posted a series of iCal tips that will breath new life into your use of Groups and Notes. […]

Is there an easy way to export only a particular date range from iCal? I wanted to add my iCal entries to Google Calendar but it appears that my 224Kb file is too large for them to import! (Seems like a bit of a weakness on Google’s part…)

I’ve switched from iCal to Google Calendar as my primary. It’s amazing than an internet app is so much faster than iCal. I still publish my iCal calendars to the web, and view them in Google Calendar. To Do lists aren’t there, but I mainly do that in kGTD or pen and paper.

My main calendar is DateBk6 on my Palm. I didn’t use iCal much until I upgraded to OS X 10.4 and got Missing Sync. Now, synchronizing DateBk6 and iCal is totally transparent, and I find I am using iCal all the time when my Palm is elsewhere. I also publish my calendar so my wife doesn’t need to ask me all the time whether I have any appointments to schedule around.

It would seem that combining project and context organizing would be fairly easy by adding tags and using iCal’s oh so nifty search field. If you are context oriented as Merlin is you could add a project tag to the notes field of your contextually organized calendars. If, like me, you are prefer to organize by project, just and a context tag in the notes field of tasks and events. Want to see all your errands? Use the search field to search for @errand to find anything you’ve tagged with “@errand”. Best of both worlds.

I work very much along the lines of K.Lewis. He said that “iCal + moleskine = a beautiful partnership…” I completely concur, except that I most frequently just print directly from OOP/kGTD.

I have a pocket weekly Moleskine planner, and usually every day or so I switch over to kGTD’s Contexts mode and, using tweaked printer settings, am able to print directly (with my HP printer) onto blank 4x6 index cards. No trimming needed, plus there’s no need mentioning the brilliance of index cards. Usually it ends up being about 4 cards worth – or two, front and back – and I just tuck them between the pages of the current week.

Voila – your dates and appointments for the whole year, plus all your current actions… and in something you can slip into the pockets of your cargo pants.

I do think I want to try printing to index cards from iCal, though. It might be worth it.

Jess—

If the Outlook events you’d like to synchronize with live on Exchange Server 2000+ and your admins allow WebDAV access, we’ve been having good results with Groupcal from Snerdware. Five-minute setup, and can even handle calendars from public folders.

I hate the fact that iCal doesn’t automatically pick up the phone number from the address book when you enter someone’s name. (It’s silly to have to type it in myself, although that’s what I do). I miss ACT for this very reason, but sadly it’s not available for Macs.

And yes, the inability to have automatic alarm insertion is annoying, too.

Jennifer

Anyone else have any thoughts comparing iCal to Google Calendar?

[…] Merlin Mann has a great post up today about Getting more out of iCal | 43 Folders. I would highly recommend you read it. Especially if you have adapted the GTD system it is a great look at using iCal for that. […]

Jim Murphy I am unsure as to how you installed Tiger on your Master iMac - nor what iMac you have - but the default installation off the retail and/or reinstall discs will give you iCal. If you have a retail version of Tiger DVD and your iMav has a DVD-rom, on the DVD there is an “Optional Installs.mpkg”. double-click and you will see an option for installing iCal.

Very good article — thanks.

It seems to me that when one is working in a context list of next actions and completes one, there is value in the KGTD “Twin” command to go back and look to see if this completed item yields a new next action that should either be logged or done. Is there an equivalent process when working from “iCal” approach?

Thanks for mentioning iCal. I have ditched eveything else and find that iCal has everything I need for GTD.

It’s a calendar, to-do (to-do’s can be sorted by calendar, too, by the way) list, tickler file (just put “See File under “file name” in the notes field) and, well, everything else that GTD requires.

Here’s the reason I forced iCal to work for me: I don’t carry a PDA, just a sony ericsson phone, and everything that is in iCal, including tasks and alarms, are synced with my phone quickly via iSync. I even have a script to open iSync, sync them, them quit iSync, all by hitting Shift-F8. So I just tap the hotkey when I get to my mac and leave it, and all my stuff is current all the time and very portable, always in my pocket.

Another great thing, it doesn’t just import from iCal to the phone, it syncs them, so when I’m out and I need to add a task, I can do it shorthand on the phone and it will sync to a calendar called “Inbox” in iCal when I sync up.

I would love to use fother fun GTD software, but alas, I don’t need to. If you carry a syncable phone with you everywhere, I highly recommend tweaking iCal to work as your GTD system.

Did I mention there’s tons of little apps and even widgets that let you see your iCal stuff at a glance without bringing up iCal? Very nice.

[…] For more cool stuff and handy tricks on iCal, see Merlin Mann’s excellent write-up on getting more out of iCal. […]

My iCal tip: You can create a “while out” context calendar/to do list for things like buy eggs, return shirt for a bigger size, or ge an oil change. Sync that calendar to your iPod and carry your iPod around with you when you leave the house. Tha way you’ll have all the actionable “while out” tasks with you when you need them.

I am still looking for a Mac solution for my office schedule. I need something that can be editable by 10 people and can be accessed via browser, iCal or Entourage. I have a server with WebDav running, but no Exchange. I can’t use any online service because my boss is worried about security. oh.. and the budget is $0.

Rather than an iCal thought, it’s an iPod thought: but that’s because I just replaced my broken iPod with a brand new Video one and the synched Calendars and Tasks just shine on the new larger and colourful screen! Most of the reasoning behind Merlin’s suggestion to drop info and directions in the Notes field apply 100%, you can check your iPod on the road and see directions and notes while you are stuck or in doubt - it’s nearly as good as paper.

The only problem so far is the ToDo list that’s all mixed together. I have a number of Calendars (for contexts, projects, etc.) with associated ToDos, but on the iPod I cannot see a single list, unless I am missing something. That’s bad, it would be great to just jump to the “ToDo - Phone” list to pick one of those calls left to do when you have a handset next to you.

[…] Screencasts Online make video tutorials for Mac users, some free and some subscription only. Apple have now posted their own tutorials for iLife as well, and 43 Folders have iCal tips. […]

I guess in light of:

The shared calendars are great, but only one person can make changes.

I should really mention this, though it’s a shameless plug.

http://www.infurious.com/products/syncbridge.html

We’re almost ready for release and it allows virtually unlimited EDITABLE sharing of your calendars. We’re about to put out a call for our final public beta so if interested, watch the blog for the call.

Tips for iCal users…

43folders, the very useful getting things done blog has some pretty handy tips for users of Apple’s iCal software.  I’ve been using iCal rather than Entourage for almost as long as I have had my PowerBook and I love the…

I’d love to know how to get iCal to send its email reminders through Thunderbird instead on Mac mail. Anyone know? Email me heavylee@iwon.com

A tip that I didn’t know where to put, but I thought you might want it. It’s iCal related, or at least, it was for me.

For years I had a hole in my wallet that I called, colloquially “auto-rebilling websites.” I’ve lost hundreds of dollars to my own laziness, and have paid for sites which I hardly ever used and then forgot. Now, when I sign up for an automatically renewing web sites, I put a recurring entry into a special “subscriptions” calendar in iCal with a reminder five days in advance of each renewal date, the user name I used, a password hint, and a link to the cancellation page of the website. Now I don’t forget my subscriptions and I don’t end up paying for those sites that I gave up interest in but forgot. Hope this helps someone other than just me.