[kwlug-disc] Android / Google calendar - events as tasks.

[unsolicited]

Interesting. Thank you for your thoughts.

- a problem with Lightning is, perhaps, no Android equivalent. Which 
speaks to, I guess, one's desire for a consistent look and feel across 
platforms, which is perhaps silly - a PDA will never have the screen 
room a monitor / PC / Lightning will. A d'oh! moment.

- I've yet to see, probably for lack of much looking, much difference 
between the google web interface and Lightning, myself. Let alone 
Lightning can be dog slow. Add TB itself getting worse, and I'm 
certainly keeping an eye open for a cross-platform/cross-device e-mail / 
calendar / PIM replacement. e.g. Activity Manager will show incoming 
messages long before they're pickable in a smart search tab. e.g. 'Today'.

- perhaps, though, Lightning, much like various Android Widgets, brings 
together multiple providers into a single interface. Again, I'll have to 
check it out again, further. Things like Astrid, though, become annoying 
- multiple / disparate 'providers' when one would like one-stop shopping 
and be done with it.

- google tasks will show up as a tasks calendar in google. Uniquely, it 
cannot be shared. Dated tasks, at least, seem to show up on my calendar.


One of the problems with tasks is the lines blur so very quickly between 
(untimed) events, tasks, projects, and outliners.


Oh for the days of the Palm PIM, and the puzzle of why it was so popular 
in its heyday, but (the software functionality) has disappeared with 
time. Mostly in favour of Outlook (non-Express). Ick.

There seems to be a few (further) coming products coming along - sadly, 
all still only with Windows versions (on the PC).

Pimlical: http://www.pimlicosoftware.com/
- from the maker of DateBk, a Palm PIM enhancement. Is just now moving 
beyond google back end, to it's own. [Palm providing the database back 
end and hardware sync / connectivity it it's environment - lost with the 
loss of Palm. This loss is, I suspect, the single biggest reason as to 
why the Palm PIM has been lost in time.]

MyLifeOrganized: http://www.mylifeorganized.net/
- like Pimlical, another phoenix apparently rising from Palm days, with 
an Android version. Not a calendar viewer - grew out of an outliner / 
GTD / task / project management basis.

DejaOffice: http://www.dejaoffice.com/
- I've done nothing with. Largely appears to be a schill for 
CompanionLink purchase. http://www.companionlink.com/


The Outlook-centric view of much of this stuff is rather depressing.

On 12-10-04 06:35 PM, Bob Jonkman wrote:
> I've been using Google Calendar for events for years, even when I was
> still using a paper-based appointment book (long since abandoned).
> Google is one of the few calendar providers that comes close to
> following the IETF CalSch standards (RFC5545 et al).
>
> I don't use tasks much, but the calendar Web interface for tasks does
> have a "completed" status and indicator (either a check mark for
> complete items, or an empty checkbox for incomplete items).  I'm using
> https://google.com/calendar/render?gsessionid=<SomeHexNumber> with
> Chromium or Firefox.
>
> The Google task list shows up as another calendar instance in the Web
> calendar interface, but the tasks do not seem to appear in any of the
> calendars; the tasks seem to be in some other calendar store.  I've
> added my Google calendars to the Thunderbird Lightning plugin.  I cannot
> see the tasks in those calendars, and it does not seem that I can export
> the task list, or link to it.
>
> I've also added a bunch of external calendars to my Google calendar
> list, including the .ics link from Meetup, and the iCal link from
> http://sobac.com/~stopthestink/events-calendar/   That all seems to work
> fine.
>
> I'm not using the Google calendar app for Android, but the mobile web
> interface for tasks: http://mail.google.com/tasks?source=mog&gly=ca
> (which will redirect to the mobile Task interface on an Android phone).
>
> So, if you want to use Google Tasks, stick to their Web interface,
> either desktop or mobile.
>
> If you want tasks  integrated with events (with import/export) try
> Thunderbird's Lightning plugin.  Not sure how conformant Lightning tasks
> are to the CalSch standards.
>
> I've used Evolution for event scheduling as well, but I don't remember
> how well it handles tasks or how conformant it is to standards.
>
>  From RFC5545, a task (called a "To-Do") is an event with rollover and
> completion - if a task has no completed date then it appears the next
> day.  If there is a due date then it can appear as "overdue" when it
> rolls past the due date.  If there is a start date then it does not
> appear in the task list until that date.
>
> --Bob.
>
> RFC5545: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545

>
> On 12-10-01 06:01 PM, unsolicited wrote:
>> One of the annoying things about (Google) calendar is that it has no
>> sense of tasks as events (or vice versa). [Never mind google tasks for
>> the purpose of this message.]
>>
>> It just occurred to me I could create two calendars, 'mycal' (shown) and
>> 'mycal-done' (not shown). When a meeting has happened, for example,
>> moving the event from 'mycal' to 'mycal-done' would be the equivalent to
>> marking the meeting as completed. (Or cancelled.) Turning the display of
>> 'mycal-done' on/off would be the equivalent to ticking (or not) 'Show
>> Completed'.
>>
>> It also occurs to me that if one has a regular 'project' [never mind
>> that by definition a project is unique], one could export the (calendar)
>> project as a .csv, edit the dates for the next round, and import the
>> modified .csv.
>>
>> [<tongue in cheek> Should I be looking to apply for a software patent
>> for these ideas?]
>>
>> Any reasons why approaching these these ways doesn't make sense / are
>> there better ways?
>>
>> Anyone know of any good web places where such tips and 'tricks' are
>> bandied about?
>>
>> [It appears to be pointless to hold one's breath that google will ever
>> add the concept of 'complete' to calendar events / integrate tasks into
>> calendar - a la Palm Desktop / Agendus / DateBk.]