NEW! Google Calendar Gadget

Hi Thalia and JOD,

So this is rather odd. I just tried with a 3rd Google Calendar account after having it work just as it has in our testing with another 2 accounts and ran into what you did.

So instead of clicking the link in the Sandbox, I went to Google Calendar, clicked "Add" and selected "Add by URL" from the menu on the left-hand-side of the gCal page, pasted in http://iwantsandy.com/static/gcal_gad..., and it appeared just as expected.

Does that work for you?

—Rael

Hi Michaelw,

I have indeed just done that -- the change should be on our servers shortly.

Rael

Howdy,

I believe I just twigged to what the issue is -- and solved it at the same time.

(This is an assertion rather than a known solution, mind you.)

If Sandy's calendar does not appear in Google's list of public calendars then the error is triggered (although it really shouldn't be). When we've been adding this calendar by clicking the button link or manually by pasting in the public URL, we've not been checking the box that says "Allow others to find this public calendar via Google Calendar search?". We'd simply had no reason to.

But it would appear that if you show up by following the button link to add a calendar that a) you've not added before or b) isn't in the public directory, you are "access" to that calendar (despite not actually being restricted in any way, shape, or form).

So in the process of adding the calendar manually, one of you I believe did the right thing -- thank you! -- and made it show up in the Google Calendar directory of public calendars. And so should have now allowed the button link to work for others.

Now unfortunately there's no easy way for me to check this assertion given that I've now added Sandy's gCal gadget to every one of my various accounts -- without creating yet another, that is.

If you had this work the first time (without the "access" error) when you clicked the Google Calendar button, could you please post here to let us know?

(There's a long-standing question in one of the Google Calendar forums about this -- as yet not resolved. Assuming someone else verifies that this now works, I'll be sure to post a follow-up there.)

Thanks a ton for the testing!

Rael

Hi B,

I'm not sure what you mean.

Sandy's Daily Digest for that day will show up with appointments, todos, and anything else you've specified that she track in your digest (using tags).

—Rael

Ah, gotcha! Thanks for clarifying, Non-Sequitur.

Yes, it keeps things separate for those who want it so, but allows you to keep your Daily Digest front-and-center right there in gCal.

As I mentioned, it is step one toward tighter (optional, of course) gCal integration.

Enjoy!

—Rael

Hi Thalia,

Thanks for letting me know!

Did you have to go and add it manually or did it just suddenly work when you clicked the Google Calendar button after it didn't before?

Rael

Hi Alex,

Sorry to hear you're not crazy about the implementation.

The ideal we're aiming for is to simply push things to and pull from gCal. The gadget really is a step one in that direction.

I very much appreciate the input, though.

Have a great rest of the weekend.

—R

Hi folks,

Thanks so much for the kind words.

While we don't have a time-estimate as of yet, I can say that we'll be pushing the Google Calendar bits out as we get each piece ready-ish for prime-time (living in Sandy's Sandbox, and so available to more adventurous folk, until truly ready).

I'll have more to say (and hopefully show) in the coming week.

--R

No worries at all, Alex. I honestly am always glad for the input.

Rael

Howdy, folks!

So we've been finishing up and doing some testing on token-based iCal feeds which would allow you to subscribe to your I want Sandy reminders, appointments, and to-dos from Google Calendar, 30Boxes, et al. And we're about ready to push it live for everyone.

What we could use is a few volunteers to give it a whirl before we release it to all of Sandy's clients -- to work out any potential kinks (of which we're pretty darn sure there aren't any at this point), get feedback on our documentation, and so forth.

If you'd like to give it a whirl, please send email from the email address by which Sandy knows you (i.e. your "primary email address") to help@iwantsandy.com with the Subject: "iCal me, would ya?" and we'll turn the feature on for your account (most likely in the morning).

—Rael

Howdy folks,

I'm just fixing some directions and testing again and I'll be turning on the feature for those of you who wrote in to help.

Sorry for the delay!

—R

Howdy,

I've turned on this feature for your accounts.

—R

Hi Alex,

Unless I had you confused with another Alex, I turned this on for your account. Take a gander at your Settings page at http://iwantsandy.com/settings -- under the "Calendar subscription" heading.

If you don't see that heading at all, please do send email to help@iwantsandy.com letting me know ( please add "Attn: Rael" to the subject so that I can be sure to have it routed my way ).

—R

Howdy,

Google Calendar's robot seems to take a little time to get into a good rhythm with your calendar feed — eventually polling it for new appointments at about the same rate you add new appointments by telling Sandy about them.

Unfortunately the robot's schedule isn't set in stone and it might take a day or so before you're seeing updates percolate from Sandy to Google Calendar in a timely manner.

—Rael

Hi Foushy,

The benefit of being behind in my mail for a few hours while I go heads-down is that I come back to this lovely thread of "Aw man!... Oh, cool!... Yay!"

Glad it is working for you!

—Rael

Very good to hear, Chris!

Now! ;-)

See http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy... for details...

Hi folks,

I know Sandy winking into and out of existence on your Google Calendar is wearing a little thin — I'm rather confounded myself.

When this first came up I did a whole lot of experimentation, written up at http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy... .

I just did some further experimentation and Google Calendar has gone all wonky on me this evening — beyond the wonkiness currently under discussion. It's sluggish (and accuses me of being on a slow link, despite the fact that I can get anywhere else pretty snappily) and while I just got Sandy's google_gadget.ics to load for a moment, it disappeared again within seconds. Now whenever I click its check-mark in Google Calendar, I get the "Loading..." box off to the top-right, followed by an "Oops, we couldn't load details for your calendar, please try again in a few minutes."

And now I am getting "Oops, we're sorry, Google Calendar is temporarily unavailable. You can cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes..."

Just before the latest wonkiness a few minutes ago, I tried the same experiment I did last time and used a copy of our gadget at http://iwantsandy.com/static/widget/g... and it worked perfectly.

I'm afraid on this front all I can offer is "Go figure!?"

But I have added that copy to our deployment procedures so that it'll always be available to you at http://iwantsandy.com/static/widget/g... .

Please do give that a whirl and let me know how it worked for you. (Please do give it a few minutes or so though given that Google Calendar still seems to be under the weather.)

—Rael

Good catch, Kevin1! Great excessive use of hyphenation, Paul ;-)! And done, Tracey! (The change will be up on the site shortly.)