Bob's dashboard

crispinr replied on May 12, 2008 01:26 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Could Sandy add a VTODO option for "to do" tags?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalenda....28VTODO.29

The VTODO component describes a to-do item, i.e., an action-item or assignment.

The following is an example of a to-do due on April 15, 1998, from RFC 2445 or RFC2445 Syntax Reference. An audio alarm has been specified to remind the calendar user at noon, the day before the to-do is expected to be completed and repeat hourly, four additional times. The to-do definition has been modified twice since it was initially created.

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ABC Corporation//NONSGML My Product//EN
BEGIN:VTODO
DTSTAMP:19980130T134500Z
SEQUENCE:2
UID:uid4@host1.com
ORGANIZER:MAILTO:unclesam@us.gov
ATTENDEE;PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED:MAILTO:jqpublic@host.com
DUE:19980415T235959
STATUS:NEEDS-ACTION
SUMMARY:Submit Income Taxes
BEGIN:VALARM
ACTION:AUDIO
TRIGGER:19980403T120000
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=audio/basic:http://host.com/pub/audio-
files/ssbanner.aud
REPEAT:4
DURATION:PT1H
END:VALARM
END:VTODO
END:VCALENDAR

Bob replied on February 13, 2008 17:51 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

I am finding that this fix works for a short time, but then as you make changes to Sandy's info, problems develop. Within a day or two of subscribing, I start to get this error: Request encountered an unexpected error on subscribed calendars (code 4). The only way to fix it is to delete the calendar and resubscribe. Your thoughts?

Rael Dornfest replied on February 04, 2008 11:26 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Howdy folks,

I borrowed some free time from my sleep piggy bank and challenged iCal to a duel this evening! (Ok, so I twiddled some settings.)

And I have what I believe is a fix for iCal for Leopard's general unruliness when it comes to subscribed iCalendars. I've written it all up at http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy... .

Please do let me know how you get on; a couple of folks with corroborating results and I'll post more widely in the hopes of helping folks who are running into this across services.

—Rael

Rael Dornfest replied on February 04, 2008 11:15 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Hi Bob,

Just to be clear: we don't put to-dos on your calendar unless they're actually scheduled for a particular date/time. Otherwise, they hang out in the to-do bungalow off to the side along with the other to-dos.

—R

Bob replied on February 03, 2008 15:02 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Is there any more news on this Rael?

Ivan Raszl replied on February 03, 2008 14:58 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Please let ToDos show up in iCal, because this is the only way I can sync it to my smartphone. Without this capability Sandy is fired! :)

Rael Dornfest replied on January 24, 2008 23:10 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

I hear you and will consider some options.

(Another data point on this front is the iPhone not having to-dos.)

But we will start by just getting the to-dos showing up as to-dos first so you (and I and others) can get to done.

Rael Dornfest replied on January 24, 2008 23:08 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

I tried a couple of other online services and a local feed too. It is just downright flakey.

Not that I am laying the blame for anything on our side on Apple, mind you. There is more than enough not to like about iCal ;-)

But we are working on it on our end.

-R

Bob replied on January 24, 2008 21:48 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

A to-do isn't an appointment though. It doesn't necessarily have a specific time associated with it, nor does it necessarily have other people associated with it. I for one, don't want my to-do list commingled with appointments, but maybe I am out of the mainstream.

In any case, my to-do items from Sandy are just not showing up in iCal at all -- unless they have a time and date associated, then they show up as appointments.

Hope that helps

Rael Dornfest replied on January 24, 2008 20:22 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

As for why they show as events, this is in keeping with your original supposition: I've always been amazed that most calendars don't show your scheduled to-dos as appointments, relegating them to a little to-dos-only gated community off to the side (c.f. Outlook).

The secondary reason we include to-dos amongst the appointments is that some calendars -- Google Calendar, for instance -- don't provide a space for to-do items at all, leaving you to fend for yourself to find yet another service to keep your to-do list for you.

As I wrote in one of our updates [http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy...]:

"Not since the days before the Appointment/To-do Accord of 1790 have To-dos and Appointments lived in such harmony. No more are your To-dos relegated to a sliver of real-estate off to the side of your calendar (let alone shuffled off to yet some gated to-do-only community.)"

—Rael

Bob replied on January 24, 2008 20:18 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Thanks. Yes I am running OS 10.5.1

What other ICal feeds with to-do items did you try? If this is an Apple issue, I will talk to my usual Genius Bar guy and look for a fix. If I can help, please let me know.

Bob

Rael Dornfest replied on January 24, 2008 20:15 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Hi Bob,

(Couldn't resist the cupcake thing ;-)

Seriously though, I didn't respond because I was tucking into the issue before doing so.

I have spent the past hour trying to figure out just why to-do items aren't showing up in iCal for me either. They are absolutely included in the ics feed and have been since day one and showed just fine before I upgraded to Leopard.

Leopard iCal has caused untold issues, including errors refreshing subscribes calendars protected by username and password, no calendars showing at all (even my local ones) ever so often when I open iCal, and now the disappearance of to-do items. I even went and subscribed to other (non-Sandy) iCal feeds with to-do items and found that they didn't show until the 3rd refresh -- and one of those feeds wasn't even password protected, so that seems to have little to do with it.

Are you on OS X Leopard?

We will continue working on this and get it solved, I assure you.

—R

Rael Dornfest replied on January 24, 2008 20:09 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Hi Bob,

I have no idea why you are a cupcake ;-)

--R

Bob replied on January 24, 2008 19:41 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Rael, thanks for addressing the issue raised by my error in flagging, but could we get a reply to the original question?

"I've subscribed to my Sandy feed in iCal, but to-do items are showing up as events on the calendar, and not in iCal's "to-do" list. I supposed the correct behavior would be for an item tagged @todo to show up both places, since it could still be an appointment-type event... but I'd really like it to show in the iCal list, so I can check it off, and so it will show up in Leopard Mail as well."

I am frustrated that all of my To Do items appear as appointments in iCal.

Thanks.

Bob

P.S. I would ask "Why am I a cupcake?" but I am afraid I would get an answer to that instead of the the iCal question that matters. :)

Rael Dornfest replied on January 24, 2008 19:14 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Good to hear, Eric!

Eric Suesz replied on January 24, 2008 18:58 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Yes, I can't wait until we have this changed -- hopefully next week when we debut some new interface changes. I want to both a) make it apparent that the flag is for spam-like things and b) build a flagging system for admins, just like you note.

Rael Dornfest replied on January 24, 2008 18:55 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Hi Bob and Eric,

I did this myself quite a few times thinking I was flagging it for myself to go back and read before I realized just what it was doing. Perhaps something more explicit like "Flag as inappropriate"?

—R

Eric Suesz replied on January 20, 2008 22:18 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

Don't worry about it, Bob! We are all-too-aware that the Flag for review verbiage needs to be reworked!

Bob replied on January 20, 2008 18:19 to the problem "todo's not showing up in ical" in I want Sandy:

I thought "flag for review" meant I was asking a Sandy rep to review the question. I didn't mean to flag this as inappropriate. Sorry.