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http://dancameron.org/pownce/1854

Started by dancameron · 10 months ago

Calendar syncing is impossible and Why do calendaring programs allow duplicates in the first place. #
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9 comments

  • JaredB

    2 years ago

    Syncing which two calendars?
    reply
  • Dan

    2 years ago

    Google Cal, Exchange/Outlook/Entourage, iCal and Now-up-to-date. Not just two.
    reply
  • JaredB

    2 years ago

    Ah. I could see how it could be tricky - not impossible, but complicated.

    When you're asking about duplicates, are you talking about in the context of syncing between systems creating duplicate entries?

    Smarter syncing systems will be able to recognize whether two entries are actually identical, and (if so) merge them automatically. If the two entires are different, however, that's where it gets tricky, and duplicates is one of the easier solutions to that problem. There are other solutions as well, bu many of them would require some sort of manual confirmation, showing you what's different between the two items and asking you what to do about it.
    reply
  • Dan

    2 years ago

    OS X sync services asks about duplicates so somehow exchange or the gcal sync I'm using was the culprit.
    reply
  • JaredB

    2 years ago

    My advice: don't use so many calendars. I'd suggest one mobile one (your phone/PDA) and only one other one.
    reply
  • Dan

    2 years ago

    Too bad it's critical for my work to use at least three of them.
    reply
  • JaredB

    2 years ago

    Why?
    reply
  • Dan

    2 years ago

    I rather not explain why my work went with NUD and Excahnge or how we use it, nor how I use my the other calendars since I see another rat hole coming. The point is calendering isn't unified and it sucks some companies support iCalendar and some don't.
    reply
  • JaredB

    2 years ago

    Yeah, probably too long of a topic to discuss in detail. I'm basically saying I agree with you: syncing calendars can be complicated.

    I was just adding my thoughts that every additional calendar you add will only increase that complexity. I'm sure that you choose to use other calendars in addition to the one(s) that your company has chosen for a reason, whether it be a technical reason or a personal decision that the extra features are worth the extra sync headaches that accompany them.

    I'm also in agreement that every calendar system should support the iCal standard, and I've even toyed with the idea of writing a translation service that takes data from various popular calendar apps and transforms it into iCal standard data, and also transforms it back out in the supported import formats, as the basis for a pluggable open source sync application. It's unlikely that I'll ever actually do this, though, due to lack of time as well as the probability that lots of people as smart or smarter than I have probably already tried it (since it's a very common problem) and have either solved it (and I haven't heard about it) or found that it was much more difficult than it seems.
    reply

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