BusyBlog

BusyCal and the new MobileMe Calendar beta

Apple recently announced a new MobileMe Calendar beta that offers an improved interface and enables calendar sharing with other MobileMe users.

The MobileMe Calendar beta functions as a cloud-based CalDAV server, similar to the iCal Server included in Snow Leopard Server. Calendars on your Mac are now synced with MobileMe via CalDAV. Previously, calendars on your Mac were synced with MobileMe through Sync Services.

We think this is a good move on Apple's part. Sync Services is very fragile, and the sooner Apple can move away from it the better. Syncing with MobileMe via CalDAV is a step in the right direction and should make MobileMe syncing more reliable and extensible. That's the good news.

The bad news is that BusyCal does not currently support CalDAV and the MobileMe CalDAV calendars will appear read-only in BusyCal. Therefore, BusyCal users should NOT use the MobileMe Calendar beta at this time.

We are working on CalDAV support in BusyCal and expect to release a public beta that is compatible with the MobileMe calendar beta later this summer. If you are a BusyCal user, please wait until the BusyCal public beta is available before using the MobileMe Calendar beta. You can be notified of its availability by signing up here:

http://www.busymac.com/beta.html

If you are already using the MobileMe calendar beta, you have two options:

1) Use the new MobileMe Calendar beta with iCal. Your MobileMe calendars will be read-only in BusyCal.

If you want to continue using the MobileMe Calendar beta, you'll have to use iCal for editing events on your MobileMe calendars. The MobileMe calendars will appear read-only in BusyCal. You can continuing using BusyCal to edit shared calendars on the LAN and on Google.

or

2) Switch back to the old MobileMe Calendar and continue using BusyCal.

If you want to switch back to the old MobileMe Calendar, which is compatible with BusyCal, you can do so by clicking the following link:

http://www.me.com/calendar/downgrade/

BusyCal 1.3 released

BusyCal 1.3 has been released! This version includes many new features and bug fixes, and is localized into several languages. Here's a summary of the new features:

• Localization — Localized into French, German, Italian and Dutch. Other languages are in the works.
• Week Numbers — Option to display ISO 8601 week numbers in the calendar and mini months.
• Birthdays calendar — BusyCal now has its own Birthdays calendar that syncs directly with Address Book. And you can optionally display a person's age in the event title (e.g. John's 39th Birthday).
• Address Book integration — You can drag People and Groups from Address Book (or the new Address Panel) into the calendar to create a meeting, or drag them into the To Do List to create a To Do that is linked back to that contact in Address Book.
• Drag & Drop improvements — You can drag To Dos into the calendar to transform them into Events or drag Events from the calendar into the To Do List to transform them into To Dos. And the week view now supports drag & drop to and from the timeline to convert all-day events to timed-events, and vice versa.
• Apple Help — Help files are now available from the help menu.

BusyCal users can update by selecting Check for Updates from the BusyCal menu. New users can download it from http://www.busymac.com/download/BusyCal.zip

That was then, this is now

With the recent demise of Now Software, it seemed appropriate to republish this blog post. This post was originally published before BusyCal was announced. It explains how to run a script that converts all of your Now Up-to-Date (NUD) calendar data to iCal. 

Since iCal syncs with BusyCal via Sync Services, once the NUD calendar data has been transferred to iCal, it will instantly sync to BusyCal as well. NUD users should be very comfortable using BusyCal. It provides many of the calendar sharing and personal productivity features NUD users have come to rely on, while maintaining compatibility with iCal, MobileMe, and the iPhone. 

NUD users are welcome to run this free script to transfer their data to iCal, whether or not they plan to use BusyCal. Once the data is transferred to iCal, you may download a 30-day trial of BusyCal and test it out. If you later decide not to use BusyCal, just stop using it and return to iCal, and all of your data will be current in iCal.

Following is the original blog post.

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Migrating from Now Up-to-Date to iCal

Back in the day, Now Up-to-Date (NUD) was the undisputed champion of calendar sharing for Mac users. We know, we're the original developers. But it's getting a little long in the tooth, and doesn't sync with the iPhone, so many NUD users are migrating to BusyCal. But how do you transfer all those events in NUD to iCal?

NUD to iCal is a free utility that copies events from Now Up-to-Date to iCal. It will create a new calendar in iCal for each category in NUD and copy all events to it. Events in NUD are converted to the following event types in iCal:

NUD	iCal
Appointment	Event
Banner Special Holiday	All Day Event
To-Do Call Undated	ToDo
Sticky Note Graphic	NA

How to use NUD to iCal
Launch NUD to iCal and select the following options:

• Source calendar — You may copy events from all calendars (categories) in NUD, or a single calendar.
• Date — All events after the date specified will be copied to iCal.

It is recommended that you set a short date range, like one year, and NOT import 10+ years of events from NUD to iCal, as it will take a long time (many hours) to process and iCal will run very slowly if you add that many events to it.

When you click Start, a new calendar will be created in iCal for each source calendar (category) in NUD, and all events that occur after the date specified will be copied to iCal. The progress will be displayed on the bottom of the window while the events are being imported.

Processing can take a while depending on the size of your calendar. Make sure you allow plenty of time for processing to complete and do not use or quit NUD or iCal while NUD to iCal is running. You may click the Stop button at any time to stop processing.

An alert will be displayed once processing is complete, informing you how many events were imported and to reconfigure the repeating events in iCal.

 

Note: NUD stores repeating events as a series of individual events, whereas iCal stores repeating events as a single event with a recurrence rule. Therefore, repeating events in NUD are not copied to iCal. Instead, only the first occurrence of a repeating event in NUD is copied to iCal and the word "[REPEATING]" is appended to the event title so you can easily find these events in iCal and reconfigure the repeat interval.

You may search for the repeating events in iCal by entering "repeating" in the search field in the upper-right hand corner of iCal.

A list of the matching events will appear on the bottom of the window.

 

You may then double-click each one, and reconfigure the repeat interval and edit the event title, as appropriate.

 

And that's it. All of your events in NUD have been copied to iCal.

Download NUD to iCal

BusyCal 1.2 released

BusyCal 1.2 has been released! This version adds two commonly requested features — a global font size preference, and Calendar Groups — and fixes several bugs. Here's a brief list of changes:

• New global font size preference
• New Calendar Groups feature
• Fixed several crashes
• Fixed several google syncing bugs
• Fixed row highlighting bug in List View
• Fixed other miscellaneous bugs

BusyCal users can update by selecting Check for Updates from the BusyCal menu. New users can download it from http://www.busymac.com/download/BusyCal.dmg.

BusyCal awarded MacLife Editors' Choice

 MacLife recently reviewed BusyCal and awarded it an Editors' Choice!

Here's what MacLife had to say:

BusyCal does almost everything iCal does and adds some crucial missing features. In a few short weeks, it's become our default calendar application.

Frankly, BusyCal is such a vast improvement over iCal that we can't imagine switching back.

And in a related article MacLife went on to say:

Imagine iCal on steroids, then imagine that steroidal iCal on a second helping of steroids, and you start to get an idea. BusyMac brings with it so many improvements over the basic calendar, you'll soon wonder why you didn't switch earlier then later wonder what you'd ever done without BusyCal.

Thank you, MacLife, for recognizing the many great features of BusyCal.

BusyCal wins Macworld Eddy Award!

Each year Macworld picks the best Mac software products of the year and honors them with Eddy Awards. Last year they picked BusySync, and this year they picked BusyCal!

Here's what Macworld had to say:

"BusyCal looks a lot like iCal. But it does things iCal can only dream of. It seamlessly syncs with Google Calendar out of the box, shares calendars via Bonjour, and supports multi-person editing. BusyCal did more than revive the calendaring category; it established itself as the category leader."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. We're really honored to be recognized by Macworld for all the hard work that went into BusyCal 1.0. And we're grateful for the encouragement and feedback we've received from our customers. 

Stay tuned. We're not done yet...

BusyCal 1.1

BusyCal 1.1 has been released! We added several features including the commonly requested mini-month navigator, 64-bit and Garbage Collection support on Snow Leopard, three-finger swiping, and more.

Here's a complete list of changes:

• Added mini-month calendar to source list.
• Support for three-finger swiping.
• Added Duration column to List View.
• Added an "at start" alarm interval.
• Support for 64-bit and Garbage Collection on Snow Leopard.
• Admin password no longer required to update Dock icon, except during a software update.
• Support both shift-return and option-return for line feeds.
• Clear stale data in info panel when an event moves out of view.
• Better memory management when syncing with Entourage.
• Better handling of malformed ics files.
• Better date handling when scheduling events with no year.
• Better handling of 4-digit year input.
• Fixed bug affecting recurring events starting prior to 1930
• Hide info panel when app is minimized.
• Fixed preference setting for default calendar app.
• Various recurring event bug fixes.
• Option to display more descriptive time zone names.
• Backups filenames are stored in yyyy-mm-dd format.
• Fixed various Google syncing bugs.
• Fixed crash caused by unicode non-breaking space characters.
• Fixed crash caused by corrupted system font.
• Improved logging.

Existing BusyCal users can update by selecting Check for Updates from the BusyCal menu. New users can download it from http://www.busymac.com/download/BusyCal.dmg

BusyCal 1.0.1 released

BusyCal 1.0.1 has been released. This is a bug fix release and contains the following changes:

• Dock icon updates properly to show today's date
• Alarms can be added to events on the Birthdays calendar
• Info panel description field scrolls properly when entering lots of text
• Text in read-only notes field can be selected/copied
• URLs are clickable in read-only notes field
• Follow event to its new date when changing date in info panel
• Faster launching
• Fixed Undo crash
• Fixed Delete Duplicates crash
• Fixed Sticky Notes editing crash
• Recover from failed BusySync database upgrades
• Don't allow multiple Google Connections for the same account
• Fixed Google permission errors
• Fixed malformed Google meeting requests
• Fixed malformed Google degenerate recurrences
• Don't allow Organizer to add self as attendee
• Import non-UTF-8 ics files
• Process meeting replies that don't match original recipient's name or email
• Fixed custom weekly repeat bug
• Fixed end time recurrence exception bug
• Fixed Auckland, New Zealand time zone bugs
• Fixed To Do sorting in calendar
• Completed To Dos can be dragged to original due date

Existing BusyCal users can update by selecting Check for Updates from the BusyCal menu. New users can download it from http://www.busymac.com/download/BusyCal.dmg

Happy Birthday BusySync and welcome BusyCal

Today is BusySync's second birthday!

We've come a long way in the two years since the first release of BusySync.

BusySync 1.0 allowed iCal users to share calendars with each other over a local area network with full read/write access. BusySync 2.0 added the ability for users to sync iCal with Google Calendar.

As we enhanced and refined BusySync over the years, we came to realize that we couldn't make it much better without having full control over both the syncing engine (BusySync) and user interface (iCal). That's when we set our sights on a higher goal — to build a desktop calendar that combines the functionality of BusySync and iCal in one integrated app.

I'm happy to report that we reached that goal with the recent release of BusyCal 1.0. BusyCal wouldn't be here today if it weren't for the groundbreaking work and years of refinement that went into BusySync.

Happy Birthday BusySync and thanks for giving birth to BusyCal!

BusyCal vs. iCal

BusyCal is a desktop calendar for Mac OS X that provides seamless calendar sharing and enhanced productivity tools for workgroups and individuals. BusyCal combines the the calendar sharing and synchronization technology from the award winning BusySync, with a beautiful desktop calendar interface that is instantly recognizable to iCal users — in one integrated application.

Top 5 reasons to use BusyCal

Why use BusyCal when iCal is free? For some users, iCal is sufficient. But if you need to share calendars with others, or are frustrated by the many limitations of iCal, then BusyCal may be right for you. Here are 5 areas where BusyCal shines.

1. Integrated calendar sharing and synchronization

BusyCal allows families and small workgroups to easily share calendars on a local area network and over the internet, without the need for a dedicated server. Shared calendars can be viewed and edited by multiple users and changes are instantly synchronized over the network.

BusyCal also syncs with Google Calendar, so you can access your calendar online, or sync between home and work computers by using Google Calendar as a conduit.

And BusyCal syncs with iCal, MobileMe, the iPhone, and other applications and devices that support Sync Services. So any data you enter in BusyCal will sync with your iPhone.

For more info, see Screencast: Sharing calendars on a LAN & Screencast: Syncing with Google Calendar 

2. Non-modal info panel

BusyCal includes a non-modal info panel for viewing and editing event details. The info panel can be displayed as a floating window or embedded in the lower right corner of the calendar window.

The info panel makes data entry and viewing a breeze without having to double-click an event to view or edit its contents. And if you prefer the keyboard over the mouse, you can select and edit events solely from the keyboard with intuitive keyboard navigation and quick entry shortcuts.

And the info panel is customizable. You can choose to show just the basics, or add additional fields like tags, graphics, and multiple alarms.

For more info, see Screencast: Event Info Panel

3. Customizable Views

The Month and Week views can scroll, so you can display just the current and future dates without wasting precious screen real estate on the past. And the month cells will scroll if you have a lot of events on a busy day.

In addition to traditional Month and Week views, BusyCal offers a two-week view and a List View. The List View can be customized and includes an expanded notes pane with rich text editing.

In addition, you can can customize the fonts styles and sizes of events, and display live weather feeds, moon phases, holidays, graphics, and sticky notes in your calendar.

To learn more, see Screencast: Customizable Views & Screencast: Weather & Moon Phases

4. To Dos

In BusyCal, To Dos are displayed in the calendar on the date they are due. To Dos will auto-forward each day until completed. Once completed, To Dos display in your calendar on the date they were completed with a checkmark. And To Dos can repeat, so you can create a repeating To Do, like a status report, that recurs each week. 

To Dos can also be displayed in a To Do List format, sorted as you like. 

To learn more, see Screencast: Managing To Dos

5. Alarms

BusyCal displays alarms in a floating window that allows you to apply custom snooze intervals, and to snooze or dismiss all pending alarms.

In addition, BusyCal provides an alarm menubar app that displays the current day’s events and To Dos even when BusyCal is not running.

Lastly, BusyCal allows you to add alarms to read-only events. So, if you’re subscribed to a read-only calendar, like your local sports team, you can add alarms to the events on that calendar so you are reminded about them. 

To learn more, see Screencast: Alarms

Check it out

You can learn more and download a 30-day trial of BusyCal at http://www.busymac.com.