RE: [PHPiCalendar-DEV] Outlook and iCal addition into phpicalendar

[svens <sv...@de...>]

A dedicated pop3 (could be imap) account is used to receive the mail with
the *.ics attachments;
On each request (index, day, week, month, year) the mailserver is checked
for new additions and, if so, they'll be added into the calender associated
with the senders email address;
It's quite easy to set it up in a way that anyone can ad through this way
into a public calendar, but who would want that??
 
Anyway, when things can be added, they should also be delete-able, by the
adder that is. I altered the event.php in such way that the adder can delete
the item from its calendar, on uid-basis, from within the event popup;
 
Once the delete-option was made, it was also possible to add two other
options into the event popup: export item to outlook or to iCal, also on
uid-basis.
 
I did it in the last three evenings, so it's not fully finished/tested, but
also it was surprisingly simple. 
So now I just wonder why I can't find any similar addition to phpicalendar.
 
Why can mail_into_phpicalendar be preferable to just plain uploading of a
whole calendar or using webcal reference? 
Well, since anyone is used to his/her email application, one can expect them
to easily use it for emailing a calendar-item. 
Making it in your own system and then sending it, provides a backup, id's
and all the necessary data.
Using a form to add into phpicalender, would require a lot of choices,
possibilities, checks and balances.
 
I am wondering if anyone has tried the same and if i have overlooked any
(future) problem.


>It seems to me that you want to do (at the end of the dev) something
>like Outlook, with event invitation, isn't it ?

No event invitation. 
The quest:
Around a common subject, different people are involved. I made one general
calendar, which I as moderator will update (using outlook and outlook2ical
(a vb-macro)). For each (couple of) participant(s) I've setup a own calendar
-> Petrus, Paulus, Lucas, etc...
The solution:
Each of them can email an event as attachment (either from Outlook or iCal)
to a certain emailaddress. Whenever a any user/viewer of the calendar
changes view a tiny little php-script is launched, using imap_mail_etc,
checking for mail with attachments, checking attachments for events, merging
them into the existing phpicalendar *.ics that is associated with their
senders emailaddress. It works just fine!
The alternatives:
1. moderation through the administrator (takes his time and delay in
update);
2. update a own calendar in a shared map (needs experienced participants,
trust in macro's and the use of passwords, etc);
3. update a own calendar in a private map (needs experienced participants,
trust in macro's, etc);
4. moderation through a webform (see previous mail);

Now, I reckon invitation can easily be done, but I was not suggesting it.

>I'm not sure for Mozilla calendar (Outlook is not dealing with
>standard ICS format, so ...), but iCal allows you to update published
>calendar on every changes, so this is doing what you want, no ?

Now Outlook has the possibility to import *.ics calendars as a whole, after
downloading it OR to open one (generated on the fly) within Outlook and save
it, etc.
Also Outlook has the possibility to send an opened event to send as a *.ics.
(top-menu: Actions -> Send as *.ics). It than contains all the necessary
data (uid, timezones, whatever). With iCal one can do exactly the same.

Given the above, the suggested (and working!!) solution is not only fast and
efficient, it's also phpicalendar-updating for dummy's. For anyone who's
able to use its calendar and emailprogramm, can than update a calendar
(s)he's authorized to, by email-recognition.
Again, it was very very simple.

>The first goal of this project is to publish calendars on a network.
>I agree that something interesting would be to add is a way to edit
>calendars. Various hacks had been done on this subject, and
>particularly something to send an email to the calendar owner to book
>time. 
This sounds like the alternative 1., which requires an administrators
interaction. I hope I now explained well enough that my suggestion is
without any human interaction and yet with very limited programming.

Of course than also deleting had to be added, and I did.
Doing so also save item to outlook resp. save item to iCal was easily made.