[Calendaring] rolf's initial experience

Rolf Keitel rolf at triumf.ca
Mon Aug 11 08:35:00 PDT 2008


I played with the calendar, both the bedework web-client and the 
Lightning plugin to Thunderbird since Friday.

After playing for a while things start to look up.
 
At the beginning I struggled with a lot of frustration, especially on 
the web-client and had problems with calendar import, so that I 
eventually gave up trying to import.


I focused on multiple calendars, some shared some not, some affecting 
busy-list, some not. Main objective being a valid free/busy list for 
other users to see.

At my present state of limited knowledge I would

    * find that using both the web-client and the lightning plug-in for
      making calendar entries is confusing
    * use the web-client only to manage calendars (access control etc)
    * use Lightning or Sunbird to enter events.


Here are some details, mainly for the calendar working group. My 
apologies for being so wordy:


      *Problems:*


        *Web-client: *

   1. free/busy list shows only full hours. Is this configurable? If I
      schedule an event from 9:45 to 10:15, I am shown busy from 9:00 to
      11:00. This is bad. Luckily, Lightning gives you more detail when
      you invite to a meeting, but you have to go into zoom 200% or 400%
      to see this.
   2. I had problems with importing sunbird   .ics  files. Some
      calendars imported ok, others not.
   3. I had an error on calendar import of a Sunbird iCAL file. This
      gave me a full web-page of errors from tomcat, hibernate, ...
      which would not go away. Even after killing all instances of
      Firefox, logging into cal.triumf.ca gave me the same error-page. I
      had to find and delete a cookie to become operational again.
   4. I cannot force the delete of a calendar which is not empty. I had
      an imported calendar I wanted to get rid of. I had to delete event
      by event until it was empty.
   5. I am in event-view of a calendar, and select the plus on a day to
      define a new event. Then the "add Event" form does not remember
      where I came from, i.e. I must select the calendar again. This is
      really annoying.
   6. If I'm looking at the free/busy list of a different user in
      week-view and change to month-view, it does not remember the user,
      but displays my free/busy list.
   7. I had a calendar, which I could delete because I was told it is
      not empty, but I could convert it from calendar to folder and
      back, which I'm told I can only do when it is empty. Two days
      later I could delete the calendar?????????
   8. Cannot export a calendar: " An exception occurred: /Define tag
      cannot set a null value for bean with id: calendar/". Not
      important right now, but what am I doing wrong?


        *Lightning:*

   1. The effect of a new event on the free/busy list is hidden away in
      the "Option/Show time as" menu and uses "free" as default. Is this
      default configurable?
   2. Is there a way in Lightning to see my own free/busy list?


      *Things to watch for:*

Entering an event via the web-client, seems to put it by default into 
the busy list. With lightning I'm not sure yet. My home machine seems to 
be doing something different from my office machine. There is obviously 
something I don't understand. It would be really nice if one could 
configure this default behaviour on a calendar by calendar basis or 
based on event category. Maybe that is possible, but I haven't found it yet.


        **Web-client:**

   1. In order to be able to write to a calendar from Lightning, you
      have to give yourself access (manage calendars) with your username
      (in addition to the owner access).


        **Lightning:**

   1. If you change access privileges to a calendar with the
      web-interface, you have to restart existing Lightning / Sunbird
      sessions. Privileges seem to be only checked at login.

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Rolf Keitel, Ph.D., TRIUMF        Tel: (604) 222-7453 |
| Manager Electronics and Controls  Fax: (604) 222-7307 |
| Engineering Division                                  |
| Vancouver, B.C., Canada                               |
+-------------------------------------------------------+


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