.ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

.ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[David A. Gershman]

Hello,

I was wondering if there was a feature in OrgMode to provide 'VALARM's
when exporting to .ics?

A sample event created, for example, in Sunbird generated this code:

  BEGIN:VALARM
  TRIGGER;VALUE=DURATION:-PT5M
  DESCRIPTION:Mozilla Alarm: Lunch w/Bob
  ACTION:DISPLAY
  END:VALARM

I was thinking maybe this could be included automatically via emacs
variables for all .ics exported events, or on a heading basis via some
property, i.e. ':ALARM:'.

My goal is to have these alarms used by the calendar program, not emacs.
 My org files are not always open but my calendar program is and uses an
exported .ics file.

Does this exist? Is this possible?  Ideas?

----------------------------------------
David A. Gershman
gershman@dagertech.net
http://dagertech.net/gershman/
"It's all about the path!" --d. gershman

Re: .ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[Carsten Dominik]

On Mar 31, 2010, at 10:34 PM, David A. Gershman wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> I was wondering if there was a feature in OrgMode to provide 'VALARM's
> when exporting to .ics?
>
> A sample event created, for example, in Sunbird generated this code:
>
>  BEGIN:VALARM
>  TRIGGER;VALUE=DURATION:-PT5M
>  DESCRIPTION:Mozilla Alarm: Lunch w/Bob
>  ACTION:DISPLAY
>  END:VALARM
>
> I was thinking maybe this could be included automatically via emacs
> variables for all .ics exported events, or on a heading basis via some
> property, i.e. ':ALARM:'.
>
> My goal is to have these alarms used by the calendar program, not  
> emacs.
> My org files are not always open but my calendar program is and uses  
> an
> exported .ics file.
>
> Does this exist?

No.

> Is this possible?

Pretty much everything is possible in Emacs.  I am putting this on my  
list.  Might be nice for Emacs appt treatment as well.

- Carsten

>  Ideas?
>
> ----------------------------------------
> David A. Gershman
> gershman@dagertech.net
> http://dagertech.net/gershman/
> "It's all about the path!" --d. gershman
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

- Carsten

Re: .ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[Daniel E. Doherty]

>>>>> "David" == David A Gershman <dagershman@dagertech.net> writes:

    David> Hello,

    David> I was wondering if there was a feature in OrgMode to provide
    David> 'VALARM's when exporting to .ics?

    David> A sample event created, for example, in Sunbird generated
    David> this code:

    David>   BEGIN:VALARM TRIGGER;VALUE=DURATION:-PT5M
    David> DESCRIPTION:Mozilla Alarm: Lunch w/Bob ACTION:DISPLAY
    David> END:VALARM

For what its worth, I vote aye on this too.  I am hacking one-way sync
with Google calander, and from there to my Windows Mobile phone.

I really want my phone to yell at me when I have an appoinment coming
up, and would like to use org mode exclusively for calendaring.  This
feature would be a really great addition to org-mode.

Regards all,

-- 

====================================================
Daniel E. Doherty

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men.
          --- William Allingham (Donegal, Ireland)

Re: .ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[Giovanni Ridolfi]

"Daniel E. Doherty" <ddoherty03@gmail.com> writes:

>>>>>> "David" == David A Gershman <dagershman@dagertech.net> writes:
>
>     David> Hello,
>
>     David> I was wondering if there was a feature in OrgMode to provide
>     David> 'VALARM's when exporting to .ics?

I think it has already been implemented: 

6 hours ago 	Eric S Fraga	iCalendar export: Implement alarms

http://repo.or.cz/w/org-mode.git/commitdiff/2c31a3b00aa1572f1c34ae37f7fc97f7ed4cd0e1

pull the git version or download the latest org:

http://orgmode.org/org-latest.zip
http://orgmode.org/org-latest.tar.gz

cheers,
Giovanni, who was thinking to implement it ;-) 

Re: .ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[Eric S Fraga]

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On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:27:40 +0200, Giovanni Ridolfi <giovanni.ridolfi@yahoo.it> wrote:
> 
> "Daniel E. Doherty" <ddoherty03@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> >>>>>> "David" == David A Gershman <dagershman@dagertech.net> writes:
> >
> >     David> Hello,
> >
> >     David> I was wondering if there was a feature in OrgMode to provide
> >     David> 'VALARM's when exporting to .ics?
> 
> I think it has already been implemented: 
> 
> 6 hours ago 	Eric S Fraga	iCalendar export: Implement alarms
> 
> http://repo.or.cz/w/org-mode.git/commitdiff/2c31a3b00aa1572f1c34ae37f7fc97f7ed4cd0e1
> 
> pull the git version or download the latest org:

and then make sure you set the variable org-icalendar-alarm-time to
the number of minutes which should be used for any exported timed
event.

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-- 
Eric S Fraga
GnuPG: 8F5C 279D 3907 E14A 5C29  570D C891 93D8 FFFC F67D

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Re: .ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[Sven Bretfeld]

Hi

Eric S Fraga <ucecesf@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:27:40 +0200, Giovanni Ridolfi <giovanni.ridolfi@yahoo.it> wrote:

>> pull the git version or download the latest org:

> and then make sure you set the variable org-icalendar-alarm-time to
> the number of minutes which should be used for any exported timed
> event.

There is something strange. Having installed the org version from git
and having set org-icalendar-alarm-time to 10, GoogleCalendar displays
appointments two hours too late. 

Strangely, the ics files produced with both versions are exactly the
same (including the headers) with exception of the VALARM lines. Here is
an example:

,---- mygtd.ics by org-mode 7.01trans (Git Version)
|
| BEGIN:VCALENDAR
| VERSION:2.0
| X-WR-CALNAME:mygtd
| PRODID:-//Sven Bretfeld//Emacs with Org-mode//EN
| X-WR-TIMEZONE:CEST
| X-WR-CALDESC:nil
| CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
| BEGIN:VEVENT
| UID: TS-0a63bfff-e765-4bd6-9cbb-f628431e8835
| DTSTART:20101013T110000
| DTEND:20101013T130000
| SUMMARY:APPT Vorbereitungssitzung IKGF-Tagung als MA-Veranstaltung
| DESCRIPTION: <2010-10-13 Mi 11:00-13:00>
| CATEGORIES:Termine
| BEGIN:VALARM
| ACTION:DISPLAY
| DESCRIPTION:APPT Vorbereitungssitzung IKGF-Tagung als MA-Veranstaltung
| TRIGGER:-P0D0H10M0S
| END:VALARM
| END:VEVENT
`----

The above appointment shows up wrongly as 13:00-15:00 in GoogleCalendar. 

,---- mygtd.ics by org-mode 7.01g (Current Version)
| 
| BEGIN:VCALENDAR
| VERSION:2.0
| X-WR-CALNAME:mygtd
| PRODID:-//Sven Bretfeld//Emacs with Org-mode//EN
| X-WR-TIMEZONE:CEST
| X-WR-CALDESC:nil
| CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
| BEGIN:VEVENT
| UID: TS-0a63bfff-e765-4bd6-9cbb-f628431e8835
| DTSTART:20101013T110000
| DTEND:20101013T130000
| SUMMARY:APPT Vorbereitungssitzung IKGF-Tagung als MA-Veranstaltung
| DESCRIPTION: <2010-10-13 Mi 11:00-13:00>
| CATEGORIES:Termine
`----

This one displays correctly as 11:00-13:00 in GoogleCalendar.

A timezone issue? But how, if both files are identical in the essential
parts? 

Greetings,

Sven

Re: .ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[Eric S Fraga]

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On 22 Jul 2010 00:21:30 +0200, "Sven Bretfeld" <sven.bretfeld@gmx.ch> wrote:

[I've pruned the CC list, by the way]

[...]

> There is something strange. Having installed the org version from git
> and having set org-icalendar-alarm-time to 10, GoogleCalendar displays
> appointments two hours too late. 
> 
> Strangely, the ics files produced with both versions are exactly the
> same (including the headers) with exception of the VALARM lines. Here is
> an example:

[...]

> A timezone issue? But how, if both files are identical in the essential
> parts? 
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Sven

Sven,

unfortunately, I really have no idea what is going on here.  I'm not
really that conversant with the full iCalendar specifications although
I have read the relevant parts of the specification [1] and I think
I've got things right.  

However, my experience with Google's calendar has left me less than
impressed.  There seem to be quite a few idiosyncrasies (I'm trying to
be polite here ;-) in what Google is doing and I have a feeling that
the bug may be there?

Does the 2 hour time shift you find correspond to your time zone
relative to UTC?  It could be that when google processes the VALARM
element, it wipes out the time zone information for the whole entry
and treats it as UTC when inserting it.

Sorry I can't be of much help.

eric

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt


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-- 
Eric S Fraga
GnuPG: 8F5C 279D 3907 E14A 5C29  570D C891 93D8 FFFC F67D

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Re: .ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[Sven Bretfeld]

Eric S Fraga <ucecesf@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> unfortunately, I really have no idea what is going on here.  I'm not
> really that conversant with the full iCalendar specifications although
> I have read the relevant parts of the specification [1] and I think
> I've got things right.  

I have experimented a little longer. Explicitly setting the timezone in
the org-export-icalender group to "Europe/Berlin" solves the issue. But
it's strange that this is necessary in case of the git version, but not
in the stable version of org. I, too, don't think that this is an Emacs
issue. Something must confuse the import of ics files in Google when
they become to complex. In an ics file with VALARM entries Google
somehow doesn't recognize X-WR-TIMEZONE:CEST correctly.

Thank you

Sven

Re: .ics export w/Alarms. Possible?

[Eric S Fraga]

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On 22 Jul 2010 01:38:47 +0200, "Sven Bretfeld" <sven.bretfeld@gmx.ch> wrote:
> 
> Eric S Fraga <ucecesf@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
> 
> > unfortunately, I really have no idea what is going on here.  I'm not
> > really that conversant with the full iCalendar specifications although
> > I have read the relevant parts of the specification [1] and I think
> > I've got things right.  
> 
> I have experimented a little longer. Explicitly setting the timezone in
> the org-export-icalender group to "Europe/Berlin" solves the issue. But
> it's strange that this is necessary in case of the git version, but not
> in the stable version of org. I, too, don't think that this is an Emacs
> issue. Something must confuse the import of ics files in Google when
> they become to complex. In an ics file with VALARM entries Google
> somehow doesn't recognize X-WR-TIMEZONE:CEST correctly.
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Sven

Excellent!  I can believe that changing the time zone specification
has helped as I know that I had real problems when I tried BST instead
of Europe/London.  However, why CEST should work when there are no
VALARM entries is a total mystery.  I do agree that it's likely that
Google's import facility is getting confused when the ICS files get
more complex...

Anyway, glad you have it working!

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-- 
Eric S Fraga
GnuPG: 8F5C 279D 3907 E14A 5C29  570D C891 93D8 FFFC F67D

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