Re: org-caldav: Sync Org with external calendars through CalDAV (Owncloud, Google, ...)

[David Engster <deng@randomsample.de>]

Torsten Wagner writes:
> Sync went ok however, I notice I have to log-out from the ownCloud
> webmask... again maybe a ownCloud server setting

Yes, Owncloud can be a bit finicky here. From my experience, you should
not be fooled by its 4.x version number; it often behaves more like a
0.4.

> The location was not synced yet.

Yes, I will add that eventually.

> Furthermore, I wonder how to use it finally. I can see the new entries
> in the from-calendar.org file. Can I move them to appropiate places in
> my working file?

No.

> What would happen to a sync in that case?

You would get a double entry.

> I guess my working scheme would be like this
>
> Create appointments in my org-file...
> sync
> on-the-go make changes or add new entries to the calendar
> sync
> move all from the file from-calendar.org to the right places in the
> work org-file.
> sync
>
> Is this the intended way of usage?

That's what I'm aiming for. But it requires to do have a proper 2-way
sync, which is not there yet.

> Also, you said not to add the from-calendar.org file but why not using
> the following scheme?
> Read all appointments from from-calendar.org and sync them with the
> calendar (they should be there already) mark all double entries in the
> calendar to be still not in the original work file e.g. the title
> could be [WIP] Title....
> That would remind people to move them out of from-calendar.org to the
> right places. As soon as they removed them from from-calendar.org they
> could be marked by using the title  [org-file] Titel. That would help
> people to tell them that they will finally find entries later in the
> work file. A tag would esp. help if there will be a support for
> multiple org-files to sync.
> As for multiple org-files the org-agenda mechanism might be helpful.
> It already enables to use several org-files to create an agenda. Maybe
> syncing from there is easier?!

These are good suggestions. The problem is, as already mentioned, to
implement proper 2-way sync from CalDAV to Org. For this, the 'etags'
from the CalDAV server have to be saved in the Org items as
PROPERTIES. I guess not all people will be thrilled to have their Org
items polluted by stuff like that, but it's the most straightforward and
reliable way to do it. Another problem is that there's no unique mapping
from iCalendar to Org items.

The good news is that I've now fixed the problems with url-dav and
xml.el in Emacs proper, meaning that org-caldav will work without any
additional files with current Emacs from bzr (which will become 24.2).

-David