Letting two users share one synced iCal Calendar

Question

Letting two users share one synced iCal Calendar

Hi all,

I'm looking for a way to share a single iCal calendar between two users, giving both users the ability to make changes to the calendar. Is this possible with Apple's iCal?

As an example, say I'd like to create a calendar for a trip itnerary. I'm in New York and my host ("Sara") is in San Francisco. I open my iCal, select the "Itinerary" calendar and enter a few events into it. Then, Sara opens her iCal and it automatically loads the "Itinerary" calendar, showing the events I've entered. Knowing San Francisco better than I do, she decides to alter my "Explore Chinatown" entry by extending the hours. The next time I open my iCal, I see the changes Sara made in the "Itinerary" calendar.

I'm sure this has probably been asked before, but even though I searched for it I couldn't find information answering this question. If you can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!
-Meitar

Mac OS X (10.4.3) iCal Version 2.0.3

Posted on Dec 27, 2005 5:26 PM

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Answer 1

smokenaxs

Level 1

105 points

Dec 28, 2005 6:15 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

Yes, I have done it. Don't remember how but it is possible. Try searching this site with the question if you don't find it here a nice site for hints and tips is a site called http://www.macosxhints.com

700 G4 iMac,1.25 G4 iBook, 400 G4 Tower Mac OS X (10.4.3)

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Answer 2

Dec 28, 2005 10:13 AM in response to smokenaxs

Try searching this site with the question
if you don't find it here a nice site for hints and
tips is a site called http://www.macosxhints.com

As mentioned in my original post, I already did try to search for the answer to this question. To clarify further, I searched Google, this site, Mac OS X Hints, O'reilly's MacDevCenter, and a few others. I still can't find it, though maybe I'm not using the proper search strings.

I imagine the solution to this problem has something to do with using WebDAV and AppleScript, though I'm not quite an advanced enough user to figure out how to put the pieces together.

Once again, any help would be appreciated. Even if you just remember which search strings you used to find the answer.

Mac OS X (10.4.3) iCal Version 2.0.3

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Answer 3

smokenaxs

Level 1

105 points

Dec 29, 2005 7:41 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

K i'll give it a shot. No expert here but willing to help if I can. Do you use isync to sync to .mac?

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Answer 4

Dec 29, 2005 8:01 AM in response to smokenaxs

K i'll give it a shot. No expert here but willing to
help if I can. Do you use isync to sync to .mac?

I do use iSync to sync with .Mac, but the other user doesn't. This solution can't rely on .Mac because I'm looking for a way to do this that doesn't involve .Mac at all.

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Answer 5

Dec 29, 2005 8:07 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

I do use iSync to sync with .Mac, but the other user
doesn't. This solution can't rely on .Mac because I'm
looking for a way to do this that doesn't involve
.Mac at all.

Why don't you want to use .mac at all if you already have it - bearing in mind that it is the answer to your problem.

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Answer 6

Dec 29, 2005 9:32 AM in response to Ken Twydell

Why don't you want to use .mac at all if you already
have it - bearing in mind that it is the answer to
your problem.

If I understand .Mac's services correctly, it features the ability to let users subscribe to a calendar, that is read another person's published calendar, but NOT to make changes on that calendar and then send these changes back to the publisher, transparently. Unless I'm mistaken in this regard, .Mac does not provide a means to let two users share a single iCal calendar which they can BOTH make changes to and BOTH keep synced with the other user's calendar. If I am mistaken, then please let me know how this can be done with .Mac.

However, even if that can be done with .Mac (and if it can, I'd love to learn how), I require a solution that doesn't utilitze .Mac because in my particular situation, the other user with whom I want to share calendars does not have a .Mac subscription and will not be able to get one. Therefore, I need a solution that does not rely on .Mac.

As always, help of any kind is appreciated.

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Answer 7

smokenaxs

Level 1

105 points

Dec 29, 2005 9:54 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

As an option, what about shareware? just ran across this

http://ww2.unime.it/flr/isyncal/en/index.html

my solution is .mac no experience in DAV sorry

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Answer 8

Dec 29, 2005 11:19 AM in response to smokenaxs

As an option, what about shareware? just ran across
this

http://ww2.unime.it/flr/isyncal/en/index.html

my solution is .mac no experience in DAV sorry

Thanks! That is very helpful; I'll take a closer look at iSynCal and see if it does what I need. Hopefully it does, and if so I might end up using it.

Until then, however, I'm still wondering if there is a way to do this purely with iCal or with iCal and freely available utilities. Is there, for instance, some sort of CalDAV support in iCal? Is there a UNIX trick to this?

Thanks for the help, though I'm still looking for an answer.

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Answer 9

smokenaxs

Level 1

105 points

Dec 29, 2005 11:37 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

another link to check, but watch the date !

not sure the applicability either.

http://blog.saalmann.de/categories/ical/2002/10/28.html#a255

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Answer 10

Dec 29, 2005 12:11 PM in response to smokenaxs

This is not precisely what I'm looking for, but it does give me further clues as to how iCal works. It's helpful because even if it's not a full solution, it may be a part of a solution I discover later. Thanks for the link.

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Answer 11

tjctiger

Level 1

0 points

Dec 29, 2005 3:50 PM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

I am also interested in knowing the answer to this question + would like to know if both users must be .Mac subscribers? I was told by an Apple salesperson that only one person needs to subscribe to .Mac for two people to share the calendar, but now I'm having doubts and not sure how to allow the other Mac user access to my calendar. Thanks.

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Answer 12

Dec 29, 2005 4:09 PM in response to tjctiger

What you were told is true only if you accept the term 'share' to be equivalent to 'see' or 'read' the calendar, because calendars published via .Mac or using a WebDAV server are read-only.

You can let others see your calendar, but they cannot modify it if it is published in the manner described.

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Answer 13

Jerryb

Level 3

870 points

Dec 30, 2005 8:39 AM in response to smokenaxs

Smokenaxs, I'm interested in the .Mac solution. How about filling me in!

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Answer 14

Dec 31, 2005 8:10 AM in response to Meitar Moscovitz

If I understand .Mac's services correctly, it
features the ability to let users subscribe to a
calendar, that is read another person's published
calendar, but NOT to make changes on that calendar
and then send these changes back to the publisher,
transparently. Unless I'm mistaken in this regard,
.Mac does not provide a means to let two users share
a single iCal calendar which they can BOTH make
changes to and BOTH keep synced with the other user's
calendar.

yes it does!!!!!!!!

simply log into the single .mac account from any number of computers and use isync. We do this every day between our office & home computers. The calenders in ical are idendical on both. Any alteration can be synced to .mac and the other computer will pick up the change next time it is synced. If there is a conflict, isync will ask which version (either .mac or the computer being synced) to use.

I think that you are confusing publishing calenders and syncing them

However, even if that can be done with .Mac (and if
it can, I'd love to learn how), I require a solution
that doesn't utilitze .Mac because in my particular
situation, the other user with whom I want to share
calendars does not have a .Mac subscription and will
not be able to get one.

The other user does not need a .mac account. The whole point is that they are syncing to the one (ie your) account.

Therefore, I need a solution

that does not rely on .Mac.

Wrong. It would seem that .mac would work.

The only problem is that all the calenders in ical will sync.

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Answer 15

Dec 31, 2005 8:13 AM in response to Michael Lafferty

What you were told is true only if you accept the
term 'share' to be equivalent to 'see' or 'read' the
calendar, because calendars published via .Mac or
using a WebDAV server are read-only.

You can let others see your calendar, but they cannot
modify it if it is published in the manner described.

Yes but they can be synced if both users log into the same idisc as users.
See my earier post

Sync and publish are not the same thing!!!!!!!!

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