Q: sidebar missing from iCal in Lion — seeking a third party product to restore lost functionality

I agree as well. I run 10 or more calendars; I can't afford to have the list hidden except when I click on it, and then for the list to obscure some part of the calendar.

I also must have the mini-calendars visibile, otherwise I have to look at a paper calendar, defeating the purpose of the electronic one.

Why in the world Apple removed these two bits of functionality, I don't know, but it's enough to make me put off installing (or recommending others install) Lion on my other machines until the functionality is back.

Thank you so much for starting the thread!

Another vote/supporter for this request.

Having the list of calendars visible all the time is crucial feature.

There should be at least an option to show/hide it.

A suggestion: In Mail.app version that ships with Lion there is an option to Show/Hide the Mailbox List (CMD+SHIFT+M). Why not have the same feature for iCal? This would be the best of both worlds in my opinion.

i think iCal is virtually perfect... I think many of you are failing to notice that software is dying... everything is going online including software in the form of apps and iCloud.  I am a longtime mobileme user and the Calendar is better than ever, online that is.  I use to prefer the hard version before but this is cr@p so i reluctantly started going online to use the program.  Now you do lose on ALT and FUNC commands but much less of a PANE.  Welcome to the cloud.

Software is dying? It's all software, just a different platform to access it. Usability is dying.  The old calendar app allowed you to do two things at once.  View your day/week AND use the side bar calendar to see several months of time simultaneously. 

You could be on the days view and jump ahead to a specific day in the future to book an appt.  That was one click.  Now, you need to switch views entirely, see the month, possibly move ahead several months and then drill into the day.  What once took one click, now could take up to 4.

For me, that's a step backwards and a lack of consideration to the overall usability of the software.

Cloud or no cloud, it's the usability that makes or breaks software. This is the first time in three years that apple has forced me to use a third party piece of software because there is something better than what they have. 

+1 This is an important movement to restore lost functionality.

I'd like my event details pane back too, instead of going through the extra clicks to add notes or access details there.

I will add my voice to those via the iCal feedback page.

All,

We've found a pretty decent alternative solution to these problems...

Download BusyCal.  There's a 30-day free trial.  It syncs automatically with iCal and each auto-populates the other.  Many of the annoying little bugs that have cropped up with iCal using Lion are eliminated.

Give it a shot.

Good luck!

Agreed + 1

I want the sidebar back. And while we're at it, I dislike the 'leather' look.

This interface may work fantastic on a reduced sized, full screen platform like the iPad, iPod and iPhone. I think iCal works great in this style on those devices. However, my Desktops and MacBooks are not iOS Devices. I have a keyboard, a mouse, and a windowed environment with lots of screen real estate.

Personally, for instance, my iPhone is what I have on me all of the time for convinience. I can do simple things like check the cal, edit, add, etc. But when I need to do something more heavy duty, out comes the laptop. I expect a Desktop app to have more features than a Mobile app - not less - which I fear is the direction it is taking, as are other apps and aspects of the OS.

While Apple at WWDC spoke about how much they 'learnt' from iOS, motivating them to carry across elements such as Full Screen apps and Multitouch gestures, every day it seems more and more like they're forgetting the fundamentals and requirements of a traditional computing platform - such as, oh I don't know, files and folders (cough Lion cough), seriously putting Power users and even regular users through unnecessary grief.

Very well said, Rakeau.

The idea that "software is dying" and, thus, it's perfectly reasonable for the new iCal to be such a mess is insulting.  It's ridiculous.  So much of the new iCal is a mess.  Without the sidebar, there's no way to SEE which calendars are active or inactive, which means there's no way to know if you're seeing all events when you look at iCal.  Also, the fact that clicking "New Event" does not open a new event is ridiculous (it instead bounces up a silly pop-up box to enter a new event in...  but if you're using iCal in Month View, creating a new event this way, iCal assumes the event is an entire day long.  Editing the event becomes a long list of click click clicks.  Such poor design.

BusyCal costs FIFTY BUCKS.  That alone is a testiment to how poorly designed iCal is.

I'm no Apple Basher.  I have a series of ten framed black and white Think Different stills hanging in my loft.  I've owned Macs going back to the days of the Quadra.  It pains me to say it, but I'm shocked by some of the design mistakes of Lion.

Please.  Take a moment.  Let Apple know that we need the iCal sidebar back.  And while you're at it, if you could mention that New Item in the frigging menubar should open a NEW frigging item, I'd be thankful.  God do I want that fixed.  I view my iCal in month view, and I hate the mess of a task of adding new items. iCal assumes anything added in month view is a full day long.  What a mess.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ical.html

Totally agree Jalpuna !!

And to add insult to injury the link: http://www.apple.com/feedback/ical.html has not been updated to ask for input on iCal 5.0

I gave it anyway.

Another vote to have the sidebar as an option.

WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!!! It makes NO sense designwise to REMOVE it completely; possibly to make it a preference or side drawer at best but to remove it made NO sense.... The side-drawer is already in the Mail.app so why remove it???

COME ON APPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least ASK if people are doing something or not somehow!!!!!!!!!

I concurr, ical has become less than useful.  I'm not deploying Lion until ical and mail is fixed.  Too buggy, too stupid, not useful.

Someone screwed up at Apple when they decided to "merge" Mac OSX and iOS GUI. 

It's like driving a car all your life, then inventing the bicycle, and getting the bright idea of putting a kick-stand on your car.  Totally stupid!!!!!

I agree, Lion is a complete bug !   I see no real reason to deploy it.  I just bought a MacPro that had Lion preinstalled.  Needless to say, I wiped the drive and installed Snow Leopard.   Same with the new MacBook Air I just got.

Someone at Apple needs to be fired for this stupidity.