Intergration with GCal
yonten says:
I've just seem something that's struck me and I was wondering if the beautiful people at RTM have seen.
RTM has a problem integrating with GCal and we have these little check marks you have to click to expand the tasks. There seems to be an obstacle to get it just like a GCal calendar. Apparently there is no option for this right now ...... but ......
I was just over at Vitalist.com checking out there stuff and I've found they have a seamless integration with GCal that appears just like any other GCal. They have this thing in the settings of an account that works like a dream.
So if they can do it, then why can't RTM? RTM beats them hands down for other stuff, but they seem to have this feature down well.
Anyways, just want to put a flag up.
Thanks.
RTM has a problem integrating with GCal and we have these little check marks you have to click to expand the tasks. There seems to be an obstacle to get it just like a GCal calendar. Apparently there is no option for this right now ...... but ......
I was just over at Vitalist.com checking out there stuff and I've found they have a seamless integration with GCal that appears just like any other GCal. They have this thing in the settings of an account that works like a dream.
So if they can do it, then why can't RTM? RTM beats them hands down for other stuff, but they seem to have this feature down well.
Anyways, just want to put a flag up.
Thanks.
Yonten, I've never taken a moment to look at Vitalist, so thank you for reminding me of it. I looked through their tour and features lists and the closest thing I could see was their RSS/iCal feeds.
http://www.vitalist.com/features/
If that is what you're referring to, you'll be glad to know RTM can do this, although it requires you to publish the list you wish to see in Gcal. See here:
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/icalendar/googlecalendar.rtm
If there's something else I'm missing, please let me know.
Ran
http://www.vitalist.com/features/
If that is what you're referring to, you'll be glad to know RTM can do this, although it requires you to publish the list you wish to see in Gcal. See here:
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/icalendar/googlecalendar.rtm
If there's something else I'm missing, please let me know.
Ran
yonten says:
Thanks for your help Ran,
The feature you see at Vitalist is what I'd seen, but this works in a seemingly different way to RTM (and from my side it's without a hitch).
I have 2 obstacles with the RTM way -
a) I hesitate to make my list public
b) I get the error message "Firefox doesn't know how to open this address because the protocal (wecal) isn't associated with any program" when I click on 'icalendar (events)' in the list tab during the setup.
I have the feature that allows me to add RTM tasks to GCal, but I find the check boxes cumbersome since I have to expand them to see my tasks each time.
So this led me to have a nose around at Vitalist, and I guess the best way to see how it operates is to open an account there play around for 15 minutes as I did (you can cancel the account without a problem). Their way of implementing the feature leads to a perfect (and private) integration with GCal and I'm curious why this cannot happen in RTM. RTM is far better in other areas, but this particular feature is one I would find to be such a gift.
In Vitalist there seems to be no requirement to make the list public (which RTM does need) which makes me ask if this is what is known as an "authenticated iCalendar feed". Emily (@RTM) has said in other posts that "Google calendar doesn't yet support these". (See http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/help/2086/ ) which is why us at RTM have this public work around.
Any ideas or comments are very welcome and hopefully this is just a case of me missing a point and I'm going to wake up very soon and smell the gravy!
Thanks for your attention Ran - it's not the first time I've found your useful tips and solutions to my little posts. Much appreciated.
The feature you see at Vitalist is what I'd seen, but this works in a seemingly different way to RTM (and from my side it's without a hitch).
I have 2 obstacles with the RTM way -
a) I hesitate to make my list public
b) I get the error message "Firefox doesn't know how to open this address because the protocal (wecal) isn't associated with any program" when I click on 'icalendar (events)' in the list tab during the setup.
I have the feature that allows me to add RTM tasks to GCal, but I find the check boxes cumbersome since I have to expand them to see my tasks each time.
So this led me to have a nose around at Vitalist, and I guess the best way to see how it operates is to open an account there play around for 15 minutes as I did (you can cancel the account without a problem). Their way of implementing the feature leads to a perfect (and private) integration with GCal and I'm curious why this cannot happen in RTM. RTM is far better in other areas, but this particular feature is one I would find to be such a gift.
In Vitalist there seems to be no requirement to make the list public (which RTM does need) which makes me ask if this is what is known as an "authenticated iCalendar feed". Emily (@RTM) has said in other posts that "Google calendar doesn't yet support these". (See http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/help/2086/ ) which is why us at RTM have this public work around.
Any ideas or comments are very welcome and hopefully this is just a case of me missing a point and I'm going to wake up very soon and smell the gravy!
Thanks for your attention Ran - it's not the first time I've found your useful tips and solutions to my little posts. Much appreciated.
Yonten,
You are kind to thank me for my help. Since RTM is free, and I value RTM very highly, I have tried hard to be a helpful presence in the fora so that (1) Emily might have more time to refine RTM and (2) repay the good karma Emily, Omar, and Bob have shared with their RTM users.
On to your comments...
I certainly understand your concerns about making your RTM lists public. So much so that I have chosen not to make my lists public, too.
There are two approaches to securing data feeds - authentication and obscurity. One is real, and the other is not very good. RTM uses authentication (and suffers the penalty that many services don't support that, limiting the utility of the feed at the expense of its security). I'm pretty sure Vitalist uses obscurity, which is the same as what RTM does if you make your RTM feeds public.
I created a Vitalist account, and went into the settings there, and found under the services subsection a place to turn on feeds. Once I created that, various links appear, like this:
webcal://my.vitalist.com/services/ical/alonguniquehexstring/list/inbox/
This is the feed you select to copy link location and then feed into Gcal to see your Vitalist tasks inline in Gcal. It is hard to guess, because of the long hex string, but not impossible, and it's passed in the clear, I would guess, making it easy to snoop, too. So to summarize, my conclusion is that the Vitalist feed is not authenticated and is public.
As for your error message, that appears when you click a webcal link and your browser and computer don't have a program associated with webcal feeds. All you need to do to use that feed in Gcal is to right-click it and 'Copy Link Location' (Firefox terminology, it varies with platform and browser). Don't worry about the fact that clicking it doesn't do what you want.
I also have the RTM checkbox in Gcal, but the appearance of the checkbox on every day (a Google limitation, I gather) means I don't use it very much, which is a shame, because it's so close to great.
I hope this has been a helpful follow up, and that I understood your questions correctly. If I didn't, please speak up and get me back on track.
You are kind to thank me for my help. Since RTM is free, and I value RTM very highly, I have tried hard to be a helpful presence in the fora so that (1) Emily might have more time to refine RTM and (2) repay the good karma Emily, Omar, and Bob have shared with their RTM users.
On to your comments...
I certainly understand your concerns about making your RTM lists public. So much so that I have chosen not to make my lists public, too.
There are two approaches to securing data feeds - authentication and obscurity. One is real, and the other is not very good. RTM uses authentication (and suffers the penalty that many services don't support that, limiting the utility of the feed at the expense of its security). I'm pretty sure Vitalist uses obscurity, which is the same as what RTM does if you make your RTM feeds public.
I created a Vitalist account, and went into the settings there, and found under the services subsection a place to turn on feeds. Once I created that, various links appear, like this:
webcal://my.vitalist.com/services/ical/alonguniquehexstring/list/inbox/
This is the feed you select to copy link location and then feed into Gcal to see your Vitalist tasks inline in Gcal. It is hard to guess, because of the long hex string, but not impossible, and it's passed in the clear, I would guess, making it easy to snoop, too. So to summarize, my conclusion is that the Vitalist feed is not authenticated and is public.
As for your error message, that appears when you click a webcal link and your browser and computer don't have a program associated with webcal feeds. All you need to do to use that feed in Gcal is to right-click it and 'Copy Link Location' (Firefox terminology, it varies with platform and browser). Don't worry about the fact that clicking it doesn't do what you want.
I also have the RTM checkbox in Gcal, but the appearance of the checkbox on every day (a Google limitation, I gather) means I don't use it very much, which is a shame, because it's so close to great.
I hope this has been a helpful follow up, and that I understood your questions correctly. If I didn't, please speak up and get me back on track.
yonten says:
Yes, Rab - you're spot on and I now think I'm getting some understanding of all this!! I'll try again with regards to the error message I mentioned.
Thanks again.
Thanks again.