Alternatives to iCal?

am 24.02.2008 11:02 Uhr schrieb tidbits-talktidbits.com unter
tidbits-talktidbits.com:

> I can't believe what a piece of (fertilizer) this is for an Apple
> application! It's easily crashed on me more times (with minimal use)
> than anything else I've used in a very long time.
>
> Anyone got suggestions for alternatives calendar/to-do apps?

I use Palm Desktop 4.2.1 with Mac OS 10.4.10. It is stable, can be
configured how it looks on screen, supports categories with colors, etc.
etc.

I use it since my Mac OS 7 days - first as Claris Organizer, then as Palm
Desktop...

Udo

i thought i was the only one with problems with ical. it crashes on
me constantly too. i am in the process of trying daychasers. i
haven't done much with it because one of their guys said that he had
gone back to ical because of syncing.


nicky

I think the best calendar available is Now Up-to-Date. I don't use it, however, because I don't have problems with iCal (other than I don't like it all that much, but it *does* do what I want it to do.) You can download a trial version of Now Up-to-Date and try it for yourself.

I just abandoned Palm Desktop for iCal and Apple Address Book. I figured since Palm is on a deathwatch, I was switching to Leopard AND getting ready to dump my Palm TX for an iPhone, it was a good time to clear out the antique software. I'd been using Claris/Palm Organizer since version 1 (1995?), so this was a big move. It's as though Apple released it and only issues bug fixes, nothing else.

While iCal is stable on my Mac Book Pro, it's just plain lame. There's no way to combine calendars. There's no way to delete a calendar without deleting ALL it's events. I can't assign my own fonts (I like condensed fonts). I wish it were more integrated with Address Book, too. It just feels incredibly limited.

I'm still looking, but SoHo Organizer is looking pretty good. As for Now Up-to-Date, everyone I know who uses it is frustrated with it. There's also DayLite, but it's overkill for me.

I'm struggling with this too. I really loved Palm Desktop 4.2.1 for calendar and contacts but I just got an iPhone. Surprised to discover how incapable palm and ical/address book are. I'm finding iCal way too slow and hard to read. I'm also finding the Apple Address Book very limited. Would love better suggestions.

Janet

At 14:11 on 26-02-2008, Jeffrey Harris wrote:
> While iCal is stable on my Mac Book Pro, it's just plain lame.
> There's no way to combine calendars.

Possibly too off-topic for this thread, but you export a calendar and
the import it. On import, you will be asked if you'd like to add all
the events to one of your existing calendars. A bit of a work-around,
but it does allow one to combine calendars.

_________________
=> Jolin

On Feb 26, 2008, at 4:11 PM, Jeffrey Harris wrote:

> As for Now Up-to-Date, everyone I know who uses it is frustrated
> with it.

I've used Now Up-to-Date for what seems like forever, and am not
frustrated in the program at all. I am frustrated with the slow, slow
progress with the release of the next version (we bought multiple
licenses last spring, with the promise that the release was imminent.
Still waiting for even a beta version!), but that's a whole other
topic. Rewriting programs from scratch is hard work, but jeez.

Anyway, version 5.x of Now UtD is very stable, and handles multiple
users pretty well, provided you have a machine that is always on. Now
Contact (the companion program for handling contacts) is a little
flakey (don't bother with keywords), but is much better than Apple's
Address book, for instance.


[For what it's worth, we've been happy with Now Up-to-Date & Contact
as well, although we don't have significant syncing or data
integration needs that would be better met by iCal/Address Book. -Adam]


Seth Anderson
often found at http://www.b12partners.net/mt/

--On February 27, 2008 9:32:15 AM -0800 jpierson <jpiersonhighlands.com>
wrote:

> I'm struggling with this too. I really loved Palm Desktop 4.2.1 for
> calendar and contacts but I just got an iPhone. Surprised to discover how
> incapable palm and ical/address book are. I'm finding iCal way too slow
> and hard to read. I'm also finding the Apple Address Book very limited.
> Would love better suggestions.

You might post what the limitations you've run into, otherwise you might
get a lot of suggestions that have the same limitation....

[But in a new thread, please! -Adam]

On Feb 26, 2008, at 2:11 PM, Jeffrey Harris wrote:

> There's no way to combine calendars.

I may misunderstand your desire, but if you mean combining calendars
such as "Home" and "Work", this is possible. Just export a calendar,
then import it into the one you want to combine it with.

> There's no way to delete a calendar without deleting ALL it's events.

You can edit individual events to switch them from one calendar to
another to preserve them before a calendar delete, and if you have a
significant number of events you wish to save (more than you wish to
delete), delete the ones you want to get rid of, then do the export/
import trick above.

- Todd

I am really disappointed by the changes made to iCal for Leopard. It is a hassle now to view event details and make changes - actions I need to do very frequently.

Prior to Leopard, there was a drawer I could leave open so it was always available on screen with event details. I only had to click once on an event to be able to see and edit all of it’s information. Now, I have to double-click an event to bring up an annoying pop-up bubble, which I have to then move the mouse and click an edit button to enter edit mode. And I have to click to hide the bubble so I can see the events it is obscuring.

What a hassle! Totally inconvenient.

There’s also no way to choose a default sound for alarms, so every new alarm gets the first sound in the list when created. I wish iCal would go back to the much more user-friendly interface from the Tiger version.

On or about 2/29/08 3:54 PM, thus spake "Grant Neufeld"
<grantgrantneufeld.ca>:

> I am really disappointed by the changes made to iCal for Leopard. It is a
> hassle now to view event details and make changes - actions I need to do very
> frequently.

I totally agree, but I hope that you've put this message where it belongs -
not just here, but with Apple. Use the feedback page. That's what it's for,
and believe it or not, it makes a difference. If enough people complain,
Apple will hear. If you *don't* complain to Apple, you're wasting your
breath, even though your view is eminently sensible.

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

m.

Thanks for the feedback link - I just posted to it now. Hopefully they’ll get the message!

I LOVE the new iCal in Leopard. I use it extensively every day and I find it easer to use and quicker than older versions.

I would love some elaboration on your comment, George.

As someone who uses iCal extensively, now, in Tiger, I would really appreciate concrete examples of how you find it easier to use than older versions! From what I've read about the Leopard version (and I haven't upgraded largely because of people's complaints, hoping for a fix in an update), it really sounds like a downgrade to me...

Thanks, John

I've only seen one passing mention of SOHO Organizer in this thread.
A little more than a year ago when I tried it, the concept was
promising---an integrated notes, calendar and contact app that
significantly expanded the feature set of iCal and Address Book, while
using sync services to sync the data back to iCal and Address Book to
maintain interoperability with Mail and sync with .Mac/iPod/PDAs
(presumably now the iPhone, too). The version I tried (it was 5.x)
was promising but ultimately frustrating (missing features, buggy
sync, etc.). Anyone have any recent experience with SOHO Organizer
(especially their new 6.x versions)?

Tn

Ever since I have had a Palm, I have been using Agendus. I find it to be the easiest of all calender apps, as it can display all appt's etc as icons in its monthly view. Pick an icon that best suites the appt. One glance & I know what is going on for the month. I can easily tap to see what the appt is, if I forget the details. Too bad it won't sync to a Mac. But then I keep all calendar info on my Palm - that way I always have my schedule with me, no matter where I go, since it is pretty much glued to me all the time!

Having used iCal very little, I found no use for a calendar filled with little red flags for everything. Why can't each entry have its own icon? I've mentioned this to Apple for what it's worth.

Pete

I think 30 Boxes is way better than Google Calendar. You use tags instead of separate calendars, but more importantly you can handle things that straddle month boundaries much more easily, just by clicking an arrow. You can also choose to show, say, 8 weeks on one screen by default, which gives you a much more flexible bird's eye view of your schedule. I really don't like traditional month views because they make it very inconvenient to look back to February 26th, say, when you're arranging something for March 4th. [http://www.30boxes.com]

My all-time favorite organizer is Microsoft Entourage, but I gave it up in order to be able to sync iCal with my husband's computer. Also, hope to be done with MS Office in the near future in lieu of Pages, Numbers, etc. I use SOHO Organizer for some specific projects that don't need to be synced, so I have not taken the time to figure out why I can't sync with .mac. One of the biggest functions to come into use in the latest version for Leopard is adding multiple meetings to the calendar, i.e., weekly, monthly, etc. You, again, have to double-click the date for a pop-up menu to enter meeting/to-do items, but no edit click needed. Separate color-coded calendars can be set up as in iCal. Tasks are listed in the right-hand sidebar. (SOHO has an array of products that are noteworthy. Using my own database, SOHO Labels worked like a dream to get out mailing labels - much more stable than Word.)

On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, skanlake wrote:

> My all-time favorite organizer is Microsoft Entourage, but I gave it
> up in order to be able to sync iCal with my husband's computer.

Of course, if your copy of Office is up to date (at least 11.2.3 or
higher), then Entourage gained the ability to conect to the system Sync
Services, which in turn means that your Entourage calendar and contacts
can automatically sync to iCal and Address Book, and if you use .Mac,
then it can sync there as well.

There are some limitations & caveats -- e.g. all your Entourage data
ends up in one calendar in iCal, even if you had it organized in
categories in Entourage itself -- but it's a solid start.

This is the standard way to get Entourage data to an iPhone, Plaxo, etc.
You don't even have to launch iCal & Address Book; as long as sync is
enabled, the data becomes available to other programs & services.

  http://www.mymacblog.com/index.php/archive/tip-activate-entourage-sync-services/
  http://www.entourage.mvps.org/syncservices/ical.html
  http://www.entourage.mvps.org/syncservices/basics.html
  http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/warning_syncing_with_entourage_2008.html

It looks like there are scripts that can also do this, and also get
around the limitations that the standard approach offers:

http://scriptbuilders.net/files/syncentourageical2tiger2.0.9.html
http://scriptbuilders.net/files/syncentourageaddressbook2panthertiger2.6.4.html
http://homepage.mac.com/berkowit28/

--
Chris Devers

I'm a lurker here but have to reply to this one. I used Chronos Organizer for many years, and it was WONDERFUL! I actually hoped Apple was purchasing this app to replace iCal. Finally, after waiting forever for an update to Organizer, I switched to iCal in order to sync my iPod. When the upate finally came, it was the SOHO Organizer. I purchased it without thinking twice. So let me just put it this way: if you are thinking of using SOHO, search around for some reviews, and use the free trial for awhile before shelling out $$.

Sarah