Getting at Calnedar data remotely

[dcorbe]

Hello,

I am implementing a command-line calendaring solution using libical to parse the CalDAV bits. I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to actually get at the CalDAV bits stored on my zimbra server and there's very little documentation in that respect.

Right now I am using iCal and it does everything for me in the background. I'm curious as to what exactly it is doing and how so I can reproduce that.

Thanks.

-Daniel

[Rich Graves]

Your entire calendar can be accessed read/write via a url like https://mail.example.com/home/dcorbe...lendar?fmt=ics

Actually implementing caldav is a wee bit more complicated.

Useful definitions: iCalendar is just a data format. libical can read and write that format. CalDAV is a complicated set of protocols for multiuser manipulation of iCalendar data over a network. MacOS Leopard included the first mainstream implementation of same. libcaldav supports some subsets of CalDAV.

[Rich Graves]

If you tell us more about what you intend your command-line tool to do, we might be able to help (or be helped) more.

[dcorbe]

I basically want to eliminate my dependence on iCal completely. Right now I'm able to be productive with little more than a web browser and an SSH client with the exception of appointment and todo access.

I am aware that I can log into my zimbra server through its web interface to access my calendar but I can't very well have a web browser in front of me 24/7 when I am trying to accomplish other tasks, and I nearly always have a terminal window sitting in front of me.

I'd like to be able to:

* View and manage my own calendar remotely, from the command line using minimalistic ncurses-based interface.
* View other people's calanders, and insert meeting requests accordingly.
* View and manage various TODO lists associated with each calendar.

Are you suggesting I steer clear of libical and CalDAV in general?

I do realize that CalDAV would be a chore to implement from scratch but the libical documentation suggests that all of the tools necessary are there with the exception of any necessary network I/O semantics required to actually fetch the data.

Further, libical seems to be a fairly portable library as it's known to compile in most POSIX environments, on Win32 and on Mac OS X as well.

If ICS is a better choice, can you point me in the direction of a relatively free implementation of ICS in C?

Regards,
Daniel

[dcorbe]

BTW, more info on libical:

CalDAV Libraries & Tools

[cte]

Dcorbe, t=you are right,
caldav4J

Check the sources out, go through the examples and you will be able to understand everything. Then you can implement it in command line