Publishing Calendars


iCal paired with a .Mac account is a powerful combination. With it, you can publish your calendars on your .Mac account so that others can see your schedule and the events you have planned. As a side benefit, you can also view your calendars from anywhere that you have access to a Web browser.

To Publish a Calendar

1.

In the Applications folder, double-click the iCal icon to open the application. The main iCal window opens (Figure 11.1).

Figure 11.1. iCal's main interface is pretty simple: familiar visual calendar with all scheduled events on the right, and individual calendars listed on the left. Select a calendar in the list to prepare to publish it.


2.

From the Calendars section on the left, select the calendar you want to publish.

3.

From the Calendar menu, choose Publish (Figure 11.2).

Figure 11.2. When you choose Publish from the Calendar menu, the calendar-publishing dialog opens; it allows you to name the calendar, specify where it will be published, and indicate what calendar elements will be published.


A dialog slides down that lets you control what information is published, as well as where it's published.

4.

In the dialog, do the following (Figure 11.3):

  • In the "Publish calendar as" field, type a name for your calendar. Refrain from using non-alphanumeric characters (such as spaces), or you'll have to use the HTML-code equivalents of those characters. For example, a calendar titled My Calendar becomes My%20 Calendar when listed in a URL. This is simply because URLs can't contain spaces, so the space in the calendar name is encoded as %20. Bottom line: Avoid non-alphanumeric characters when naming calendars you want to publish.

  • From the "Publish on" pop-up menu, choose .Mac, if it's not already selected.

  • If you want your published calendar to reflect changes you make to it in iCal, check the "Publish changes automatically" box.

  • To publish the titles and notes for the calendar's events, check the "Publish titles and notes" box.

  • To publish alarms associated with the selected calendar, check the "Publish alarms" box.

  • To publish To Do items associated with the calendar, check the "Publish To Do items" box.

Figure 11.3. Once you've customized how your calendar will be published, click Publish.


5.

Click Publish.

The calendar is uploaded to your .Mac account, and the Calendar Published dialog opens (Figure 11.4). This dialog provides the URL for subscribing to the calendar, as well as the URL for viewing the calendar using a Web browser.

Figure 11.4. After you've published a calendar, the Calendar Published dialog appears, giving you several options on what to do next. You can visit the calendar's page, send an e-mail announcing the page, or simply dismiss the dialog by clicking OK.


6.

Click the Visit Page button to open the calendar in your Web browser (Figure 11.5).

Figure 11.5. If you click the Visit Page button after publishing a calendar, the calendar opens in your Web browser.


or

Click the Send Mail button to generate an e-mail message announcing the calendar in your default e-mail client (Figure 11.6).

Figure 11.6. If you click the Send Mail button after publishing a calendar, an e-mail message is automatically generated in your e-mail client, complete with the details concerning your new calendar.


or

Click OK to dismiss the dialog.

Tips

  • If you have private calendars that you want to keep secure, don't publish them on your .Mac account where anyone with a Web browser who knows the URLs can view them.

  • You can also publish calendars to private servers with iCal. Choose Calendar > Publish. In the dialog that slides down, choose "a Private Server" from the "Publish on" pop-up menu. This is useful if you want to keep your calendars private, such as with an intranet. Remember.Mac calendars are neither private nor secure.


To Unpublish a Calendar

1.

In the Applications folder, double-click the iCal icon to open the application.

The main iCal window opens; in the Calendars section on the left, published calendars have a small icon to the right of their names indicating that they have been published (Figure 11.7).

Figure 11.7. Calendars that you've published show a small icon to the right of their names that looks like a wave emanating from a point.


2.

In the Calendars section, select the calendar you want to unpublish.

3.

From the Calendar menu, choose Unpublish (Figure 11.8).

Figure 11.8. To unpublish a calendar, select the calendar and then choose Unpublish from the Calendar menu.


A dialog appears, asking you to confirm that you want to unpublish the calendar (Figure 11.9).

Figure 11.9. Before you can unpublish a calendar, iCal first asks if you're sure you want to do that. Click Unpublish.


4.

Click Unpublish.

The calendar is no longer published on your .Mac account, and the published icon disappears (Figure 11.10).

Figure 11.10. After you've unpublished a calendar, the published icon no longer appears to the right of its name in the Calendars column.


Removing an Orphaned Calendar

It's important to note that if you delete an iCal calendar without unpublishing it (say you forget to unpublish it before deleting it), you won't be able to make changes to it. Others, however, will still be able to subscribe to the last published version of that calendar.

To get rid of one of these orphaned calendars, do the following:

1.

Create a new calendar in iCal with the same name as the published calendar you deleted.

2.

Publish the new calendar with the same name as your old calendar. This will replace the existing calendar in your .Mac account.

3.

Unpublish the newly created calendar, as described in "To unpublish a calendar."

4.

Delete the newly created calendar from iCal.

The orphaned calendar will be replaced with the newly created faux calendar when you publish it (just as an empty file with the same name replaces a large one). Then, when you unpublish it, the faux calendar comes off of .Mac, leaving no trace of itself or its predecessor.





.Mac with iWeb Visual QuickStart Guide Series
.Mac with iWeb, Second Edition
ISBN: 0321442288
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 113

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