Monday, March 17, 2008


OS X iCal Pet Peeve


iCal in DockiCal sure isn’t perfect (far from it, actually), though its current incarnation is far more useful than it was at 1.0. I use it because it integrates well with the rest of the OS (e.g. Mail, Address Book, i$ShinyDevices, etc.) and since, unlike a certain other calendaring product from a large corporation that I Won’t Name, it acknowledges that the rest of the world exists and that integrating with things Not Invented Here is OK…

There is one thing about it, though, that drives me batty. Unlike just about every other tool Apple ships, it doesn’t work through an HTTP proxy. They managed to fix the icon so it displays the correct date when the application isn’t running (which has to be hacky as hell behind the scenes), but they couldn’t do something as basic as reusing the same URL retrieval logic as almost everything else on the platform.

In practice, this means that if I log into my employer’s VPN, my calendar subscriptions are broken (i.e. non-refreshing) until I disconnect, rendering them useless during the most important part of the work day.

If anyone has managed to hack around this problem, I’d appreciate hearing about it in the comments.


:: Dave Walker 11:37 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

:: [/tech/computers/os/osx]
:: tags:

:: Comments (5)

Comments:

ssp wrote:

Title:

Date: 3/17/2008 17:54:39

Response:
I lack the VPN experience but I saw a possibly similar problem when launching iCal when not connected to the internet. It would just conclude it couldn't resolve the server addresses for subscribed calendars, display its exclamation mark and be done with it. Even when I connected to the internet later on that didn't change. iCal needed to be restarted and then it checked things just fine.
d.w. wrote:

Title:

Date: 3/18/2008 11:48:09

Response:

Interesting... I really wish I could find a workaround -- the time when I use my calendar the most is at work, and to have iCal work correctly means dropping off the corporate network to sync (which means I have to remember to dismount servers, close Terminal sessions, etc. -- a major pain in the ass.)

Still searching for a fix.

Gary Lapointe wrote:

Title:

Date: 3/22/2008 10:06:48

Response:
I'm loving that they change the icon when not running. It used to change when running, I assume they call the same little change routine when you power up and the clock changes at midnight. iCal is my second least favorite (address book is worse). But since I can sync it to Entourage (why isn't it called outlook?) I'm tempted to start using it more. I wish iCal were a little smarter with it's subscriptions for labeling purposes. Some "feed content" just has date and times, but I want the name of the event or artist and it's hard to follow sometimes. But I ramble. Gary
Matan Ninio wrote:

Title: There seems to be a solution

Date: 4/15/2008 07:15:16

Response:
The problem seem to be that iCal does not know how to work with a proxy.pac file, but does know how to work via a proxy. Just enter the proxy address and port directly, and suddenly all is well again. (at least thats the case with our 10.5.2 machines)
Chris wrote:

Title: iCal with proxies!

Date: 1/30/2009 10:26:45

Response:
Where abouts are you entering the proxy address and port directly? If you could clarify this it might end my iCal woes. The IT team where I work are willing to work with me to help me get iCal going again but I know for a fact they won't let me bypass the proxy and they addmittedly don't know anything about macs. Thanks, Chris.



Things are not always what they seem. -- Phaedrus