Is there currently or are there any plans to make a true sync with ical, perhaps via .mac or similar to the current snyc with Address Book?

Hi Art

We have committed to building in support for Apple's Sync Services, which will enable true syncing with iCal, as well as all kinds of other products. Keep an eye out!

Thanks,

I am not sure what "true syncing" means. Personally, I would be very happy to see MC drop the calendar function entirely from DL3 with Leopard and rely entirely on iCal and iCal Server for the calendar function linked to DL. Not sure if that would be possible, but iCal's UI design and functionality is clearly preferable, particularly if it gets the same calendar sharing capability that DL offers. At the very least, it would be nice to have the ability to have calendar info from DL constantly and automatically synced into iCal (and vice-versa) so that I could have the option of using iCal instead of DL. The calendar is the thing I use the most in DL3 and it is its weakest and most frustrating component. (Much better than DL 1, however, giving credit where it is due.)

I for one hope that doesn't happen. I much prefer DL's calendar to iCal and is one of the reasons I moved to DL in the first place.
The other reason is that at least with MC, you can communicate with them and make suggestions, which if enough people ask for, are incorporated into the next version. This simply doesn't happen with Apple... at least not to the extent that MC does it. In the short time I've been using DL, about 7 months, I've seen more features added, more improvements made, than in just about any other progam. They listen.

I agree completely with your point about MC's listening and responsiveness. I don't agree with your view on the calendars, but I am curious what things about DL's calendar you find superior. Perhaps I am missing something.

Hey all,

Let's keep in mind that not ALL users of Mac use iCal, thus we have Daylite's fantastic new feature of shared calendars in a multi user environment. Once we put our 2 way iCal sync in place it will give all users capabilities of using one or both of the features combined. We have to always be looking at the big picture

Thanks for the kind words about MC's attentiveness, we really do value ALL feedback given.

Just want to add my voice to those out there frustrated with Daylite's Calendar. I find it virtually useless because I just can't see all the events clearly in a single go. I am either hopeful we will see dramatic improvement or I can just go back to using ical.

But I also agree that this company is incredibly committed to its customers and responsive I've feedback.
Thanks.

I am looking forward to DL completing their Sync Services work, as this will definitely help us all, either iCal users or DL's calendar users. I have purchased other CRM apps that have had success with this, but fall short of DL on every other front.

I have found iCal to be the best calendar program for the Mac when it is coupled with the power of a .Mac account, for either a single or many users. We have five users whose iCals all sync automatically, and all [12] of our calendars can be edited by any user with the changes automatically appearing on all of the other users iCals. These calendars also allow for to-dos, which can be assigned to any user. The calendars and the to-dos allow for single or multiple alarms. The best feature [for us], has been the ability to email a Project calendar link to our clients, detailing the work to be completed each date, with an estimated completion date of their project.

I have to say that I am very impressed with the new DL reminder feature, allowing for a document to be opened, an email be sent, etc., this shows the true genius of the DL developers. I agree with the comments re DL incorporating request in future updates, and I'd like to point out that I have been very impressed with DL follow up when a bug or request has been submitted. I have yet to see ANY other software company respond to their clients in this way.

That being said, I truly believe that if DL's calendar can seamlessly sync with iCal, DL will be absolutely the BEST Mac application money can buy!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wpdv,

AJ et al,

Will add my voice to those very frustrated by the DL calendar and its lack of syncing with iCal. When Entourage came out with its Sync Services option earlier this year I was majorly disappointed to find that all E2004 calendar events/categories were poured into a single iCal calendar. Useless for me as I need to publish only a few of my categories.

Can you reassure us that there will be category-to-category syncing (ie. One DL category being synced to a mapped iCal calendar) or will you take the E2004 “All DL categories to a single iCal Calendar“ path?

Publishable calendars via .Mac are an important part of my working life and the hassle of having to manually keep iCal and DL calendar in sync has actually driven me away from DL on numerous occasions. Keep coming back though as DL’s contact management is simply the best.

Looking forward to your response.

Steve J

I completely agree with the critical comments re. DL's calendar / missing sync option. I note a lot on my Sony P800 Smart Phone, create / change address book entries and appointments etc. etc. NOTHING of it can be transferred directly into DL, such as into iCal & Address Book. Thus, I am obliged to type in that stuff TWICE. Utter nonsense.

I wonder if DL's Sync Services compatibility will be up to date when Leopard will be released…

I can't jump the gun too much here, but, realistically speaking, as long as Apple maintains Sync Services support in Leopard, Daylite should be able to continue to take advantage of it.

I much prefer the printout options that iCal contains. I can make a hard copy of my day's schedule, including all the notes and location fields associated with each appointment. The printout features of the DL3 calendar don't even compare to iCal. Not all of us have a handheld device that gives us access to our calendar as we travel. I need to print out a piece of paper to take with me on my daily appointments, and just can't get the information I need to print out from DL3.

At the very least, it would be nice to have the ability to have calendar info from DL constantly and automatically synced into iCal

I'll second that. Without this feature I much prefer the benefits of iCal. I'm sure there are some benefitds to using Daylite over iCal but they would have to be very appreciable in oder for me to take on the extra burden of having to constantly update a database. IMO, Daylite would be a great program if it sat seamlesslessly on top of the iApps and provided a unique colaborative and interpolative environment to use that data. I will be watching with intterest to see if DL is able to do this in the future.

Warmest,

Kevin

quote:

Originally posted by Eric Milligan:
Not sure if that would be possible, but iCal's UI design and functionality is clearly preferable, particularly if it gets the same calendar sharing capability that DL offers. […] The calendar is the thing I use the most in DL3 and it is its weakest and most frustrating component.

I agree here and wondered why the calendar part haven’t been improved much from 1.x to 3.0. The missing features and problems have been reported since the first beta of DayLite 1 but I haven’t seen much improvements here. A short example: A birthday feature for have been reqested first in October 2002 and it’s still not there. Printing issues, the way appointments are displayed (cut off text) and others are all there as we know them.
Sometimes I wonder why the built in module is called a calendar. Even cheap shareware calendars offer more features than the Daylite one, not to speak of iCal.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric Milligan: (Much better than DL 1, however, giving credit where it is due.)

I couldn’t agree here. I think the 3.x calendar is worse in many respects to the 1.x (resizing of appointments doesn’t work, the mini calendar drawer doesn’t respect the “sunday | monday” setting…)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Martin,

Regarding the iCal sync (or export) I couldn’t get international characters (such as the German umlauts äöü) to be exported properly to iCal. If an appointment in Daylite is called “Büro”, it came out as “Bro” in iCal.
All of those characters are synced fine with Address-Book so only iCal export looks a bit faulty.
It may have something to do with the encoding of the Daylite database which is still in “ISO LATIN1" on my system (the default when I’ve created the databases some years ago, and I still wonder why this default is still set up in times of unicode and OS X). I have tried to change this settings but it not only messes up every existing entry with an international character but also notes which contain such a character hide from the notes view and couldn’t be accessed anymore.
Has anyone figured out a solution to this?