I received an invitation (.ics file) from a non DL user. I was thrilled to find that I could open the file with DL. However, the meeting shows up on my calendar at 10:30 pm when it should show up at 5:30 pm. When I open the file with Entourage, it shows correctly as a 5:30 pm meeting. Is there a setting somewhere that I can change to make this work correctly? I do have the timezone set correctly in DL prefs.

I think that I have discovered the cause of this problem. It seems that invitations I receive from Outlook users are sent in GMT time - which is the standard protocol. Calendar applications are supposed to convert the time of the appointment to the local time zone setting within the application. DL is not doing this. So, external invitations I receive are 5 hours ahead of my local CDT.

Can someone at Marketcircle please let me know if this is correct and if it will be fixed in an upcoming release.

Thanks,

Matt

Did you ever hear anything about this? I'm trying Daylite and am having massive problems with users in other time zones with whom I am attempting to schedule events. I'd like to know if there's any support in Daylite for controlling an event's time zone.

I posted a question about this a while back but didn't receive any response.

Andrew,

Should you need to operate Daylite3 using a different time zone than that used by your computer, open the Daylite 'General' preferences window and select that time zone from the drop-down bar (most users should leave this setting at “Automatic,” which is the default position).

I believe that the problem is that .ics invitations ust GMT time and then the receiving application is supposed to convert it to the local time zone. That way, if someone in NY schedules a conference call for 3:00 pm with someone in SF, when the person in SF receives the .ics invitation their application will convert the time of the event to 12:00 pm.

Daylite is not converting the time. So, since I am currenlty using CDT, all invitations I get are 5 hours ahead. I have to subtract 5 hours from the start time and edit the event in DL.

As long as we're on the subject, another improvement I would like to see in the handling of .ics files is to have the event open in DL when I double click the .ics file. Currently, the event is simply imported into DL, and since there is no indication of date or time in invitation emails that are received from an Outlook client, I have to go into DL and search for the subject of the event to find it.

DL is a great application. But, the handling of .ics files is a very important issue that must be addressed for DL to be able to function in the real world - outside of the DL bubble. I would love to dictate that everyone have any contact with use DL, but we all know that won't happen.

yeah, I know about that, but it's not really what I'm asking. I'll provide you with a scenario.

I live in Whitehorse (Pacific time zone) and I'm sceduling appointments with people in Edmonton (Mountain time zone) during some upcoming trips. How do I identify those appointments as being in a different time zone within Daylite so that when I arrive, they will occur at the correct time in that time zone after I've changed my system settings (and my Treo has automatically changed its time zone based on its new location)?

I'd agree with you all points, but I guess I have a slightly different query: there doesn't seem to be any way within DL to identify the time zone associated with an event. So if one travels a lot, through different time zones, how does one identify what time appointments occur in each time zone. This is relatively easy to acheive in iCal, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it in DL.

tooslo, your reference to a "DL bubble" has been in my mind all day, and it's made me realize that this is the major problem I have with the app: that fact that its a local information ecosystem with limited access to the world outside.

Maybe that should have been obvious from the start, as it's clearly a workgroup product, but I now realize the I've probably been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with Daylite since I've been trialling it.

I'm an independent consultant who travels a lot. I interact with people who use a wide variety of systems, and it's been a real challenge to share information with them from the Daylite environment. I now realize that Daylite isn't necessarily designed for this type of application: it's meant to be used in an office among a local workgroup with limited external information sharing.

Drag! I've quite fallen in love with Daylite's capabilities and some aspects of its interface (though definitely not its deficient calendar), but I find I'm still managing some events and tasks manually in iCal just so they're easier to share. And that's just dumb, why bother managing two calendar environments?

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying thanks for the reference to the "DL bubble".

Cheers!

The way the timezone thing works is that the 'server' portion of Daylite is expected to be on a server and not move timezones. The clients (the app) can login from any timezone and see the appointment at the appropriate place in the timescale.

So if you schedule something at 5pm PST while in the PST timezone it will show at 8pm EST if a user logs in from the EST timezone - as long as the server timezone hasnt't moved. So it does the right thing in that sense.

Where this falls apart is when you have everything on a laptop (both the app and the server) and the laptop changes timezone (which is understandable).

We will work on a solution.

I forgot to mention that you can force Daylite (the app) to work at a specific timezone regardless of the system timezone.

Go to Preferences -> General and set the desired timezone there (you'll need to restart Daylite after changing that setting).

Having said that - I do not think it will resolve the laptop issue.

AJ, thanks very much for that clear and helpful description of the time zone concept behind DL.

I guess it just speaks more to the "DL bubble", though, eh?

Does Marketcircle have any plans to expand DL's featureset to more capably interact with external environments, or is the near-to-medium-term future of DL going to remain in the server-client workgroup realm?

I've fallen in love with DL, despite its shortcomings and idiosyncracies, but I'm not sure I can commit to it as it stands. (Wow, I sound like an aging male bachelor, here. It's just software for crying-out-loud!)

While we're on the subject of ICS files, maybe it would be helpful to have DMI act like the ICS support that is already in Apple Mail and iCal. Having a button like "Send all iCal events to Daylite" would be very handle. I'm switching over from iCal to Daylite and am finding this particular issue very painful.

One feature of iCal that I can't seem to find a workaround in Daylite for is sending ICS responses. For example, when Mail sends an ICS file to iCal, it comes up in the notification window and allows me to Accept/Reject, etc. Clicking the appropriate button in iCal causes an ICS response to be sent back to the orignator of the event indicating my choice.

Having Daylite work the same way would be extremely helpful.

Amen. Well put. I agree.

Tim,

You can have Daylite open all .ics files. All you need to do is make DL the default app for .ics files. To do so, save an .ics attachment to your desktop (or a location of your choice). Ctrl click the file and choose "Get Info". Then in the "open with" section choose DL as the application.

This will let DL handle all of your .ics files, but it won't give you the accept/reject option that I would like to see as well.

Why would I want to make DL my default .ics file opener?

At the moment I wouldn't...here's why

My current workflow if I did this would be.

1. Double click .ics file in Mail
2. DL open the .ics file and put's it on my calendar
3. DL then syncs with iCal
4. I then open iCal
5. I then accept the invitation in iCal
6. I then go back to DL and continue what I was doing.

This make the handling of .ics files by DL almost useless if you are often responding to invitations from clients. I had a 1 billion dollar client call me the other day and ask "why hadn't I responded to his invitation?". It was on my calendar...I was going...but I had not gone through the steps to open iCal.

It get's a bit tiring to have to use two calendar programs just to respond.