4. Linux Scheduling Tools and vSchedule

Linux has almost any implementation you might want of the Unix "cal" program. (I'm aware of at least 4.) "cal" is perhaps best known for the somewhat unusual looking results you get if you type: cal 9 1752

There are variants such as gcal (the FSF version) that provide more sophistication, but essentially these are all just different ways to display a calendar, providing no ability to associate events with the calendars.

Then there's the shell-based "Unix scheduler" programs:

• calendar

• pcal

• remind

(in roughly increasing order of sophistication/power/frequency of upgrades)

Then there's the X-based tools, notably:

• Plan

  This fairly venerable Motif-based calendaring package has the almost unique property that it has multi-user capabilities where users can share calendar information using an ACL-controlled IP server program.

  Grok provides some "address book" capabilities and interfaces with Plan.

• RFC 2445 - iCalendar

These programs have varying degrees of interoperability with other systems. One that I particularly have reason to care about is integration with my 3COM Pilot. It's worth noting that there do exist tools to export Pilot's "Date Book" scheduling information in formats compatible with remind and Ical. (See the pilot-link package included in most Linux distributions for more details. There is also <pilot-unix-request@lists.best.com>

There is an (Internet Engineering Task Force) committee responsible for a standard format for managing scheduling information that is known as iCalendar. This was originally developed by an organization called Versit; it has since become an official IETF committee, with information findable at: IETF Calendaring and Scheduling Committee

A further effort has created an XML DTD providing a different "syntax" for representing iCal information; Representing vCard Objects in RDF/XML .

There are now a number of products that support iCalendar, notably including:

• Gnome Evolution - uses the vCard format

• KOrganizer KDE Project day planner that uses vCalendar format.

• Mozilla Calendar - Standards Based Calendar Client Project based on Mozilla

• MS Outlook

• OnTime

A whole *pile* of vendors are on board to make use of the format, including (just to mention a very few):

• IBM/Lotus

• DayTimers

• Covey/Franklin Quest

• IETF vCalendar Committee Work

• No vCard please (on Usenet)

• SyncML

• remind - by David F. Skoll

  A Unix/M$-DOS-based personal scheduling package. Provides a sophisticated set of methods for specifying events; can print calendars in Postscript format. There's also a Tk'ed GUI version.

• ICal2Rem

  A tool for converting iCal calendars into remind format.

• EmacsWiki: PlannerAndRemind

  On using Emacs "planner" mode along with remind .

• Org-toodledo

• pcal - Postscript calendars... - new URL

  Pcal is quite similar in style to REMIND; it is a multi-platform scheduling package that has a pretty sophisticated set of ways of specifying repeated events, and can print very nice calendars in Postscript. It is, perhaps unfortunately, only available in a "command line" version.

• Plan home page

  Plan is a Motif/X-Windows-based personal scheduler that can share data between users.

• LaTeX Calendar - Available at CTAN archives in tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/supported/calendar, such as at the UKCTAN.../supported/calendar

  • Prints "calendars" in many formats (six so far, to wit: timesheet, weekly filofax, monthly, yearly, timetable and event list);

  • Can include events and appointments;

  • Can handle multiple event and appointment list files;

  • Can color-code events and appointments;

  • Outputs in both HTML and DVI;

  • Is robustly multilingual (the language of both date texts AND event list entries are chosen by the user when the document is printed).

  Data files are human-friendly (no TeX knowledge necessary), but I (Frank Bennett <bennett@rumple.soas.ac.uk>) am hoping that someone will come along and put a front-end on this thing someday, or make it an optional back end of an existing system.

• The Insidious Big Brother Database is an address book sort of application that is written in LISP and runs inside the Emacs text editor.

• lbdb: The Little Brother's Database

• Collaborative Groupware Software

• SKYRiX Software AG

  Makers of Web Groupware, including handling of calendaring, contact management, email, workflow, document management. Runs atop FrontBase, Sybase, Oracle.

• WebCalendar

  A calendar system implemented in PHP that stores data using several relational database systems.

  Knows how to export data in a form that pilot-link can read, but unfortunately that doesn't extend to a full scale "sync."

• Prospector: A Free Web Calendar

  A calendar system implemented in Perl that stores data using several relational database systems.

• Web Calendar

  A group calendar system implemented in Perl that can import and export data as iCalendar entries.

• Kontact

  A KDE set of groupware supporting several groupware server systems.

• KDE - Personal Information Management

• LinuxMafia on Scheduling Applications

• Akonadi - KDE PIM Storage Service

• gcalcli - CLI access to Google Calendar

• Calypso

  Calypso is a CardDAV/CalDAV server, intended to allow you run your own little (likely SCM-backed using Git or similar) calendar server that can sync against calendar applications on desktop and mobile devices.