Users have been able to import ics files into Chandler for some time
now using the manual File->Import utility. For Preview it's very
important that we find a path for people to get their data into
Chandler.
None of this information should be new but as we lead up to Preview,
we can expect our dogfooders will run into bugs and scenarios that we
don't support and this outlines our philosophy on how we are going to
handle that.
So let's start by stating the basics....
+ For Preview we support importing event and task information only.
+ We are currently doing this by supporting the ics file format
standard (iCalendar which is VCALENDAR 2.0).
+ We handle VTODOs and VEVENTs BUT NOT VJOURNALs
+ We would like to be able to work with other apps that support
standards.
+ This means that in theory, we should be able to import ics files
generated from other applications.
+ We know that this is not always true due to bugs created when data
is exported from other apps and also due to many of the subtleties
around what it means to be standards compliant.
+ There are several known issues and it's possible more will come up
as we get more users and continue with dogfood testing - http://
chandlerproject.org/Projects/PreviewDesktopImportExportt.
+ For Preview, we would like to be supporting and testing import/
export from apps that are widely used since getting your data into
Chandler is an important first step in being able to try out the
application.
Our calendar users may currently be using a variety of applications
(some examples)....
+ Outlook
+ Palm
+ iCal
+ Entourage
+ Ecco Pro
+ Evolution
+ Sunbird
+ Zimbra
+ Google calendar
The ordering of these applications is our best guess at how widely
these applications are used. So far most of our testing around import/
export has been from iCal but continue but we continue to log and
fixed bugs that users encounter with all the different apps. We
realize that we cannot test all of these scenarios but due to a
number of recent issues importing calendar data from Outlook and the
high usage rate, we feel it's important to include this as part of
our test plan. There are a number of utilities available we can use
to generate ics file and based on some amount of research, we have
found http://www.littlemachines.com/ to be the least problematic. We
can also be directing our users to this utility when they want to
export/import data from Outlook.
We know that for Preview we have limited QA resources and although we
will be focussing on iCal and Outlook, we want to support everyone.
We would like to encourage people to help us test import/export from
standard compliant apps and have setup a wiki page for this purpose.
Please feel free to add sections for additional apps since I have not
covered everything.
http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/PreviewDesktopImportExport
Users and developers can see the list of known issues, add additional
ones and help us work through the problems. We cannot promise to have
all the problems resolved for Preview but we are committed to fixing
them shortly after. In the same spirit, there are also a wide variety
of applications that are not standards compliant and we would also
like to remain open to working with those individuals that might be
available and willing to help come up with a solution.
Sheila
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