That’s what setting up an ical remote calendar feels like. Mozilla Sunbird and Thunderbird (with the Lightning plugin) are supposed to “publish to a remote server via FTP” when you hit the “publish calendar” button. Unfortunatly for those of us in the real word, it doesn’t work like that. Not only does it not work, but there are no instructions on how to make it work. So, I start poking around the server and the calendar application, wondering what the hell I’m suppose to do. I finally figured it out, but only after giving myself a migraine in the process. In case you’re wondering, here’s how…
-Download and install Sunbird, or Thunderbird and the Lightning plugin.
-Start either program and make a new blank calendar. For this example, we’ll call ours “Work Schedule”.
-Right click on the calendar and select “export”.
-Save you calendar as an *ics file. Remember not to use uppercase letters or spaces.
-Open up an FTP client of your choosing and connect to wherever you’re going to be remotely storing your calendar.
-Upload your blank calendar, in this case named simply “work.ics” to a safe directory ABOVE your web directory (above www)
-CHMOD the calendar file to 777 and close your FTP client.
-Open Sunbird/TB again and select File -> Subscribe to remote calendar.
-For the location, put in “ftp://ftp_username:ftp_password@yourserver.com/work.ics”
-If all goes well, you should be subscribed to a readable/writeable blank remote calendar.
Also, you can now safely delete the default “Home” calendar now that you have a second one. Both programs require at least one calendar by default. Try it out, add a few items and see how it goes. As of the latest version of SB/TB, the changes to your calendar should be uploaded/updated automatically. If you have multiple users updating the same calendar, it would be wise to right click the calendar and select “refresh calendar” before making any changes.
Matt out.
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