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OldCorpse

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2005
1,758
347
compost heap
I've tried to love iCal, and I just cannot take it anymore. For 3 weeks, I've doggedly stuck with iCal, but I've finally had enough. I need a calendar app. I'm willing to buy, so if anyone's got any buying tips, I'm all ears. Free, would of course be even better. FWIW, on XP i used freebie program called TaskPlus, which wasn't fantastic, but it did the job.

iCal is simply laughable from my point of view, so inadequate, it's not even a funny joke. Here's what I need: something that will display a minimum of 4 months at a time with an option of seeing the entire year in a sidepanel. This weird 2-3 month limitation in iCal (all vertically displayed???) is good for 5 year old kids, but won't cut it for grownups. The month view shows you which days have tasks/appointments, but the tasks/appointments spaces are tiny, so you can't really tell what's written (fits like 4 words or so). In weekly and daily view, you see more, but the side panel months have ZERO indication of which days have an appointment/task (f.ex. TaskPlus handles that by color coding the days). There's no showing of holidays in the sidebar either. Combine that with general bugginess of iCal (I double-click a day, as I'm supposed to, in order to put in a task/appoitment, and half the time instead it'll switch to month-view which is just bizarre), and iCal is just a nonstarter in my book. I need something better. A lot better.

Now, I don't need to share the calendar, or publish it to the web. Just a personal calendar - seemingly a simple request, beyond the feeble capabilities of iCal. So, fellow mac lovers, what is your cure for this problem? Please do tell! I certainly cannot be persuaded to love iCal. I desperately need alternatives... so far I've been haunting macupdate to no avail.
 

California

macrumors 68040
Aug 21, 2004
3,885
90
I share your pain but have no pain reliever. I seem to recall an early nineties Mac app that ran with the same lack of aplomb as iCal. But you got further than me with iCal. I couldn't ever figure out how to write in the little tiny date boxes.
 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
16,120
2,399
Lard
Now Up-to-Date and Contact is what I've been using since the mid-1990s. I've tried iCal and it's great to be able to view my schedules on my iPod but that's more show than anything else, don't you think? Eventually, Mozilla will get Sunbird working to where it's usable but it's pretty rudimentary right now.
 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
16,120
2,399
Lard
CanadaRAM said:
Buggy and terrible support IMO

Perhaps. I've never requested support. The applications haven't been with any one group more than 3 years, I think and that's caused problems, but they tend to work better than the alternatives--especially since there were no alternatives for the longest time.
 

OldCorpse

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2005
1,758
347
compost heap
California said:
I share your pain but have no pain reliever. I seem to recall an early nineties Mac app that ran with the same lack of aplomb as iCal. But you got further than me with iCal. I couldn't ever figure out how to write in the little tiny date boxes.

Here's the scary part... I've even looked at commerical stuff, though I balk at paying $100++ for some of these apps - and guess what - they are terrible! They get worse marks than a lot of the freeware floating on macupdate. And thanks to the posters who mentioned the alternatives, but those won't quite cut it either :( I'm not being too demanding, honest... I'm willing to completely overlook aesthetics, as long as it has the functionality (though pretty woudn't hurt... I'm just trying to ask for as little as possible).

Maybe folks have some well kept secret apps... can't be that nobody on a mac has a need for calendaring software... so, I'm still all ears :)
 

big

macrumors 65816
Feb 20, 2002
1,074
0
I like the iCal printer ad at the bottom of the page, how ironic (it may change next login)
I felt like it was about time Apple supplied an integrated Calendar, how long did we have to wait, until 10.0?

I went out and bought Timelog as a business expense (time manager), and it has been great. Though it is a sidekick to iCal for me... you should try trashing your prefs.

how about a widget calendar?
 

azzurri000

macrumors 6502
Nov 9, 2005
307
0
homerjward said:
i've used mozilla sunbird before, but i don't really have a need for a calendar application. it might be worth checking out, although it's 0.3 alpha as of now.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird.html

Sunbird is the standalone calendar app by mozilla, I use their calendar extension, that I access through firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

I downloaded it because I am still a windows user :( and I wanted to upload a calendar to my iPod, and it worked great! (+ it's free)
 

iris_failsafe

macrumors 6502
May 4, 2004
255
0
San Francisco, CA
Well not exactly freebie but I use MS Entourage. It works quite well (at least for me) and you can connect to a MS exchange server

What I found is that is more customisable than Ical and has many features and is quite easy to use (it feels like isn't a MS app):D
 

portent

macrumors 6502a
Feb 17, 2004
623
2
I'd suggest you buy a paper calendar. Computer calendars are, by necessity, limited to one screenfull of information. Some people like being able to search for appointments, set up "alarms," and have recurring events pencilled in automatically. Other people like to have the "big picture" all at once. Computer monitors are fairly small and low-res, so no electronic calendar can match a good set of monthly calendars and a bulletin board.
 
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