Poll: What calendar do you prefer?

[kittell]

There are several sources of event information on seds.org: the events forum (http://forums.seds.org/forumdisplay.php?f=32), the SEDS Forums calendar (http://forums.seds.org/calendar.php), SEDSWiki events (http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/Events), and the official SEDS Google calendar (http://www.seds.org/calendar.php). They're all useful in their own ways, but one problem I have with them is that they are all totally separate from my personal calendar (a Google calendar), that is, in order to add an event from one of these calendar to my own requires several steps.

I'm going to integrate an "Add to Google Calendar" button to an advanced SEDSWiki Events template. But I also thought: what calendars do you use. I could create something that would work with that as well. So, please take this short poll, and as soon as I can I'll show you a working copy of the "Add to Google Calendar" button.

[kittell]

As a 'quick and dirty' example, see http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/Template:Events_Advanced for how the 'add to Google Calendar' button might work. (Yes, it's just a link, not a button...)

[JediJosh]

Google calendar is just so easy to use, especially with multiple groups. I can share any aspect of my schedule (like school, work, personal, etc..) with friends, coworkers, etc.. without sharing the entire thing.

[kittell]

Pradeep recently showed me this online template that can be used to develop KML files for Google Earth: http://earth.google.com/outreach/tutorial_mapper.html

It gave me an idea to create an intermediate step for integrating an "add to Google calendar" link to the calendar. You can see a static version of it here: event creator spreadsheet (http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pbgOgHz1x_uHuGbWZc23TMg).

If you input a few important things -- date, location, event, etc. -- it will create an output that is suitable to copy/paste in SEDSWiki events (http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/Events) and here in the forum calendar (http://forums.seds.org/calendar.php). It's not a huge leap for convenience, just a small step in that it formats some of the code for you. If you want access to develop that spreadsheet, send me a mail and I'll add you as a collaborator. Else it may be possible for you to open a copy of the spreadsheet in your own Google Docs account via http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pbgOgHz1x_uHuGbWZc23TMg&newcopy; YMMV.

My goal with that spreadsheet is to make it easier to add events; ultimately, I'd like to incorporate the functions into forum/wiki and ditch this intermediate step. I don't know how to do that, so if anyone has any ideas, let me know.