Re: calendar/diary <-> phone?

[knubee <knubee@gmail.com>]

> I use Gnokii along with the attached elisp hack.

thanks for the reply.

i have since learned that the most common way to synchronize is to
convert the file to icalendar (.ics) format. then there are various
ways that phones can sync with that file. in case this will be useful
to others, details below -- as well as a couple of problems i have
encountered with icalendar.el

if i understand correctly, the sync model is something like this:

emacs <-> .ics file <-> phone

there seem to be several strategies for getting the .ics file to sync
with phone (using, e.g, bluetooth)

- use a specific app that phone understands

- have an "intermediary" app read the .ics file (evolution,
 lightening/sunbird, google calendar, etc.) -- and then sync between
 phone and the calendar in that app (which has its own mechanisms for
 syncing with phone).

 note that if one wants to go the google calendar route, it is worth
 looking at Bill Clementson's blog post on "Emacs and Google
 Calendars" - http://bc.tech.coop/blog/070306.html

 also: gcal.el (part of emacspeak, but possible to use separately as
 part of the "g-client" emacs package for google services) -
 http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/

 also; gcaldaemon - http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net/

- install a syncing "framework" on computer (e.g., opensync ... which
  works, but is still a bit rough around the edges)

the main problem i have is the difficulty of getting recurring events
from emacs diary file into an .ics file.

for example, icalendar.el (version 0.15 included in emacs22) does not
fully handle sexps and recurring events. for my purposes, the main
limitation is that icalendar.el does not correctly export recurring
weekly/monthly events -- namely, these simply do not appear in the
resulting .ics file.

; weekly or monthly entries to not appear in .ics file

Saturday take a nap
28 * shoot the moon

(Note: however, yearly events do appear correctly in resulting .ics
file.)

25 December Some guy's birthday

RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYMONTH=12;BYMONTHDAY=25

; sexp recurring events do not appear in .ics file

%%(and (= (calendar-day-of-week date) 1)
       (diary-block 13 1 2008 13 5 2008)) 14:00-16:00 Do something
each week for 4 months

Recurring events are crucial so it would be nice if there was a way to
get them from emacs diary file into .ics format. Does anyone know a
solution to this? Is there a newer version of icalendar.el that works?
Are there alternatives to icalender.el that work? Or?

thanks