Dec 06

gcal-jabber beta-test

Google Calendar has a surprisingly cumbersome interface for adding events - dubious click handling, weird tab order, etc. and this was one of the reasons I didn't start using it for a long time. I played around with the SMS-based mobile interface, however, and realized that I wanted the same free-form text entry everywhere, not just on my phone. "Quick Add" was what made Google Calendar more convenient than iCal (at least prior to 10.5's data detectors)

Nerdy calendar nirvana was interrupted, however, by the requirement to keep a browser window open or use Google Notifier, both of which end up being a bit cumbersome in practice. Fortunately Google provides the gdata API and a nice Python client library; xmpppy and just over a hundred lines of code later and I had a better solution: gcal-jabber screenshot

I've been using this and really prefer working this way. If you'd like to help beta-test it: download gcal-jabber.zip.

If you're a Mac user and want to have it launch automatically at login:

  1. sudo mv gcal-jabber.py /usr/local/bin/
  2. mv org.improbable.gcal-jabber ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
  3. launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.improbable.gcal-jabber