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BusyCal User Guide

Table of Contents

Introduction

BusyCal is a desktop calendar application that lets you share calendars with others on your local area network and sync with Google Calendar. It does not require a dedicated server, and calendars may be shared with read-only or read-write access.

BusyCal must be running on each computer you wish to sync calendars with. If you go offline, you can continue editing calendars and when you reconnect to the network your changes will be automatically synchronized with others.

In addition to calendar syncing, BusyCal provides the ability to enter and view event details in a non-modal floating window or an embedded info pane; create To Dos, including recurring To Dos, that display in the calendar and auto-forward until completed; display events in several customizable views including a List View and scrolling Month and Week Views; display graphics, sticky notes, live weather feeds and moon phases in your calendar; apply custom font styles and colors to events; and display alarms in a window and on the menu bar. Plus a whole host of under the hood performance improvements.

Installation

To install BusyCal:

  1. Download the BusyCal.zip file.
  2. Drag the BusyCal application to your Applications folder.

Registration

BusyCal will run for 30-days in full functioning trial mode. To continue using the software after the 30-day trial period you must purchase a serial number. You may purchase a serial number online at http://www.busymac.com/buy or click the Buy Now button in the Register dialog to purchase a serial number within BusyCal.

BusyCal requires a separate license for each computer. When purchasing multiple copies, you will receive a single serial number that can be used on all licensed computers. If you need more licenses in the future, you can purchase additional serial numbers that can be used along with your existing serial numbers.

Migrating to/from BusyCal

Migrating from iCal to BusyCal

When you first launch BusyCal, all of your iCal data is instantly imported. The data is actually imported from Sync Services, which is the underlying technology on Mac OS X that syncs calendar data between iCal, MobileMe, the iPhone and other apps/services like BusyCal.

Since BusyCal syncs with Sync Services, any changes you make to your calendars in BusyCal will continue to be synced with iCal. If you later decide not to use BusyCal, all of your data will be current in iCal.

Reverting to iCal from BusyCal

If you wish to stop using BusyCal as your primary calendar and switch back to iCal, you should reset BusyCal. To reset BusyCal, launch BusyCal and select Help > Reset > Reset BusyCal. BusyCal will clear its publish and subscribe settings, delete its database, set iCal as your default calendar application, and quit. If you don't plan to use BusyCal anymore, it is recommended that you delete it from your Applications folder.

Upgrading from BusySync to BusyCal

You cannot run BusySync and BusyCal on the same computer. If you are a BusySync user, a confirmation dialog will appear when you first launch BusyCal informing you that your BusySync data will be converted to BusyCal and BusySync will be stopped.

Downgrading to BusySync from BusyCal

If you attempt to start BusySync after running BusyCal, a dialog will ask you if you wish to convert your BusyCal database to BusySync format. Once you convert the database, you will be able to start BusySync. If you don't plan to use BusyCal anymore, it is recommended that you delete it from your Applications folder.

Quick Start

Sharing Calendars on a LAN

Install BusyCal on two Macs (Mac A and Mac B) and do the following:

  1. Publish on Mac A — Launch BusyCal, right-click on a calendar in the source list and select Publish to LAN.
  2. Subscribe on Mac B — Launch BusyCal and select the checkbox for the calendar in the source list that is being published by Mac A. All the events on that calendar will be added to your calendar. You may now add and edit events on that calendar, and changes will be synchronized with Mac A.
  3. Repeat — Repeat the steps above to publish and subscribe to additional calendars on either Mac. If you wish to set a read or write password for a published calendar, double-click the calendar and enter a password in the Publish Options section of the Calendar Info sheet.

For more info, see:

Syncing with Google Calendar

  1. Connect to Google Calendar — Launch BusyCal, select Connect to Google Calendar from the Calendar menu, and enter your Google Account login and password. The Google Account will appear in the source list.
  2. Subscribe to Google — Calendars that are hosted on Google will appear in the source list under the Google Account heading. You may check the calendars to subscribe to them and events on those calendars will appear in BusyCal.
  3. Publish to Google — You may publish calendars hosted in BusyCal to Google by right-clicking on the calendar in the source list and selecting Publish to Google. The calendar will then by created on Google and kept in sync with BusyCal.
  4. Sync — You may now add and edit events in BusyCal or Google, on any of the calendars you are publishing to Google or subscribing to on Google, and the events will sync in both directions.

For more info, see:

Views

Watch the video screencast: Customizable Views

BusyCal provides several different views for displaying your calendar, including Day, Week, Month and List Views.

Month View

Month 600

Tip: Select Scroll by Weeks from the View Menu to display a six week scrolling Month View.

Week View

Week 600

Tip: Use the scroll-wheel on your mouse while pressing the option-key to zoom in/out on the week view.

View Preferences

You can customize the display of the calendar views in BusyCal > Preferences > General:

View Prefs
  • Start of week — Displays the calendar starting on any day of the week.
  • Week view — Displays one week or two weeks at a time in the Week View.
  • Start of day — Sets the starting scroll position in the Day/Week view.
  • Hours shown — Sets the number of hours to display in the Day/Week View.
  • Display times in month view — shows Event start times and To Do bullets in Month View.
  • Open info panel for new events — opens the info panel and selects the Title field when creating new events.

View Menu

You can customize the behavior of the calendar view (Day/Week/Month) by selecting from the following options on the View menu:

Viewmenu
  • Word Wrap — Displays single or multi-line text.
  • Show Rich Text — Displays plain or rich text.
  • Show Weekends — Shows or hides weekends.
  • Scroll by Weeks/Days — In Month View, scrolls by week; In Week View, scrolls by day.

To Do List

Watch the video screencast: Managing To Dos.

In each of the calendar views (Day/Week/Month), you can show or hide the To Do list by clicking the To Do List button on the lower right.

Todo List

You may sort To Dos by clicking on the ToDo List header and selecting a sort order.

Todo Header

To Do Preferences

To Dos come in two flavors — Dated (have a due date) and Undated (no due date). Dated To Dos can be displayed in the calendar, in the To Do List, or both. Undated To Dos can be displayed only in the To Do List. You can customize the display of To Dos in BusyCal > Preferences > To Dos:

Todo Prefs
  • Carry forward uncompleted To Dos — when selected, Dated To Dos with a due date in the past will auto-forward to the current day until completed.
  • Show dated To Dos in calendar
  • Show dated To Dos in To Do list
  • Show completed To Dos in calendar
  • Show completed To Dos in the To Do list

Tip: Show dated To Dos and completed To Dos in the calendar, but not in the To Do list, to eliminate redundancy.

List View

The List view displays events in a list format. The bottom pane shows the notes field for the selected item where you can edit and format the notes.

List View

You may select a date range from the popup on the top left.

List Popup Date

Select the Columns... menu item to open the List View Columns dialog, where you can specify which columns to show and the sort order.

List Popup Columns List Columns

You may also:

  • Select which columns to display by right-clicking on the column header.
  • Move/resize columns by dragging.
  • Sort the list by clicking a column header.

Event Types

BusyCal supports many event types, including:

  • Banner — All-Day Event; appears in the calendar.
  • Event — Event with a start and end time; appears in the calendar.
  • To Do — Task with a due date; appears in the calendar and/or To Do List.
  • Undated To Do — Task with no due date; appears in the To Do List only.
  • Sticky — Floating yellow sticky note attached to a date; appears in the calendar.
  • Journal — Journal entry attached to a date; appears in the calendar.
  • Graphic — Floating graphic attached to a date; appears in the calendar.
Events2

Banner, Event,
To Do, and Journal

 Graphic

Floating
Graphic

 Sticky

Sticky
Note

Note: Unique event types in BusyCal like Journals, Sticky Notes, Graphics and Recurring To Dos, do not sync with Sync Services because Sync Services does not support these event types. Therefore, these event types do not sync to other apps that sync with Sync Services, like iCal, MobileMe and the iPhone.

Info Panel

Watch the video screencast: Info Panel

The Info Panel displays the details of the selected event. The info panel can be displayed as a floating window by double-clicking an event.

Info Panel None

Or the info panel can be displayed as an embedded panel below the To Do list on the bottom right side. To display the embedded info panel, click the info (i) button on the lower right.

Info Panel Embedded

To select the info panel using the keyboard, select an event in the calendar and type Command-Return. You may then move between fields in the info panel with the tab key. Then type Command-Return again to commit your changes.

You may open/select the info panel by default whenever you create a new event by selecting "Open info panel for new events" in BusyCal > Preferences > General.

Info Panel Preferences

The info panel can be customized to show only the fields that are desired. Below is an example of the info panel with the default fields shown, and the info panel with all fields shown.

Info Panel None Info Panel All Info Panel Prefs

To choose which fields to display, select Info Panel Preferences from the BusyCal menu and select from the following options:

  • Location
  • Location URL
  • Start time zone
  • End time zone
  • First occurrence — Displays first occurrence date of a repeating event and current sequence #.
  • Multiple alarms — Displays multiple alarms per event.
  • URL
  • Tags — See Tags.
  • Graphic — See Graphics.
  • Attachments
  • Attendees
  • Privacy — Syncs with Google Calendar
  • Last edit time — Displays time and user who last modified the event.
  • Free/Busy
  • My alarms — Private alarms that can be attached to read-only events and do not sync with other BusyCal users.
  • My tags — Private tags that can be attached to read-only events and do not sync with other BusyCal users.
  • My URL — Private URL that can be attached to read-only events and do not sync with other BusyCal users.
  • My notes — Private notes that can be attached to read-only events and do not sync with other BusyCal users.

Tags

You may apply custom tags to events by entering them in the Tags field.

Tags

You can also apply tags to an event by right-clicking on an event and selecting a tag from the contextual menu.

Tag Menu

The Tags menu displays a list of tags that you've previously entered. You may edit the list by selecting Edit Tags from the Edit menu and adding/renaming/deleting tags in the Tag History dialog.

Edit Tags Tag History

Graphics

You can drag a graphic onto an event and the graphic will be attached to that event and appear in the date header.

Graphic Event

Or, you may drag a graphic into the calendar to create a floating graphic attached to a date.

Graphic Float

To select a floating graphic, hold down the Option key and click the graphic. Handles will appear that allow you to move and resize the graphic, or delete it by hitting the backspace key.

Graphic Handles

You can control the transparency of the floating graphic in the info panel by dragging the opacity slider.

Graphic Opacity

Holidays

In the Calendar info dialog, you may check the "Holiday calendar" checkbox to display all-day events on that calendar on the bottom of the day cell in gray italicized text, rather than as banners.

Holiday Calendar Holiday Banner Holiday

When subscribing to a WebDAV calendar, such as "US Holidays", BusyCal will detect if the calendar is a holiday calendar by its title, and set the Holiday calendar checkbox automatically. You can set the Holiday calendar checkbox on any calendar, such as a shared company holidays calendar.

Note: Only one all-day event per day is displayed in the Holiday style. If there is more than one all-day event on a Holiday calendar, the additional all-day events are displayed in the same style as a Journal entry.

Birthdays

iCal has built-in support for reading in birthdays from Address Book and creating All-Day events out of them. It then pushes the Birthdays calendar to Sync Services as a read-only calendar. BusyCal can access that calendar and display the events on it. Noe: If you add a new birthday to Address Book it won't show up in BusyCal until you launch iCal, since iCal is the app that is syncing with the Birthdays in Address Book and Sync Services.

Here are some neat things you can do with the Birthdays calendar in BusyCal:

  • You can flag the Birthdays calendar as a Holiday Calendar to give the events a unique look.
  • You can show the age of the birthday recipient by turning on the First occurrence option in the info panel preferences. This will display the first occurrence date of a repeating event and current sequence # (age).
  • You can add reminders to Birthdays even though they are read-only events, with My Alarms.

Weather

Watch the video screencast: Weather Forecast and Moon Phases

BusyCal can display a five-day weather forecast in your calendar. When you hover your pointer over the weather icon, an extended forecast is displayed. If you click the icon you'll be redirected to Accuweather.com.

Weather Large

To configure the weather for your area, select BusyCal > Preferences > Weather, select the Show weather checkbox, and enter your zip code or city code.

Weather Prefs

You may display the weather as large icons or small icons. Small icons appear in the date header.

Weather Small

Select the Show moon phases option to display moon icons.

Moons

After specifying your location in the Weather preferences, the Day and Week view will display shaded areas on the top and bottom indicating the hours of darkness (sunrise and sunset) for your location.

Solar

Font Styles

You can apply custom fonts and styles to selected text using the Font menu.

Fonts

You can stylize event titles and notes. In the List View, the notes pane shows a ruler with additional formatting controls.

List Notes Pane

If you'd prefer not to display rich text in your calendar, you can toggle the display of styled text by selecting View > Show Rich Text.

Alarms

Watch the video screencast: Alarms

BusyCal can display alarms informing you of upcoming events.

Alarm Preferences

You can specify the default alarm settings in BusyCal > Preferences > Alarms:

Alarms

In Alarm Preferences you can specify a default alarm interval for new events, all-day events and to-dos. In addition, you can specify a default snooze interval and action for the Alarm Window. You may also choose to display alarms in the menu bar. Lastly, you have the option to Turn off all alarms, which is useful if you are publishing all calendars on a server where you do not wish to receive alarms. See Publishing calendars from a single host computer on a LAN for more info.

Custom Alarms

When creating a new alarm, you can choose one of the default intervals from the popup menu, or select Custom... to set a custom interval or specific date and time for the alarm.

Alarm Popup Alarm Popup Custom Alarm Custom Message Date

Alarm Types

In addition to Message alarms, the Custom dialog also allows you to create Email alarms and Open File alarms.

Alarm Custom Message Alarm Custom Email Alarm Custom Openfile
  • Email Alarms — can be sent to any one of the email addresses in your Address Book Me Card.
  • Open File Alarms — can launch an application, open a file, or open a URL in your web browser. Open File Alarms do not sync with other applications and BusyCal users, for security reasons.

My Alarms

If you show the My alarms field in the Info Panel Preferences, it will enable you to add alarms to events that are triggered only on your computer and not synced with others on your LAN.

In addition, if you are subscribed to a read-only calendar, BusyCal will automatically display the "my alarm" field for events on that calendar so you can set personal alarms for those read-only events. This is a great option for adding alarms to read-only WebDAV calendars like a sports schedule.

My Alarm

Alarm menu

If you enable the preference to "Show alarms in menu bar" an alarm menu will appear on the menu bar that displays today's events, including all-day events, appointments, Dated To Dos, and Journals. An icon is displayed next to events that have alarms set. Selecting an item on the menu will launch BusyCal and select that event.

Alarm Menubar

Alarm window

Message alarms appear in a floating window. You can snooze an alarm for any number of minutes, hours or days; or dismiss it. If multiple alarms are pending, you can snooze/dismiss them individually or select the "Apply to all" checkbox to snooze or dismiss all pending alarms. Double-clicking an event in the alarm window will launch BusyCal and select that event.

Alarm Window

Calendars

BusyCal's source list displays the following calendar types:

  • Local Calendars — Calendars stored locally on your Mac (read-write).
  • LAN Calendars — Calendars subscribed to from a BusyCal user on the LAN (read-write).
  • Google Calendars — Calendars subscribed to from Google Calendar (read-write).
  • MobileMe Calendars — IMAP calendars for storing Mail To Dos (read-write).
  • CalDAV Calendars — CalDAV calendar subscriptions from iCal (read-only). BusyCal does not directly support CalDAV. If you are subscribed to a CalDAV calendar in iCal, it will appear in BusyCal as read-only. To edit events on that calendar, you must do so in iCal.
  • Exchange Calendars — Exchange calendar subscriptions from iCal (read-only). BusyCal does not directly support Exchange. If you are subscribed to an Exchange calendar in iCal, it will appear in BusyCal as read-only. To edit events on that calendar, you must do so in iCal.
  • WebDAV Calendars — Calendars subscribed to from a WebDAV server.

Calendars

Tip: To show or hide all calendars, click a calendar checkbox while pressing the Command-key.

Sharing calendars on a LAN

BusyCal allows you to share calendars with other users on your LAN with full read-write privileges.

Publish

To share a calendar with other users on your LAN, right-click on your calendar and select Publish to LAN.

Publish To Lan

An icon will appear next to the calendar name indicating that it is being published.

Publish Icon

To set privileges, double-click on the calendar to open the Calendar Info sheet.

Publish Info

Publish options

The Publish Options section allows you to specify the access privileges for a calendar by setting a combination of read-only and read-write passwords. When a user subscribes to a calendar they will be granted the appropriate privileges based on the password they enter.

There are four possible combinations of access privileges as follows:

Everyone can read and write
Password A2

Leave both passwords blank to allow everyone full read-write access to your calendar without requiring a password.

Everyone can read; Write protected
Password B2

Leave the read-only password blank and enter a read-write password to allow everyone read access, while requiring a password for read-write access.

Read and Write protected
Password C2

Enter a password in both fields to require a password to read or edit your calendar. Use a different password for each so subscribers will be granted the appropriate privileges based on the password they enter (either a read-only password or read-write password).

Read protected; No write access
Password D2

Enter a read-only password and leave the read-write password blank to require a password for reading, while prohibiting write access.

Subscribe

If a BusyCal user on your network is publishing calendars, the calendars will automatically appear in your source list in gray.

Subscribe Gray

Note: If calendars being published by others do not appear in your source list, make sure that "Show Unsubscribed Calendars" is checked in the Calendar menu on your computer, and that the publisher's system Firewall is configured properly.

You may subscribe to a calendar by clicking the checkbox next to its name and the events on that calendar will be synced to your computer. If the calendar is password protected, you’ll be prompted to enter a password for read-only or read-write access. If you have write privileges, you may edit events on that calendar and those changes will be synchronized with the host that is publishing the calendar.

Subscribed

Subscribe Options

When subscribing to a calendar, all Events, To-Dos, Alarms, and Attachments will be synced with your computer. If you wish, you can remove To-Dos, Alarms and/or Attachments by double-clicking the calendar to open the Calendar Info sheet and selecting the appropriate checkboxes to Remove Alarms, To Dos, and/or Attachments.

Busycal Subscribe Options

Note: If you subscribe to a calendar with the same name as an existing calendar, a "(2)" will be appended to the subscribed calendar's name (e.g. "Home (2)"). You may rename that calendar to something else (e.g. "Fred Home"), if you wish, by double-clicking the calendar and entering a new name in the Calendar Info sheet.

Subscribed calendars appear in the source list as follows:

  • Gray/unchecked — a calendar that you are not subscribed to.
  • Color/checked — a calendar you are subscribed to and showing.
  • Color/unchecked — a calendar you are subscribed to and hiding.

Unsubscribe

Once you've subscribed to a calendar, you can toggle the display of that calendar by checking its checkbox. Even when a subscribed calendar is not being displayed, it will remain in sync with the host. If you wish to unsubscribe, you may right-click the calendar and choose Unsubscribe.

Unsubscribe

For more info, see:

Syncing with Google Calendar

BusyCal allows you to synchronize calendars with Google Calendar. You can subscribe to calendars hosted on Google, as well as publish calendars hosted in BusyCal to Google. In either case, changes made in BusyCal or on Google Calendar will sync in both directions.

Note: Google Calendar does not provide an API for third-party developers for syncing To-Dos. Therefore, BusyCal does not sync To-Dos with Google Calendar; it only syncs Events.

Settings

In order to sync with Google Calendar, you must enter your Google account login and password by selecting Calendar > Connect to Google Calendar. BusyCal supports both regular Google accounts and Google Apps for Your Domain accounts and you can even sync with multiple Google Accounts by adding multiple Google Logins.

Google Login

Enter the following:

  1. Google Login and Password.
  2. Specify how often you want to sync with Google. Every 15 minutes is the default.
  3. Select Use SSL if you want to encrypt your data when syncing with Google Calendar.
Busycal Google Settings
Google Alarm syncing

By default, Alarms are not synced between BusyCal and Google Calendar. If you wish, you may choose to sync Message Alarms in BusyCal to one of the following Google Alarm types by selecting the Sync message alarms checkbox and choosing one of the following options:

  • Sync message alarms to pop-ups on Google
  • Sync message alarms to SMSs on Google
  • Sync message alarms to emails on Google
Google Alarms

For example, if you sync message alarms to SMSs on Google, then any events you create in BusyCal with a message alarm will map to an SMS alarm on Google. And vice versa, any events created in Google Calendar with an SMS alarm, will map to a message alarm in BusyCal.

Note: when enabling Alarm syncing, the change is not retro-active and will only affect new events that you create and not existing events in your calendar. If you wish to make it retro-active, you must unpublish and/or unsubscribe from the calendars you are syncing with Google, enable the Alarm syncing preference, and then republish or re-subscribe to the calendars.

Google Date Range syncing

You can minimize the amount of data you publish to Google by selecting a date range limit from the "Don't publish events older than" popup. This will speed up syncing and reduce the chances of running into a Google quota error (Google limits the amount of data you can sync to protect against spam/abuse).

Date Range

Subscribe to Google

Once you've entered your Google Account settings, the Google Account appears in the source list, and the calendars hosted on Google appear below it in gray.

Busycal Google Sub

You may subscribe to a Google calendar by clicking the checkbox next to its name. When doing so, all of the events on that calendar will be synced to BusyCal. If you have write privileges, you may edit events on that calendar and those changes will be synchronized with Google.

Busycal Google Sub

Publish to Google

In addition to being able to subscribe to calendars hosted on Google, you can also publish calendars hosted in BusyCal to Google. To publish a calendar to Google, right-click on the calendar and select Publish to <google account>.

Busycal Google Pub

An icon will appear next to the calendar name indicating that it is being published to Google. The calendar will be automatically created on Google and any events you create or edit on that calendar in BusyCal or Google will sync both ways.

Publish Icon

Google Server Settings

Once you've added a Google Login, you can alter your Google Sync Settings by right-clicking the Google Login and choosing Server Settings.

Google Server Settings

To remove a Google Login, click the Disconnect button. This will clear your Google publish and subscribe settings -- any calendars you are publishing to Google will be removed from Google and any calendars you are subscribed to on Google will be removed from BusyCal, and the Google Login will be removed from your Calendar source list.

Google Disconnecct

For more info, see:

Sharing Calendars over the internet (WAN)

BusyCal is designed to automatically share calendars with other BusyCal users on your local area network via Bonjour. If you wish to share calendars with a BusyCal user in a remote location, you may do so by configuring BusyCal for remote access over the public internet (WAN). This method requires a public IP address and port-forwarding on your router, and is recommended for advanced users only.

For more info, see Configuration Guide: Sharing calendars over the internet (WAN)

You may perform a search by entering text in the search field in the upper right corner. BusyCal will search for all events whose title, location, notes or tags match the search criteria and filter the current view to show the matching events. You can then page backward and forward through the current view (Month, Week, Day) by clicking the arrow buttons or typing Command-Left/Right arrow to see matching events in the past or future. You can also switch to the List View and set a wider date range (like a year or a decade) to see more results.

Time Zones

You can view and schedule events in multiple time zones.

Time zone menu

Select BusyCal > Preferences > Advanced, and select the "Show time zone menu". This will reveal a time zone popup in the upper right corner of the window that can be used to dynamically display your events in different time zones.

Timezonemenu

For example, if you are in the US/Pacific Time Zone and schedule an appointment for 9:00 AM local time, it will be scheduled for 9:00 AM US/Pacific. If you then select US/Eastern from the popup menu, the event scheduled at 9:00 US/Pacific will display in your calendar at 12:00 US/Eastern.

Time zone fields

When creating events, they are created in local time by default. If you wish to display/change the time zone in the info panel, you can select BusyCal > Info Panel Preferences, and select the Start and End time zone options.

If you enable the Start time zone, a single time zone popup will display below the event end time. A single time zone popup is sufficient for events that begin and end in the same time zone, like a conference call that is being scheduled for 9:00 AM Pacific and Noon Eastern.

Start Time Start Time2

If you enable the End time zone field, separate popups will appear for the start and end time. This is useful if you are scheduling an event that spans time zones, like a cross-country flight that departs at 9:00 AM Pacific and arrives at 5:00 PM Eastern.

End Time End Time2

Floating time

In addition to scheduling events for a specific time zone, you can also schedule events in Floating time. An event scheduled at 9:00 AM Floating time, will appear at 9:00 AM in all time zones. This may be useful if you are located in San Francisco in the Pacific time zone and are scheduling a face to face meeting at 9:00 AM with a client during your trip to New York next week. If the meeting is scheduled at 9:00 AM floating time, it will appear at 9:00 AM on your computer in the Pacific time zone and will appear at 9:00 AM on your client's computer in the Eastern time zone.

Floating

Backup and Restore

BusyCal automatically backs up your BusyCal database every 24 hours and saves your last 10 backups in ~/Library/Application Support/BusyCal/Backup. You can alter these settings to backup more frequently and store more copies, in BusyCal > Preferences > Backup.

Backup

If your BusyCal calendar becomes corrupted, or you have lost data, you may revert to one of the backups by clicking the Restore From Backup button. You'll be prompted to select a recent backup file and then to select the calendars you wish to restore. The default is to restore only your local calendars. Click Restore and the calendars you selected will be replaced with the data from the backup.

Restore Busycal

Reset

Select Reset from the help menu to reset sync history or reset BusyCal.

Reset Busycal

Reset Sync History

Click Reset Sync History if BusyCal has stopped syncing with other apps or devices that use Sync Services (like MobileMe and the iPhone). This will fix most syncing problems, and you will not lose any data.

Reset BusyCal

If you wish to stop using BusyCal or start with a clean slate, click Reset BusyCal. This will clear your publish and subscribe settings and delete your BusyCal database. All local calendars will be preserved and continue to appear in iCal. Any calendars that are hosted on Google will be preserved on Google.

Note: Any unique data in BusyCal that is not supported by iCal and Sync Services (like Journals, Stickies, Graphics and Recurring To Dos) will not be preserved. If you plan to continue using BusyCal after resetting it, and want to restore the unique BusyCal data, you may restore from a backup.

Safe Boot

You may safe boot BusyCal by holding down the option-key while launching BusyCal. The BusyCal Startup Options dialog will be displayed offering a number of options that may be helpful when trouble-shooting problems.

Safeboot

Log

The Log Window (Window > Log Window) displays a summary of what BusyCal is doing. If something isn't working right, check the log window to see it provides any clues. When errors occur, a message is printed in the log with thee asterisks (***). For example, if you are syncing with Google Calendar and the Google server is temporarily unavailable, an error message will be printed to the log like this:

*** GoogleSync: temporary error (Service Error: Could not generate feed.)
Log Window

Send Logs to BusyMac

If you are having a problem and need help solving it, click the Send Logs to BusyMac button. This will launch your default email application and create a new message addressed to support@busymac.com with your log files attached as a zip file. Please provide a description of the problem in the body of the message including the names/dates of specific events that are not syncing. We will examine your logs and respond promptly.

Removing BusyCal

If you wish to stop using BusyCal and return to using iCal, you should reset BusyCal and remove it, as follows:

  1. Launch BusyCal.
  2. Select Reset from the Help menu.
  3. Click the Reset BusyCal button.
  4. Launch iCal.
  5. Delete BusyCal from the Applications folder.
  6. Optionally, delete the files located in:
    /Users/username/Library/Application Support/BusyCal
    /Users/username/Library/Logs/BusyCal.

Support

If you run into a problem using BusyCal there are several options available for support:

Documentation

Other

Credits

  • AsyncSocket by Dustin Voss
  • UKCrashReporter by Uli Kusterer
  • GData Library & Google Toolbox for Mac

    • Copyright (c) 2007 Google Inc.
    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0. Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

  • Libical

    • Libical is distributed under both the LGPL and the MPL. The MPL notice, reproduced below, covers the use of either of the licenses.
    The contents of this file are subject to the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL. Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations under the License.
    The Original Code is libical. The Initial Developer of the Original Code is Eric Busboom. All Rights Reserved. Contributor(s): See individual source files. Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of the LGPL license, in which case the provisions of LGPL License are applicable instead of those above. If you wish to allow use of your version of this file only under the terms of the LGPL License and not to allow others to use your version of this file under the MPL, indicate your decision by deleting the provisions above and replace them with the notice and other provisions required by the LGPL License. If you do not delete the provisions above, a recipient may use your version of this file under either the MPL or the LGPL License."

  • Sparkle

    • Copyright (c) 2006 Andy Matuschak
    Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
    The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
    THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.