SPUG: SPUG project?

Bill Alford billa at willapabay.org
Thu Aug 3 15:13:16 CDT 2000


A good calendar could be a good project.  But there are lots of reasonable
options out there already.  

A few years ago at a place I used to work we got a web calendar system
implemented in perl and it was very buggy.  The main problem is that they
didn't have a way to lock the data files during update, until I reported
the bug to them.  (We lost lots of data and time with that one.)  There
were also lots of usability issues.

There are quite a few gotchas with calendars in addition to that one.  
The least of which is specifying time range rules and the various repeated
meeting issues.  Most involve clean UIs.  I'm sure to get flamed for this,
but it should be at least as easy to use as the calendar in Exchange (the
only reason I've used Exchange).

A cool feature would be to make a web and stand-alone version.  Also, make
it so that people can schedule meetings with others.  If this could be
done cleanly and on par with the commercial versions, and run on multiple
platforms, it might be a killer app.  On the other hand, how many OSes
come with calendar apps now.  On the third hand, this could be good for
small companies and non-profits that need the features of good scheduling
software and can't afford the licensing of the commercial products.

I remember seeing something about a calendar exchange protocol out
there.  If this becomes the project, someone should check into it.  I
think it used to be called V-Cal.

Bill

On Thu, 27 Jul 2000, William Julien wrote:

> >
> >I'll say more next week but for now I'd like to see the ideas keep rolling
> >in. Keep in mind for the initial project we should probably pick something
> >with the following attributes:
> >
> >1) Is a module (not a script or app)
> >2) Finishable in a 1-2 month timeframe.
> >3) Usable on Unix and Win32
> >
> 
> One idea I have for a "do-able" project is a module to facilitate
> the generation of a web based calendar/scheduling system.
> 
> Something like...
> 
>     use spugcal qw':monthly'; # get's top billing!
>     use CGI ':standard';
> 
>     $userid = "moonbeam";
>     $group = "kittens";
> 
>     %date = ("$userid $group Jul-26-2000 15:00" => "Go to the company picnic",
> 	     "$userid $group Jul-27-2000 08:00" => "get a life" 
> 	    );
> 
>     print header, start_html;
>     $spugcal = new spugcal->connect( $userid, $group, $passwd )
> 	or die "Laughing\n";
>     $calendar = $spugcal->calendar_month (
> 	-events    => \%dates,
> 	-month     => 'Jul',
> 	-year      => 2000,
> 	-bgcolor   => "lightblue",
> 	-textcolor => "black",
>     );
>     print $calendar;
>     print end_html;
> 
> would print a basic monthly calendar with two events.
> 
> The module would need to handle:
>     - support external data model (as shown above).
>     - internal data model using DBI database administration of the events. 
>     - database administration support
>     - handle time zone differences 
> 	options to display the event in the server's, the poster's, 
> 	or the viewer's timezone.
>     - login and security
>     - account and group administration methods
>     - various display views
> 	Monthly
> 	weekly
> 	daily
>     - handle schedule conflicts 
>     - email notification of events 
> 	done via cron, outside the web server context
> 
> I checked CPAN, and I found a few simple calendars, but nothing that
> can be used as a distributed scheduler. 
> 
> Could this be a SPUG killer app?
> 
> ---
>    William Julien           _,'|            _.-''``-...___..--';
> moonbeam at catmanor.com      /, \'.      _..-' ,      ,--...--'''
>  vi is my shepherd;       < \   .`--'''      `     /| 
>  i shall not font.         `-,;'              ;   ; ;  
>                      __...--''     __...--_..'  .;.'  
>                     (,__....----'''      (,..--''     
> perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
> 
> 
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> 


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