GCalDaemon: beta 2

There's a new version of GCALDaemon, and I've been playing with it for a few days. (OK, nonstop this entire weekend.) The (semi)colon bug for Unix is fixed in beta 2, and you can sync multiple calendars now!

First things first, I kept losing data (usually To Do items), so make a backup first. I haven't figured out the pattern to this problem yet, so I don't know if I should submit a bug report. Another annoyance is that two of my calendars went unidirectional, with Google overwriting iCal. I made a new Google calendar and linked it to (a restore of) the same iCal, and it appears to be better. (Odd, hunh?) Make several backups if you want! I made one with iCal and one in the Finder.

• /Developer/Tools/CpMac -pr ~/Library/Application\ Support/iCal/Sources ~/Library/Application\ Support/iCal/Sources.backup
• # or just cp instead of CpMac on OS X 10.4+

Now you can install beta 2.

• cd /bin
• sudo rm -rf /bin/GCALDaemon # unless you don't want to start over from scratch with a clean slate!
• sudo unzip /Downloads/gcaldaemon-linux-1.0-beta2.zip
• sudo chgrp -R admin /bin/GCALDaemon
• sudo chmod -R g+w /bin/GCALDaemon
• sudo chmod 755 /bin/GCALDaemon/bin/*.sh
• cd /bin/GCALDaemon/bin
• ./password-encoder.sh
• cd /bin/GCALDaemon/conf
• open -a subethaedit gcal-daemon.cfg

Follow the directions for file-based synchronization like Rainlendar. HINT: Look in ~/Library/Application\ Support/iCal/Sources/*.calendar/Info.plist for the name of that calendar.

Then you can make it a full OS X citizen using Lingon. To get started, click on Assistant in the toolbar.

1. Keep an application/script always running
2. Label: net.sf.gcaldaemon (leave "Launch only when I log in" checked)
3. Application/script: /bin/GCALDaemon/bin/standalone-start.sh

And there you have it, a new entry in "My Agents" to keep iCal sync'd with your Google Calendar(s) every time you log in to your Mac!

I also ran across two other alternatives that will sync iCal and Google Calendar bidirectionally, jin'sync in alpha, and Spanning Sync coming soon.