GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 349397
No text/calendar (.ics) handling
Last modified: 2012-08-29 07:03:44 UTC
Evolution cannot handle the text/calendar MIME type (these files have an .ics extension most of the time). The only way to load iCalendar files is through the import dialog. Starting "evolution foo.ics" doesn't work. It would be great to have evolution handle text/calendar, so that .ics files downloaded from the internet can be imported directly into your calendar. The data will then be loaded into a new calendar item, which need to be saved manually by the user. No automatic saving, please! (Btw, this is how Outlook works too)
Drag-and-drop import of ics files wouldn't hurt too ;)
what does "handle" mean? yes, one can import those files... :-) Starting "evolution foo.ics" doesn't work, this is already filed in bugzilla, but to me it is a WONTFIX. what is the case for nautilus?
Handle means (see my initial report): "The data will then be loaded into a new calendar item, which need to be saved manually by the user. No automatic saving, please! (Btw, this is how Outlook works too)" It means that Evolution is able to (directly) open .ics files downloaded from the internet. Some sites have "save this item in my calendar" hyperlinks that link to a .ics file. Since the technology is already there, why not have some integration to get things to work smoothly?
Bumping version to a stable release.
Created attachment 107831 [details] Logged packets as evolution makes request - odd RST pkt Not sure why the RST packet is being sent. Perhaps evolution's way of saying it does not understand the mime type and closing the connection in a non-standard way???
[This comment was supposed to be added BEFORE i added that attachment...the attachment should make a little more sense now :-) ] Not sure this is bug is the same problem I'm seeing. I will add a new bug just in case in a moment. Problem: Subscribing to a webcal with mime type of text/calendar broken If you attempt to subscribe to a webcal on a server which chooses to return a mime type of text/calendar instead of text/plain (which evolution handles fine) then Evolution will happily let you subscribed but does not display any of the contents of that calendar. Using wireshark, I see it makes the request so the problem is in the parsing I suspect. Attached log - oddly shows an RST packet being sent...strange Repeatable: Yes - steps below never produce any visible entries on calendar MIT CSAIL web calendar exhibits this problem A calendar exhibiting the problem is here: http://www.csail.mit.edu/events/eventcalendar/ical/csail.ics Reproduction: In evolution 1) Go to the calendar section 2) File, New Calendar, choose webcal as type 3) Enter a name for this calendar 4) Copy and paste the url above taking care to remove it's http:// Paste it after the webcal:// prefix in the dialog box 5) Leave the rest of the box as defaults and click ok Expected behavior: If evolution is expecting only text/plain as a mime type for webcals, then it should display a user error informing them of this. I would prefer that it handle mime type text/calendar since that is what the mime type is meant for I suspect. Versions: rpm -qa |grep -i evolution evolution-pilot-2.6.0-41 multisync-evolution-0.82+cvs-25 evolution-exchange-2.6.0-20 evolution-2.6.0-41 evolution-sharp-0.10.2-27 evolution-webcal-2.4.1-18 evolution-data-server-1.6.0-39
Update: I debugged things a bit more. I think I have now isolated the issue to the following behaviour most likely occuring within libsoup. Looking at the packet log and manually testing a connection we see the reason for the RST packet: The connection is trying to use HTTP/1.1 but is not sending a host line for some reason. Very strange...most likely the libsoup library is where this is originating... but wherever the problem resides I would not suggest closing this bug until it is resolved since the symptom of the problem apppears sometime from inside evolution.
I can see 'import to calendar' option in Evolution 2.22.3 when i get ics file as a mail attachment. This should solve reporter's problem.
In case it helps, here's an example series of steps to describe the problem, in this case running Evolution 2.22.3.1: 1) I receive an email for a meeting with an HTTP link to a .ICS file, or a I book a flight online and it offers me a HTTP link to a .ICS with a reminder for the flight. In both cases, I definitely want the appointment added to my calendar, after I have seen it (i.e. as described by the original reporter, it should not be saved automatically). 2) I click the link. 3) Firefox asks me what application I want to handle the .ICS file. I point to the path for the evolution executable ( /usr/bin/evolution ). 4) Nothing happens. Nothing is added to my calendar, there are no popups. 5) So I download the .ICS file, and save it to my desktop. 6) Then in Evolution, I go File -> Import -> Forward -> Import a single file -> Forward -> select the file -> Forward -> choose the right calendar -> click Forward -> click Import. 7) The item now appears in my calendar. It would be nice if step 3) was unnecessary because it was already the default, and if steps 4), 5) and 6) could be replaced with the Outlook behavior, namely: * The details of the first appointment in the ICS are opened, exactly as if the user had gone File -> New -> Appointment -> and then had manually filled in all the details from the ICS file. * The user clicks "Save" to add the appointment to their calendar.
(In reply to comment #8) > I can see 'import to calendar' option in Evolution 2.22.3 when i get ics file > as a mail attachment. This should solve reporter's problem. No, this does not solve the problem at all. Nick explained quite well in comment #9 what the problem is. (Thanks for clarifying, Nick.)
updating the product version as per comment#9
Setting status to NEW since I'm definitely not the only one having this issue.
(In reply to comment #6) > [This comment was supposed to be added BEFORE i added that attachment...the > attachment should make a little more sense now :-) ] > > Not sure this is bug is the same problem I'm seeing. > I will add a new bug just in case in a moment. > > Problem: Subscribing to a webcal with mime type of text/calendar broken > ...... Hi Jeff, would you mind to file new bug for your issue? It'll be better. Just for your information, I see on the evolution-data-server console complaining webcal backend: libecalbackendhttp-WARNING **: The component does not have the mandatory property UID The problem is not with the content type, but with the content itself, webcal expects iCalendar components.
The ability to view a calendar without saving the ESource would require some architectural redesign, thus marking as enhancement.
This problem is still present in 2.3. It would be nice to see a little love on this one. Meetup is pretty popular. It would be nice for us to be able to bring these events directly into our evolution calendars.
Actually, invoking $ evolution event.ics brings an import dialog, where one can choose where to import the event(s) from the file. It's 2.30.0 here. There is still no preview functionality before importing, but this makes it much simpler for an import process. Jim, I guess you also meant 2.30.0, thus what is your use case for this, please?
Use case would be clicking on a web link and importing a calendar event. A typical use is importing a meeting from Meetup, markthisdate.com or similar type site. Currently under Lucid (Which I'm assuming is at 2.30), there isn't a handler for the ICS file. By default, gedit is the default handler. Selecting evolution as the default handler for ics files doesn't provide the expected functionality. It usually opens the file as text. markthisdate.com is probably the easiest test point.
> Currently under Lucid (Which I'm assuming is at 2.30) It's not 2.30 - unfortunately Ubuntu 10.04 (codename Lucid) will release in about 9 days with an older version, namely Evolution 2.28.3 - see: http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/evolution There is some discussion (by end users, not devs) about the decision not to go with 2.30 at this page: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1392909 But back to the specifics of this bug. Sound like there are 3 sub-tasks: 1) Get Evolution to bring up an import dialog when invoked with an ICS file from the command line (status: does not work for me in 2.28.1, sounds like does not work for Jim in 2.28.3, but sounds like this does work for Milan in 2.30+). 2) Make sure Evolution is registered as a default ICS file handler for the Gnome desktop, such that Evolution is invoked when clicking on a downloaded ICS file, or clicking on a web link to an ICS file (status: currently invokes gedit for myself & Jim with 2.28.x, no idea what happens in later versions). 3) Add preview of the ICS to Evolution, rather than automatic save/import (status: requires some architectural enhancements).
Created attachment 159127 [details] A sample ICS file Example in-the-wild ICS file from an airline as a flight reminder from Feb 2009.
As I mentioned in bug 234328 comment 7, in Fedora 16 with GNOME 3.2 Evolution is registered for handling .ics files (or to be more correct, files with content type "text/calendar" according to "gvfs-info" output for my test file). So I'd consider this bug FIXED - does anybody disagree or have other results? Setting to NEEDINFO for the time being.
Created attachment 206493 [details] Screenshot showing successfully importing the test .ics file on Fedora 16 > So I'd consider this bug FIXED - does anybody disagree or have other results? Just tested this in Fedora 16, and Wow! It's looking great! The content type association for Evo handling is there, and the showing what will be added before adding it is there too - it's all looking great. The only very minor cosmetic quibble I would make is that the "Evolution Import Assistant" window is simply too small, and always needs to be expanded for the calendar details to be readable. Using "xwininfo", I had to resize it from Width: 645 Height: 358 (the default window size), up to Width: 765 Height: 519, for it to be readable, whilst also keeping the window size down to accomodate smaller screens. That should still allow the window to fit on a 800x600 netbook screen, which is a pretty safe baseline screen size (below this res, other bits of Evo are already unusable, such as the mail account setup dialogs). Other than this small cosmetic request, I consider this FIXED.
(In reply to comment #21) > The only very minor cosmetic quibble I would make is that the "Evolution Import > Assistant" window is simply too small, and always needs to be expanded for the > calendar details to be readable. Thanks for testing. Could you please file a new bug report for this problem? Thanks in advance! Closing as RESOLVED FIXED.
(In reply to comment #22) > Thanks for testing. Could you please file a new bug report for this problem? I just filed #669133.