Hello, I'm Yann Monclair, and will be working on the iCalendar  
project for SummerTalk.

When I first started the project, I was actually just looking for  
something to keep me busy and use my Smalltalk a little.
I was looking to have some small scripts to run on ical files (ics)  
and that's when I started, with a parser.

Since then I've been looking at other aspects of iCalendars that are  
not yet available (possible) in the other implementations.
I was thinking of a nice webinterface, but google beat me on that ;)
Another idea I have is collaborative editing. It could then make  
iCalendars a more useful tool for planning meetings, and a lot of  
stuff requiring mutual agreement on a date.

Other people suggested having other features, that would help the  
iCalendar become useful as a time tracking system. For example, you  
have a calendar per project and you want to know how much time you  
spent on that project in a given time period.

I will look deeper into the squeak ical package. I might reuse some  
of it,  my ics parser isn't that great.

I'm thinking of switching to an XML format (the one used my google  
calendar and others ). It would then allow a better network  
communication with other clients. As of today, there are
no GUI available, but that will have to change to implement the  
collaborative aspect. The current GUI available out there (rich  
client or web client ) might not support it out of the box. I
try to stay as compatible as possible with the current clients, to  
make the project more usable and easier to start with.

I'll post a more structured description on my blog (http:// 
yann.quist.ca). I'm currently finishing a report for my graduation,  
so I should have more time in a few days.

HTH,

Yann




About the project: 'ICal support in Smalltalk'

There is already a an ICal (and VCard) parser and serializer for
squeak available at:
http://www.squeaksource.com/ical.html
This is used in production in at least two places.

So what would be the goal of this project? Integrate the existing ICal
package with lets say Chronos or reinvent the wheel?

Cheers
Philippe

2006/6/20, Serge Stinckwich <Serge.Stinckwich at info.unicaen.fr>:
 > Hi guys,
 > here are some updates about the SummerTalk 2006 program launched  
by ESUG
 > (European Smalltalk User Group). The goal of this program is to help
 > students work on open-source Smalltalk projects until december 2006.
 >
 > - 5 projects have been selected by the ESUG Board for funding,
 > - 1 project get funded by an external sponsor,
 > - 3 students have been selected and assigned to a project. We are
 > looking to 3 more students for the other projects. If you are
 > interested, please apply ASAP !
 >
 > All the glory details are available online here :
 > http://www.esug.org/promotionactions/summertalk2006/
 >
 > Have fun,
 > --                                                         oooo
 > Dr. Serge Stinckwich                                     OOOOOOOO
 > Université de Caen>CNRS UMR 6072>GREYC>MAD               OOESUGOO
 > http://purl.org/net/SergeStinckwich                       oooooo
 > Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]   \  /
 >                                                              ##
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >