I am not blogging that much lately, mainly because my days at Sun are well busy taking care of our existing customers and trying to acquire new one.
But this is worth mentioning : I posted on Sourceforge earlier today a Mac application allowing to synchronize the Mac iCal data with our Java System Calendar Server.
There is a vibrant Mac user community @ Sun, all having to deal with the Mac calendaring application on one side, and our Calendar Server (used internally) on the other side. For all these mac users, including myself, very little possibility to synchronize the two worlds, beside a tool that replaces Sun’s calendar events with iCal data, enough for most of us, but not truly a synchronization tool.
Since the release of Mac OS X 1.4 (aka Tiger), Apple published an API allowing to hook into the iSync synchronization framework, allowing third-parties to plug devices, servers or client applications into the synchronization game. The tool I am publishing today uses this API to synchronize any Calendar Server data with the Mac’s sync engine, therefore iCal, your Palm, your mobile etc …
I named the tool JSCalendarSync and I published the source code under the terms of the OSI-approved Common Development and Distribution License
Of course, this is work in progress, with limited testing so far and a set of well-known limitations, mainly the fact that it syncrhonizes only the events start and end time as well as the events description. No recurrence, no attendees, no reminder.
I am publishing this application today for two reasons. First I would like to encourage people to test it and give me feedback, in order to improve what exists today. Secondly, I would like to gather some fellow developers to help me to complete this tool and make it a rock solid synchronization tool for our Calendar Server and the Mac platform.
Happy synchronization !