[Chandler-dev] Preview import/export

[Sheila Mooney]

Users have been able to import ics files into Chandler for some time  
now using the manual File->Import utility. For Preview it's very  
important that we find a path for people to get their data into  
Chandler.

None of this information should be new but as we lead up to Preview,  
we can expect our dogfooders will run into bugs and scenarios that we  
don't support and this outlines our philosophy on how we are going to  
handle that.

So let's start by stating the basics....

+ For Preview we support importing event and task information only.
+ We are currently doing this by supporting the ics file format  
standard (iCalendar which is VCALENDAR 2.0).
+ We handle VTODOs and VEVENTs BUT NOT VJOURNALs
+ We would like to be able to work with other apps that support  
standards.
+ This means that in theory, we should be able to import ics files  
generated from other applications.
+ We know that this is not always true due to bugs created when data  
is exported from other apps and also due to many of the subtleties  
around what it means to be standards compliant.
+ There are several known issues and it's possible more will come up  
as we get more users and continue with dogfood testing - http:// 
chandlerproject.org/Projects/PreviewDesktopImportExportt.
+ For Preview, we would like to be supporting and testing import/ 
export from apps that are widely used since getting your data into  
Chandler is an important first step in being able to try out the  
application.

Our calendar users may currently be using a variety of applications  
(some examples)....

+ Outlook
+ Palm
+ iCal
+ Entourage
+ Ecco Pro
+ Evolution
+ Sunbird
+ Zimbra
+ Google calendar

The ordering of these applications is our best guess at how widely  
these applications are used. So far most of our testing around import/ 
export has been from iCal but continue but we continue to log and  
fixed bugs that users encounter with all the different apps. We  
realize that we cannot test all of these scenarios but due to a  
number of recent issues importing calendar data from Outlook and the  
high usage rate, we feel it's important to include this as part of  
our test plan. There are a number of utilities available we can use  
to generate ics file and based on some amount of research, we have  
found http://www.littlemachines.com/ to be the least problematic. We  
can also be directing our users to this utility when they want to  
export/import data from Outlook.

We know that for Preview we have limited QA resources and although we  
will be focussing on iCal and Outlook, we want to support everyone.  
We would like to encourage people to help us test import/export from  
standard compliant apps and have setup a wiki page for this purpose.  
Please feel free to add sections for additional apps since I have not  
covered everything.

http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/PreviewDesktopImportExport

Users and developers can see the list of known issues, add additional  
ones and help us work through the problems. We cannot promise to have  
all the problems resolved for Preview but we are committed to fixing  
them shortly after. In the same spirit, there are also a wide variety  
of applications that are not standards compliant and we would also  
like to remain open to working with those individuals that might be  
available and willing to help come up with a solution.

Sheila