ICS Files

PaulFaisant

Hi,
Great extension. I just noticed that it does not read .ics file and force us to open gmail...

Jason

Can you give me more context and details?

PaulFaisant

If someone sends you an event invite from outlook, you'll get an ics file. Gmail is automatically reads this ics file and provide you features allowing to accept/refuse/add this to your calendar. This is great.

When using your extension, for now we just see an unreadable ics file. 

Jason

After investigating some more, it seems that if you use Google Calendar to send an event evite, it sends both the html version and an ics file, so that any email client (including my extension) can see, accept or reject the invitation with links right in the email.

But I guess your saying Outlook does not send an html version in the email? Can you confirm this? Is this just an Outlook setting perhaps that someone has turned off? Because I think if you are using outlook on the cloud it should behave like Google Calendar.

RickVanHattem

I realize this is an old issue but it's biting me regularly so I feel that a bump is in order.

To confirm, yes. Outlook sents an "empty" mail with an ics attachment.
After the headers the only mail body that's received is:

--_002_redacted_

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Content-ID: <some@email.com>

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

--_002_redacted_

Content-Type: text/calendar; charset="utf-8"; method=REQUEST

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

base64-encoded-ics-file

--_002_redacted_--

Cameron Young

Looks like this is an already requested feature, but let me add my request. I love and use various of your extensions, and the request is just that... not a problem, but a request. Many sites use .ics files to package their calendar reservation information. On my Macbook I just click the file and it opens Apple's calendar and just wants to confirm the inclusion. Since my Google Calendar is a cloud based application, I have to open my browser, navigate to my Google Calendar, open settings, find the "Import" feature, seach for the .ics file, and import the .ics file to the calendar. Using Checker Plus actually adds ANOTHER step to an already complicated process. Since Apple's OS allows you to choose your default app for opening an .ics file, can you find a way to make Checker Plus appear as an option for becoming the default app and directly adding the .ics file to our Google calendar through Checker Plus. P.S. I know Checker Plus is written as an extension and not as a stand alone app, but since you have made so many great work arounds... maybe you can figure out how to make this work.... please.

Jason

@Cameron Young ok i'll queue this for investigation, my initial thoughts are:

1) the calendar extension can look for ics files on an open tab/website (if that's somehow standardized)

2) the gmail extension would look for ics attachments and somehow try to process it.

Cameron Young

both routes look promising, but the second looks more efficient since the .ics file is going to have to be downloaded first to be imported later (even in Apple's OS when adding to Apple's calendar). One thing to look into, some sites offer an option of downloading in a format for a specific type of calendar (including in those cases, an option for importing to a Google Calendar), but it still involves the steps I outlined, and most sites just use the generic .ics file and expect the user to figure out how to add that information into his or her calendar. Thanks for looking in to this. P.S. kuddos for picking up on my request so quickly. I am impressed. :)

Ray M

I have perhaps a 3rd suggestion. Maybe an option to right-click an ICS file on the web and simply add-to google calendar? I like option 2 probably a bit more.

Robert Ferrentino

I recommend getting this app:

http://www.califyapp.com/

You can then have an ICS file on your machine (downloads folder or whatever) and set Calify as the default handler for ICS files... Calify will then automatically add your calendar event to your Google Calendar.

I wish this functionality was natively built into Chrome (without any extension). Seems kind of obvious. ICS files are all over the place - often downloaded from web pages when signing up for meetings, etc.