Re: [Gnumed-devel] Appointments currently depending on Korganizer

[Jim Busser]

I had a look at the python code in the client

gmDemographicWidget.py

which access appointment (calendar) data that is in Korganizer. What this does is to interact with Korganizer ~ in the background (I did not follow all the technicals) but in the end, what is obtained from Korganizer -- presumably via a temporary file saved to the hard drive -- is a CSV file in which the fields of interest have been written in a specified order. Some of those fields are obvious... the non-obvious ones are "ort" and "UID"... the latter because I'm not sure to what UID they refer

So here is a thought about possibly generalizing the calendar support to include those applications whose data is saved in .ics format (by the way I believe Outlook saves or can save/export its data in CSV but I am only not sure if such a function or command is "callable").

***skip this para which I wrote before reading your reply about an existing python module ***

I found a perl script that demonstrates some parsing of an .ics file in order to output it to console in html. While it would require me to learn some perl, online manual are available. It feels within my grasp to be able to alter the script to parse a designated .ics file and re-output its data in the cvs format already being used for Korganizer. Would such a script file despite that it is perl be welcome or would it be important that it be done in python?

*** resume ***

If this sounds like a solution, here are my further ideas on adapting the current GNUmed methods:

- GNUmed > Preferences > Personal would include Appointments

- Appointments plugin would be genericized as follows:

1) the name of the button "Korganizer" would be a default, modifiable in the Preference. The label could be "Preferred Calendar app name:", and the default could instead be "Calendar app" or "Launch calendar". This would only require that regardless of the OS, some method existed to call and bring into the foreground the desired calendar app.

- for mac OS, one can do

open <path>

e.g. open /Applications/iCal.app

  or

# use "-a"

# causes the system to find the application

# also dispenses with the need to respect case and to have an extension

open -a ical

  and I also  found this:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1756312&tstart=-1

2) a GUI field in which to accept the file specification for the target calendar .ics file

In Tiger these live in

/Users/djb/Library/Application\ Support/iCal/Sources/<subfolders, one per calendar>

In Leopard these live in

/Users/djb/Library/Calendars/

... but since Mac OS iCal permits the creation and maintenance of multiple calendars, it may be required to designate one among them in which to input patient appointments.

3) What is currently the Reload button would

# we could default the GUI field in (2) to include the .kde path to its .ics

if Korganizer, do as present

elseif

# deprecate: call the perl script, providing as parameter the target calendar .ics file

call the python module, providing as parameter the target calendar .ics file

4) An office assistant might manage the appointments for multiple doctors, each in a separate calendar file. These could be attached to each of the other buttons available in the Appointments plugin and labelled with the Doctors' names. If the office assistant's drive is shared then each doctor might configure their Appointment preference to read their personally-relevant file from the shared drive

??