webcalng user guide
webcalng version 3.1

Creating a new calendar in webcalng.
Viewing webcalng calendars.
Working with data in your webcalng calendar.
Changing preferences for your webcalng calendar.
Connecting to webcalng from a WAP enabled device.
Using the SquirrelMail plugin for webcalng.
Getting help with webcalng.


Creating a new calendar in webcalng. [Top]

Creating the calendar [Creating] [Top]
To create a new calendar, simply click on the create calendar link from the webcalng start page. If your webcalng administrator has choosen to disable calendar creation for all users, then the administrator will have to create a calendar for you and notify you of how to access it.


Choosing a calendar name. [Creating] [Top]
Calendar names can be between 1 and 40 characters long, and can contain any combination of letters, nubmers, spaces, "-" characters and "." characters.


Choosing a calendar owner. [Creating] [Top]
The user name choosen for a calendar at creation time is the owner of that calendar. Only the calendar owner has access to the preferences of a calendar. The user name given during calendar creation can be an existing webcalng user, or a new webcalng user name consisting of 1 to 20 letters and numbers. If an existing webcalng username is specified, the correct password for that user must be given.


Calendar types. [Creating] [Top]
The calendar type is one of the following three:
  • Open - An open calendar allows anyone full read and write access to every aspect of the calendar. No user name is required when creating an open calendar.
  • Public - A public calendar allows any to view the calendar. Only the calendar owner or those users who the owner has given write access to can write to the calendar.
  • Private - A private calendar can only be viewed by a user who has been given read access. Only the calendar owner and users who have been given write access can write to a private calendar.




Viewing webcalng calendars. [Top]

Selecting a calendar. [Viewing] [Top]
To select a calendar to view, you can click on the view list of calendars link from the webcalng start page. Alternatively, you can search for a calendar name from the webcalng start page. If you enter a calendar name exactly in the search box, you will be taken to that calendar.


Calendar views. [Viewing] [Top]
There are four main views for each calendar - Year, Month, Week, and Day. The links for these views are "smart". For example, if you are in the year view, and you click on the month view, you will be taken to the current month, if you were in the current year. As another example, no matter what week you are viewing in the week view, clicking on the week view link again will bring you to the current week.


Searching a calendar. [Viewing] [Top]
You can search for items on a calendar from the Year, Month, or Week views. Simply enter a text string into the search box and hit the Search button. All items that have descriptions matching your search for the given time period that you were viewing will be displayed.

The search operation can also be used to get a simple list view of items in a time period. Hitting the search button without entering any search text will return a list of all the items in the time period you were viewing.


Viewing items. [Viewing] [Top]
The description of items will show up in the Month, Week, and Day views of webcalng. If this description is a link, you can click on the link to access information about that item such as hyperlinks, notes, or meeting information. Only items that contain this extra information will be displayed as hyperlinks.


Tips for printing calendars. [Viewing] [Top]
Printing calendars works best from mozilla. Go to File -> Page Setup and choose "Landscape", "Shrink to Fit Page Width", and "Print Background". Then just print the page as you normally would. You can also try setting options similar to these from different browsers, but your mileage may vary.



Working with data in your webcalng calendar. [Top]

Adding an item. [Working] [Top]
To add an item to a public or private calendar in webcalng, you must be logged in to webcalng as a user with write access to that calendar. Once you are logged in, an "Add Item" link will be displayed from the Day view. Clicking on the Add Item link will bring you to a form that will allow you to add the item.

If you add an item that starts on one day and goes overnight to end on the next day, the item will show up on both days in your calendar. The first day it will show up as an item that starts at the given start time and lasts until 12am. The 2nd day it will show up as an item that starts at 12am and goes until the given end time. When you edit the item from either the first or second day, it will show up with the correct start and end time.

Setting up reminders and meetings is covered in the sections below. Items can occur on just a single day, or they can repeat. Repeating items start on the day which you addded the item, and can repeat indefinitely or until a date of your choice. Items can have a hyperlink, a note, or both a hyperlink and a note associated with them.

By default, items have the "exported" property applied to them. This allows the item to be seen in all calendars which have subscribed to the calendar on which the item is being added. If you do not wish to have the item visible in calendars which are importing this calendar, just uncheck the "exported" checkbox when adding or editing the item.

Starting with webcalng 3.1, each item can have a color associated with it, other than the default colors used for text and hyperlinks in the application. When adding an item to webcalng, leave the color text input box blank to have the item use default colors. Specify the color name or HEX code for the color of your choice if you would like the item you are adding to have a color which overrides the default colors as set in your preferences.


The address book. [Working] [Top]
To access the address book associated with a calendar, you must be logged in to webcalng as a user with write access to that calendar. The address book is an important tool in webcalng, as the list of email addresses that you can send reminders to is populated by the entries in your address book.

As of version 2.0, webcalng comes with a global address book. The site administrator for webcalng has the option to add addresses to the global address book, and can also configure an administrative preference to allow normal webcalng users full write access to the global address book. The webcalng user can also configure their calendar preferences to determine whether or not entries from the global address book are presented within the given calendar.


The task list. [Working] [Top]
To access the task list associated with a calendar, you must be logged in to webcalng as a user with write access to that calendar. The task list allows you to keep track of items that you need to remember, but do not have a particular date associated with them.


Setting reminders. [Working] [Top]
To setup reminders for an item, simply select any number of entries from the Remind or Invite list on the add item form. This list is populated by the address book for the calendar. If the calendar preferenes are setup to allow it, the Remind or Invite list will also be populated by a list of calendar names which meet the following criteria:
  • All calendars which this calendar has read access to AND
    • The calendar has an email address specified in it's preferences for the calendar owner OR
    • The calendar has been setup to automatically add meeting invites in it's preferences.

Each item can have multiple reminders going to multiple recipients.


Creating meetings. [Working] [Top]
To create a meeting in webcalng, simply select a list of invitees from the Remind or Invite list and check the Make this a meeting box on the add item form. Meeting invites will automatically go out to all invitees the next time the webcalng reminder script is run. Invitees will be requested to respond to the invite.

If an invitee is associate with a webcalng calendar, they will be required to enter the password for the owner of that calendar in order to respond. If they choose to attend the meeting, the item will be added to their calendar as well.

If an invitee is a simple email address from the calendar's address book, the invitee will be sent a random 4 character password that must be used to authenticate with when they respond to the meeting invite.


Editing items. [Working] [Top]
To edit an item, click on the "edit" link next to the item in the Day view. Items which are repeating can be editted for only a single instance, or across the entire repeating item.


Removing items. [Working] [Top]
To remove an item from webcalng, simply click on the "delete" link next to the item in the Day view. If the item was a meeting invite, any invitees who had responded that they would attend will be sent a notice that the meeting has been cancelled. In addition, the item will be removed from any webcalng calendars which it had been added to. Repeating items can be removed on a single day in addition to being able to removing the entire repeating item.


Using webcalng for small office scheduling. [Working] [Top]
A hypothetical example will show how webcalng meetings can be used for scheduling in a small office environment. Let's say we have 4 webcalng users's named Larry, Curly, Moe, and Shemp. In addition, we have a meeting room named Meeting1. A useful configuration for this group would be:
  • Create public calendars for Larry, Curly, Moe, and Shemp. Make sure to enter the email addresses of each calendar owner in the calendar's preferences.
  • Create a public calendar called Meeting1. Set the calendar preferences for this calendar such that items can not overlap, and that meeting items are automatically added to the calendar.
Now, when any of the webcalng users (Larry, Curly, Moe, or Shemp) want to create a meeting and reserve the meeting room, they simply create a meeting item and invite the required invitees, including the Meeting1 invitee. As long as no other items are scheduled for Meeting1 at that time, the item will automatically be added to the Meeting1 calendar and the time slot reserved. Other invitees (Larry, Curly, Moe, or Shemp) will be notified via email of the meeting invite, and can respond as they desire.

Based on this example, you can see that webcalng could easily be used to shedule meetings and reserve meeting rooms or other resources in an office environment.

Taking things a step further, imagine an office with multiple meeting rooms. If you created calendars for each meeting room and set them up as described above, you could then create a master meeting room (or resource) calendar, and import all the individual meeting room calendars in the master. This master calendar would then provide you with a easy way to see what meeting rooms had events scheduled at any given time.



Changing preferences for your webcalng calendar. [Top]

Interaction preferences. [Preferences] [Top]
The preferences for Interaction control how your webcalng calendar works with other calendars on the site. You can control which calendar or users can import or view your calendar, as well as some basic properties about how items on your calendar are displayed and how access to adding or removing items is granted.


Layout and Color preferences. [Preferences] [Top]
The preferences for Layout and Color preferences control how your calendar looks. This section also contains the theme that is selected for your calendar. Having JavaScript enabled in your browser will greatly enhance functionality in this section, as it will enable use of a color browser when modifying the color scheme of your calendar.


Localization preferences. [Preferences] [Top]
The preferences for Localization control things such as how dates and times are displayed on your calendar, as well as which language is used.


Meetings and Reminders preferences. [Preferences] [Top]
The preferences for Meetings and Reminders is where you set the email address of the calendar owner. You can also temporarily turn off email reminders for the calendar, as well as control it meetings are automatically added to the calendar (usefull for resource calendars, such as meeting rooms).



Connecting to webcalng from a WAP enabled device. [Top]

Functionality from a WAP enabled device. [WAP] [Top]
To connect to webcalng from a WAP enabled device, such as a cell phone or PDA, simply enter the regular URL of the webcalng application into your WAP browser. The webcalng software will automatically detect that you are connecting from a WAP device, and present you will a limited view of the webcalng functionality. You will currently only be able to view items on a day, but features will be added in future releases.

In order to view items on a private calendar from a WAP device, a login is required. The webcalng software must be setup to use session based authentication in order for WAP based logins to function properly. If you are unsure how webcalng is setup for your site, ask the webcalng administrator.


Disabling automatic detection of WAP enabled devices. [WAP] [Top]
The webcalng software attempts to automatically detect if you are connecting from a WAP enabled device. Some web browsers may advertise the ability to accept WML content, and cause webcalng to treat the HTTP web browser as a WAP device. If this happens with the browser you are using, connect to webcalng with a different web browser and access your calendars preferences for Interaction. In these preferences, set the option to disable automatic WAP device detection. If automatic detection is disabled, you will need to connect from WAP devices with the following URL:

http://myhost.com/cgi-bin/webcalng/webcalng.pl?wap=1

Be sure to use the correct URL for your webcalng installation, as the above URL is just an example. The "?wap=1" section is the important difference.



Using the SquirrelMail plugin for webcalng. [Top]

Steps for the SquirrelMail user. [SquirrelMail] [Top]
Once the site administrator has configured SquirrelMail to use the webcalng plugin, a SquirrelMail user can then configure their own connection from it to webcalng. The SquirrelMail user can click on the "webcalng" link from the header bar at the top of the SquirrelMail screen. The first time you click on this, it will present you will a simple form. This form allows you to specify a webcalng calendar name to automatically connect to when logging in to SquirrelMail. It will require that you enter the correct webcalng username and password that own the given webcalng calendar. Alternatively, if you do not have a webcalng calendar setup yet, you can enter a new calendar name, a new webcalng username and password, and the webcalng calendar and account will be created for you. New calendars that are created from the webcalng plugin for SquirrelMail will be of type "public", which means that anyone who uses webcalng on that server will be able to view your calendar.

When you submit this form, the plugin will connect to webcalng and configure it to accept automatic logins from your SquirrelMail account, via a calendar preference. The plugin will also configure a SquirrelMail preference with the name of the webcalng calendar to connect to. After this initial setup, you will be connected to your webcalng calendar automatically every time you login to SquirrelMail. The webcalng week view for your calendar will be placed below your SquirrelMail messages, and you can click on the webcalng link in the SquirrelMail header bar, or on any of the links in the week view below your SquirrelMail messages, for full access to webcalng.

It is recommended that you use the same account name for the webcalng calendar owner that you use to login to SquirrelMail with, but this is not required. You will be able to login to webcalng as the calendar owner account and access the calendar independent of SquirrelMail. If your SquirrelMail account is different than the webcalng calendar owner account, the plugin will not create a webcalng account to match your SquirrelMail account, but rather your SquirrelMail account will be given access to the webcalng calendar only through a special calendar preference that is accessed when you login to webcalng.

If you ever want to change the calendar associated with your SquirrelMail account, you can simply go to the SquirrelMail options page. This page will have a link to the webcalng plugin options page, which allows you to change the name of the webcalng calendar which you automatically connect to. After doing this, you will need to repeat the process of configuring the initial connection from SquirrelMail to webcalng.



Getting help with webcalng [Top]

Questions about using webcalng. [Help] [Top]
If you need help using webcalng, consult the adminitrator of your site first. If your administrator is unable to help you, look for answers at http://www.webcalng.com, or email support@webcalng.com for assistance.


Reporting a bug. [Help] [Top]
If you find a bug with webcalng, please report it to support@webcalng.com.



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webcalng Version 3.1p2 Copyright 2003 - webcalng software solutions