The Beta Calendar is Up

Discussions about the Calendar Tool at lds.org. Questions about the calendar on the classic site should be posted in the LUWS forum.
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nutterb
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The Beta Calendar is Up

#1

Post by nutterb »

I'm probably the only person in the world playing with it right now, but I love it. I keep going back to stare at it and bask in its beauty.

It ported over everything I had on it in the labs and it looks good. They've even made some improvements to what was in the lab. I was even able to export the calendar to my google calendar.

The only issue I've had so far is when I exported the calendar to Google, it exported all of my subscribed church calendars to one calendar in Google. Not a big deal, but I am hoping to find a way to export the different calendars as different colors to Google. (I haven't been able to play with this much because the sync function seems to be tweaked at the moment)

Is anyone else playing with this? Seen any problems or pitfalls?

Overall, I say great job to the development team.
techgy
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#2

Post by techgy »

nutterb wrote:I'm probably the only person in the world playing with it right now, but I love it. I keep going back to stare at it and bask in its beauty.

It ported over everything I had on it in the labs and it looks good. They've even made some improvements to what was in the lab. I was even able to export the calendar to my google calendar.

The only issue I've had so far is when I exported the calendar to Google, it exported all of my subscribed church calendars to one calendar in Google. Not a big deal, but I am hoping to find a way to export the different calendars as different colors to Google. (I haven't been able to play with this much because the sync function seems to be tweaked at the moment)

Is anyone else playing with this? Seen any problems or pitfalls?

Overall, I say great job to the development team.
I would agree that it's definitely looking good. I spent some time this past week reviewing the calendar and found one problem that I have reported and received a response that "they're working on it."

I entered a repeating event starting on the 1st Monday in February and continuing for the year on every Monday (FHE). February worked fine as did the 1st two Mondays in March. The last three Mondays in March were blank and my repeated event was on the Sunday instead.

I tried this several times with the same result. Obviously it's still in Beta and they'll get this nailed soon I'm sure. Bottom Line? I like what I'm seeing and congratulate those who are doing the work.
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RossEvans
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URL?

#3

Post by RossEvans »

nutterb wrote:I'm probably the only person in the world playing with it right now, but I love it. I keep going back to stare at it and bask in its beauty.

If the beta is up for general use, is there a URL that you can share?
nutterb
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#4

Post by nutterb »

boomerbubba wrote:If the beta is up for general use, is there a URL that you can share?
Sorry, should have included it before.

https://beta.lds.org/church-calendar/
RossEvans
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#5

Post by RossEvans »

Interestingly, the Conditions of Use document for the beta site include the following restrictions, which are also included verbatim in the similar document on lds.org and the production version of LUWS:
You may not post material from this site on another web site or on a computer network without our permission. You may not transmit or distribute material from this site to other sites.

I have always taken those words to mean that I cannot load the LUWS calendar data exported from LUWS into my Google Calendar. And here the same boilerplate language seems to restrict a key feature of the new calendar, which is linking from Google Calendar even more directly -- unless we do so with "permission."

So, do we have "permission" to use this feature and store this data in Google Calendar? And if so, do we also have "permission" to use the equivalent LUWS data there?
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kd7mha
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#6

Post by kd7mha »

as far as the calendar is concerned the quick reference guide in the help contains instructions on how to export to google and other calendar applications.

Just a note on google calendar, the refresh of calendars external to google seems to be pretty slow, new events can take several hours and updates to existing events sometimes don't update at all, this is a google problem and has left several google calendar users frusterated:mad:, other calendars such as Sunbird are much better at refreshing events.
There are 11 types of people. Those who understand Gray Code and those that don't.
eblood66
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#7

Post by eblood66 »

boomerbubba wrote:So, do we have "permission" to use this feature and store this data in Google Calendar? And if so, do we also have "permission" to use the equivalent LUWS data there?
I know nothing authoritative but I always interpreted 'post' here in the common usage of putting up for public (or semi-public) display. In other words, using a non-computer example, if I post a paper on a bulletin board I'm putting it up for others to see. If I just put the same paper on my bedroom wall for my own reference, I don't say that I post it on the wall, but rather I just put it up. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary definition also includes this public element associated with post.

So I have taken that condition to disallow putting the information on a website visible to others. However, I didn't think putting it on a private Google calendar (sync'ed to my Android phone) violated the conditions. True, someone could break into my account and see it but someone could also break into my house and see it on my bedroom wall.

Of course, it may be easier to break into Google calendar than my house so I wouldn't really want very sensitive data there. So personally I'm fine with putting church events in Google calendar so it's on my cell phone but I keep the membership directory in a password-protected/encrypted program uploaded directly from my desktop computer (of course, I also use the MLS export rather than LUWS and it has confidential information and additional restrictions on it's use and protection).
lajackson
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#8

Post by lajackson »

Techgy wrote:I entered a repeating event starting on the 1st Monday in February and continuing for the year on every Monday (FHE). February worked fine as did the 1st two Mondays in March. The last three Mondays in March were blank and my repeated event was on the Sunday instead.

I tried this several times with the same result.
And it is not even leap year! [grin]
RossEvans
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#9

Post by RossEvans »

eblood66 wrote:So I have taken that condition to disallow putting the information on a website visible to others. However, I didn't think putting it on a private Google calendar (sync'ed to my Android phone) violated the conditions.

You may be right. I am really wanting to be convinced that you are, because I also am an Android user. So my primary calendar is my Google Calendar. It just lacks any church items that I haven't keyed in, which makes it much less useful.

What puts me off is the language that adds "... or on a computer network without our permission." That seems like it could cover a lot of things.

I happen to agree with your common-sense view of what the policy ought to mean, but it just needs some simple statement from someone in authority that we do have permission to do this.

Notably, the beta version of the calendar potentially includes "private" items that are not even shared with the general unit membership. But apparently these items also can be exported to Google or other online calendar services.
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aebrown
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#10

Post by aebrown »

eblood66 wrote:So I have taken that condition to disallow putting the information on a website visible to others. However, I didn't think putting it on a private Google calendar (sync'ed to my Android phone) violated the conditions.
This seems like a reasonable assumption, but I would recommend two changes:
  1. Modify the Conditions of Use to explicitly allow this (since the current wording can also reasonably be interpreted to disallow it).
  2. Modify the Conditions of Use and the application to specifically tell users not to make any calendar that syncs with a LUWS calendar public.
Assuming that the Church still wants LUWS calendar information to be reasonably private, it seems like that second point is required, since otherwise naive users will blithely sync LUWS calendar information with Google calendars that they have chosen to make public.
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