iCal versus Calendar

[DanL]

There is a lot of great stuff that I seem to be able to do with iCal. But as far as I can tell, my system (10.11.6) has no iCal. What happened to it? Some iCal-using instructions seem to say that Calendar is just another iCal. But it's not. For example, I'd like to schedule Fetch operations with iCal (e.g. https://fetchsoftworks.com/fetch/help/Contents/Tutorial/ScheduledTransfers.html), but that doesn't seem to relate to Calendar. Am I supposed to be able to do this stuff with Automator instead? Did Automator replace iCal?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

Yes, Calendar replaced iCal. It should have the same functionality as iCal, plus a bit more.

Fetch is an FTP application. I assume you were scheduling FTP operations in iCal previously? I wonder if Fetch 5.8 and later can work with Calendar?

Automator is a scripting application, that works in conjunction with AppleScript. Fetch 5.8 don't work with Automator any longer.

I would contact Fetch to see what options you have for scheduling your FTP file transfers with your version of Fetch and version of macOS.

C

 

[DanL]

Thank you. I have not been doing any scheduling of Fetch at all, but I'd like to. But if I try to follow the iCal instructions laid out by Fetchsoftworks (see link above), I don't seem to be able to do it. So Calendar doesn't seem to do what iCal did.

Now, for ftp uploading and downloading, I guess Automator should be able to handle that adequately. I gather that I can just schedule a workflow in Calendar. Not clear if Automator uploads are done with Fetch, but I'm using 5.7.7 anyway.

 

[Cory Cooper]

In Calendar, Alert replaced Alarm. You can still choose Custom in the Alert section, and choose Open File. You can then choose the Upload files Automator workflow from Fetch, and it should still work like it did in iCal.

C

 

[DanL]

OK, I guess that's what the Fetchsoftworks recipe is saying. You use Automator do do the upload, but you just use iCal or Calendar to schedule the Automator workflow to do it. I was thinking that iCal actually did the upload itself, but that's not the case.

 

[Cory Cooper]

You are actualy using Fetch to perform the upload, as Finder doesn't support FTP directly. Fetch comes with Automator workflows that basically open Fetch, locate the file, and upload it. They are added to the iCal/Calendar application, which can trigger the Automator workflow to run.

Make sense?

C

 

[DanL]

Yes, thanks again. I mistakenly thought that iCal was doing uploads. In fact, it's as I figured, that Automator was doing that job, but with either iCal or Calendar just doing scheduling. Now I just have to refresh my understanding of using Automator!

 

[Cory Cooper]

Fetch has a nice step-by-step for Automator: Introduction to using Automator with Fetch

That should help setup the Automator workflows to use in Calendar.

C