Comments on: iCal Repeat Todos

Question: iCal Repeat Todos

honorguy7 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:00:15 -0800

How do I set iCal todo items to repeat on a regular interval? That way if I check off to mow the lawn, it will auto-create a new todo item for next week so I see it on my schedule. My Palm pilot used to do this. Is there an AppleScript?

By: filmgeek

filmgeek — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:48:32 -0800

Click on an event. View Menu> Info.

There's a 'repeat' choice. Adjust to your liking. Or am I missing something?

By: clh

clh — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:53:11 -0800

He's asking about a to-do, not an event. They are different.

By: pmbuko

pmbuko — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:54:50 -0800

This is the closest I could get with Applescript. As far as I can tell, there's no to trigger it by the action of marking a todo as completed, so you'll have to run the script manually.

The script checks if a todo called "mow lawn" is marked as complete and then creates another task 7 days out from the date it was marked as completed. In this example, I have the "mow lawn" todo in a calendar called "Chores". Adjust the property as necessary to reflect your setup.



property todoCalendar: "Chores"



tell application "iCal"

  tell calendar todoCalendar

    set theTodo to last todo whose summary contains "mow lawn"

    set doneDate to (completion date) of theTodo

    try

      set newDueDate to doneDate + 7 * days

      make new todo at end with properties {description:"mow lawn", summary:"mow lawn", due date:newDueDate}

    on error

      display dialog "The last mow lawn task has not been completed."

    end try

  end tell

end tell

By: olecranon

olecranon — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:05:18 -0800

iCal's to do module is pretty weak. Lack of repeating items there led me (and many others) to switch to RTM.

By: conigs

conigs — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:25:14 -0800

The trick is to set up a recurring event that has an Applescript as an alarm. Here's what I do:

1. Setup a new calendar called "Scripts" (I do this so I can just hide the calendar and not have to see dozens of events that simply trigger a to-do.)

2. Create the Applescript for my to-do and save it somewhere (I have a scripts folder in my documents folder):



--Time Warner Cable bills

--Run on the 23rd of each month

tell application "iCal"

	

	set theDay to 14 --day the bill is due

	set theSummary to "Pay Time Warner Bill" --summary of todo

	set theURL to "https://payxpress.timewarnercable.com/" --url (if any)

	set thePriority to 5 -- medium priority

	

	set today to current date

	set theMonth to (month of today as number) + 1

	if (theMonth > 12) then

		set theMonth to 1

		set theYear to (year of today as number) + 1

	else

		set theYear to year of today as number

	end if

	set dueDate to today

	set month of dueDate to theMonth

	set day of dueDate to theDay

	set year of dueDate to theYear

	make new todo at the end of todos of calendar "Bills" with properties {summary:theSummary, due date:dueDate, priority:thePriority, url:theURL}

end tell

3. Set up recurring event to trigger script to repeat every month, with Alarm:Run Script, (Choose script), the same day, at 8am.

It's not particularly simple, but it works. You may have to change a few calculations on the date depending on when you want the script to run. For example, if you run your script on the 1st and your to-do is due on the 15th, you can take of the "+ 1" for theMonth.

Hope this helps.

By: nathan_teske

nathan_teske — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:21:31 -0800

If you have OmniOutliner, you could setup kGTD and use it to drive iCal updates. It's relatively easy to setup kGTD and it can handle your lawn-mowing reminders with ease. The author of kGTD is working with the OmniGroup on OmniFocous, a standalone GTD client.

Also, just checked, iCal's to-dos don't have any sort of repeat functionality in MacOS X 10.5.

By: zinf

zinf — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:11:56 -0800

check out http://web.mac.com/lypanov/iWeb/Web/Diary/9950DF91-726E-42B2-A639-1967D1DE7545.html

By: filmgeek

filmgeek — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:12:05 -0800

iGTD (which I have eschewed for OmniFocus) will do this and it's free.