Google Calendar API

[gbrown]

Anyone thought about integrating the Webviewer with Google's calendar API? Is it possible?

Greg

[TRF]

Amazing nobody has responded to this. I believe there are some people working on this however there is an issue of public vs private. I think in order to make this work in a multi-user scenario on would have to make one's calendar at least semi-public. I'm looking into it but I think this is a fatal limitation.

[Genx]

Well... from the way i see it, if you post you're little google map, or calendar embedded in an Iframe on a public URL... e.g. a URL accessible to everyone, and then utilize the API via the web viewer, it still meets their definition of public.

[gbrown]

Since posting this I have learned that the webviewer is not able to use the POST method - just the GET method. And since the Google calendar requires both POST and PUT it doesn't sound like this will work. Maybe the new web service plug-in from FM Nexus will do the trick or possibly the Smartpill plug-in.

Public or private??? As far as I know this is all handled on the Google side. In a multi-user environment you would just have the webviewer log in with the users log/pass and then the user could see any and all of the calendars they have permission to see.

Greg

[TRF]

Upon further exploration of the google API ( http://code.google.com/apis/calendar/gdata.html ) I'm starting to have more confidence that something interesting might be possible. It looks like they've got an authentication method built into the api that lets you NOT publically share the calendar - yet script interaction with it. You can manage it essentially like an rss feed.

At my first test filemaker choked on an xml import - it looks like an xsl will be needed to transform attributes into elements - but it does look promising.

To manage it you would likely use get url. You might have to do an import xml with an xsl. I think it would also be possible to build a php form (or do some nice java scripting) and call a custom web document from get url in filemaker. You could script managing of events from within filemaker and then display the calendar view in a web viewer. Now that sounds like a fun project!

[Genx]

Post a sample if you get it working would ya?

[gbrown]

Yes, please post an example if you figure it out! That would be seriously cool if you could integrate FM events and the Google Calendar.

[TRF]

Definately - though don't expect anything for a couple of months!

[Perren]

You're on the right track. I've gotten some other google widgets that rely on GET integrated with FileMaker using XML imports.

Anyway, it would be essential to have a PHP or some other web service that handles the POSTing for FM. Since authentication to add events is a POST method it can't be done with FileMaker alone.

[chlowden]

For what it is worth, being able to sync dates in FM to google calendar would be a huge step forward. I think that FM should add this feature to a future release because if there is one thing that FM lacks, its an easily manuable calendar system. Thank you in advance.