I recently searched for an alternative for iCal or at least a way to synchronize my local saved calendars to my Google account. Because iCal doesn’t support to publish any local calendar to Google I was really frustrated.

The only way to get my local calendars onto my Google account would have been to take all my entries and write them one for one online.

Who would be surprised that I did a little Google search. So I found an interesting app named BusyCal.

The User Interface

It’s very similar to iCal, with some improvements and features you don’t get in iCal. A short overview about what you can see on the screenshot:

• The left sidebar is nearly identical with the iCal one. Except the calendars from a Google Account are all in one place in one category. So no clicking and selecting of delegate calendars.
  There’s also the mini calendar on the bottom of the sidebar as we know it from iCal.
• The status bar on the very bottom of the app are a little bit different. The notification button we know from iCal on the left side is replaced by button that shows a drop- down menu on-click. It enables you to add and subscribe online/LAN calendars very quickly.
• The main part of the app is absolutely identical. There’re different kinds of representation modes. If you like to see a list of your events/entries or one week or one day.
  One of the best features in BusyCal are the little stickies you can put right into the app. (I will explain later)
• In the right sidebar you can create your To-Dos like in iCal – btw they are in the same database. So whether you create it in iCal or BusyCal, they will also appear  in the respectively other one.
• The little box on the bottom shows you a detail view of an event you click once. If you click twice, there will appear a little window like the one in iCal at the position of your click!

How to publish your local calendars to Google

A very easy procedure

The First thing you’ve to do is to connect your Google calender to BusyCal.

Just select the calendar menu of your task bar and then “Connect to Google Calendar”

As you can see there are a lot of more features like connecting to MobileMe or to calendars you publish over LAN!

The next part is to enter your Google account data and select the preferences you like.

After you’ve entered everything correctly , your calendars from your Google Account should appear in the sidebar.

Now you’re able to publish your local ones to your account.

Just left click one of your local calendars and select the appropriate menu item for publishing to Google.

I already published my calendar to Google, so there’s always the possibility to un-publish the calendars whenever you like

Your calendars in the sidebar

There are some icons besides your calenders, I want to explain to you.

The that’s linked to “Rotes Kreuz” is the symbol for local published calendars. As long there’s that symbol there, your Google account and your Mac are always in sync with each other!

The crossed-out pen besides two of my calendars are subscribed ones from other users on Google. The symbol is there, because they’re read-only. You cannot create events on such cals!

As you might have already seen you can also import your address book events like birthdays which are linked to your contacts.

 

 

Stickies

There is the possibility of creating stickies, which overlay your month view of the app. They can be created via the menu File -> new Sticky

A very great feature, because whenever you’ve something important, you cannot oversee it

Weather and moon phases

Looks quite funny BusyCal enables you to show a full 5 day weather preview in the month view. And if you like even the moon phases. You can enable that via the weather preferences.

Alarm system

BusyCal has its own alarm system right built into the app. With an separate menu bar icon (a bell). Whenever a configured alarm is triggered, a little window will pop-up and show you your events. The great thing about that is, that you’ve the possibility to “snooze” them. (Reminder for later)

LAN publishing

I haven’t tested it yet, because my new iMac isn’t on its way yet. But for the record. BusyCal enables you to publish your calendars to your local network and add them on another Mac. Sounds interesting

Find duplicates

A feature that I quite like. It searches for duplicate event entries and gives you the possibility to remove them.

Reachable via “Help -> Find duplicates” (Quite hidden isn’t it :p)

My thoughts

I’m really fascinated. BusyCal fully replaced iCal on my Mac. You don’t need to get used to a new app, because it’s so similar to iCal. I’ll never miss iCal.

Till now I found nothing negative, after a couple of weeks of usage and testing.

The prize of 49$ for a single user license is high, but maybe I’ve persuaded you to test BusyCal

Maybe you want participate in the public beta for the new version.

For more information please visit http://busymac.com/