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Create clickable URL/file events in iCal

by David Chartier Jan 19th 2006 at 2:00PM

MacOSXHints has a slick tip on creating clickable iCal events that are either URLs or links to files. Sure, you can add a URL to an event's description, but with this simple method you can create an event itself that is click-able from iCal's main day/week/month calendar view.

All you need to do for a URL is either drag it (or its icon) from a browser's address bar onto a time slot in iCal, or add a URL to an event's title and surround it with carrots like this, sans-quotes: "." To create a click-able link to a file, you'll need to use a web browser (such as Firefox) to surf your file system, then simply drag a file or folder from the browser into iCal in the same way as a URL. Don't try it with Safari, as it apparently doesn't do local file/folder surfing.

This has already has become a darn handy tip for me, as I constantly add URLs to iCal events for upcoming local shows, and this takes one step out of the "so what is the site again?" process. The one thing I haven't tested yet is whether these would be click-able in iCal's pop-up reminder window. Anyone?

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MacOSXHints has a slick tip on creating clickable iCal events that are either URLs or links to files. Sure, you can add a URL to an...
 

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JJB

Thanks for that - a great tip. I have just set up a clickable link _within_ Safari*, and it seems to work fine, going straight through to open the (excel) file. One question though ... Is there a way fo making the text in the iCal event a little more "user friendly" than the raw path to the file?

* Safari 2.0.3, OSX 10.4.4, G5 PowerPC

January 20 2006 at 5:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
n8gray

Drag and drop from Firefox doesn't create a clickable event, and you might want to mention that it's the *title* of the event that needs to be put in "carrots" (hee haw), not the URL.

January 19 2006 at 3:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
brian

I *hate* that Safari pops you out to the Finder when trying to look at a folder in a file:// URL. The only other browser that I know of that does that is IE/Win and it's as annoying now as it was almost 10 years ago. Isn't there anyone at Apple who *liked* that feature of other browsers? I *know* I could look at files in the Finder if I wanted to. Isn't it possible I might *want* to see them listed in a browser window? Maybe I want to middle-click a bunch of files and look at them all, instead of opening them one by one. Arrgh!

January 19 2006 at 3:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joshua McFarren

looks like you need to encode your greater-than and less-than signs. Try < (ampersand lt;) http: > (ampersand gt;)

January 19 2006 at 2:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
adm

"surround it with carrots." i think you mean "carets," but I really think you mean "angle brackets". a caret is ^. an angle bracket is a "greater than" or "less than" sign, which is what the tip suggests. (you have to use html entities to get these to show up in your post.)

January 19 2006 at 2:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kisco

no, it's not click-able in the popup window :(

January 19 2006 at 2:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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