167255 - Wizard for import/export

Status: NEW

(Calendar :: Import and Export, enhancement)

Description

[ajbu]

To make import/export more easy to use and add more help and features, a 
Import/Export wizard would be useful.
This could ease for example import from Outlook, having a step to describe 
what has to be done from Outlook.
Not sure if two wizards for import and export is better, or one for both 
combined.
With the new remote calendar features, I feel settings like selecting 
private/public events are needed, a Wizard would make it easier to add those 
features


Example steps: 
Step 1) 
   Import from a file
   Export to a file
   Link to an external calendar
   Publish to a website
   Email events and tasks

Export Step 2) Selection
   (0) All
   (0) Current Selection
   (0) Date range from […] to […]
   (0) A Calendar [Default calendar [v]]
   Export:
      [X] Events
      [X] Tasks

Import Step) (after loading the events file)
-> Multiselect listboxes with events to import, by default all selected but 
easy to pick/select custom selection. It might actualy be a tree with branches 
for new events duplicate events, time-overlapping events.
   List of updated events (with same UID, but fields changed)
   List of overlapping events
   List of New events
   [X] Only import future events.
   [X] Edit every event before importing
Import Step) 
   Select Calendar to import into

Comment 1

[Mike Potter]

->future (back to default owner)

Comment 2

[Mike Potter]

From bug 168338:
Calendar should have a "Export Whole Calendar" option, as bookmarks does.
Although Calendar files are stored in Mozilla one's personal profile directory,
so it's backup happens at the same time you backup your user profile, sometimes
one's whish is to only backup the Calendar file. (A Calendar-only update comes
to my mind)

Comment 3

[Mike Potter]

We should also have a wizard for subscribing and publishing.

Comment 4

[Mike Potter]

I'm working on this now.

Comment 5

[Hakon]

*** Bug 169406 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Jesse Moorman]

Calendar should be able to import other formats. Right now I have calendar date
in Lotus Organizer. It does not export into a format that Mozilla imports, and I
don't know of any intermediary applications that will create such a format.

Mozilla exports to more formats (e.g. RTF, HTML & Comma Separated) than it
imports (only Calendar Files, iCalendar XML, and 'Outlook Comma Separated', not
any general CSV/text format) and import does not indicate what file extensions
it will use for Outlook CS, so (for this and other reasons) there is no way to
create a conforming file without, at least, a good bit of research.

As XML calendar imports are supported, could the DTD or schema for XML data
other than Mozilla's be used and, if so, could the wizard make the process simple?

I strongly support suggestion for Export Whole Calendar or, yet better, selected
range of dates. Exporting single events is not very useful.

Comment 7

[Mike Potter]

*** Bug 188059 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Mike Potter]

New contact from [e-mail] to [e-mail]
Filter on string OttawaMBA to get rid of these messages. 
Sorry for the spam.

Comment 9

[Andrew N Dowden]

This should also supersede Bug 165505 (RFE: export, filter: for ToDo/tasks)

Comment 10

[Matthew (lilmatt) Willis]

Reassigning all automatically assigned bugs from Mostafa to nobody@m.o

Bugspam filter: TorontoMostafaMove

Comment 11

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

Attachment: Export wizard Mockup

I think we can put the export and publish dialogs into one unified export wizard, since publishing is nothing more than "exporting" to a remote location. Check out the following wizard. Note I made the wizard height a bit larger, which might make it not look like a standard wizard, but makes the elements that fit together fit nicely.

If the attachment can't be opened as a wizard directly, please use xul explorer or such. Some elements are of course mock (i.e datepicker). There may be some bugs, but most features already work. There should of course be a checkbox in the first tree column.

Christian may have improvements or a totally different approach, feel free to criticize.

Comment 12

[Robert Rothenberg]

See also Bug 400694 - the ability to export private items but marked as "busy".

Comment 13

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

It would be great to have this in 0.8 for a better user experience when importing/exporting.

Comment 14

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Not going to happen for 0.8.

Comment 15

[Robert Rothenberg]

As per a comment no. 6 in bug 400694, a better idea would be to create export filters for events (akin to mail filters) with actions such as (1) export event (2) export free/busy time etc.

Standard filters can be included (e.g. export public events but free/busy time for private/confidential).

One can create custom events (export Work calendar, export Family calendar, export Birthdays/Anniversaries, etc.)

Comment 16

[d2_c2]

Not to be negative, this is not an enhancement, it is a necessity.

This feature is truly needed, whether it is a wizard or a function, the ability to limit the size and content of an exported or published calendar is critical, otherwise you have to maintain too many different calendars.  Exporting categories and filtering by categories is also crucial.  

PDA PIM enhancements have this capability and the lack of it keeps this from being a true competitor to outlook or my personal favorite lotus organizer.

Comment 18

[Steve Chapel]

(In reply to Simon Paquet [:sipaq] from comment #13)

Exporting tasks would be nice to have for Lightning 1.0

Comment 19

[d2_c2]

This request has been marked as duplicate of other bugs; periodically other similar bugs are reports. .vcs support is not being actively updated and it not longer seems to function.  It is is the only way to export a past subset of the calendar. This capability is clearly not a priotiryt of the development team.  Just let us know that this will not be part of the development roadmap, so I can look for another office/server based solution.