Schedule creation of To Dos in iCal

Sep 12, '06 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: ryancu

iCal on its own currently doesn't allow you to create To Dos with start dates—only finish/due dates. So if you want to enter a task that you can only work on after a certain date, you have to either add it to your To Do list and ignore it for now, or remember to add it later.

I wrote a free AppleScript called Event2ToDo (76KB disk image; 8KB hints mirror -- source only) solves this problem. To use it, just create an event in iCal representing the start of your To Do, and attach this script to the event as an Open File Alarm. The event will later move itself onto your To Do list automatically. More specifically, the steps involved (as taken from the Read Me on the disk image) are:

  1. Make a new event that begins at the time you would like the item to be added to your To Do list. The end time/date of the event can be anything.
  2. Make the name of the event as you want the name of the To Do when it is converted. If you precede the name of the event with Start or Begin, then it will automatically be removed when the To Do is created.
  3. Type due, due date: or due on or likewise, and then the due date into the Comment for the event. This will become the To Do item's due date.
  4. Give the event an open file alarm (in Panther) or a run script alarm (in Tiger) which runs Event2ToDo, 0 minutes before.
That's it; the event will be moved to your To Do list when its alarm runs.

[robg adds: There's more in the Read Me included with the disk image. I mirrored the source of the script here, just in case the site providing the disk image ever goes away, but I'd recommend trying the disk image download first.]

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