Thanks for the hint, Brian. For the moment I do nothing else, waiting only that some calendar content is reaching us for testing the new filters. But we are receiving such calendar mails rarely.

But at least now I'm able to say to our Thunderbird faction, that PM is also able to show calendar appointments. [:P]

Cheers

Joerg

Hi guys,

From time to time we are receiving Outlook calendar appointments from business partners of other companies. From my point of view this is very presumptuous behaviour from that guys when taking for granted that the whole world is working with Outlook and should be able to read such appointments or invitations. Pmail is not able to read this special attachment. It is always an additional txt attachment with about 2.3 k in size but with not recognizable content therein.

Nevertheless since some of my users are working with Thunderbird (and Lightning), they are able to read this calendar appointment from Outlook. They could also take over the date appointment into the lightning calendar.

Is there an opportunity that Pmail could read that kind of Outlook calendar appointments? There is no need to export the date into any calendars. We would be happy if Pmail could only show the attached date/time entries.

Cheers

Joerg

See PMIcal in the downloads/add-ons/pegasus mail... area.  Calendar content gets passed to pmical.exe which displays the content in a pop up window. 

http://community.pmail.com/files/folders/pegadd/entry39822.aspx 

Caveats:

• Only works on unread messages.  To display the calendar content again the user must mark the message as unread then reopen the new mail folder
• If the vCalendar content arrives as an attachment (which I don't see much anymore) it can be dragged and dropped onto pmical.exe
• Rules must be created to detect the calendar content and invoke pmical.exe.  Examples are in the download as files ExampleRuleB.txt & pmicalrules.jpg (green coloring only serves the purpose of visually identify a message containing calendar content).  I created the rules for one user then copied/pasted that content to each users WINRULES.PMC file.
  

I have been using this for awhile so can help you with implementation if you need.  Martin Ireland is the developer and an active community member so I suspect he will be joining this discussion.

Thanks Brian, but the attached calendar file has neither the .ics nor the .vcs extension but .txt (but nevertheless unreadable). Don't know whether Irelands AddOn works for it.

edit: Just read that PmiCal also detects vCalendar files in text version. I will try it.

It does, for the most part.  The rules detect the calendar content as per below

I assume PMIcal parses the message and acts only on the calendar content.

I say "for the most part" because we occasionally encounter ones that are encoded such that they throw an error.  I send Martin copies of these for analysis and consideration of fixes.

I have installed (copied) the pmical.exe and the other described files to the corresponding Pmail folders as per irelam's description. I have also created the new filter rules and have checked one of the affected email. It contains the "content-type: text/calendar". So far so good. Then I have marked the mail "unread" and have moved it again to the new mail folder but nothing happened.

I have set the new rule set in (use the full german language version. Hope my translations are correct) Options > Filters > General Filters  > Filters for new mails.  Therein I have chosen a new Expression Filter (Button) where I have set "Content-type: text/calendar" (with quotation marks) into the area  Regular Expression. The filter should search both in header and body. If triggered it should carry out the following program: path\pmical.exe. Here you have set "goto vcalendar", against to me.

Any idea?

If you have got the Pmical distribution files and documentation, the next step would be to copy the VCALENDAR stream from a message to a file (use Notepad etc) with the file extension ICS. Then drag/drop that file onto Pmical in windows explorer.  You should get a display.

If that works, you need a Newmail filter  with a Goto Label 'vcalendar"

The calling part must contain:

Label    vcalendar

Always Run a program (parameter  c:\pmail\programs\pmical.exe %s )

Always Set color

Always Move to folder

Always Exit

You should also setup a pmical.log in your newmail directory. After trying to display a calendar stream, you can examine this log file for problems etc. You can also send me this file and I can try to see what is happening. FYI the various implementations of calendaring have different ideas on what is needed, and only follow their interpretations of the RFC 5545. That is why I have been slow in coming to a production version of Pmical.

Current development:  I am trying to get Timezone identification working reliably, and it will soon be included. I have also changed from using Sqlite for a database, to a simple CSV file, which can be imported to databases and spreadsheets, if required.  Longer term, I am working on ToDo and Alarm features.

Finally a comment on Brian's helpful comments. You can redisplay the current display by opening Pmical.htm, rather than having to resetting the Mark as Read flag in Pegasus Mail

Martin

[quote user="irelam"]Finally a comment on Brian's helpful comments. You can redisplay the current display by opening Pmical.htm, rather than having to resetting the Mark as Read flag in Pegasus Mail [/quote]

This works, but in our enterprise environments, users don't have easy access to this file.  Besides, it only contains the info of the most recently processed calendar content.

As for a redisplay of calendar content, after marking a message as unread the NMF needs to be closed then re-opened so that the message gets passed through the new mail filters again.

Hi Martin,

[quote user="irelam"]If you have got the Pmical distribution files and documentation, the next step would be to copy the VCALENDAR stream from a message to a file (use Notepad etc) with the file extension ICS. Then drag/drop that file onto Pmical in windows explorer.  You should get a display.[/quote] This works so far. I have saved the TEXT attachment, renamed it to *.ics and drop it to PMiCal.exe. PMiCal shows me a little window with all information expected.

[quote user="irelam"]If that works, you need a Newmail filter  with a Goto Label 'vcalendar"

The calling part must contain:

Label    vcalendar

Always Run a program (parameter  c:\pmail\programs\pmical.exe %s )

Always Set color

Always Move to folder

Always Exit[/quote] And here starts my lack of understanding: What do you mean with "goto label"? I always use the GUI and do edit the real PM files directly very rarely. When I setup a NewMail-Filter, PM offers different trigger values, e.g. header, regular expression, mail size, etc. Here I choose "Expression". Within the Regular Expression window, I have to setup the regular expression PM is searching for (e.g. "Content-Type: text/calendar"). Then I have to setup where PM should search for: only in header, only in body or both. And finally I have to select an "Action" when triggered. My action is "start a program", where I could only add a path to PMiCal.exe. No further opportunities. Where I should define the o.m. Label with different command lines? 

And another small query: In your installation description you wrote: "Unzip PMIcal.exe into your Pegasus Mail executables directory (eg c:\pmail\Programs). Extract files, Pmical.ini and PmIcal.css and place in Pegasus Mail executables directory (ie c:\pmail)". Is the PMiCal.exe automatically searching for the ini and css files in the Pmail main folder? In our company PM is running at a server and the \pmail directory is completely empty until now, except the PM Programs subfolder where all files are situated in.

Cheers, Joerg

edit:

In the meantime I have searched for the WINRULES.PMC in my own user folder of PM and have edited it as follows:

------------------------------------------

Filterregeln für neue Post
If expression both matches "Content-Type: text/vcalendar*" Goto "vcalendar"
If expression both matches "Content-Type: text/calendar" Goto "vcalendar"
If expression both matches "QkVHSU46VkNBTEVOREFS" Goto "vcalendar"
If expression both matches "BEGIN:VCALENDAR" Goto "vcalendar"

Label vcalendar
Always Run a program (parameter \\server1\pmail$\programs\pmical.exe %s)
Always Set color
Always Move to folder
Always Exit

-----------------------------------------

The one and only difference in PM behaviour after saving the new winrules.pmc was that the System News Window appears on each PM start. Therein I can find one line: filter rules for new messages processed. But the affected mail (with calendar attachment) in new mail folder has not been triggered.

Hi Brian,

Just found your private message. Thanks for it. Now I have used exactly your winrules script (of course with changing the server path). New behaviour of PM: The affected mail is being triggered and the PMiCal is opening a window. But this window is emplty and PMiCal opens an additional error message "I/O error 32". Further a second mail (don't know why at the moment) has been triggered in my Inbox which generates another PMiCal window, also empty, and generates the error message "I/O error 103". Both mails are marked with another color after filter processing.

I have also checked the pmical.log for any errors. But they aren't.

Here my (your) script for counterchecking (hope there is no copyright onto)

----------------------

If attachment ExtnPart contains ".ics,.vcs" Goto "vcalendar"
If expression body matches "BEGIN:VCALENDAR" Goto "vCalendar"
If expression body matches "Content-type: Application/Octet-stream; name=\"-\"; type=Text" Goto "vCalendar"
If expression body matches "Content-Type: text/calendar*" Goto "vCalendar"
If expression body matches "QkVHSU46VkNBTEVOREFS" Goto "vcalendar"
Always Exit ""

Label "vCalendar"
Label "This label was added by your IT department"
Always Run "\\\\server01\\Pmail$\\pmical.exe %s"
Always Highlight "4"
Always Exit ""

---------------------------------

edit #1:

Brian, I have removed the "Content-type: Application/Octet-stream; name=\"-\"; type=Text" from the match rules. Since this is done it seems to work. Reopening of PM let appear a PMiCal Window with the Calendar Appointment of the affected mail.  [:D] Great. 

Is there an opportunity to suppress the system message window which appears every time the filter rule triggers a calendar mail?

Further I have searched the PM manual for the color codes usable for marking the affected message (where PMiCal triggers) in the inbox, but didn't find anything. Have you got such a color code table?

edit #2:

System message suppression is done. I found it in options.

Hi Joerg,

AFAIK, two pmical windows indicates two messages with calendar content.  The fact that the color is there indicates that the rule is working.  There is a test .cnm file in the pmical download that you can copy to a mailbox directory to test basic functionality.

I seem to recall that in earlier versions of pmical, if two messages were encountered that contained calendar content, the second threw the I/O Error 32. 

Martin, is the version available via the community download the most recent stable version?  I am running 2.22.0.245.

Also, Apple is doing something with encoding that is causing an empty pmical display.  Can you tell whether your problem message originated from or was forwarded by an iDevice?  FWIW, Martin is working on this problem.

Brian

   I/O error 32 is a signal of more than one display being active. I have worked on a solution to this for the upcoming update to Pmical.

Version 2.22 is the latest generally available version, on Community.

As for Apple, sigh o:(  They never cease to amaze me.  I created a solution for them, which works, but when I did some regression testing on existing MsExchange messages, they had failures, so now I have to decide if I can include Apple's version of vCalendar. It only took a year to fix up Microsoft Outlook's version of vCalendar, as they went through multiple updates to Microsoft Office, Microsoft Server, and Microsoft Exchange.

The point I am trying to make here is that both Microsoft and Apple have client/server applications, which loosely follow the standard RFC definitions for vCalendar.  Just look at a vCalendar stream from either of these folk and see how many "X-"  functions they now support.  I ignore all these action lines.

So in summary, I may have to split the processing when detecting Apple Mail if I can't get a reliable stable working set out of Apple.

Martin

[quote user="irelam"]I/O error 32 is a signal of more than one display being active. I have worked on a solution to this for the upcoming update to Pmical[/quote]

Since I have removed the following search filter rule: "Content-type: Application/Octet-stream; name=\"-\"; type=Text" from Brian's proposal, it works for me, also with multiple calendar mails in my inbox. In such case different PMiCal windows are being opened without the error 32.

Thanks Jeorg.  What made you think to remove that line?

Edit:  This has been rolling aroung in my brain for hours now because I don't understand why removing this rule would make a difference.  The only thing that has come to mind is that the Octet-stream content being passed to pmical is causing the I/O error.

[quote user="Brian Fluet"]What made you think to remove that line?

Edit:  This has been rolling aroung in my brain for hours now because I don't understand why removing this rule would make a difference.  The only thing that has come to mind is that the Octet-stream content being passed to pmical is causing the I/O error.[/quote]

Hi Brian,

If this is rolling around in your brain I try to release you from this pain  :-)  

Always 3 emails in my current inbox triggered the PMiCal filter. For one mail I know that a calendar appointment was included. This was my testmail for the new filter rules. But the other 2 mails were ordinary mails which were forwarded by a colleague to me (forwarded by using my local user name). I could recognize those 3 mails because the color has been changed for the 3 triggered mails.

To understand why the two other ordinary mails also triggered the filter I have search in the raw mail text for the different content-types of your filter rules. Both faulty triggered mails contain the "content-type Application/Octet-stream; name=\"-\"; type=Text". That's why I have removed this line from your filter rule. After that only my designated test mail triggered and the error messages did not appear again.

Brian, I'm not an expert in that things. I do not know, what this special content-type means and when this content type is declaring a real calendar appointment. I use only the try and error method. May be this special content-type is marking special calendar appointments which are getting lost now for me. Will see. Before I implement the new filters for all of my colleagues, I will test it for a while.

Nice Sunday evening.

Joerg 

Hi Joerg and Brian

There is no problem with the Application/Octet filter triggering on those two messages. When Pmical gets called, it checks the first line of the text file for BEGIN:VCALENDAR, if not detected, the rest of the attachment is ignored.

Martin

Martin,

I'm curious if you have an explanation for why removing the Application/Octet filter stopped the I/O error?

The reason is that I detect Application/Octet as a file type, and open a temp file because I am expecting the attachment to be binary, ie a zip file, which will be in Base64 encoded form. I would then have to decode the stream to ascii before attempting to parse it. It is only later in the process that I discover that the Application/Octet line contains a Type=Text  and yet there is also Content-Encoded Base64 Mime header line . So in this case I can't pass the data over to the parser. So an empty file :-(  I was not expecting a text file to be base64 encoded. By the way I discovered that the same problem would occur if the user coded Application/Octet and later had a Content-Encode Quoted-printable Mime header line.

Another problem crossed off the list.

Martin

[quote user="irelam"]Another problem crossed off the list.[/quote]

Sorry for being a bit dense Martin but is the solution the removal of

the Application/Octet filter (eg: we should permanently do away with that filter?) or something you are fixing in Pmical?

Hi Martin, Brian,

Sounds difficult for me [:S] - No idea what you talking about [:'(] But it doesn't matter. I'm not a developer and that's why I do not need to know so much things behind [:)]. But I trust in you and your skills.

But what I'm wondering about are the different content-type lists distributed by you and by Brian. Brian's list contains more search rules than your original list from download area above.

If attachment ExtnPart contains ".ics,.vcs" Goto "vcalendar"
If expression body matches "BEGIN:VCALENDAR" Goto "vCalendar"
If expression body matches "Content-type: Application/Octet-stream; name=\"-\"; type=Text" Goto "vCalendar"
If expression body matches "Content-Type: text/calendar*" Goto "vCalendar"
If expression body matches "QkVHSU46VkNBTEVOREFS" Goto "vcalendar"

Could anybody explain which entry of the list is for what kind of calendar appointment? Are there so many different types are in place? And what means the latest line "QkVHSU46VkNBTEVOREFS"? In the moment I kept it on my list as well, but don't know what is it for. Please advise.

Thanks and best regards

Joerg