Accessing Calendars¶
Each LionsBase website comes with a public page containing the calendar plugin. The Webmaster may then configure it to include any number of calendar sources. In addition, options in the plugin allow you to retrieve events and store them in your own calendar desktop or mobile software (e.g., iCal/Calendar, Microsoft Outlook).
The first option to retrieve the details of an event is to click on the icon
next to the event:
This should automatically open your preferred calendar application and add a new entry to your default calendar. The details of the corresponding event are downloaded and are thus disconnected from the original event. If some piece of information changes (such as the date or time), the downloaded event will not get updated.
Staying in Sync with the Events¶
Another option is to subscribe to the calendar itself. This ensures your local calendar is always in sync with the corresponding LionsBase calendar.
The exact process of subscribing to a calendar may differ from one application to another but typically involves creating a new calendar that is linked to a public URL. When using iCal/Calendar, a menu entry is dedicated to this operation:
and then asks for the calendar URL:
LionsBase makes this operation even easier by taking advantage of the
webcal:// URI scheme. In fact, a link using this scheme (in contrast to the
standard http:// or https:// schemes) instructs your browser to launch
the default calendar application and subscribe to the URL instead of
downloading the calendar.
You may see one of those two buttons at the end of the list of events, according to whether you are authenticated (left) or not (right):
The calendar for authenticated members includes all events of the members and will most probably be much more interesting than the public calendar. Please note that the resulting calendar URL should be considered “private” and should never be shared with others.
If for any reason the webcal:// link would not be handled by your
environment, you should right click on the button, choose to copy the URL and
then manually create a calendar subscription in your preferred calendar
application.
Troubleshooting¶
My calendar application does not support the ``webcal://`` scheme.
You can still copy the URL of the calendar and manually create a subscription in
your calendar application. The URL is available by right-clicking on the button
and choosing “Copy link address” or similar. Replace the webcal:// scheme
with https:// and paste the URL in your calendar application when creating a
new calendar subscription.
My calendar is not updated with the latest events.
The calendar subscription is updated periodically, but not in real-time. Depending on your calendar application, it may take a few minutes to several hours before the latest events are reflected in your calendar.
Warning
If you subscribe to your personal calendar, and later change your username or password, you will need to update the subscription URL in your calendar application. The URL contains a token that is tied to your account, and changing your credentials will invalidate that token.