New feature idea: extended support for local ics files (secure and private synchronization between multiple devices with no man-in-the-middle)

[menoos]

Background: Lately I was trying to find a solution to synchronize calendars between Android and Linux with no 3rd party servers in the middle, and didn't find any reliable ready to use tools. Though after my research I found that Evolution suite is able to not only import and export ics files, but use them as a fully functional calendars (write all modifications on the fly). Those ics files can then be easily synced between multiple devices with for example Syncthing (or any other tools). In this case we only miss an Android calendar app that would be able to work with them the way Evolution does.

Feature description: On top of import/export which is already implemented, it would be great if Etar-Calendar would be able to:

1.Open local ics file(s) 2. Save all modifications made to the calendar(s) on the fly 3. Watch those files for updates (changes made on other devices and synchronized with Android) and update calendar(s) accordingly.

This way you would be able to make a secure and private synchronization between multiple devices with no man-in-the-middle.

[mstyp]

Have you checked out DecSync CC? Its designed to do exactly this. Although you will need to add a plugin to evolution and another app on android.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.decsync.cc

[menoos]

No, I don't know this tool. I'll play with it, thanks for posting.

[devycarol]

DecSync is alright, but the reason it exists is to be a workaround for the fact that Android calendar apps (at least the ones that I know) don't support read/write to ICS at this time. I would appreciate if the calendar supported accessing and saving calendar data directly to and from local shared storage, as time is long overdue that we have a user-friendly standard for locally synchronized calendar data.