I know it is possible to view calendars in iCal etc by using CC iCal Subscribe Kit (FM 7/8). Is it possible to also publish that same calendar online for viewing with PHP iCalendar through a web browser?

Basically, I am looking for a solution that will automatically update a browser based calendar automatically when a record is updated in FileMaker.

For example: A class schedule for a fitness center. When a user changes the class time in FileMaker, the calendar on the website (PHP iCalendar) will update automatically.

Any suggestions, advice is appreciated.

Hi. Thanks for the post.

PHPiCalendar reads text files (files formatted in the iCal standard) so it isn't really a real-time solution from FileMaker unless you automate the export of these files from our calendar every x minutes/hours. Which works very well using any number of plugins to automate the export and upload the resulting files to your web server.

Subscribing to FileMaker from iCal is more real time in that no action is required once a record is edited for it to be available to iCal. The same would apply to our Instant Web Publishing module: records editing in FileMaker are available on the web as soon as they are edited.

Hope that helps.

I am just trying to get my mind around the different solutions so I understand the best solution for me.

If I understand this correctly:

iCal can query the FileMaker Server directly so from iCal (or similar) I can subscribe to a calendar generated by FileMaker (using FMSA). When I make a change in FileMaker those changes will flow to the subscribed calendar when iCal checks for changes.

PHPiCalendar only querys a text file located on the same server as PHPiCalendar so a script would need to be created that would export a text file from FileMaker and upload it to the appopriate webserver.

That's right.

The only thing I'd clarify is the "iCal or similar". Many / most / some apps which can subscribe to iCal files can not subscribe to FileMaker the way iCal can... or at least they can't subscribe to FileMaker databases that require a user name and password. Of course this stuff is changing all the time.

"iCal (or similar) " should read:

Apple iCal 1.5 or 2.0 (Macintosh), Mozilla calendar (Windows or Macintosh), Sunbird (Windows or Macintosh)

You should be all set there.

We've used it with iCal and Sunbird. If you'd like to test it with Mozilla (or other applications) you can try our live demo. Note that most of the sample data in that demo is from July 2003.

Best,

John