Khalorg

Click here for the GitHub page.

Demo

The demo below demonstrates the following features using the neovim plugin called nvim-khalorg:

• khalorg new: convert an org agenda item into a khal agenda item.
• khalorg list: convert a khal agenda item into an org agenda item.
• khalorg edit: edit an existing khal agenda item with org mode.
• khalorg delete: delete an existing khal item.

Contents

• Demo
• Contents
• Introduction
  • Definitions
  • Motivation
  • Features
• Installation
  • PyPi
  • From source
  • For development
• Usage
  • List: from khal to org
  • –format
  • Recurring items
  • New: from org to khal
  • Recurring items
  • Attendees
  • Edit: from org to khal
  • Delete: from org to khal
  • Recurring items
• Neovim plugin
• Workflow for Office 365
• Troubleshooting
• Contributing
• License
• Improvements:

Introduction

khalorg is an interface between Org mode and Khal cli calendar.

Definitions

• CalDav: internet standard for client access to calendars
• Davmail: CalDav exchange gateway
• khal: command line calendar app
• khalel: interface between emacs and khal
• nvim-orgmode: org mode for neovim
• org: plain text system for keeping notes, agendas and more
• vdirsyncer: synchronizes calendars and addressbooks between servers and the local file system

Motivation

I use org mode to manage my agenda and my notes. However, in a professional setting, you are often required to use proprietary software for your agenda, like Office 365. Luckily, programs exist that can synchronize agendas from different sources, by implementing the CalDav standard. Personally, I like to use vdirsyncer with khal to synchronize my agendas. To bridge the gap between khal and org mode, only 1 program exists called: khalel. However, this program is designed for emacs. Since there are also org mode users outside of emacs (e.g. neovim), khalorg aims to be a general interface between vdirsyncer/khal and org mode.

Based on the above, the following workflow is desired:

┌──────┐
│CalDav│
└┬─────┘
┌▽─────────┐
│vdirsyncer│
└┬─────────┘
┌▽───┐
│khal│
└┬───┘
┌▽───────┐
│khalorg │
└┬───────┘
┌▽───────┐
│org mode│
└────────┘

Features

• [x] Can be used by org mode for emacs, vim and neovim.
• [x] Vdirsyncer calendars can be manipulated by using the cli of khal as the interface.
• [x] khalorg new: convert an org agenda item into a khal agenda item.
• [x] khalorg list: convert a khal agenda item into an org agenda item.
• [x] khalorg edit: edit an existing khal agenda item with org mode.
• [x] khalorg delete: delete an existing khal item.
• [x] Recurring items are supported by providing an org repeater in the time stamp (e.g., +1w). The following is supported:
  • the follow org repeaters: +{integer}{d,w,m,y}
  • khalorg new and khalorg edit --edit-dates support 1 time stamp per org agenda item.
  • khalorg list concatenates timestamps that cannot be describes by an org repeater, resulting in an org agenda item with multiple timestamps.
  • Supports an until date for recurring items. The until date can be supplied through an org property UNTIL.
• [x] Has unittests
• [x] Includes an Office 365 workflow with a bash script
• [x] Semantic versioning
• [x] Gifs with demos
• [x] Neovim plugin
• [x] Is available on PyPI

Installation

For safety, always make a back-up of your calendar before installing software that is new to you.

Make sure your khal date format is compatible with org, otherwise it will not work. When running khal printformats you should get:

longdatetimeformat: 2013-12-21 Sat 21:45
datetimeformat: 2013-12-21 Sat 21:45
longdateformat: 2013-12-21 Sat
dateformat: 2013-12-21 Sat
timeformat: 21:45

If not, check the documentation of khal on how to change this.

PyPi

Install by running the following command:

pip install khalorg

From source

Set your current working directory to the root directory, i.e, the directory containing the pyproject.toml file. Next, run:

pip install .

After this, the executable khalorg will be available.

For development

If you want to develop the code, debug it, and test it, run:

pip install -e '.[test,debug]'

Usage

Use khalorg --help to get information about the cli of khalorg. The following section discuss the khalorg commands that are available.

List: from khal to org

Agenda items from khal can be converted to org items using the khalorg list command. For examples:

khalorg list my_calendar today 90d > my_calendar.org

Here, the khal agenda items of the calendar my_calendar are converted to org format and written to a file called my_calendar.org. The range is specified from today till 90d (90 days) in the future. For more information about the allowed date formats, check the khal list command, which is used for this functionality. It is assumed that the khal calendar called my_calendar exists. Make sure my_calendar is a calendar that exists on your local file system.

–format

If khalorg list --format option is not defined, the default one is used which can be found at ./khalorg/static/khalorg_format.txt. If you want to define your own format, you have 2 options: you can use the khalorg list --format option, or you can place your custom format at $HOME/.config/khalorg/khalorg_format.txt this format will then be used instead of the default one that is shown below.

* {title}
  {timestamps}
  :PROPERTIES:
  :ATTENDEES: {attendees}
  :CALENDAR: {calendar}
  :CATEGORIES: {categories}
  :LOCATION: {location}
  :ORGANIZER: {organizer}
  :STATUS: {status}
  :UID: {uid}
  :URL: {url}
  :END:
  {description}

the following keys are supported:

• {attendees}: a comma separated list of email addresses of attendees
• {calendar}: the name of the khal calendar
• {categories}: the categories property of the item
• {description}: the description of the item
• {location}: the location of the item
• {organizer}: the email of the organizer
• {status}: the status of the item, e.g., TENTATIVE or ACCEPTED
• {timestamps}: the timestamp of the item
• {title}: the summary of the item
• {uid}: the UID of the item
• {rrule_until}: the until value of the RRULE.
• {url}: the url property

the following keys are supported but are typically reserved for internal use and are therefore less informative:

• {until}: the until property value. Is empty when using khalorg list.
• {rrule}: the ICal RRULE of the item.

Recurring items

The khalorg list command relies on the khal list command. Using this command the RRULE of each item is retrieved to created the correct org repeater. Only simple org repeaters are supported that have the following form: +[number][h,w,m,y]. Complex RRULEs are described by concatenating the corresponding timestamps within 1 agenda item, resulting in a list of items. For example, the agenda item below represents a weekly recurring event where the first meeting was moved to another date, resulting in a timestamp without a repeater, and one with a repeater.

* Meeting
  <2023-01-05 Thu 01:00-02:00>
  <2023-01-08 Sun 01:00-02:00 +1w>
  :PROPERTIES:
  :UID: 123
  :LOCATION: Somewhere
  :ORGANIZER: Someone (someone@outlook.com)
  :ATTENDEES: test@test.com, test2@test.com
  :URL: www.test.com
  :END:
  Hello,

  Lets have a meeting.

  Regards,

  Someone

New: from org to khal

An org agenda item can be converted to a new khal agenda item by feeding the org item through stdin to khalorg new and specifying the khal calendar name as a positional argument. For example, the consider the org item below, which is saved as meeting.org.

* Meeting
  <2023-01-01 Sun 01:00-02:00 +1w>
  :PROPERTIES:
  :UID: 123
  :LOCATION: Somewhere
  :ORGANIZER: Someone (someone@outlook.com)
  :ATTENDEES: test@test.com, test2@test.com
  :URL: www.test.com
  :END:
  Hello,

  Lets have a meeting.

  Regards,

  Someone

This item can be converted to the khal calendar called "my_calendar" as follows:

cat meeting.org | khalorg new my_calendar

It is assumed that the khal calendar called "my_calendar" exists. Make sure "my_calendar" is a calendar that exists on your local file system.

Recurring items

Only 1 timestamp per org item is supported. Note that the meeting above is repeated every week (+1w). Only simple org repeaters are supported that have the following form: +[number][h,w,m,y]. These events repeat forever, unless you specify an end date using the `UNTIL` property in the org file.

Personally, when I need to create a complex repeat pattern (or when I need outlook specific items like a Teams invite), I create the event in outlook first. Next, I use khalorg edit to change the fields that need editing (e.g., the description).

Attendees

Optionally, attendees can be added to the ATTENDEES property field. The attendees will be added to the Attendees field of khal. Once you synchronize khal with a server (e.g., outlook) an invitation will be send to the attendees.

Edit: from org to khal

Existing khal events can be updates by feeding an org file with the corresponding UID through stdin to the khalorg edit command. For example, the org agenda item of <span class="spurious-link" target="New">New can be altered and used as an input for khalorg edit, as long as the UID remains untouched.

* Edited meeting
  <2023-01-01 Sun 01:00-02:00 +1w>
  :PROPERTIES:
  :UID: 123
  :ORGANIZER: Someone (someone@outlook.com)
  :ATTENDEES: other@test.com
  :END:
  Hello,

  I edited the meeting by removing the location and url. I also changed the
  title and the attendees field.

  Regards,

  Someone

Next, run the following command:

cat meeting.org | khalorg edit my_calendar

When using khalorg edit please consider the following:

• Editing an existing event is different from creating a new one as the original icalendar file is retained. Only parts of it are altered. This is convienent when the icalendar file contains information that cannot be generated by khalorg. For example, a Microsoft Team meeting.
• Only the PROTO event is edited, i.e., the whole series is altered not only the occurence.
• khal edit will only update the dates + recurrence if the --edit-dates flag is passed. This avoids editing the start-stop date when editing an event that contains multiple timestamps (which are not supported).

Delete: from org to khal

An event can be deleted from a khal calendar by feeding an org file to the khalorg delete command through stdin. The org file must contain an agenda item with a non-empty UID property. For example, the khal event that was created using the New command above can be removed by feeding the same file to khalorg delete:

cat meeting.org | khalorg delete my_calendar

Recurring items

When deleting recurring items the whole series will be removed. Removing occurrences is not supported.

Neovim plugin

The neovim plugin can be found here: nvim-khalorg. Check out the demo at the top of the page.

Workflow for Office 365

The diagram below illustrates the workflow than can be achieved when using khalorg. The folder extras, on the GitHub page, contains a bash script called calsync, that synchronizes vdirsyncer calendars and exports them as an org file using the khalorg list command. Davmail is used as the CalDav server in this specific example.

┌──────────┐
│Office 365│
└┬─────────┘
┌▽──────┐
│Davmail│
└┬──────┘
┌▽─────────┐
│vdirsyncer│
└┬─────────┘
┌▽───┐
│khal│
└┬───┘
┌▽───────┐
│khalorg │
└┬───────┘
┌▽───────┐
│org mode│
└────────┘

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues, please report them on the issue tracker at: khalorg issues

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING for more information.

License

Distributed under the MIT License.

Improvements:

• [ ] Timezones are not yet supported, so khalorg will only work when you agenda remain in the timezone that you specified within your khal config.
• [ ] Running khal commands directly from a script in not straightforward. Therefore, khal is executed as a subprocess, by using its command line interface.
• [ ] khalorg new and khal edit only support 1 timestamp per item. However, it is desired that all timestamps within 1 org agenda item, end up in 1 khal event, as is the case for the orgagenda. To achieve this the following could be build:
  • [ ] When multiple timestamps without an org repeater are provided, find the RRULE that describes them. Also, set the UNTIL date to the last date. If no RRULE can be found, raise an error. Another option could be to use the RDATE option of ICal.
  • [ ] When multiple timestamps with an org repeater are presented, try to find the RRULE that describes them.