KDE: Synchronize bottom right (system) calendar with CalDAV

Desktop Environments Plasma
1

I have recently discovered that the bottom right calendar (see screenshot) supports importing events like holidays:

grafik

At the moment, I am using Thunderbird with CalDAV synch to be notified of my appointments. However, that is a little flawed, if Thunderbird is not open I get no warnings (it happens). And since holiday calendars seems to be importable into KDE Plasma, it stands to reason that a CalDAV calendar supplied by my email provider should be importable as well.

Searching for information about that however has the problem I always have when looking up KDE functionality. I find a hodge-podge of information spread over multiple KDE applications: I can find how to import into Kontact, into KOrganizer, and in both I am not sure I want that. Is the bottom right calendar either of these two applications, or do I have to then open either of these applications for notifications about appointments?

So, I have two questions:

  1. Is there a way to import a CalDAV calendar into KDE Plasma in a way that no specific additional application needs to be open to get appointment notifications? And if so:
  2. Which applications do I need to install and synchronize to my CalDAV instance so that KDE Plasma itself notifies me of appointments as currently Thunderbird does?
1 Like
2

There is also Kalendar (fairly certain it is in the Aur), it is a hell of a lot lighter than the full KDE PIM suite, fairly certain it can import CalDAV :smiley:

3

Yeah Kalendar seems like what you need.

Does Kalendar support Google/Exchange/Nextcloud calendars?
Yes. We support:
CalDAV calendars (e.g. Nextcloud)
Google calendars
Exchange calendars
iCal calendar files (.ics)
iCal calendar folders
Kolab groupware servers
Open-Xchange groupware servers

You can find it in the AUR or on KDE Discover

From their readme:

We also strongly recommend you install the kdepim-runtime package before starting Kalendar – this will provide you with the ability to add calendars from online resources. Having this package will also let Kalendar’s backend automatically create a default local calendar.

but if you install from the AUR this dependency should be pulled in automatically.

4

If you don’t want to install another application though it seems like all the other apps from the KDE personal data stack are set up and customized trough the Kontact app. See the link for more information.

KOrganizer is the calendar and scheduling component of Kontact. It provides management of events and tasks, alarm notification, web export, network transparent handling of data, group scheduling, import and export of calendar files and more. It is able to work together with a wide variety of calendaring services, including NextCloud, Kolab, Google Calendar and others.

I also would find it very strange if the system tray calendar wouldn’t sync with the KOrganizer app. After all what’s the use of an empty calendar where you can’t add any appointments?

5

I’m currently testing Kalendar. It seems like an incredible thick stack just for synchronizing CalDAV data:

Pakete (28) akonadi-21.12.3-2  akonadi-calendar-21.12.3-1  akonadi-mime-21.12.3-1  akonadi-notes-21.12.3-1  akonadi-search-21.12.3-1  calendarsupport-21.12.3-1  eventviews-21.12.3-1  kalarmcal-21.12.3-1
            kcalutils-21.12.3-1  kdav-1:5.92.0-1  kdiagram-2.8.0-1  kidentitymanagement-21.12.3-1  kimap-21.12.3-1  kldap-21.12.3-1  kmailtransport-21.12.3-1  kmbox-21.12.3-1  ksmtp-21.12.3-1
            libkdepim-21.12.3-1  libkolabxml-1.1.6-17  mariadb-10.7.3-1  mariadb-clients-10.7.3-1  pimcommon-21.12.3-1  qt5-networkauth-5.15.3+kde+r0-1  qt5-xmlpatterns-5.15.3+kde+r0-1  qtkeychain-qt5-0.13.2-1
            xerces-c-3.2.3-5  kalendar-1.0.0-1  kdepim-runtime-21.12.3-1

The import is already working, my CalDAV calendar is already displayed in Kalender, but the functionality to show in the digital clock widget is still missing. I’ll try after a restart.

I’m also trying KOrganizer. Thanks for the help so far.

6

Well yeah I would just try it with the “official” KOrganizer app as that probably should integrate better into the system compared to an early in development replacement attempt like Kalendar seems to be. Although it’s also part of the PIM repos so maybe one day it will replace KOrganizer as the default calendar application?

Well anyway best of luck getting this to work the way you want :slight_smile:

7

With your help, I succeeded. If anybody is interested, these were the steps necessary:

  • Install KOrganizer
  • Install kdepim-runtime
  • Install kdepim-addons
  • Set up KOrganizer so that the CalDAV calendar is pulled and displayed
  • In the clock widget, right-click and configure, then select the KDE PIM Plugin in the Calendar tab
  • In the now available PIM tab, select the calendar to import

The appointments are now displayed in the system clock and calendar.

I’m off pruning my system, it got a lot heavier through this ordeal. Thanks a bunch, people.

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