I find the typical method for editing iCal events to be a bit of a headache. OK, so it’s a minor complaint, but still. In this tip, I’m going to tell you all about some easier things you can do to move your events around, and I’ll talk about how to share them easily so that we can all get on with our lives. I mean, I like iCal and all, but I don’t want to spend a lot of time working in it.
So open iCal in either week or month view. (You can hit Command-1, Command-2, and Command-3 to toggle between day, week, and month views respectively.) Then find an event you’d like to move to a different day. Rather than editing the event itself, just pick it up and drag it to the new date. That’s all there is to it. And as in the Finder, if you hold down Option while you’re dragging, iCal will copy the event rather than moving it! Groovy.
This is me dragging an event. Isn’t this the most helpful screenshot in the world?
If you like keyboard shortcuts better, you can choose instead to click on an event to select it, and then invoke the same shortcuts you’re accustomed to using to move stuff around (Command-X for Cut, Command-C for Copy, and Command-V for Paste).
Of course, if you’re in day view, you can still move the event by picking it up and dragging it, but that won’t change its date. This is an easy way to adjust an event’s time if you need to, though. You can even drag it up to the “All-Day Events” section and drop it there to switch it from a timed event to, well, an all-day one.
Here’s my favorite thing, though. I know I say that a lot, but this one’s true. If you want to send the details of an event to someone (especially if you hate Invitations with a passion, as I do), all you have to do is click and hold the event, drag it to the Mail icon in your Dock, and release. Mail will open a new message for you with the event details within, all nice-like.
If you’d like to make the process even more streamlined for your intended recipient, drag the event out to your Desktop first instead of onto the Mail icon. This’ll create an .ics file, and when you e-mail that to a buddy, iCal will automatically ask him if he’d like to import the data into his calendar when he double-clicks the file. I think my head may have just exploded.
So there you have it—some easy ways to manipulate events and send them out to the people you love (and maybe even the people you don’t, like your boss). This information is powerful, folks, so be sure to use it wisely.