Subscription documentation?

Edit: Split from the Calendar Sync Google Calendar for out of unit Stakes

BTW, unless I'm missing something, I don't see help on setting subscriptions. Worse the Syncing with third-party calendars help file gives a misleading impression. The image FileSyncImage3 is wrong.

RussellHltn wrote:You can select what calendars sync via the subscriptions. Can you clarify what you're asking for?

The request is for multiple Sync URLs -- rather than just having one Sync URL for the collection of all calendars a person is subscribed to, there would be some ability to generate a separate Sync URL for any arbitrary collection of calendars (perhaps even a Sync URL for a single calendar). Such a feature would indeed create a lot of flexibility in how people sync calendars to different devices. It would even enable a somewhat crude ability to sync individual calendars to separate Google calendars. I imagine it would create a fair amount of complexity on the back end, but would add some nice capabilities.

RussellHltn wrote:BTW, unless I'm missing something...

Nice fork

RussellHltn wrote:I don't see help on setting subscriptions.

The help for setting subscriptions is in the Members Quick Reference Guide, and also in the About Subscribed Calendars section.

RussellHltn wrote:Worse the Syncing with third-party calendars help file gives a misleading impression. The image FileSyncImage3 is wrong.

I don't see what is misleading or what is wrong with that image. It shows that all subscribed calendars are synced into one Google calendar, regardless of whether those subscribed calendars are shown or hidden via the check boxes. That seems correct to me. Or are you assuming that those two outer lines are pointing to just the first and last calendars, even though all the calendars have arrows pointing to the right, showing that their contents are included in the sync?

aebrown wrote:Nice fork

Thank you. Thread drift is a fine art unappreciated in some circles. Looking back, I'd say I made a fork of a fork.

aebrown wrote:The help for setting subscriptions is in the Members Quick Reference Guide, and also in the About Subscribed Calendars section.

I looked in the index, but didn't see any likely candidates. I was looking for information on the Settings > Subscriptions page. Those links only seem to touch on it.

aebrown wrote:I don't see what is misleading or what is wrong with that image. It shows that all subscribed calendars are synced into one Google calendar, regardless of whether those subscribed calendars are shown or hidden via the check boxes. That seems correct to me. Or are you assuming that those two outer lines are pointing to just the first and last calendars, even though all the calendars have arrows pointing to the right, showing that their contents are included in the sync?

The problem is the image on the left. It implies that my sync should be the same calendar as I see when I log in. The sync is controlled by the Settings > Subscriptions page. So I would have expected the graphic to come from there as well. While that might be a bit awkward graphically, the existing image reinforces a common but incorrect belief of what controls the sync.

RussellHltn wrote:I looked in the index, but didn't see any likely candidates. I was looking for information on the Settings > Subscriptions page. Those links only seem to touch on it.

The Viewing calendars article (which contains the About Subscribed Calendars section I linked to) contains information about everything in Settings > Subscriptions: it tells how to turn off auto-subscriptions, how to subscribe to a calendar, and how to unsubscribe. I suppose it could be argued that Subscription info belongs in a separate article (I would tend to agree), but the content seems to be covered. I would say that is much more than "only seem to touch on it."

RussellHltn wrote:The problem is the image on the left. It implies that my sync should be the same calendar as I see when I log in. The sync is controlled by the Settings > Subscriptions page. So I would have expected the graphic to come from there as well. While that might be a bit awkward graphically, the existing image reinforces a common but incorrect belief of what controls the sync.

I don't see that implication. It implies only that your sync should be the same as the list of calendars you see under Subscribed Calendars in the main view you see when you login. I don't think the image reinforces any incorrect belief. In fact, the image, the hover text for the image, and the big note immediately below the image all strongly state that all subscribed calendars are synced.

My guess is that the author chose to use that image rather than one from Settings > Subscriptions under the belief (a correct one, I think) that the majority of users never visit the Settings > Subscriptions page. The default setting is for Auto-subscription, so most (certainly not all, but most) people will simply be subscribed to all the calendars and won't dive into the details of the Settings options. If that assumption is correct, then it makes more sense to use an image from the place most people will see the list of subscribed calendars: the list on the main calendar view.

I think the graphic would be more useful if it showed how to selectively sync calendars.

Edit: The first time I saw that, I thought it was trying to show how to selectively sync since some check boxes were checked and some were not. But I see the arrows that indicate all sync.