Mar

3

Merging Date And Time Fields

Filed Under Bento Tips | 3 Comments

Although Bento™ support both date and time fields it is possible to combine both a date and time in a single field. This combined field is used in the integrated iCal Libraries and it may be necessary to take the data from the two individual fields and combine them into one new one. Unfortunately this is not as easy as it could be so here is a quick guide to doing it.
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Mar

3

Batch Updating iCal

Filed Under Bento Tips | Leave a Comment

One of the tasks I hate doing is adding multiple records to iCal. For example, each year I like to add entries for the Formula 1 races* but with eighteen races in 2008 this becomes fairly boring and repetitive with a lot of copying and pasting from whichever source I decide to use. Bento allows me to take some of the tedium out of this by getting the data into a simple CSV file and then import it into the iCal Events Library of Bento.

  1. Occasionally you can find the data you want as a CSV file on the web. A Google search for ’2008 f1 csv’ revealed a site, Junction34.com, with the calendar as a CSV file. If you cannot find the data then you will have to take a more hands-on approach and enter the data yourself, preferably into something like Numbers which can export a CSV file.
  2. The CSV file can then be imported into Bento, directly into the iCal Library.

    3. The CSV Import Settings

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  3. Once the data has been imported you may need to change the Calendar since imported data defaults to ‘Bento’.

* I realise that there are iCals available on site such as iCalShare but I usually just want specific details such as the date and location and to set it as an all-day event.