How do I set up a recurring calender?

Question

How do I set up a recurring calender that I can export to others for my work. It is a 7 day on, 7 day off roster always starting on Tuesday and ending on Monday. So... to be clear....
Start Days
Tuesday 6am to 6pm. repeat for 7 days ending on Monday.
Off for 7 days.
Start Nights
Tuesday 6pm to 6 am. repeat for 7 nights ending on Tuesday morning at 6am
Off for 7 nights
Maybe a script would work.
I am trying to learn how to write this so any expanation would help.
Thanks for your time and G'day from Australia.

Answer 1

Hi,
The iCal interface will not let you add this without creating 14 events that repeat every 4 weeks. iCal can show repeats of events that it is not possible to enter trough its user interface though.
I wrote the script below to add two events to iCal. You will want to change the settings in the first few lines. Currently it will make events called "Work Shift" in your "Home" calendar  starting at 6pm on the 14th Feb 2012.
As far as I can see, the minimum number of events to make the repeat you'd want is 2. Each repeats every 4 weeks, for seven days starting on Tuesday. The repeats are set in the recurrence property below using the text from the the rRule variable, (which conforms to the  Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification, but that is more than you possibly need, or want, to know).
One thing to note is that previous versions of iCal did not display events which spanned midnight correctly and you would not see the part after midnight. This appears to be fixed in Lion.
There are some additional notes in the script.
Copy the text below into Applescript Editor, change the settings you want in the first few lines and press Run.
Best wishes
John M
-- John Maisey -- www.nhoj.co.uk -- 12th Feb 2012
set myCal to "Home" -- change this to your calendar
set myTitle to "Work Shift" -- change this to the title of the shift event.
set myDate to current date
set {year of myDate, month of myDate, day of myDate} to {2012, 2, 14} -- Change to {YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOURS, MINUTES}
set rRule to "FREQ=WEEKLY;INTERVAL=4;BYDAY=TU,WE,TH,FR,SA,SU,MO;WKST=TU" -- Don't change this
tell application "iCal"
  -- set time to 6pm.
          set time of myDate to 64800 -- 6pm (60*60*18 seconds)
  -- Make 12 hour event on this date/time.
  -- Repeats every 4 weeks for 7 days with the week starting on Tuesday.
  make new event at end of events of calendar myCal with properties {summary:myTitle, start date:myDate, end date: (myDate + 12 * hours), recurrence:rRule}
  -- Move start date to 14 days later at 6am,.
          set time of myDate to 21600 -- 6am (60*60*6 seconds)
          set myDate to myDate + 14 * days
  -- Same as above
  make new event at end of events of calendar myCal with properties {summary:myTitle, start date:myDate, end date: (myDate + 12 * hours), recurrence:rRule}
end tell