ICal 5 default event length

Since installing Lion last week iCal sets all new events I create to 'all day' as the default, previously it was the normal 1 hour which was fine. The old command line trick to modify the default (defaults write com.apple.iCal 'Default duration in minutes for new event' 60) does not appear to work with iCal 5 / Lion. Anyone else seeing this, and if so anyone know how to get this back to 1 hour versus every new event defaulting to all day?
NEVER MIND-After searching these boards fruilessly the solution only showed up after I posted the question. Apple may need to work on their search functionalty. Short answer, default for the "month" view is all day. Apparently you can type a time and data detectors will make the change.

While I don't disagree that the changes seem a bit less than intuitive, you can always have the default alarm already set (in iCal, open Preferences and at the bottom of the General tab you can turn on the default alarm and set a time ahead of future events to go off). So if you have the default alarm set, and know how to trigger the time of day setting, then all you would really have to manually change is the event length (default is 1 hour). And you can change that using data tags as well. Just create an event named "have lunch with Jalpuna from 12:00 to 2:00 PM" and sure enough iCal will create an event named "have lunch with Jalpuna" on the date you clicked on from 12:00 to 2:00 PM. It definately is an adjustment, but not nearly as bad as I feared when I first started trying to figure it out. Best of luck!

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Changing the Default Event Time Length?

Hello,
Is there anyway to change the default event length from 1hr? Nearly everything I schedule is 30min long and it's a pain to always have to change that.

npatelaz,
I don't think that it is possible, even using Terminal. If you want to change your workflow, "all day" events can easily be created in the Day/Week view, but as you stated the Month view poses a problem.
Calendar Help says:
To make:
An event that lasts all day:
In Day or Week view, double-click in the “All-day” section at the top of the calendar.
An existing event last all day:
In Day, Week, or Month view, double-click the event, click the date, then select “All-day.”
A multiday event:
In Week view, drag from the start time to the end time. You can drag across multiple days.In Day or Month view, create an event. Then, enter the start and end dates and times.
An all-day event into a multiday event:
In Week view, drag the all-day event across multiple days.
How to Change the Default Duration of New iCal Events - The Mac Observer was written over a year ago, but it may give you some other ideas.

How do I set the default event alarm to email in iCal 3.0?

Anyone know? The default event alarm (an alert with a noise) in iCal 3.0 doesn't do me the slightest bit of good if I'm not sitting at my computer, which I'm often not.
I'd like all new events to have a default alarm of "Email" so I get email reminders without having to edit every single new event I create. Frankly I'm amazed this isn't a simple Preference option

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. I have scoured the internet looking for exactly the same answer! I've asked everyone at my office (all mac users) and no one knows (but I got several "Yeah, that's annoying - let me know when you figure it out). I, too, can't believe it's not a simple preference in iCal. Someone PLEASE answer this incredibly basic question because there are obviously more than a few of us hung up on this. Thanks!

Default event names in iCal?

Is it possible in iCal to set default event name per calendar, so that when I put in my work schedule each event is titled "work" without me having to type it in each time?

No (unless you use Automator), however, you could create an additional calendar, one that would represent your work schedule.
You could also use the (32 year old) Copy-Paste feature.
If you really have big schedule, you should consider making an automator workflow which would create events with a default name
Cheers.

Ical default is all day

How do I get ical to stop defaulting to "all day"
for events?

That happens if you double click to enter a new event while the calendar is displaying a whole month.
Instead of typing "Meeting" [Return], type "Meeting 9:30-11:30" [Return], and the event will be entered with the title "Meeting", a start time of 9:30am and an ending time of 11:30am. You still have to double click the event if you want something other than the default alerts.
If you like the default meeting length, you could just type "Meeting 9:30" or "Meeting at 9" for a default-length meeting with the default alert time and type. It appears that you need the ":" or the "at" to make sure iCal recognizes a time instead of a plain number.
The gist of this answer appears in other threads, but I think Apple does a poor job of documenting the change in behavior between versions. I did search the help files without success before googling, which led me here.

How do I set iCal default alterts

Is it possible to set alerts so they default to none in iCal?

Mike,
It sounds to me like you are using the "Month" view for that entry.
Default event creation in Month view results in an all day event.
Lion iCal Help (Add events to a calendar) says: "Add a new event in Month view by double-clicking within the day you want the event to appear. Enter a name and time duration for the event in the event’s title field, and then press Return."
Try entering "Meeting at 9am"...that will create a one hour event named Meeting.

How do I set ical default values in lion?

I have just upgraded to Lion and so far, so good. In the new iCal, how do I set the default values? In the old version, when you clicked on the calendar, the default value was a 1 hour meeting around the current time of day. The new version defaults to an all-day meeting. I like the old way better, or best would be to have it as a preference.
Is there a way to set this that I'm not seeing?

Mike,
It sounds to me like you are using the "Month" view for that entry.
Default event creation in Month view results in an all day event.
Lion iCal Help (Add events to a calendar) says: "Add a new event in Month view by double-clicking within the day you want the event to appear. Enter a name and time duration for the event in the event’s title field, and then press Return."
Try entering "Meeting at 9am"...that will create a one hour event named Meeting.

Change the default event duration from 1 hour to 1/2 hour

In iCal, the default event is supposed to last for 1 hour. I want to change the default to 30 minutes. I know I can make the change event by event (which is cumbersome). I cannot find any configuration page to set the default event duration. Is there one?
(This seeming reality has been bothering me for years; but I'm considering migrating from Entourage to iCal/Address Book/Mail and some of what I feel are inefficiencies in iCal are blocking me from doing so.)

Typically any such defaults are configured outside of Logic via a utility that came with your Audio Interface.
Example: if you have a Motu Audio interface you use the Motu Audio Setup Utility to set the default Stereo inputs and outputs... which are then used by Logic via Coreaudio.
Not knowing what Audio Interface you are using (or mixer..) I would suggest you read the documentation that came with it.. and see how to configure it to what you need.
Note: Some cheap and/or badly supported interfaces/mixers simply don't provide a utility to enable/change default settings... in which case you are stuck with what they set as the defaults themselves.

ICal default settings

The default setting on my iCal is always a ‘whole day’ event. I know you can change that by typing in ‘Movie at 7:00 PM.' But I find this an unsatisfactory solution.
Sometime ago I found a Terminal command that sets the default for whatever minutes you want to set:
defaults write com.apple.iCal 'Default duration in minutes for new event' 60
but it doesn’t work. Could someone help me by improving the command?
Thanks,
Klaus

It DOES read 60.
However, it works now... I am ashamed to admit, but I didn’t do the basic first procedure to fix the problem: restart the computer. Though I quit iCal when doing the Terminal commands, there is probably some setting in the preference file that only gets read once at start-up.
Thank you for your help
Klaus

HT2513 my iCal shows events in the "month" view but not in the "week" view? why is that?

my iCal shows events in the "month" view but not in the "week" view? why is that? doesnt sync automatically all the time only sometimes

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Force Outlook 2011 to use iCal default calendar to synchronize with google

Here is a problem.
My default calendar program is Outlook 2011.
I have an iCal synchronizing with my google calendar and outlook to sync with iCal via Sync Services - so in theory my outlook calendar should be synchronized with Google.
I setup in iCal's preferences my google calendar as default (because iCal synchronizing only Google calendar not the other calendars on my mac) so at this stage, if I use iCal to add new remainder/appointment it is store by iCal in default calendar (which I setup to be my google calendar) and is synchronizing with goggle calendar right away.
Synchronizing between iCal and google works fine, however there is a problem with outlook sync with iCal, because Outlook synchronizing all items in iCal with “no category” calendar (which seems to be default and although I have changed in preferences of iCal default calendar to be the google one). Even if I delete all “on my mac” calendars - outlook creates always new one called “no category”, when I try to add new appointment with Outlook.
So there is question, how to force Outlook (or maybe syncservice) to use my google calendar in iCal as default. I think once it be possible, synchronizing between Outlook and my google calendar (via Sync Services and iCal) works great.
Anyone knows how to manage it?
My system:
Outlook is 14.1.4 version
MacOs X Lion 10.7.3
iCal 5.0.2

Hi Maxulus,
Did you ever find a soloution to this, as we have the same problem?
Regards
Alex

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Hi,
I try to run the utility "Maintain default events for entities" and it fails with an error log whit the following error
RME-00011: Operation 'ins' on EVENT has failed
Activity aborted with API errors.
I also dicovered that the utility is not aborting on the same point each time. And so when i run the utility several times sometimes it manage to complete successfull.
null

Log Messages
Utility Maintain Default Events for Entities
Revision 6.5.1.2
Parameters Prompt Value
Entity KIS (1) FOR MANO/ EMPLOYEE, KIS (1) FOR MANO/ LOAN, KIS (1) FOR MANO/ LOCATION, KIS (1) FOR MANO/ RELATION, KIS (1) FOR MANO/ RELATION TYPE, KIS (1) FOR MANO/ SOURCE, KIS (1) FOR MANO/ SOURCE DESCRIPTION, KIS (1) FOR MANO/ SOURCE TYPE, KIS (1) FOR MANO/ SOURCE TYPE DESCRIPTION
Errors Message
RME-00011: Operation 'ins' on EVENT has failed
Activity aborted with API errors.
Information Message
Processing entity KIS (1) FOR MANO/ EMPLOYEE
RME-00011: Operation 'ins' on EVENT has failed
Activity aborted with API errors.
Debug Message
BLAPI.OPEN_ACTIVITY
create change events
Number of Entities to create events for 9
Processing entity KIS (1) FOR MANO/ EMPLOYEE
BLEVT.INS
RME-00011: Operation 'ins' on EVENT has failed
Activity aborted with API errors.
Debug Detailed Message
BLAPI.OPEN_ACTIVITY
create change events
Number of Entities to create events for 9
Processing entity KIS (1) FOR MANO/ EMPLOYEE
create evt...
ent_id 2377134742652854522970627468961044366
on_condition CREATE
att_id
att_name
relend_id
relend_name
relend_to_ent_ref
l_relend_name is :
l_evt_name is : CREATE EMPLOYEE
found event id:
l_evt_id is null
BLEVT.INS
ATTRIBUTE_REFERENCE........... =
ENTITY_REFERENCE.............. = 2377134742652854522970627468961044366
EVENT_TYPE.................... = CHANGE
NAME.......................... = CREATE EMPLOYEE
ON_CONDITION.................. = CREATE
RME-00011: Operation 'ins' on EVENT has failed
Activity aborted with API errors.
Statistics
Description Headstart Utilities - Run Utility
Username KFM1
Summary Level Number of Messages
Errors 2
Warnings none
Information 1
Debug 4
Debug Detailed 17
Date Time Initialized 18-07-2001 08:58:27
Date Time Closed 18-07-2001 08:58:29
Elapsed Time 2 seconds
null

ICal duplicating events

My ipod touch iCal duplicates events. Even after I've deleted them they come back. I sometimes have six or seven of the same event in a day. I'm just about to give up and stop using it and try another app. This seems to be an old problem. I've found instances on here dating back to 2009. Haven't they fixed it yet?? Any ideas?

Hi,
Are the events in the same calendar or different ones? You can check this by showing and hiding calendars.
Best wishes
John M

ICal 5 default event length

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