Turn the Zim Desktop Wiki into a calendar

Why

I recently switched to Arch Linux and decided to ditch evolution (a good but bloated program). Claws Mail works perfectly as an email manager but I couldn't get its calendar plugin to work properly. I have been using Zim for a while and noticed that it had a very basic calendar plugin; this was exactly what I needed. The plugin allows users to create pages in their wikis for individual days: no complex forms to fill out, just a simple page to keep track of what you are doing on a given day.

What

As Zim lacks desktop integration so I wrote two python scripts for conky integration:

  1. zim-conky_cal.py

    Prints a calendar (like the cal command) with the current date and appointments highlighted.

  2. zim-conky_events.py

    Lists the next 5 events or all of the events in the current month and the next, whichever comes first.

I also wrote a program for adding events to the calendar (zim-cal.py and zim-cal.ui). Select some text, run the program and double click the date to add your text to calendar. You can also input your own text by clicking the edit button (the big button on the right).

How

First: Enable the calendar plugin (Edit->Preferences->Plugins->Calendar).

Download: zimcal.tar.bz2

Conky scripts

  • Edit CAL_PATH to point to the folder that stores your Zim calendar.
  • Add ${execpi 300 /path/to/zim-conky_cal.py} and ${execpi 300 /path/to/zim-conky_events.py} to your conkyrc

Zim-Cal program

  • Edit CAL_PATH to point to the folder that stores your Zim calendar.
  • Make PROG_PATH point to the directory where you put "zim-cal.ui"
  • If you intend to use this program regularly, you should probably assign a global hotkey to it in your window manager.