BusyCal

A newer version of BusyCal is available.

• 4.0 stars

  "Excellent Calendar to Replace iCal or Palm Desktop"

  September 27, 2011  |   By wrbtu

  Pros

  Superior "find events" feature
  Much more attractive than iCal or Palm Desktop
  Extensive "notes" may be attached to events
  Auto assignment of color to new calendar
  "To Do" List pops up & must be dismissed or postponed

  Cons

  Doesn't allow user assignment of calendar colors
  Selecting a calendar to work with is not intuitive
  Function for easily changing dates/hours not present

  Summary

  I've been using iCal since it was available, & also using Palm Desktop Calendar, which still works with Mac OS 10.6.8. I wanted a calendar which allows better finding & listing of events than either of those two, & BusyCal is perfect for that function. It allows a list view of events found, & finds events over a period of a day, week, month, year, or decade.
  
  It automatically assigns a color to any new calendar created, which is a nice feature, but it should allow for a manual over-ride of the chosen color, in case the user wants to assign a particular color.
  
  When using multiple calendars, it's not intuitive. I had a hard time figuring out that clicking the check-box for a calendar pertained ONLY to visibility of that calendar's events, & not to adding events or editing events for that calendar. To add/edit events, you must also highlight the calendar's name. It's possible to have one calendar's events visible, but any editing you do applies to an invisible calendar (if the visible calendar is not highlighted). In that case, BusyCal, makes the other calendar visible as well. A bit confusing until you get the hang of it, then it becomes simple.
  
  Both iCal & Palm Desktop allow dates/times to be edited by either pressing the up/down arrow keys, or by using the cmd-[plus key]/ cmd-[minus key]. BusyCal has plenty of shortcuts for date/time entry, but omits that particularly useful shortcut. To increase or decrease the date or time, you must do additional typing, unlike the other two programs.
  
  I contacted their customer support (while still using a trial version) & found them to be very responsive to my emailed question, even though I was not yet a paid user, so I rate their Customer Service very highly.
  
  This is a fairly expensive program for what it is ($49), but worth it if you need the advanced list feature, attractive look, overall ease of use, extended notes feature, etc.

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