Screen Calendar 7.4 creates custom desktop wallpapers with built in active calendar. This desktop calendar is a full-functional PIM allowing you to schedule your time. The calendar is fully-customizable - you can choose its size, transparency, color, and appearance. Screen Calendar also has reminder function and allows printing calendar with or without background picture. Beginning with version 7.4, Screen Calendar supports iCalendar format. That enables you to add events to you calendar easily, importing them from iCalendar files.

This tutorial shows how to add events to Screen Calendar by importing them from iCal event calendars (.ics files).

After installing Screen Calendar 7.4 on your PC, there will appear an icon in your system tray. Left-click this icon to open Screen Calendar options window. To import/export iCalendar events to Screen Calendar and manage your iCal subscriptions, go to Dates -> iCalendar (iCal)

Open Dates | iCalendar (iCal) to adjust settings of data exchange with iCalendar

The first thing you should do is to select iCalendar event source. There are two possible sources – Local File and URL. Default selection is Local File. To open local iCal file (.ics), click Browse button and select needed file.

Use Browse button to open local iCal file (*.ics)

After selecting the file, you have three options. The first is to subscribe to the event source. That will enable you to set update frequency for this source or update events from this source manually at any time. Click Subscribe button and name of the event source will appear in a list of subscribed event sources.

Click Subscribe button to add selected file to the list of subscribed event sources

The second possibility is to import events from iCalendar file. You can use this if you need to add events from iCal file to Screen Calendar only one time and don’t need to update events list any more. Click Import button to upload events from selected iCal file to Screen Calendar. You will see a message box with the number of imported events.

Click Import button to import events from iCal file to the desktop calendar

In the picture below you can see desktop calendar with already imported events (dates with events are underlined). Event can be viewed by moving mouse cursor to a date cell (event record emerges like a hint).

Desktop calendar with the events imported from iCal file

You can also export events from desktop calendar to iCal file. Click Export button and your events will be exported to selected iCalendar file. You will see a message box with the number of exported events.

Click Export button to export events from desktop calendar to iCal file

To add iCalendar file from web source, select URL and enter or paste URL. To paste URL from clipboard, use Paste button near the address field.

Enter or paste URL of iCalendar event source

As well as for local file, you can use subscribe and import functions for remote iCalendar events source. Export function is not available for web event sources.

Click Subscribe button to add URL to the list of subscribed event sources

Click Import button to import events from web iCalendar events source to the desktop calendar

When all needed iCalendar event sources are added to the list of subscribed event sources, you can set update frequency for every source. Right-click a source and select needed update frequency from popup menu. Events from this source will update automatically.

Select needed update frequency of iCalendar event source

iCalendar sources can be updated manually as well. To update all the subscribed sources, use Update All event sources button...

Update All event sources button in the dialog window

…or Update iCalendar sources in tray menu (right-click tray icon to open this menu).

Update iCalendar sources from tray menu

To update one of the subscribed iCalendar sources, select it and click Update only active event sources button or right-click the source and click Update in popup menu.

Buttons used to update one of the subscribed iCalendar events sources

You can remove unnecessary events source from the list of subscribed event sources. Select an unnecessary source and click Remove button or right-click this source and click Remove in popup menu.

Buttons used to remove one of the subscribed iCalendar events sources

To clear the list of subscribed events sources, use Remove All button.

Remove All button is used to remove all the subscribed iCalendar sources and clear the list

After removing an iCalendar source from the list of subscribed event sources, events imported from this source won’t disappear from your desktop calendar. So, if you want to delete event records as well, you should do that manually.

Read more about Screen Calendar features