I have published and tagged an initial release of ab-bday (address book birthday), a small tool which reads a directory full of vCard files, and writes an iCalendar event for each one.
It’s a simple tool, yet I find it immensely useful. Given my usage of existing standards and conventions, it integrates well with existing tools. It is usable with pimsync (or vdirsyncer) to synchronise this birthday calendar event onto a server and onto other devices.
If all your calendar applications on all your devices integrate into your address book and show birthdays, then this won’t be of much use. But if you have any device which doesn’t, this solution works anywhere without any special support from your calendar.
This initial release implements all the basic features. For future versions I have a few useful addition in mind:
-ato create recurring events for anniversaries.-mto monitor the input directory and update calendars immediately as soon as a contact is modified.- Include the age in each recurring instance of an event.
- Localisation. E.g.: Support for event descriptions in other languages.
Let me know if this tool is of use to you or if you find any bugs!