Outlook calendar widget parsing challenge

Here’s a challenge I issued to some colleagues some time ago, but it fell off the stack due to other commitments, and is still unsolved to my knowledge.

[UPDATE: Forgot to say that I already wrote about this much more clearly in an earlier posting, including discussion of the Google Calendar 'quick add' natural language parsing widget. Read my original "Calendar widget challenge", 21st May 2006.]

Or… continue to read what I just wrote, having been freshly-annoyed by the problem (and therefore decided to offer a small prize)…

Imagine the following highly typical scenario:

1. I get an email with a body containing something like the following

Blah blah blah blah… Confirming meeting on 16 Sep 09:30-11:30 in Meeting Room 37; see you there. Blah blah blah blah.

2. The sender uses no special markup, no special tools (no iCal attachments, nothing).

3. I want to drag-and-drop the email into my calendar.

4. I can almost do this (e.g. ‘copy to folder’ in Outlook), but I have to pause to enter/select the actual date and time.

5. Those extra steps annoy me – especially in this day and age. For heaven’s sake: the Apple Newton could parse these phrases almost fifteen years ago. I tell you what – I’ll make it easy for you (read on)…

Challenge:

Create a toobar/widget that performs step 2 below, assuming I have helped it out by pre-performing step 1 below:

1. I mouse-select a ’significant’ date-time-specific portion of the text, e.g. the phrase “16 Sep 09:30-11:30″ highighted in bold below:

Blah blah blah blah… Confirming meeting on 16 Sep 09:30-11:30 in Meeting Room 1; see you there. Blah blah blah blah.

(There – I told you I’d make it easy for you: I have pre-selected the crucial text, so all you have to do is parse it sensibly; you should of course allow any of three dozen standard phrasings for such items).

2. The toolbar widget comrpises a “do it” button: having pre-performed step 1, I press “do it”, then I’m done. That’s it. No further interaction necessary.

Interested?

Solutions by comment to this blog, or email me via the contact listing in the blog gutter.

Haven’t thought about a prize yet. Fame, glory, maybe in iPod or equivalent.

Technorati Tags: outlook, calendar, widget, parsing, toolbar