There is no code at the end of this post. I’m just brainstorming. What triggered this is a blog post at Google: Python Client Library for Google APIs is out of Beta. Here are some other links for the library: Google APIs Client Library for Python & Write your First App: Prerequisites (Google Calendar API v3).
The idea is to create a Flare project with topics which contain training material for short, perhaps one hour, training sessions. These topics would be organized in sequential order in a TOC or browse sequence. A script would parse the output and create Google Calendar events based on some schedule parameters and the output TOC or browse sequence. The events would have links to the topics. So a student or instructor could access training content through a calendar interface.
Scheduler parameters would be maintained in an accessible place. Maybe a table in a topic or separate data file would work. Parameters would be choices such as:
- Include weekends
- Start date
- Session length
- Exclude these days
- Exclude these hours
- And so forth…
Python comes into play with TOC parsing and making calls to Google calendar with the client library. The Python script would parse the TOC with something like minidom. While looping through each TocEntry, the script would use the client library from Google to create events on a Google Calendar.
Since this post speculates on using Python, it may be helpful to point out that there is a post at MadCap’s MadBlog about a Python script to retrieve MindTouch content: Extracting MindTouch Wiki Content.
Other related links: