Talk:ICalendar

Another validator
Another validator can be found at http://arnout.engelen.eu/icalendar-validator/validate/. I think it could be added to the 'External links' section, but didn't add it myself because it could look like self-promotion. --Raboof (talk) 17:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I absolutely agree with Raboof, the originally linked validator is not very helpful and does not detect many problems. Added the improved validator and another one to the external links section, in the hope that this will foster standard-conformance (and avoid problems, which there are pretty many in this area). --84.163.75.113 (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Specification Basics
The 'Specification Basics' states that the file format is ASCII. This is not true, is it? According to the RFC, the MIME type can specify charset in the usual way. Agree? Fixme (talk) 11:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed - looks like this has been removed already though --Raboof (talk) 17:52, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Can a iCalendar file contain empty lines ?
I am not really an expert and don't undestand all those technicall stuff. Maybe a short real-world example on how three users (on Apple with iCal, on Windows with Outlook and on Linux with Mozilla Calendar) would setup and share a calender and roughly how data is beeing synchronized.


 * The protocol should be transparent to the users if implemented properly. It's up to the application developers to conform to the standard.  That said, I would think new lines would be OK; the standard is new enough.  Also, I'm not sure I agree that it's too technical; these standard documents are written for programmers, and typically aren't intended to be interesting to the layperson.  Other WP articles on technical protocols face the same dilemma as to how specific they should be. Ojcit 19:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No. The end of line character is interperted as a formatting character.  If you have an empty line with no field name, the behavior is not specified by the specification.  However, lines beginning with whitespace characters are ignored in terms of the format of the file, and the leading whitespace is removed when interperted by the application.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.207.127.230 (talk) 01:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Apple iCal not fully compliant with the standard?
Outlook does do a terrible job with iCalendar although O12 is supposed to be way better. I'll need to look again but I remember iCal in OS X saving ICS files without any VTIMEZONE definitions and utilising their own internal (to iCal) time zones such as Europe/Amsterdam etc. in some custom X- field.

vEvent
This is the most important component and it is poorly documented here. Can someone help out with this? I'm reading the RFC but this is very unclear.
 * Full documentation of each feature would be beyond the scope of this article. I'd suggest looking at the soruce to some of the linux/gpl/etc. projects that implement the standard.  Ojcit 19:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Howto
This article includes a howto, but WP:NOT a how-to guide. There are also too many weblinks. I think a cleanup is in order. Guy (Help!) 18:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Wording
I don't think this sounds like a wiki article:

"On import of some iCalendar files, Outlook 2003 will complain "You have attempted to save a recurring Lunar appointment in iCalendar format. To avoid this error, set the appointment option to Gregorian instead of Lunar.". Outlook requires the iCalendar file have lines UID, DTSTAMP, and METHOD:PUBLISH in order to avoid this nonsense error."

I'm specifically referring to "complain" and "nonsense."

UUID?
"X-WR-RELCALID is a unique string of hexadecimal numbers in the pattern of 8-4-4-4-12."

You mean a UUID? (If not, unique in what context?)

self referring link
in the first part of the paragraph "Specification Basics" is a link to vCalendar but iCalendar and vCalendar are the same articles. Is this intend to be? Do not know how you handle this, that is why i am asking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.70.200.180 (talk) 08:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

technical
This article is way to technical. I came to this talk page to add the tag, and someone beat me too it. I have attempted to clean up certain sections, by moving much of the technobabble to the notes section. travb (talk) 00:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I made significant changes to this page, hopefully it is much less technical now. travb (talk) 01:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

SkyZhang —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.18.111.192 (talk) 02:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This article goes pretty far into the technical details of this standard. To the point of running afoul of WP:NOTMANUAL--MadeYourReadThis (talk) 13:57, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

computer language?
The article says:

The top-level computer language in iCalendar is the Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object, a collection of calendar and scheduling information.

So which is it - a "language" or "information"? In fact, it is neither. It is not a language in the sense of C++, Python, PHP, etc. And a collection of code is certainly not a collection of information.

I would suggest: The top-level module in Calendar is the Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object, a collection of calendar and scheduling functions.

I won't make changes because I'm not sure of my place here. If someone agrees with me, go ahead and make changes.

209.183.23.235 (talk) 05:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)jag

Icon?
This being a standard for a feed, I'm surprised that there shouldn't be an official icon or logo. Is it OK to use the iCal icon on web pages to link to .ics feeds? It seems a bit misleading as it is not an Apple proprietary format.--87.162.43.173 (talk) 08:54, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Extensions
The descriptions of iCalendar extensions are either non-existent or just plain old suck.

What is the origin of the X-WR- prefix?

What does X-EPOCAGENDAENTRYTYPE mean exactly and why is it important enough to be listed here?

Third (talk) 20:14, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Android hate and a ramble.
Android hasn't any support, despite it's role as PDA, despite having had a bug open for four years. Other implementations are known to be flaky as well (Nokia, Windows require custom fields.) It reminds me more of ANSI X.12 as it describes a method for creating a standard without it being standard. Why is tech becoming less useful than the days of the PalmPilot?! I'm unsure of how to phrase it Wiki-style but surely the societal impact of a given tech needs to be addressed. Or a less opinionated comparison of old versus new. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.164.80.5 (talk) 19:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The VTODO example
The article says: "The following is an example of a to-do due on April 15, 1998." . However, I didn't find any date related to April 15. Is this example wrong or I am wrong? --Jerrywjh (talk) 14:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The text does not match the example. The date in the VTODO example is April 3, 1998. One or the other should be changed. 65.16.145.177 (talk) 22:10, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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iCal first
Was Apple's iCal actually the first to use this specification, or is the correspondence in name coincidental? Bever (talk) 21:59, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Zip File in See Also
Out of curiosity, why is Zip (file format) linked in the See also section? As far as I can tell, it doesn't have anything to do with the ICalendar format (neither the formats are similar nor is the Zip compression algorithm used by ICalendar. Possible to remove it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.83.73.116 (talk) 16:46, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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