hcalendar-example1-steps

From Microformats

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hCalendar Example 1 Steps

microformat_hcalendar.png

This is a step by step explanation of the first example in the hCalendar specification.

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Example

Here is a sample event in an iCalendar: 

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//XYZproduct//EN
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
URL:http://www.web2con.com/
DTSTART:20071017
DTEND:20071020
SUMMARY:Web 2.0 Conference
LOCATION:Argent Hotel\, San Francisco\, CA
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

and an equivalent event in hCalendar format with various elements optimized appropriately. See hcalendar-example1-steps for the derivation. 

<div class="vevent">
 <a class="url" href="http://www.web2con.com/">http://www.web2con.com/</a>
  <span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>: 
  <span class="dtstart">20071017</span>- 
  <span class="dtend">20071019</span>,
 at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
 </div>

which could be displayed as:

http://www.web2con.com/  Web 2.0 Conference: 20071017- 20071019, at the Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA

Note that this is a live hCalendar microformat, which will be found on this page by parsers.

Note 1: The product information is not necessary since hCalendar is an interchange format. When transforming hCalendar back into iCalendar, the transforming engine should add its own product ID.

Note 2: A surrounding element is optional, and can be left out as such. It is optional since the context of a vcalendar is implied when a vevent is encountered. The implied context/scope is that of the document. Authors may explicitly use elements with class="vcalendar" to wrap sets of vevents that all belong to the same calendar, e.g. when publishing multiple calendars on the same page.

Note 3: The version information is unnecessary in hCalendar markup directly since the version will be defined by the profile of hCalendar that is used/referred to in the 'profile' attribute of the <head> element.

Note 4: ISO8601 dates are however not very human friendly. Not only that, in the case of the end datetime (DTEND), the date must be specified as a whole day after the last day since DTEND is exclusive (http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/ietf-calsify/2005-September/000769.html)! In addition, the year is often understood implicitly by humans from the context. Thus this example could be improved by using <abbr> to make the date information more human readable and friendly, e.g. 

<span class="vevent">
 <a class="url" href="http://www.web2con.com/">http://www.web2con.com/</a>
  <span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>: 
  <abbr class="dtstart" title="20071017">October 17</abbr>-
  <abbr class="dtend" title="20071020">19</abbr>,
 at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</span>

which could be displayed as:

http://www.web2con.com/  Web 2.0 Conference: October 17- 19, at the Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA

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Related pages

This specification is a work in progress. As additional aspects are discussed, understood, and written, they will be added. These thoughts, issues, and questions are kept in separate pages.

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