[uf-discuss] hCalendar anchors...

[Mark Mansour]

Hi,

This is quite a big post so brace yourself :)

I've found some more anomilies in hcal relating to anchors that I want
to clarify.  I'm hoping that people will post their thoughts as I
don't have a 100% definitive answer on how this should be done.  To
the problem...

The general rule for extracting info from hCal seems to be
 <tag class="microformat-element-name">text</tag>

where the hcal entry looks like
 class-value:text

but for anchors it seems to be
 <a class="microformat-element-name" href="location">text</tag>

where
 class-value:href


But there are a few exceptions to this case.  Below I have compiled a
list of anchor examples to help highlight the issues.

1. from http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar#Example
 <a class="url" href="http://www.web2con.com/">
   <span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:
   <abbr class="dtstart" title="2005-10-05">October 5</abbr>-
   <abbr class="dtend" title="2005-10-08">7</abbr>,
   at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
 </a>

Recommended result:
 URL:http://www.web2con.com/

Format:
 class-value:href


2. from http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-examples#5._iCalendar_Object_Examples
 <div>Organized by: <a class="organizer"
href="mailto:jsmith at host.com">jsmith at host.com</a></div>

Recommended result:
 ORGANIZER:MAILTO:jsmith at host.com

Format:
 class-value:href


3. from http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-examples#Example_3_2
 <span class="attendee"><a class="value"
href="mailto:jsmith at host1.com">jsmith at host1.com</a> RSVPed? <span
class="rsvp">TRUE</span></span>

Recommended result:
 ATTENDEE;RSVP=TRUE:MAILTO:jsmith at host1.com

Format:
 class;sub-element-class=subelement-text:href


4. from http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-examples#Example_3_2
 <a class="attach" type="application/postscript"
href="ftp://xyzCorp.com/pub/conf/bkgrnd.ps">ftp://xyzCorp.com/pub/conf/bkgrnd.ps</a>

Recommended result:
 ATTACH;FMTTYPE=application/postscript:ftp://xyzCorp.com/pub/conf/bkgrnd.ps

Format:
 class;FMTTYPE=attribute-type:href


5. from http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-examples#Example_6._Free.2FBusy_time
 <a class="url"
href="http://www.host.com/calendar/busytime/jsmith.ifb">http://www.host.com/calendar/busytime/jsmith.ifb</a>

Recommended result:
 URL:http://www.host.com/calendar/busytime/jsmith.ifb

Format:
 class-value:href


6. from http://suda.co.uk/projects/holidays/
 <a class="summary"
href="createvcal.php?summary=Drinking%20Straw%20Day&amp;description=Today%20in%201888%20the%20drinking%20straw%20was%20patented%2C%20use%20it%20wisely&amp;date=20060103&amp;freq=YEARLY&amp;interval=1&amp;bymonth=1"
title="Drinking Straw Day">Drinking Straw Day</a>

Recommended result (from x2v):
 SUMMARY:Drinking Straw Day

Format:
 class-value:text


7. from http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-calendar/2006Jan/0003.html
 <span class="summary"><a class="url"
href="http://dps1.travelocity.com/dparcobrand.ctl?smls=Y&amp;Service=YHOE&amp;.intl=us&amp;aln_name=AA&amp;flt_num=1655&amp;dep_arp_name=&amp;arr_arp_name=&amp;dep_dt_dy_1=23&amp;dep_dt_mn_1=Jan&amp;dep_dt_yr_1=2006&amp;dep_tm_1=9%3A00am">ORD-SFO/AA
1655</a></span>

Recommended result (from x2v):
 SUMMARY:ORD-SFO/AA 1655
 URL:http://dps1.travelocity.com/dparcobrand.ctl?smls=Y&Service=YHOE&.intl=us&aln_name=AA&flt_num=1655&dep_arp_name=&arr_arp_name=&dep_dt_dy_1=23&dep_dt_mn_1=Jan&dep_dt_yr_1=2006&dep_tm_1=9%3A00am

Format:
 class-value:sub-element-text
 sub-element-class:sub-element-href

1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 seem to follow the same format (3 and 4 show the use
of parameters), they are also all from the microformats wiki.  6 is
from suda.co.uk which has the primary hcalendar parser available
(there is glean, but I haven't tried that yet).  7 is handled by x2v
just fine, but is in a format that is different from the other
examples.

1 and 7 are opposites of each other, 1 is an <a class="url"
href="location"><span class="summary">value</span></a> and 7 is <span
class="summary><a class="url" href="location">value</a></span>.  I
don't think both can be valid and to me 1 seems like the best choice
as it is the most consistant and it is taking the href to be the url
value - to me that seems like a good idea.  I don't like 7 because it
seems to indicate that the URL is for the summary.

6 is ok but not great as again, it seems to indicate that the summary
has a URL rather than the entire event, maybe that is just me being
fussy.

So, what do people think of examples 1, 6 and 7?

Mark