[uf-discuss] Re: To-do items?

[Toby A Inkster]

Mark Ng wrote:

> So far as I understand it (though I'm very far from an authority on this
> subject, and haven't actually seen an implementation of this) -
> hCalendar is a one-to-one mapping of iCalendar (RFC 2445).  iCalendar
> allows for VTODO entries.
> http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-examples#4.6.2_To-do_Component in
> the wiki does actually mention this usage, but has (ironically) a TODO
> where the implementation is.

The hcalendar spec itself seems to suggest that "vcalendar" and "vevent" 
are the only possible root class names and doesn't make any reference to 
VTODO, VFREEBUSY, etc. They are not included on the cheatsheet either. 
However in the introduction it does claim to be a 1:1 representation of 
iCalendar in HTML. I suppose that this apparent contradiction can be 
resolved if we assume that VTODO and other iCalendar components may be 
used, but must not be employed as root class names. (a "vevent" class can 
be used outside a "vcalendar" class, and this implies that the page itself 
is a VCALENDAR.) 

That having said, the hcalendar-issues page suggests that VALARM, VJOURNAL 
and VTIMEZONE should not be used. Some of these issues were raised over 
two years ago, but there has been no progress on them on the spec itself.

But that is just an example of the guesswork and interpretation needed to 
implement the hCalendar spec. The spec is incredibly vague and even notes 
its own incompleteness on some topics. It contains some blatant 
contradictions with the iCalendar spec which it normatively references -- 
such as stating that dtstart and summary are required children of a 
vcalendar, when according to the source specification they are required 
children of a *vevent* and are not allowed directly inside a vcalendar. In 
its current state it should not have progressed beyond a draft status.

-- 
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.17.14-mm-desktop-9mdvsmp, up 25 days, 23:20.]

                               Bottled Water
          http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2008/02/18/bottled-water/