hcard: Difference between revisions
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The class '''<code>vcard</code>''' is a ''[[hcard#Root_Class_Name|root class name]]'' that indicates the presence of an hCard. The classes '''<code>url</code>''', '''<code>fn</code>''', and '''<code>org</code>''' are ''properties'' that indicate aspects of the hCard. See the [[hcard# | The class '''<code>vcard</code>''' is a ''[[hcard#Root_Class_Name|root class name]]'' that indicates the presence of an hCard. The classes '''<code>url</code>''', '''<code>fn</code>''', and '''<code>org</code>''' are ''properties'' that indicate aspects of the hCard. See the [[hcard#Properties|list of properties]] for more. | ||
'''Want to get started with writing an [[hcard|hCard]]?''' | '''Want to get started with writing an [[hcard|hCard]]?''' | ||
* Use the [http://microformats.org/code/hcard/creator hCard creator] form to enter contact info and publish it. | * Use the [http://microformats.org/code/hcard/creator hCard creator] form to enter contact info and publish it. | ||
* See more [[hcard-authoring|hCard authoring examples]] of how to add hCard markup to current contact pages. | * See more [[hcard-authoring|hCard authoring examples]] of how to add hCard markup to current contact pages. | ||
== Properties == | |||
Commonly used hCard properties: | |||
* <code>'''fn'''</code> - name (formatted name, full name of the person or organization). required | |||
* <code>n</code> - structured name, serves as a container for: | |||
** <code>family-name</code> - family name (also known as last name) | |||
** <code>given-name</code> - given name (also known as first name) | |||
** <code>additional-name</code> - additional name (also known as middle name) | |||
** <code>honorific-prefix</code> - for prefixes such as Mr., Mrs., Dr. | |||
** <code>honorific-suffix</code> - for suffixes such as Ph.D., Esq. | |||
* <code>nickname</code> - nickname | |||
* <code>photo</code> - a photo of the contact | |||
* <code>url</code> - a home page for the specific person or organization | |||
* <code>email</code> - email address | |||
* <code>tel</code> - telephone number | |||
* <code>[[adr]]</code> - address, serves as a container for: | |||
** <code>post-office-box</code> - the POBox portion of an address | |||
** <code>extended-address</code> - not used much in practice | |||
** <code>street-address</code> - for the street number and name, and any apartment or suite #. | |||
** <code>locality</code> - city or village | |||
** <code>region</code> - state or province | |||
** <code>postal-code</code> - postal code, e.g. ZIP code in the U.S. | |||
** <code>country-name</code> - country name | |||
** <code>type</code> - type of address (<code>INTL, POSTAL, PARCEL, WORK, dom, home, pref</code>) | |||
* <code>bday</code> - birthday. [[date-pattern|ISO date]]. | |||
* <code>category</code> - for tagging contacts | |||
* <code>note</code> - notes about the contact | |||
* <code>org</code> - organization | |||
See the [[hcard#Property_List|full list of properties]] for the complete list. | |||
== Status == | == Status == | ||
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Known errors and issues in this specification are corrected in [[hcard-issues-resolved|resolved]] and [[hcard-issues-closed|closed]] issues. Please check there before reporting [[hcard-issues|issues]]. | Known errors and issues in this specification are corrected in [[hcard-issues-resolved|resolved]] and [[hcard-issues-closed|closed]] issues. Please check there before reporting [[hcard-issues|issues]]. | ||
The hCard 1.0.1 update is currently under development and incorporates known | The hCard 1.0.1 update is currently under development and incorporates known errata corrections as well as the [[value-class-pattern]]. | ||
== Background == | == Background == |
Revision as of 16:31, 9 April 2012
<entry-title>hCard 1.0</entry-title> Tantek Çelik (Editor, Author), Brian Suda (Author)
hCard is a simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426) properties and values in semantic HTML or XHTML. hCard is one of several open microformat standards suitable for embedding in HTML, XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.
Copyright and patents statements apply. See acknowledgments.
Example
hCards are most often used to represent people:
<div class="vcard">
<a class="url fn" href="http://tantek.com/">Tantek Çelik</a>
</div>
and organizations:
<div class="vcard">
<a class="url fn org" href="http://microformats.org/">microformats.org</a>
</div>
The class vcard
is a root class name that indicates the presence of an hCard. The classes url
, fn
, and org
are properties that indicate aspects of the hCard. See the list of properties for more.
Want to get started with writing an hCard?
- Use the hCard creator form to enter contact info and publish it.
- See more hCard authoring examples of how to add hCard markup to current contact pages.
Properties
Commonly used hCard properties:
fn
- name (formatted name, full name of the person or organization). requiredn
- structured name, serves as a container for:family-name
- family name (also known as last name)given-name
- given name (also known as first name)additional-name
- additional name (also known as middle name)honorific-prefix
- for prefixes such as Mr., Mrs., Dr.honorific-suffix
- for suffixes such as Ph.D., Esq.
nickname
- nicknamephoto
- a photo of the contacturl
- a home page for the specific person or organizationemail
- email addresstel
- telephone numberadr
- address, serves as a container for:post-office-box
- the POBox portion of an addressextended-address
- not used much in practicestreet-address
- for the street number and name, and any apartment or suite #.locality
- city or villageregion
- state or provincepostal-code
- postal code, e.g. ZIP code in the U.S.country-name
- country nametype
- type of address (INTL, POSTAL, PARCEL, WORK, dom, home, pref
)
bday
- birthday. ISO date.category
- for tagging contactsnote
- notes about the contactorg
- organization
See the full list of properties for the complete list.
Status
hCard 1.0 is a microformats.org specification. Public discussion on hCard takes place on hcard-feedback, the #microformats irc channel on irc.freenode.net, and microformats-discuss mailing list.
Available languages
The English version of this specification is the only normative version. For translations of this document see the #translations section.
Errata and Updates
Known errors and issues in this specification are corrected in resolved and closed issues. Please check there before reporting issues.
The hCard 1.0.1 update is currently under development and incorporates known errata corrections as well as the value-class-pattern.
Background
The vCard standard (RFC2426), has been broadly interoperably implemented (e.g. Apple's "Address Book" application built into MacOSX).
In addition, many bloggers identify themselves by name and discuss their friends and family. With just a tad bit of structure, bloggers can discuss people in their blog(s) in such a way that spiders and other aggregators can retrieve this information, automatically convert them to vCards, and use them in any vCard application or service.
This specification introduces the hCard format, which uses a 1:1 representation of the properties and values of the aforementioned vCard standard, in semantic HTML. Bloggers can both embed hCards directly in their web pages, and style them with CSS to make them appear as desired. In addition, hCard enables applications to retrieve information directly from web pages without having to reference a separate file.
Use the hCard creator and copy the HTML code it generates to your blog or website to publish your contact info.
Conformance
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
Format
In General
The vCard standard (RFC2426) forms the basis of hCard.
The basic format of hCard is to use vCard object/property names in lower-case for class names, and to map the nesting of vCard objects directly into nested HTML elements.
Root Class Name
The root class name for an hCard is "vcard". An element with a class name of "vcard" is itself called an hCard.
Properties and Sub-properties
The properties of an hCard are represented by elements inside the hCard. Elements with class names of the listed properties represent the values of those properties. Some properties have sub-properties, and those are represented by elements inside the elements for properties.
Property List
hCard properties (sub-properties in parentheses like this)
Required:
- fn
- n1
- family-name
- given-name
- additional-name
- honorific-prefix
- honorific-suffix
Optional:
- adr
- post-office-box
- extended-address
- street-address
- locality
- region
- postal-code
- country-name
- type
- value
- agent
- bday
- category
- class
- email (type, value)
- geo
- latitude
- longitude
- key
- label
- logo
- mailer
- nickname
- note
- org (organization-name, organization-unit)
- photo
- rev
- role
- sort-string
- sound
- tel2 (type, value)
- title
- tz
- uid
- url
Property Notes
1. ^: The 'n' property is OPTIONAL if any implied 'n' optimization rules are in effect.
2. ^: tel - Authors MAY follow the E.123 standard for writing values of telephone numbers. Letter values (e.g. +1-555-FORMATS) MUST be converted to numbers. Use an abbr
to display letters and provide a numerical value simultaneously, e.g. <abbr title="+15553676287">+1-555-FORMATS</abbr>
.
Singular vs. Plural Properties
Singular properties: 'fn', 'n', 'bday', 'tz', 'geo', 'sort-string', 'uid', 'class', 'rev'. For properties which are singular, the first descendant element with that class SHOULD take effect, any others being ignored.
All other properties MAY be plural. Each class instance of such properties creates a new instance of that property.
Human vs. Machine readable
The human visible text contents of an element for a property represents the value of that property, with a few exceptions:
If an <abbr>
element is used for a property, then the 'title
' attribute (if present) of the <abbr>
element is the value of the property, instead of the contents of the element, which instead provide a more human presentable version of the value.
If an <a>
element is used for one or more properties, it MUST be treated as follows:
- For the 'photo' property and any other property that takes a URL as its value, the
href="..."
attribute provides the property value. - For other properties, the element's content is the value of the property.
If an <img>
element is used for one or more properties, it MUST be treated as follows:
- For the 'photo' property and any other property that takes a URL as its value, the
src="..."
attribute provides the property value. - For other properties, the
<img>
element's 'alt
' attribute is the value of the property.
If an <object>
element is used for one or more properties, it MUST be treated as follows:
- For the 'photo' property and any other property that takes a URL as its value, the
data="..."
attribute provides the property value. - For other properties, the element's content is the value of the property.
Value excerpting
Sometimes only part of an element which is the equivalent for a property is used for the value of the property. This typically occurs when a property has a subtype, like 'tel'. For this purpose, the special class name "value
" is used to excerpt out the subset of the element that is the value of the property. E.g. here is an hCard fragment for marking up a home phone number:
vCard:
TEL;TYPE=HOME:+1.415.555.1212
hCard:
<span class="tel">
<span class="type">home</span>:
<span class="value">+1.415.555.1212</span>
</span>
This hCard fragment could be displayed as:
home: +1.415.555.1212
You may want to customize/localize the visible punctuation and not want to include it in what machines see. Use multiple class="value" elements which are then concatenated. E.g.
<span class="tel">
<span class="type">home</span>:
<span class="value">+1</span>.<span class="value">415</span>.<span class="value">555</span>.<span class="value">1212</span></span>
</span>
No change in display, but the parsed hCard property value then becomes in vCard:
vCard:
TEL;TYPE=HOME:+14155551212
Property Exceptions
vCard has several properties which either do not make sense on, or are already implied within the context of a web page. This section explains what to (not) do with them.
- vCard's NAME, PROFILE, SOURCE, PRODID, VERSION properties are defined in Sections 2.1.2, 2.1.3, 2.1.4, 3.6.3, 3.6.9 of RFC2426. Content publishers MUST NOT use these properties in their hCards, and as such, hCard consumers/parsers MUST IGNORE these properties if they are found within an hCard. Instead. hCard to vCard converters SHOULD use the title of the page where the hCard is found (e.g. the
<title>
element in HTML documents) to construct the NAME property, MAY output a PROFILE value of "VCARD
" per RFC2426, SHOULD use the URL of the page where the hCard is found to construct the SOURCE property (e.g. perhaps as a parameter to a URL/service that converts hCards to vCards), for an output vCard stream (e.g. a .vcf file). Only services/applications that output actual vCards should write the PRODID property, with the product identifier for said service/application. Similarly, only such services/applications should write the VERSION property, with the value "3.0" (without quotes) per RFC2426 Section 3.6.9.
Organization Contact Info
If the "FN" and "ORG" (organization) properties have the exact same value (typically because they are set on the same element, e.g. class="fn org"), then the hCard represents contact information for a company, organization or place and SHOULD be treated as such. In this case the author also MUST NOT set the "N" property, or set it (and any sub-properties) explicitly to the empty string "". Thus parsers SHOULD handle the missing "N" property, in this case by implying empty values for all the "N" sub-properties.
Implied "N" Optimization
Although vCard requires that the "N" property be present, the authors of the vCard specification (RFC2426) themselves do not include "N" properties in their vCards near the end of the spec (p.38). This apparent contradiction can be resolved by simply allowing the "FN" property to imply "N" property values in typical cases provided in the spec. We do so explicitly in hCard.
If "FN" and "ORG" are not the same (see previous section), and the value of the "FN" property is exactly two words (separated by whitespace), and there is no explicit "N" property, then the "N" property is inferred from the "FN" property. For "FN"s with either one word see below, and for three or more, the author MUST explicitly markup the "N", except for the organization contact info case, see above for that.
- The content of "FN" is broken into two "words" separated by whitespace.
- The first word of the "FN" is interpreted as the "given-name" for the "N" property.
- The second/last word of the "FN" is interpreted as the "family-name" for the "N" property.
- Exception: If the first word ends in a "," comma, then the first word (minus the comma at the end) is interpreted as the "family-name" and the second word is interpreted as the "given-name".
This allows simplification in the typical case of people stating:
- given-name (space) family-name
- family-name (comma) given-name
Implied "nickname" Optimization
Due to the prevalence of the use of nicknames/handles/usernames in actual content published on the Web (e.g. authors of reviews), hCard also has an implied "nickname" optimization to handle this.
Similar to the implied "n" optimization, if "FN" and "ORG" are not the same, and the value of the "FN" property is exactly one word, and there is no explicit "N" property, then:
- The content of the "FN" MUST be treated as a "nickname" property value.
- Parsers SHOULD handle the missing "N" property by implying empty values for all the "N" sub-properties.
Though parsers MUST follow the implied nickname optimization, publishers SHOULD explicitly indicate the "nickname" even in this case, e.g.:
<span class="vcard">
<span class="fn nickname">daveman692</span>
</span>
The hCard MAY have additional explicit "nickname" property values in addition to the implied nickname.
Implied "organization-name" Optimization
The "ORG" property has two subproperties, organization-name and organization-unit. Very often authors only publish the organization-name. Thus if an "ORG" property has no "organization-name" inside it, then its entire contents MUST be treated as the "organization-name".
Tags as Categories
Categories in hCard MAY be represented by tags with rel-tag. When a category property is a rel-tag, the tag (as defined by rel-tag) is used for that category.
type subproperty values
The 'type' subproperty in particular takes different values depending on which property it is a subproperty of. These 'type' subproperty values are case-INSENSITIVE, meaning "Home" is the same as "home", as well as multivalued, e.g. a tel can be home and preferred:
vCard:
TEL;TYPE=HOME,PREF:+1.415.555.1212
hCard:
<span class="tel"><span class="type">Home</span> (<span class="type">pref</span>erred):
<span class="value">+1.415.555.1212</span>
</span>
This could be displayed as:
Home (preferred): +1.415.555.1212
type with unspecified value
When the type of a property is specified, and there is no explicit value specified, then everything in the property except for the type is considered the value of the property. E.g.
<span class="tel"><span class="type">Home</span> +1.415.555.1212</span>
is equivalent to:
<span class="tel"><span class="type">Home</span><span class="value"> +1.415.555.1212</span></span>
And thus the type is "home" and the value is "+1.415.555.1212".
adr tel email types
The following lists are informative. See RFC2426 sections 3.2.1 ADR, 3.3.1 TEL, and 3.3.2 EMAIL respectively for normative type values. They are repeated here for convenience. Default type subproperty value(s) is(are) first in each list and indicated in ALL CAPS. types may be multivalued.
- adr type: INTL, POSTAL, PARCEL, WORK, dom, home, pref
- tel type: VOICE, home, msg, work, pref, fax, cell, video, pager, bbs, modem, car, isdn, pcs
- email type: INTERNET, x400, pref
Profile
The hCard XMDP profile is at http://microformats.org/profile/hcard
Content that uses hCard SHOULD reference this profile, e.g.
<link rel="profile" href="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard">
or
This content uses <a rel="profile" href="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard">hCard</a>.
or
<head profile="http://microformats.org/profile/hcard">
(profile attribute is deprecated in HTML5) Content may combine the above methods as well.
Parsing Details
See hCard parsing.
Examples
This section is informative.
Sample vCard
Here is a sample vCard:
BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Çelik;Tantek FN:Tantek Çelik URL:http://tantek.com/ END:VCARD
and an equivalent in hCard with various elements optimized appropriately. See hCard Example 1 for the derivation.
<div class="vcard">
<a class="url fn" href="http://tantek.com/">Tantek Çelik</a>
</div>
This hCard might be displayed as:
Note: The version information is unnecessary in hCard markup directly since the version will be defined by the profile of hCard that is used/referred to in the 'profile' attribute of the <head> element.
Live example
Here is Commercenet's contact details, as a live hCard which will be detected, on this page, by microformat parsing tools:
Palo Alto, CA 94301
The mark-up, emboldening omitted for clarity, with the following semantic improvements:
abbr
to expand abbreviations- hyperlinking the org name with the url
<div class="vcard">
<a class="fn org url" href="http://www.commerce.net/">CommerceNet</a>
<div class="adr">
<span class="type">Work</span>:
<div class="street-address">169 University Avenue</div>
<span class="locality">Palo Alto</span>,
<abbr class="region" title="California">CA</abbr>
<span class="postal-code">94301</span>
<div class="country-name">USA</div>
</div>
<div class="tel">
<span class="type">Work</span> +1-650-289-4040
</div>
<div class="tel">
<span class="type">Fax</span> +1-650-289-4041
</div>
<div>Email:
<span class="email">info@commerce.net</span>
</div>
</div>
More Examples
See hCard examples for more examples, including all examples from vCard RFC2426 converted into hCard.
Examples in the wild
This section is informative. The number of hCard examples in the wild has expanded far beyond the capacity of being kept inline in this specification. They have been moved to a separate page.
See hCard Examples in the wild.
Implementations
This section is informative. The number of hCard implementations has also expanded beyond the capacity of keeping them inline. They have been moved to a separate page.
Articles
This section is informative. For further reading on hCard see hcard-articles.
Buttons
You can use these buttons on pages with hCards. See buttons#hCard for any recent additions.
(mirror:
)
- CSS-powered button, as evidenced at microformat badges @ re-run
Copyright
Per the public domain release on the authors' user pages (Tantek Çelik, Brian Suda) this specification is released into the public domain.
Public Domain Contribution Requirement. Since the author(s) released this work into the public domain, in order to maintain this work's public domain status, all contributors to this page agree to release their contributions to this page to the public domain as well. Contributors may indicate their agreement by adding the public domain release template to their user page per the Voluntary Public Domain Declarations instructions. Unreleased contributions may be reverted/removed.
Patents
This specification is subject to a royalty free patent policy, e.g. per the W3C Patent Policy, and IETF RFC3667 & RFC3668.
References
Normative References
- XHTML 1.0 SE
- vCard RFC2426
- ITU recommendation E.123 format of telephone numbers (chargeable document)
- RFC 2119
Informative References
This section is informative.
- hCard history
- X.520 in Postscript (HTMLization courtesy of Google Cache) - vCard refers to ROLE as being "based on the X.520 Business Category explanatory attribute".
- HTML reformatted version of RFC2426
- CSS1
- XHTML 1.1
- Wikipedia summary of ITU-T Recommendation E.123 - for "TEL" values.
- Internet Mail Consortium Personal Data Interchange vCard and vCalendar
- ISO8601
Specifications That Use hCard
Similar Work
This section is informative.
Inspiration and Acknowledgments
This section is informative. Thanks to: my good friend Vadim who introduced me to vCard many years ago, and if I'd only paid more attention then, perhaps I could have helped a lot of people avoid wasting a lot of time reinventing various standards wheels.
Notes on derivation from vCard
This section is informative.
More Semantic Equivalents
For some properties there are HTML elements which better match and convey their semantics. The following properties SHOULD be encoded with the following HTML:
URL
in vCard becomes<a class="url" href="...">...</a>
inside the element withclass="vcard"
in hCard.- Similarly,
EMAIL
in vCard becomes<a class="email" href="mailto:...">...</a>
PHOTO
in vCard becomes<img class="photo" src="..." alt="Photo of ..." />
or<object class="photo" data="..." type="...">Photo of ...</object>
UID
in vCard simply becomes another semantic applied to a specific URL (or EMAIL) for an hCard.
Singular and Plural derivations
The lists of singular and plural properties have been derived by analyzing the semantics of the individual properties in vCard RFC2426 and determining logically that they MUST be singular per their semantics. See hcard-singular-properties for explanations.
Plural Properties Singularized
Since plural property names become their singular equivalents, even if the original plural property permitted only a single value with multiple components, those multiple components are represented each with their own singularly named property and the the property is effectively multivalued and subject to the above treatment of multivalued properties.
Related Pages
- hCard
- hCard cheatsheet - hCard properties
- hCard creator (feedback) - create your own hCard.
- hCard authoring - learn how to add hCard markup to your existing contact info.
- hCard examples - example usage of various classes within hCard.
- hCard examples in the wild - an on-going list of websites which use hCards.
- hcard-supporting-user-profiles - sites with user profiles marked up with hCard - a very common example.
- hCard FAQ - if you have any questions about hCard, check here.
- hCard implementations - websites or tools which either generate or parse hCards.
- hCard parsing - normative details of how to parse hCards.
- hCards and pages - semantic distinctions between different hCards on a page, and how to identify each
- hcard-user-interface - techniques and issues surrounding user-interfaces to author, publish, and display hCards.
- hCard profile - the XMDP profile for hCard
- hCard singular properties - an explanation of the list of singular properties in hCard.
- hCard tests - a wiki page with actual embedded hCards to try parsing.
- hCard advocacy - encourage others to use hCard
- hCard "to do" - jobs to do
The hCard 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.
- hCard brainstorming - brainstorms and other explorations relating to hCard.
- hcard-parsing-brainstorming - brainstorming specific to parsing of hCard
- geo brainstorming
- hCard feedback - general feedback (as opposed to specific issues).
- hCard issues - specific issues with the specification.
- vCard errata - corrections to the vCard specification, which underlies hCard.
- vCard suggestions - suggested improvements to the vCard specification.
Translations
Read the hCard specification in additional languages: