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<h1> hCalendar </h1>
{{DISPLAYTITLE:hCalendar 1.0}}
{{latest|h-event}}
<span class="vcard"><span class="fn">[[User:Tantek|Tantek Çelik]]</span> (<span class="role">Editor</span>, <span class="role">Author</span>)</span>, <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">[[User:Brian|Brian Suda]]</span> (<span class="role">Author</span>)</span>
----
<dfn style="font-style:normal;font-weight:bold">hCalendar</dfn> is a simple, open format for publishing events on the web, using a 1:1 representation of iCalendar ([[rfc-2445|RFC2445]]) VEVENT properties and values in HTML. hCalendar is one of several open [[microformats|microformat]] standards suitable for embedding data in HTML/HTML5, and Atom/RSS/XHTML or other XML.


hCalendar is a simple, open, distributed calendaring and events format, based on the  iCalendar standard ([http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt RFC2445]), suitable for embedding in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. hCalendar is one of several open [[microformats|microformat]] standards.
[[hcalendar#Copyright|Copyright]] and [[hcalendar#Patents|patents]] statements apply. See [[hcalendar#Inspiration_and_Acknowledgments|acknowledgments]].


Want to get started with writing an [[hcalendar|hCalendar]] event?  Use the [http://microformats.org/code/hcalendar/creator hCalendar creator] to write up an event and publish it.
== Example ==
Here is a simple prose event:
<blockquote><p>The microformats.org site was launched on 2005-06-20 at the Supernova Conference in San Francisco, CA, USA.</p></blockquote>


marked up with hCalendar
<source lang=html4strict>
<span class="vevent">
<span class="summary">The microformats.org site was launched</span>
on <span class="dtstart">2005-06-20</span>
at the Supernova Conference
in <span class="location">San Francisco, CA, USA</span>.
</span>
</source>


__TOC__
'''Want to get started with writing an [[hcalendar|hCalendar]] event?''' Use the [http://microformats.org/code/hcalendar/creator hCalendar creator] to write up an event and publish it, or follow the [[hcalendar-authoring|hCalendar authoring tips]] to add hCalendar markup to your page of upcoming events or events you mention in blog posts, wikis, etc.
 
== Specification ==
 
; Editor : [http://tantek.com/ Tantek Çelik] ([http://technorati.com Technorati, Inc])
; Authors : [http://tantek.com/ Tantek Çelik], [http://technorati.com Technorati, Inc]
: [http://suda.co.uk/ Brian Suda]


=== Copyright ===
== Status ==
{{MicroFormatCopyrightStatement2004}}
hCalendar 1.0 is a microformats.org specification. Public discussion on hCalendar takes place on [[hcalendar-feedback]], the #microformats [[irc]] channel on irc.freenode.net, and [http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/ microformats-discuss mailing list].


=== Patents ===
=== Available languages ===
{{MicroFormatPatentStatement}}
The English version of this specification is the only normative version. For translations of this document see the [[#translations]] section.


=== Inspiration and Acknowledgments ===
=== Errata and Updates ===
Thanks to:
Known errors and issues in this specification are corrected in [[hcalendar-issues-resolved|resolved]] and [[hcalendar-issues-closed|closed]] issues. Please check there before reporting [[hcalendar-issues|issues]].
* Adam Bosworth for leading the [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/foocamp04/index.cgi?HTMLForCalendars FOO Camp 2004 HTML For Calendars presentation] which brought together a critical mass of interested parties.


Note in particular the [[dtend-issue]] which affects end dates. Implementations {{should}} implement the issue resolution ASAP and [http://ufxtract.com/testsuite/hcalendar/hcalendar1.htm test it].


The hCalendar 1.0.1 update is currently under development and incorporates known errata corrections as well as the [[value-class-pattern]].


== Introduction ==
== Introduction ==
Line 31: Line 41:
In addition, bloggers often discuss events on their blogs -- upcoming events, writeups of past events, etc.  With just a tad bit of structure, bloggers can discuss events in their blog(s) in such a way that spiders and other aggregators can retrieve such events, automatically convert them to iCalendar, and use them in any iCalendar application or service.
In addition, bloggers often discuss events on their blogs -- upcoming events, writeups of past events, etc.  With just a tad bit of structure, bloggers can discuss events in their blog(s) in such a way that spiders and other aggregators can retrieve such events, automatically convert them to iCalendar, and use them in any iCalendar application or service.


This specification introduces the '''hCalendar''' format, which is a 1:1 representation of the aforementioned iCalendar standard, in semantic XHTML.  Bloggers can both embed hCalendar events directly in their web pages, and style them with CSS to make them appear as desired.  In addition, hCalendar enables applications to retrieve information about such events directly from web pages without having to reference a separate file.
This specification introduces the '''hCalendar''' format, which is a 1:1 representation of the aforementioned iCalendar standard, in semantic HTML.  Bloggers can both embed hCalendar events directly in their web pages, and style them with CSS to make them appear as desired.  In addition, hCalendar enables applications to retrieve information about such events directly from web pages without having to reference a separate file.
 
{{rfc-2119-intro}}


== Semantic XHTML Design Principles ==
== Semantic XHTML Design Principles ==


{{semantic-xhtml-design-principles}}
{{semantic-xhtml-design-principles}}
For practical implementations, it should be noted that Internet Explorer's support for styling <code><nowiki><abbr></nowiki></code> elements is poor, and may require wrapper elements.


== Format ==
== Format ==
=== In General ===
=== In General ===
The iCalendar standard ([http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt RFC2445]) forms the basis of hCalendar.
The iCalendar standard ([http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt RFC2445]) forms the basis of hCalendar.


Note: the editor and authors of this specification are tracking the [http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/ietf-calsify/ "iCal-Basic" effort] and intend to base the core hCalendar profile on iCal-Basic. See references for a link to the current draft.
Note: the editor and authors of this specification are tracking the [http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/ietf-calsify/ "iCal-Basic" effort] and intend to base the core hCalendar profile on iCal-Basic. See references for a link to the current draft.


The basic format of hCalendar is to use iCalendar object/property names in lower-case for class names, and to map the nesting of iCalendar objects directly into nested XHTML.
The basic format of hCalendar is to use iCalendar object/property names in lower-case for class names, and to map the nesting of iCalendar objects directly into nested XHTML elements.
 
=== Root Class Name ===
The root class name for hCalendar is "vcalendar".  An element with a class name of "vcalendar" is itself called an ''hCalendar''.
 
The root class name for events is "vevent". An element with a class name of "vevent" is itself called an ''hCalendar event''.
 
For authoring convenience, both "vevent" and "vcalendar" are treated as root class names for parsing purposes.  If a document contains elements with class name "vevent" but not "vcalendar", the entire document has an implied "vcalendar" context.
 
'''vevent''' should be considered required for each event listing.
 
=== Properties and Sub-properties ===
The properties of an hCalendar are represented by elements inside the hCalendar.  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 ===
hCalendar properties (sub-properties in parentheses like this)
 
'''Required:'''
* '''dtstart''' ([[iso-8601|ISO date]])
* '''summary'''
Optional:
* location
* url
* dtend (ISO date), duration (ISO date duration)
* rdate, rrule
* category, description
* uid
* geo (latitude, longitude)
* attendee (partstat, role), contact, organizer
* attach
* status
* ... editor's note: this list is incomplete (an incomplete list is better than no list) and is being currently edited from RFC2445 to here.  The above list of properties are those that are often used in hCalendar on the web.
 
=== Profile ===
The hCalendar XMDP profile is at http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar
 
Content that uses hCalendar {{should}} reference this profile, e.g.
<source lang=html4strict>
<head profile="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar">
</source>
or
<source lang=html4strict>
<link rel="profile" href="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar">
</source>
or
<source lang=html4strict>
This content uses <a rel="profile" href="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar">hCalendar</a>.
</source>
Content may combine the above methods as well.


=== More Semantic Equivalents ===
=== More Semantic Equivalents ===
 
For some properties there is a more semantic equivalent, and therefore they get special treatment, e.g.:
However, for some properties there is a more semantic equivalent, and therefore they get special treatment, e.g.:
* <code>URL</code> in iCalendar becomes  <code>&lt;a class="url" href="..."&gt;...&lt;/a&gt;</code> inside the element with <code>class="vevent"</code> in hCalendar.
* <code>URL</code> in iCalendar becomes  <code><a class="url" href="...">...</a></code> inside the element with <code>class="vevent"</code> in hCalendar.
* <code>ATTENDEE</code>, <code>CONTACT</code>, and <code>ORGANIZER</code> in iCalendar {{may}} be represented by an [[hcard|hCard]] in hCalendar .
* <code>ATTENDEE</code>, <code>CONTACT</code>, and <code>ORGANIZER</code> in iCalendar may be represented by an [[hcard|hCard]] in hCalendar .
* A named <code>LOCATION</code> (potentially with an address and/or geo) in iCalendar {{may}} be represented by a nested [[hcard|hCard]] in hCalendar. Similarly, an address <code>LOCATION</code> {{may}} be represented by an [[adr]], and a geo (latitude and longitude) <code>LOCATION</code> may be represented by a [[geo]].
* A named <code>LOCATION</code> (potentially with an address and/or geo) in iCalendar may be represented by a nested [[hcard|hCard]] in hCalendar. Similarly, an address <code>LOCATION</code> may be represented by an [[adr]], and a geo (latitude and longitude) <code>LOCATION</code> may be represented by a [[geo]].
* <code>UID</code> in iCalendar simply becomes another semantic applied to a specific URL for an hCalendar event.
* <code>UID</code> in iCalendar simply becomes another semantic applied to a specific URL for an hCalendar event.
* <code>ATTACH</code> in iCalendar becomes an img or object element (where the value is stored ito / retrieved from the 'src' or 'data' attributes respectively). An <code>&lt;a class="attach"                          href="..."&gt;...&lt;/a&gt;</code> may also be used, in which case the 'href' attribute is used for the property value.


=== Singular vs. Plural Properties ===
=== Singular vs. Plural Properties ===


For properties which are singular (e.g. "N" and "FN" from vCard), the first descendant element with that class should take effect, any others being ignored.
For properties which are singular (e.g. "N" and "FN" from vCard), the first descendant element with that class {{should}} take effect, any others being ignored.


For properties which can be plural (e.g. "TEL" from vCard), each class instance should create a instance of that property. Plural properties with subtypes (e.g. TEL with WORK, HOME, CELL from vCard) can be optimized to share a common element for the property itself, with each instance of subtype being an appropriately classed descendant of the property element.
For properties which can be plural (e.g. "TEL" from vCard), each class instance {{should}} create a instance of that property. Plural properties with subtypes (e.g. TEL with WORK, HOME, CELL from vCard) can be optimized to share a common element for the property itself, with each instance of subtype being an appropriately classed descendant of the property element.


==== Plural Properties Singularized ====
==== Plural Properties Singularized ====
Line 69: Line 129:
* DTSTART, DTEND, DURATION, RDATE, RRULE
* DTSTART, DTEND, DURATION, RDATE, RRULE


== Example ==
== Examples ==


Here is a sample event in an iCalendar:
Here is a sample multiple-day event in an iCalendar:
<pre><nowiki>
<source lang=text>
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//XYZproduct//EN
PRODID:-//XYZproduct//EN
VERSION:2.0
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
URL:http://www.web2con.com/
URL:http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
DTSTART:20051005
DTSTART:20051005
DTEND:20051008
DTEND:20051008
Line 84: Line 144:
END:VEVENT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
END:VCALENDAR
</nowiki></pre>
</source>
and an equivalent event in hCalendar format with various elements optimized appropriately. See [[hcalendar-example1-steps]] for the derivation.
 
and an equivalent event in hCalendar format with various elements optimized appropriately. See [[hcalendar-example1-steps]] for the derivation.


<pre><nowiki>
<source lang=html4strict>
<span class="vevent">
<div class="vevent">
  <a class="url" href="http://www.web2con.com/">
  <a class="url" href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html">
   <span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:  
   http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
  <abbr class="dtstart" title="2005-10-05">October 5</abbr>-
</a>
  <abbr class="dtend" title="2005-10-08">7</abbr>,
<span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:  
<abbr class="dtstart" title="2005-10-05">October 5</abbr>-
<abbr class="dtend" title="2005-10-07">7</abbr>,
  at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
  at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</a>
</div>
</span>
</source>
</nowiki></pre>
 
which could be displayed as:
which could be displayed as:


[http://www.web2con.com/ Web 2.0 Conference: October 5-7, at the Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA]
<div class="vevent">
 
<span class="url">http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html</span>&nbsp;<!-- note modified to account for idiosyncrasy of wiki software -->
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.
<span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:  
 
<abbr class="dtstart" title="2005-10-05">October 5</abbr>-
Note 2: A surrounding <code><nowiki><span class="vcalendar"></nowiki></code> element is optional, and is 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.
<abbr class="dtend" title="2005-10-07">7</abbr>,
at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>


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


Note 4: ISO8601 dates (required by iCalendar) are not very human friendly.  In addition, the year is often understood implicitly by humans from the context.  Thus <code><nowiki><abbr></nowiki></code> elements are used to simultaneously provide a human friendly date and/or time in the visible contents of the element, while placing the respective machine parsable comprehensive ISO8601 datetime in the 'title' attribute.
Note 2: This example used to have "2005-10-08" as the value of the dtend, but per the resolution to the [[dtend-issue]], has been changed to "2005-10-07" in order to encourage publishers/implementers to update their markup/code immediately and [http://ufxtract.com/testsuite/hcalendar/hcalendar1.htm test it].
The notation YYYY-MM-DD should be used for better readability.


Note 5: The difference between the DTEND ISO8601 date (2005-10-08) and the human readable date (7) is NOT a mistake. [http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/ietf-calsify/2005-September/000769.html DTEND is exclusive], meaning, that the event ends just before the DTEND. Thus for events which start on one day and end on another day, the DTEND date must be specified as the day after the day that a human would say is the last day of the event.
Note 3: Note that the iCalendar in the first part of the example has the code <code>DTEND:20051008</code>. That "8" is not a typo. iCalendar uses <em>exclusive</em> whole end dates (DTEND values) and thus requires that the DTEND value be set to a whole day <em>after</em> what content publishers visibly display as the ending date of an event. iCalendar's exclusive end dates convention has shown to be [[dtend-issue|problematic and confusing]] for content authors and publishers. Thus per the resolution to the [[dtend-issue]], in hCalendar, the end date is stated exactly as existing events publish visible end dates to humans, with an <em>inclusive</em> end date (dtend property value), in this example, 2005-10-07.


Note 6: The location in this example contains implicit structure (venue name, city, state) which could be marked up explicitly as an [[hcard|hCard]].  See [http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-brainstorming#hCard_locations hCalendar brainstorming: hCard locations] for a informative explanation of how to do this.
=== Meeting Example ===
The following <span id="Example_2">example</span> specifies a scheduled meeting that begins
at 8:30 AM EST on March 12, 1998 and ends at 9:30 AM EST on March 12,
1998.  


See [[hcalendar-examples]] for more hCalendar examples
<source lang=text>
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:guid-1.host1.com
DTSTAMP:19980309T231000Z
DESCRIPTION:Project XYZ Review Meeting
SUMMARY:XYZ Project Review
DTSTART:19980312T133000Z
DTEND:19980312T143000Z
LOCATION:1CP Conference Room 4350
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
</source>


== Examples in the wild ==
The equivalent in hCalendar:
This section is '''informative'''.


The following sites have implemented hCalendar, and thus are a great place to start for anyone looking for examples "in the wild" to try parsing, indexing, organizing etc. If events on your pages are marked up with hCalendar, feel free to add it to the top of this listOnce the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki page.
<source lang=html4strict>
<div class="vevent">
<h3 class="summary">XYZ Project Review</h3>
<p class="description">Project XYZ Review Meeting</p>
<p>To be held on
  <span class="dtstart">
  <abbr class="value" title="1998-03-12">the 12th of March</abbr>
  from <span class="value">8:30am</span> <abbr class="value" title="-0500">EST</abbr>
</span> until
<span class="dtend">
  <span class="value">9:30am</span> <abbr class="value" title="-0500">EST</abbr>
</span>
</p>
<p>Location: <span class="location">1CP Conference Room 4350</span></p>
<small>Booked by: <span class="uid">guid-1.host1.com</span> on
  <span class="dtstamp">
  <abbr class="value" title="1998-03-09">the 9th</abbr> at <span class="value">6:00pm</span>
</span>
</small>
</div>
</source>


=== New Examples ===
This could be displayed as:
Please add new examples to this section.
* [http://www.capital.edu/ Capital University] uses hCalendar on multiple pages to provide feeds of events, relevant to page content
* [http://www.thesession.org/events/ The Session events] uses hCalendar to mark up concerts, festivals and workshops related to Irish traditional music.
* [http://rubyandrails.org/usergroups/newcastle ncl.rb] uses hCalendar to mark up new meetings.
* [http://www.worldcupkickoff.com/ World Cup KickOff] where you can download and keep all the fixtures you are interested in so you will never miss a single game of the 2006 football World Cup!
** This link was on the [http://www.lifehacker.com/software/sports/world-cup-start-times-for-ical-etc-175393.php Lifehackers site] and made its way to the yahoo news site:


Mon May 22, 4:00 PM ET
----
The World Cup, one of the world's most watched sporting events, is almost upon us. If you've ever tried to follow your favorite team through the Cup you know that it can sometimes be difficult to know when they're on. World Cup Kickoff can help.


World Cup KickOff is all you will ever need for knowing all the match details for the upcoming World Cup 2006. Whether you use your mobile phone, MS Outlook, Apple iCal or Mozilla Calendar, you can download and keep all the fixtures you are interested in so you will never miss a single game!
<div class="vevent">
ADVERTISEMENT


Next tip? We'll show you how to get up at 2 AM to watch your matches. ;0) Thanks to Tom for the tip!
<h3 class="summary">XYZ Project Review</h3>
<p class="description">Project XYZ Review Meeting</p>
<p>To be held on <time class="dtstart" datetime="1998-03-12 08:30:00-05:00">the 12th of March from 8:30am EST</time>
until <time class="dtend" datetime="1998-03-12 09:30:00-05:00">9:30am EST</time></p>
<p>Location: <span class="location">1CP Conference Room 4350</span></p>
<small>Booked by: <span class="uid">guid-1.host1.com</span> on <time class="dtstamp" datetime="1998-03-09 18:00">the 9th at 6:00pm</time></small></div>


* [http://gross.org.za/calendar GROSSUG Calendar] - Uses hCalendar to mark up meetings and other events.
----
* [http://plan9.tryphon.org/nancy/list Plan9] - Uses hCalendar to mark up events !
* [http://www.socaltech.com socalTECH] is a news and information site. Their front page event listing is marked up with hCalendar.
* [http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/en/calendarevents/search.asp  Web Analytics Association] - hCalendar microformat is in place on all Tendenci sites on the calendar events search page and consolidated list page.
* [http://www.tendenci.com/en/calendarevents/search.asp Tendenci Calendar Events] with hCalendar
* [http://www.argolon.com/2006/04/17/web20-conference-in-dublin/ Web2.0 Conference in Dublin] hCalendar event
* [http://www.meetup.com/ Meetup.com] has marked up [http://www.meetup.com/cities/us/ny/new_york city event calendars], [http://photo.meetup.com/100/events/ group event lists], and [http://www.meetup.com/ signed-in homepages] with hCalendar.
* [http://ukwindsurfing.com/ ukwindsurfing.com] has marked upcoming events with hCalendar, and the [http://ukwindsurfing.com/events/ events page] in a table.
* [http://ocono.com/ ocono.com] has marked up it's "Upcoming Events" list with hCalendar.
* [http://www.austinbloggers.org/ Austin Bloggers] has marked up their "Upcoming Events" box with hCalendar ([http://www.austinbloggers.org/blog/a/001123.html announcement]).
* Ning's cloneable Group app has [[hcalendar|hCalendar]] markup on its [http://group.ning.com/index.php?controller=event&action=list event calendar] and [http://group.ning.com/index.php?controller=event&action=view&id=727220 event detail] pages.
* [http://tantek.com/microformats/2006/03-01-TechPlenAgenda.html Agenda: W3C Technical Plenary Day, March 1 2006] has [[hcard|hCard]] and [[hcalendar|hCalendar]] markup. ([http://www.w3.org/2006/03/01-TechPlenAgenda.html original here]).
* The National Arbor Day Foundation has started using hCalendars for their [http://arborday.org/programs/conferences/communityforestry/index.cfm upcoming] [http://arborday.org/programs/conferences/hazardtrees-treeplanting/ conferences].
* [http://www.multipack.co.uk The Multipack] features a vevent for the next meeting information.
* [http://www.stateofflux.com/ State of Flux street art site] has started adding events in hCalendar format
* The [http://barcamp.org/#BarCamps BarCamp home page lists upcoming BarCamps marked up with hCalendar] and even has a "Subscribe..." link.
* [http://www.w3.org/2005/12/allgroupoverview.html 2006 W3C Technical Plenary Week] has marked up the schedule and events for the week with hCalendar.
* [http://www.code4lib.org/2006/schedule code4lib Conference 2006 Schedule] is marked up with hCalendar as [http://www.code4lib.org/node/65 announced on their blog].
* [http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/754 IEEE 754 Working Group] - trying hCalendar for upcoming meetings.
* [http://www.pehuen.org/node/494  Elecciones 2005 Chile] - the first spanish language hCalendar event found in the wild.
* [http://www.codewitch.org/it/2005/11/17/no-creative-commons-no-party/ Giocolando » No Creative Commons? No Party!] is marked up with hCalendar
* [http://www.cmprofessionals.org/events/calendar.html CM Pros Events Calendar] by Bob Doyle
* [http://www.midgard-project.org/community/events/ Midgard CMS Event calendar] - as [http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/new-event-calendar-for-midcom.html blogged by Henri Bergius]
* [http://www.iowamilitaryveteransband.com/schedule/ Iowa Military Veterans Band Schedule] - hCalendar markup [http://weblog.randomchaos.com/archive/2005/10/24/Microformats/ added by Scott Reynen]
* [http://www.funfairgames.net/weblog/posts/00000011.html Upcoming events on Jason A.R. Moody Amusements Weblog] posted by Jason Moody on 15 Oct 2005. [http://www.funfairgames.net/weblog/index.html His weblog] in general has hCalendar events posted inside the blog posts.
* [http://tantek.com/microformats/2005/syndicate/tracks-sessions-schedule.html Syndicate - Tracks &amp; Sessions]
* [http://tantek.com/microformats/2005/web2/program.html Web 2.0 Conference schedule page marked up with hCalendar]
* [http://www.thisiscmon.com/ C'MON] is a rock band from Canada, and their [http://www.thisiscmon.com/shows/ tour dates] have been marked up by [http://www.d2digitalmedia.com/ Ray Dickman] with hCalendar.
* [http://ifreebusy.com/ ifreebusy.com] will display freebusy information using hCalendar. See this [http://ifreebusy.com/neiljensen/freebusy/ example].
* [http://we05.com/ Web Essentials 05] has marked up their [http://we05.com/program.cfm program schedule table with hCalendar], using the 'axis' and 'headers' attributes.
* [http://www.asdvbonaparte.nl/ ASDV Bonaparte] is a Dutch debating society. Their events calendar has been marked up with the hCalendar conventions.
* [http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog Suw Charman] has marked up [http://suw.org.uk/archives/category/events/ her events] with hCalendar.
* [http://www.blogbusinesssummit.com/ Blog Business Summit] has published their [http://www.blogbusinesssummit.com/details.htm event details] marked up with hCalendar.
* [http://eventful.com Eventful.com] publishes all events with hCalendar and venues with [[hcard|hCard]].  Took them only 15 minutes to implement both! Their Atom feeds also contain hCalendar/hCard.
* [http://upcoming.org Upcoming.org] publishes all events and lists of events with hCalendar.  Took them only an hour to add hCalendar support to the site.
* The [http://laughingsquid.com/squidlist/calendar/ Laughing Squid Calendar] events, [http://laughingsquid.com/squidlist/calendar/9949/2005/5/9 e.g. this party], now supports hCalendar.
* [http://paulschreiber.com/ Paul] Schreiber's [http://concerts.shrub.ca/ Sunnyvale House Concerts] site publishes hCalendar event information for upcoming concerts.  In addition the [http://concerts.shrub.ca/shows Past Shows] page contains hCalendar events for all past concerts.
* [http://paulschreiber.com/ Paul] Schreiber's [http://iceoasis.shrub.ca/ unofficial schedule site] publishes hCalendar information for upcoming hockey games at [http://www.iceoasis.com/ Ice Oasis]
* [http://www.complexspiral.com/ Complex Spiral Consulting], both in the "Events" box on left side, and the separate [http://www.complexspiral.com/events/ Events page].
* [http://tantek.com/log Tantek's Thoughts], specifically the "Events" roll in the right-most column.
* [http://suda.co.uk/projects/holidays/ Lesser Known Holidays], a list of holidays on [http://suda.co.uk suda.co.uk] that can be imported via iCal and hCal so you can compare actual transformation versus intended.
* [http://norman.walsh.name/2005/itinerary/ Norm Walsh's travel schedule] use hCalendar as well as GRDDL.
* [http://www.policyawareweb.org/2005/ftf2/paw-mtg Policy Aware Web (PAW) Project Meeting] uses hCalendar to record date-related decisions, and uses a vtodo microformat to record action items.
* The [http://www.kiez-ev.de/ Kiez] is a small cinema and has published its [http://www.kiez-ev.de/programm.htm program] marked up with hCalendar.
* The [http://lufgi4.informatik.rwth-aachen.de Laboratory for Dependable Distributed Systems] publishes it's [http://lufgi4.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/cfps list of notable CfPs on dependability and security] with hCalendar-todo elements.
* The [http://laughingsquid.com/laughing-squid-10th-anniversary-party/ Laughing Squid 10th Anniversary Party] has an hcalendar page.
* SPRACI has hcalendar versions of its nightlife/clubbing/gigs/festivals listings for many cities worldwide - eg: [http://www.spraci.com/listhcalendar.php?parea=sydney&category=all Events in Sydney] (check the [http://www.spraci.com/api/ API] pages in the faq section of [http://www.spraci.com/ SPRACI] for more info about the area/city keywords and category tags to use to get data for your city/categories
* WWF-Australia events calendars: [http://wwf.org.au/act/events/ What's on], [http://wwf.org.au/act/volunteer/ Volunteer]
* [http://rubyholic.com rubyholic] uses hCalendar to publish calendars for ruby groups.
* [http://www.bath.ac.uk/whats-on/ University of Bath What's On] uses hCalendar on individual event pages


=== Examples with some problems ===
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.
* [http://www.bokle.de/ s'Bokle] is a German music pub. Their events calendar has been marked up with hCalendar.
** improper use of rrule --[[User:RyanKing|RyanKing]] 16:04, 6 Jan 2006 (PST)


== Implementations ==
Note 2: A surrounding <code><nowiki><span class="vcalendar"></nowiki></code> element is optional, and is 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.
This section is '''informative'''.


The following implementations have been developed which either generate or parse hCalendars. If you have an hCalendar implementation, feel free to add it to the top of this list.  Once the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki 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.


=== Authoring ===
Note 4: [[iso-8601|ISO8601]] datetimes (required by iCalendar) are not very human friendly.  In addition, the year is often understood implicitly by humans from the context.  Thus the [[value-class-pattern]] and <code><nowiki><abbr></nowiki></code> elements are used to simultaneously provide human friendly dates and/or times in the visible contents of the element, while placing the respective machine parsable comprehensive ISO8601 dates and times in the 'title' attribute when necessary. Per the [[value-class-pattern]], separate dates and times {{should}} be used by authors rather than a full ISO8601 datetime, for better readability and listenability.
Implementations you can use to author, create, and publish hCalendar events.


==== Blogging and CMS tools ====
Note 5: Per the [[dtend-issue]] resolution, DTEND dates are provided as humans expecte them to be (consistent with what day an event ends on), rather than iCalendar's confusing definition (the day after). Thus hCalendar processors which produce iCalendar must make the transformation, which is to treat a whole hCalendar <code>dtend</code> end date as *inclusive*, and convert it to an *[http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/ietf-calsify/2005-September/000769.html exclusive DTEND]* end date when producing iCalendar.
;Midgard CMS : [http://www.midgard-project.org/documentation/net-nemein-calendar/ Midgard CMS - net.nemein.calendar] - as [http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/new-event-calendar-for-midcom.html blogged by Henri Bergius]  


;Drupal module : [http://hybernaut.com/upcoming-hcal Drupal Upcoming.org syndication module emits hCalendar]
Note 6: The location in this example contains implicit structure (venue name, city, state) which could be marked up explicitly as an [[hcard|hCard]].  See [http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar-brainstorming#hCard_locations hCalendar brainstorming: hCard locations] for a informative explanation of how to do this.
;MovableType and WordPress plug-ins : [http://structuredblogging.org/formats.php StructuredBlogging] is a set of plugins [http://structuredblogging.org/structuredblogging-wp-latest.zip for  WordPress] and [http://structuredblogging.org/structuredblogging-wp-latest.zip for MovableType] that supports embedding hCalendar and other microformats in templates and blog posts.
;Textpattern plug-in : [http://placenamehere.com/TXP/pnh_mf/ pnh_mf] is a plugin for [http://textpattern.com/ Textpattern] that supports embedding hCalendar and other microformats in templates and blog posts. Written by [http://placenamehere.com/ Chris Casciano].


==== Browser scripts and plug-ins ====
=== More Examples ===
Browser plugins that work with existing authoring tools:
See [[hcalendar-examples|hCalendar examples]] for more examples, including examples from iCalendar RFC 2445 converted into hCalendar.
; Any browser with javascript and a little bit of CSS : [http://microformats.org/code/hcalendar/creator microformats.org hCalendar creator]  (see also original: [http://theryanking.com/ Ryan King] has an [http://theryanking.com/microformats/hcalendar-creator.html hCalendar creator]).
; Firefox Greasemonkey user script hCalendar creator : [http://www.decafbad.com/blog/2005/06/08/greasemonkey_magic magic_hcalendar Greasemonkey user script by Les Orchard] - allows easy form entry of an event into any textarea, e.g. into a blog post text area.
; Firefox Greasemonkey user script hCalendar to Google Calendar: [http://torrez.us Elias Torres] has created a [http://torrez.us/archives/2006/04/13/431/ simple script] that will parse hCalendar entries and create a link to add event to [http://www.google.com/calendar/ Google Calendar's] service. Based on [http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/11/learn-to-love-microformats George's] and [http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/11/learn-to-love-microformats Arve's] work.


==== Desktop Authoring Tools ====
== Examples in the wild ==
;Dreamweaver Extension : [http://www.webstandards.org/action/dwtf/microformats/ Extension suite] for Dreamweaver 8 from the [http://webstandards.org/ Web Standards Project].
This section is '''informative'''. The number of hCalendar examples in the wild has expanded far beyond the capacity of being kept inline in this specification. They have been moved to a [[hcalendar-examples-in-wild|separate page]].
;xfy :
In [https://www.xfytec.com/community/ xfy Community], there are some hCalendar implementations.


* [https://www.xfytec.com/community/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?cid=15&lid=25 hCalendar via RSS] parses an RSS feed, retrieves XHTML documents linked from that feed, and syndicates hCalendars into a calendar view.
See [[hcalendar-examples-in-wild|hCalendar Examples in the wild]].
* [https://www.xfytec.com/community/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?cid=19&lid=23 hCalendar Marker XVCD] helps to mark up an event information in XHTML document with hCalendar.
* [https://www.xfytec.com/community/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?cid=15&lid=17 Simple RDF Calendar XVCD] is a schedule tool which uses RDF Calendar format. It also converts RDF Calendar format to iCalendar and hCalendar format.


=== Search and Discovery ===
== Implementations ==
This section is '''informative'''. The number of hCalendar implementations has also expanded beyond the capacity of keeping them inline. They have been moved to a [[hcalendar-implementations|separate page]].


* [http://kitchen.technorati.com/search Technorati Microformats Search] indexes [[hcard|hCard]], [[hcalendar|hCalendar]], and [[hreview|hReview]] as [http://tantek.com/log/2006/05.html#d31t1802 announced by Tantek].  
See [[hcalendar-implementations|hCalendar Implementations]].


=== Conversion and Import ===
== Articles ==
Implementations you can use to importing into a Calendar Application, typically by converting hCalendar to iCalendar/vCalendar.
This section is <strong>informative</strong>.  


==== Web Services ====
See: [[hcalendar-articles]].
These return iCalendar (.ics) and other calendar formats for easy importing into typical calendar programs or other processing.
* [http://feeds.technorati.com/events Technorati Events Feed service] uses X2V library to parse hCalendar and return iCalendar (.ics).  Note friendly URL, e.g. http://feeds.technorati.com/events/http%3A//microformats.org
* [http://suda.co.uk/projects/X2V/ X2V] parses hCalendar and produces a .ics (iCalendar) stream.  Note: needs to be updated to track changes in the specification as they occur.
* [http://lifelint.net/ Life Lint Parser] parses hCalendar and produces .ics, .rdf and debugging information and attempts to be more fully compliant to the iCal standard than previous implementations.  It can be used in the same manner as X2V.  Can output iCal (w optional Outlook 2002 compat), and RDF.
* [http://spanningsalesforce.com/ Spanning Salesforce] produces hCalendar-enabled RSS feeds and .ics calendars from Salesforce.com.


==== Firefox Greasemonkey Plugins ====
==Buttons==
* [http://george.hotelling.net/90percent/ George] has built a [http://george.hotelling.net/90percent/geekery/greasemonkey_and_microformats.php Greasemonkey user script that detects hCalendar events and allows users to easily add them to their calendar application(s)].
This section is <strong>informative</strong>. Don't forget that you can add one of our [[buttons#hCalendar|buttons]] to the page, to indicate the presence of hCalendar microformats. For example: http://www.boogdesign.com/images/buttons/microformat_hcalendar.png. If you can link it back to this page (or even page on your website, about your use of the microformat), so much the better!
* [http://inside.glnetworks.de/ Martin Rehfeld] has updated the work of [http://blogmatrix.blogmatrix.com/ David Janes] and produced a [[Greasemonkey]] [http://inside.glnetworks.de/2006/06/05/microformats-have-arrived-in-firefox-15-greasemonkey-06/ script] that finds many microformat elements, including hCalendar events, and [http://blog.davidjanes.com/mtarchives/2005_08.html#003379 provides a popup menu of actions]. The hCalendar to vCalendar conversion is done internally within the script. ''This will work with FireFox 1.5+/GreaseMonkey 0.6.4+ now.''


==== Aggregators ====
== Copyright ==
* [http://kula.jp/software/endo/screenshots/ Endo], an OS X aggregator, supports discovering hCal and adding those events to iCal. Look at the last screenshot at the bottom of the page.
Per the public domain release on the authors' user pages ([[User:Tantek|Tantek Çelik]], [[User:Brian|Brian Suda]]) this specification is released into the public domain.


=== Browsing ===
{{MicroFormatPublicDomainContributionStatement}}
Implementations that detect, display and otherwise highlight hCalendar events in pages.


* In [http://www.xfytec.com/community/ xfy Community], there are some hCalendar implementations. "hCalendar via RSS" parses an RSS feed, retrieves XHTML documents linked from that feed, and syndicates hCalendars into a calendar view.
== Patents ==
* [http://web.mit.edu/glasser/www/JSCalendar/ JSCalendar] parses hCalendar and produces a displayable HTML table/CSS-based calendar.
{{MicroFormatPatentStatement}}
 
==== Firefox extension ====
[http://blog.codeeg.com/tails-firefox-extension/ Tails is a Firefox Extension] that will display the presence of microformats ([[hcard|hCard]], [[hcalendar|hCalendar]], [[hreview|hReview]], [[xfolk|xFolk]]) on a webpage.
 
==== Flock extension ====
[http://blog.codeeg.com/2006/03/20/flock-tails-flocktails/ Flocktails] - port of Tails extension for Flock 0.5.12 that looks for hCards, hCalendar, xFolk and hReview and tosses them into a handy topbar
 
=== Libraries ===
Open source libraries of hCalendar parsers and other related code for building hCalendar implementations.
; Javascript : [http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/11/learn-to-love-microformats simple hCalendar parser] by [http://virtuelvis.com/ Arve Bersvendsen]
; PHP : [http://randomchaos.com/microformats/base/ Microformat Base] is an open-source PHP microformat aggregation crawler, currently recognizing hreview, hcalendar, and hcard.
; Ruby : [http://opensource.reevoo.com/2006/03/08/release-uformats-12/ uformats] is a ruby library that can parse [[hCalendar]], [[hCard]], [[hReview]] and [[rel-tag]]
; XSLT :
* X2V is available as an XSLT library
* [http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2001/palmagent/ palmagent] by [[User:DanC]] includes  toICal.xsl and test materials; it works much like xhtml2vcal.xsl in X2V. See also: [http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/ RDF Calendar workspace] with icalendar test materials.
 
=== Potential implementations ===
 
These are open source projects that could be potentially enhanced to support hCalendar.
 
* [http://www.k5n.us/webcalendar.php?topic=About WebCalendar]
* [http://phpicalendar.net/documentation/index.php?title=Main_Page PHP iCalendar]
* [http://www.vcalendar.org VCalendar]
* Investigation: [http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar_Talk:Lightning#hCalendar_publish_and_subscribe_support Mozilla Calendar / Lightning / Sunbird hCalendar support discussion]


== References ==
== References ==
Line 278: Line 280:
* [[hcard|hCard]]
* [[hcard|hCard]]
* [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt iCalendar RFC2445]
* [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt iCalendar RFC2445]
* [[rfc-2119| RFC 2119]]
* [[iso-8601|ISO8601]]


=== Informative References ===
=== Informative References ===
This section is <strong>informative</strong>.
* [http://w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1 CSS1]
* [http://w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1 CSS1]
* [http://tantek.com/log/2004/09.html#hcalendar hCalendar term introduced and defined on the Web, 20040930]
* [http://tantek.com/log/2004/09.html#hcalendar hCalendar term introduced and defined on the Web, 20040930]
* [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/foocamp04/index.cgi?HTMLForCalendars FOO Camp 2004 HTML For Calendars presentation, 20040911]
* [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/foocamp04/index.cgi?HTMLForCalendars FOO Camp 2004 HTML For Calendars presentation, 20040911]
* [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/foocamp04/index.cgi?SimpleSemanticFormats FOO Camp 2004 Simple Semantic Formats presentation, 20040910]
* [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/foocamp04/index.cgi?SimpleSemanticFormats FOO Camp 2004 Simple Semantic Formats presentation, 20040910]
* [http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-royer-ical-basic-04.txt iCal-Basic draft 04]
* [http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-royer-ical-basic/ iCal-Basic (latest)] [http://www.faqs.org/ftp/pub/pub/internet-drafts/draft-royer-ical-basic-04.txt (draft 04)]
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime W3C Note on Date and Time Formats]
* [http://www.imc.org/pdi/ Internet Mail Consortium Personal Data Interchange vCard and vCalendar]
* Contributed from http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/hCalendar
* Contributed from http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/hCalendar
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11 XHTML 1.1]


==== Related ====
==== Specifications That Use hCalendar ====
* [[icalendar-implementations|iCalendar implementations]]
* [[hreview|hReview]]
* [[hcalendar-tests]]
 
==== Related Work ====
* [http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/ietf-calsify/ IETF-calsify archives]
* [http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/ietf-calsify/ IETF-calsify archives]
* [http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/444651.html jwz - Hula] (required reading)
* [http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html Groupware Bad by Jamie Zawinski] crystalizes the reason for hCalendar ('''emphasis''' added):
<blockquote>"Right now people can do that by publishing .ics files, but  it's not trivial to do so, and it's work on the part of other people  to look at them. '''If it's not HTML hanging off our friend's home page  that can be viewed in any browser on a public terminal in a library,  the bar to entry is too high and it's useless.'''"</blockquote>
* [http://muddybranch.thejkgroup.com/ Jason Klemow's blog]
* [http://www.softwarestudio.org/iCal/2445Issues.html RFC2445 Issues List]
* [http://www.softwarestudio.org/iCal/2445Issues.html RFC2445 Issues List]
* [http://ietf.webdav.org/calsify/ CALSIFY WG Links And Resources]
* [http://ietf.webdav.org/calsify/ CALSIFY WG Links And Resources]


=== Similar Work ===
== Inspiration and Acknowledgments ==
* [[XOXO]]
Thanks to:
* Adam Bosworth for leading the [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/foocamp04/index.cgi?HTMLForCalendars FOO Camp 2004 HTML For Calendars presentation] which brought together a critical mass of interested parties.


== Discussions ==
== Related Reading ==
 
This section is <strong>informative</strong>.
This specification is a work in progress. As additional aspects are discussed, understood, and written, they will be added. There is a separate document where we are keeping our brainstorms and other explorations relating to hCalendar:
Some <span id="Further_Reading">further reading</span> on the broader topic of calendars and calendaring formats.
 
* [http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/444651.html jwz - Hula] (required reading)
* [[hcalendar-brainstorming]]
* [http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html Groupware Bad by Jamie Zawinski] crystalizes the reason for hCalendar ('''emphasis''' added):
<blockquote>Right now people can do that by publishing .ics files, but it's not trivial to do so, and it's work on the part of other people to look at them. '''If it's not HTML hanging off our friend's home page that can be viewed in any browser on a public terminal in a library, the bar to entry is too high and it's useless.'''</blockquote>


* See also [http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/referer.html blogs discussing this page].
== Related Pages ==
** [http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/01/11.html#a1368 Moving forward with microformats] by [http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell Jon Udell] provides an hCalendar example and some discussion.
{{hcalendar-related-pages}}
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCalendar Wikipedia article on hCalendar]


=== Q&A ===
[[Category:Specifications]]
* If you have any questions about hCalendar, check the [[hcalendar-faq]], and if you don't find answers, add your questions!
[[Category:hCalendar]]


=== Issues ===
== Translations ==
* Please add any issues with the specification to the separate [[hcalendar-issues]] document.
Read the hCalendar specification in additional <span id="languages">languages</span>:
* [[hcalendar-fr|français]] (French)
* [[hcalendar-ja|日本語]] (Japanese)
* [[hcalendar-pl|Polski]] (Polish)
* [[hcalendar-ru|Русский]] (Russian)

Latest revision as of 16:24, 18 July 2020

See latest version: h-event

Tantek Çelik (Editor, Author), Brian Suda (Author)


hCalendar is a simple, open format for publishing events on the web, using a 1:1 representation of iCalendar (RFC2445) VEVENT properties and values in HTML. hCalendar is one of several open microformat standards suitable for embedding data in HTML/HTML5, and Atom/RSS/XHTML or other XML.

Copyright and patents statements apply. See acknowledgments.

Example

Here is a simple prose event:

The microformats.org site was launched on 2005-06-20 at the Supernova Conference in San Francisco, CA, USA.

marked up with hCalendar

<span class="vevent">
 <span class="summary">The microformats.org site was launched</span>
 on <span class="dtstart">2005-06-20</span> 
 at the Supernova Conference 
 in <span class="location">San Francisco, CA, USA</span>.
</span>

Want to get started with writing an hCalendar event? Use the hCalendar creator to write up an event and publish it, or follow the hCalendar authoring tips to add hCalendar markup to your page of upcoming events or events you mention in blog posts, wikis, etc.

Status

hCalendar 1.0 is a microformats.org specification. Public discussion on hCalendar takes place on hcalendar-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.

Note in particular the dtend-issue which affects end dates. Implementations SHOULD implement the issue resolution ASAP and test it.

The hCalendar 1.0.1 update is currently under development and incorporates known errata corrections as well as the value-class-pattern.

Introduction

The iCalendar standard (RFC2445), has been broadly interoperably implemented (e.g. Apple's "iCal" application built into MacOSX).

In addition, bloggers often discuss events on their blogs -- upcoming events, writeups of past events, etc. With just a tad bit of structure, bloggers can discuss events in their blog(s) in such a way that spiders and other aggregators can retrieve such events, automatically convert them to iCalendar, and use them in any iCalendar application or service.

This specification introduces the hCalendar format, which is a 1:1 representation of the aforementioned iCalendar standard, in semantic HTML. Bloggers can both embed hCalendar events directly in their web pages, and style them with CSS to make them appear as desired. In addition, hCalendar enables applications to retrieve information about such events directly from web pages without having to reference a separate file.

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.

Semantic XHTML Design Principles

Note: the Semantic XHTML Design Principles were written primarily within the context of developing hCard and hCalendar, thus it may be easier to understand these principles in the context of the hCard design methodology (i.e. read that first). Tantek

XHTML is built on XML, and thus XHTML based formats can be used not only for convenient display presentation, but also for general purpose data exchange. In many ways, XHTML based formats exemplify the best of both HTML and XML worlds. However, when building XHTML based formats, it helps to have a guiding set of principles.

  1. Reuse the schema (names, objects, properties, values, types, hierarchies, constraints) as much as possible from pre-existing, established, well-supported standards by reference. Avoid restating constraints expressed in the source standard. Informative mentions are ok.
    1. For types with multiple components, use nested elements with class names equivalent to the names of the components.
    2. Plural components are made singular, and thus multiple nested elements are used to represent multiple text values that are comma-delimited.
  2. Use the most accurately precise semantic XHTML building block for each object etc.
  3. Otherwise use a generic structural element (e.g. <span> or <div>), or the appropriate contextual element (e.g. an <li> inside a <ul> or <ol>).
  4. Use class names based on names from the original schema, unless the semantic XHTML building block precisely represents that part of the original schema. If names in the source schema are case-insensitive, then use an all lowercase equivalent. Components names implicit in prose (rather than explicit in the defined schema) should also use lowercase equivalents for ease of use. Spaces in component names become dash '-' characters.
  5. Finally, if the format of the data according to the original schema is too long and/or not human-friendly, use <abbr> instead of a generic structural element, and place the literal data into the 'title' attribute (where abbr expansions go), and the more brief and human readable equivalent into the element itself. Further informative explanation of this use of <abbr>: Human vs. ISO8601 dates problem solved

For practical implementations, it should be noted that Internet Explorer's support for styling <abbr> elements is poor, and may require wrapper elements.

Format

In General

The iCalendar standard (RFC2445) forms the basis of hCalendar.

Note: the editor and authors of this specification are tracking the "iCal-Basic" effort and intend to base the core hCalendar profile on iCal-Basic. See references for a link to the current draft.

The basic format of hCalendar is to use iCalendar object/property names in lower-case for class names, and to map the nesting of iCalendar objects directly into nested XHTML elements.

Root Class Name

The root class name for hCalendar is "vcalendar". An element with a class name of "vcalendar" is itself called an hCalendar.

The root class name for events is "vevent". An element with a class name of "vevent" is itself called an hCalendar event.

For authoring convenience, both "vevent" and "vcalendar" are treated as root class names for parsing purposes. If a document contains elements with class name "vevent" but not "vcalendar", the entire document has an implied "vcalendar" context.

vevent should be considered required for each event listing.

Properties and Sub-properties

The properties of an hCalendar are represented by elements inside the hCalendar. 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

hCalendar properties (sub-properties in parentheses like this)

Required:

Optional:

  • location
  • url
  • dtend (ISO date), duration (ISO date duration)
  • rdate, rrule
  • category, description
  • uid
  • geo (latitude, longitude)
  • attendee (partstat, role), contact, organizer
  • attach
  • status
  • ... editor's note: this list is incomplete (an incomplete list is better than no list) and is being currently edited from RFC2445 to here. The above list of properties are those that are often used in hCalendar on the web.

Profile

The hCalendar XMDP profile is at http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar

Content that uses hCalendar SHOULD reference this profile, e.g.

<head profile="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar">

or

<link rel="profile" href="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar">

or

This content uses <a rel="profile" href="http://microformats.org/profile/hcalendar">hCalendar</a>.

Content may combine the above methods as well.

More Semantic Equivalents

For some properties there is a more semantic equivalent, and therefore they get special treatment, e.g.:

  • URL in iCalendar becomes <a class="url" href="...">...</a> inside the element with class="vevent" in hCalendar.
  • ATTENDEE, CONTACT, and ORGANIZER in iCalendar MAY be represented by an hCard in hCalendar .
  • A named LOCATION (potentially with an address and/or geo) in iCalendar MAY be represented by a nested hCard in hCalendar. Similarly, an address LOCATION MAY be represented by an adr, and a geo (latitude and longitude) LOCATION may be represented by a geo.
  • UID in iCalendar simply becomes another semantic applied to a specific URL for an hCalendar event.
  • ATTACH in iCalendar becomes an img or object element (where the value is stored ito / retrieved from the 'src' or 'data' attributes respectively). An <a class="attach" href="...">...</a> may also be used, in which case the 'href' attribute is used for the property value.

Singular vs. Plural Properties

For properties which are singular (e.g. "N" and "FN" from vCard), the first descendant element with that class SHOULD take effect, any others being ignored.

For properties which can be plural (e.g. "TEL" from vCard), each class instance SHOULD create a instance of that property. Plural properties with subtypes (e.g. TEL with WORK, HOME, CELL from vCard) can be optimized to share a common element for the property itself, with each instance of subtype being an appropriately classed descendant of the property element.

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.

Human vs. Machine readable

If an <abbr> element is used for a property, then the 'title' attribute of the <abbr> element is the value of the property, instead of the contents of the element, which instead provide a human presentable version of the value. This specification recommends that such <abbr> elements be used for the following iCalendar properties:

  • DTSTART, DTEND, DURATION, RDATE, RRULE

Examples

Here is a sample multiple-day event in an iCalendar:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//XYZproduct//EN
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
URL:http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
DTSTART:20051005
DTEND:20051008
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://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html">
  http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html
 </a>
 <span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>: 
 <abbr class="dtstart" title="2005-10-05">October 5</abbr>-
 <abbr class="dtend" title="2005-10-07">7</abbr>,
 at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>

which could be displayed as:

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/40/program.html  Web 2.0 Conference: October 5- 7, at the Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA

Note 1: that this is a live hCalendar microformat, which will be found on this page by parsers.

Note 2: This example used to have "2005-10-08" as the value of the dtend, but per the resolution to the dtend-issue, has been changed to "2005-10-07" in order to encourage publishers/implementers to update their markup/code immediately and test it.

Note 3: Note that the iCalendar in the first part of the example has the code DTEND:20051008. That "8" is not a typo. iCalendar uses exclusive whole end dates (DTEND values) and thus requires that the DTEND value be set to a whole day after what content publishers visibly display as the ending date of an event. iCalendar's exclusive end dates convention has shown to be problematic and confusing for content authors and publishers. Thus per the resolution to the dtend-issue, in hCalendar, the end date is stated exactly as existing events publish visible end dates to humans, with an inclusive end date (dtend property value), in this example, 2005-10-07.

Meeting Example

The following example specifies a scheduled meeting that begins at 8:30 AM EST on March 12, 1998 and ends at 9:30 AM EST on March 12, 1998.

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:guid-1.host1.com
DTSTAMP:19980309T231000Z
DESCRIPTION:Project XYZ Review Meeting
SUMMARY:XYZ Project Review
DTSTART:19980312T133000Z
DTEND:19980312T143000Z
LOCATION:1CP Conference Room 4350
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

The equivalent in hCalendar:

<div class="vevent">
<h3 class="summary">XYZ Project Review</h3>
<p class="description">Project XYZ Review Meeting</p>
<p>To be held on 
 <span class="dtstart">
  <abbr class="value" title="1998-03-12">the 12th of March</abbr> 
  from <span class="value">8:30am</span> <abbr class="value" title="-0500">EST</abbr>
 </span> until 
 <span class="dtend">
  <span class="value">9:30am</span> <abbr class="value" title="-0500">EST</abbr>
 </span>
</p>
<p>Location: <span class="location">1CP Conference Room 4350</span></p>
<small>Booked by: <span class="uid">guid-1.host1.com</span> on 
 <span class="dtstamp">
  <abbr class="value" title="1998-03-09">the 9th</abbr> at <span class="value">6:00pm</span>
 </span>
</small>
</div>

This could be displayed as:


XYZ Project Review

Project XYZ Review Meeting

To be held on until

Location: 1CP Conference Room 4350

Booked by: guid-1.host1.com on

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 <span class="vcalendar"> element is optional, and is 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 datetimes (required by iCalendar) are not very human friendly. In addition, the year is often understood implicitly by humans from the context. Thus the value-class-pattern and <abbr> elements are used to simultaneously provide human friendly dates and/or times in the visible contents of the element, while placing the respective machine parsable comprehensive ISO8601 dates and times in the 'title' attribute when necessary. Per the value-class-pattern, separate dates and times SHOULD be used by authors rather than a full ISO8601 datetime, for better readability and listenability.

Note 5: Per the dtend-issue resolution, DTEND dates are provided as humans expecte them to be (consistent with what day an event ends on), rather than iCalendar's confusing definition (the day after). Thus hCalendar processors which produce iCalendar must make the transformation, which is to treat a whole hCalendar dtend end date as *inclusive*, and convert it to an *exclusive DTEND* end date when producing iCalendar.

Note 6: The location in this example contains implicit structure (venue name, city, state) which could be marked up explicitly as an hCard. See hCalendar brainstorming: hCard locations for a informative explanation of how to do this.

More Examples

See hCalendar examples for more examples, including examples from iCalendar RFC 2445 converted into hCalendar.

Examples in the wild

This section is informative. The number of hCalendar 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 hCalendar Examples in the wild.

Implementations

This section is informative. The number of hCalendar implementations has also expanded beyond the capacity of keeping them inline. They have been moved to a separate page.

See hCalendar Implementations.

Articles

This section is informative.

See: hcalendar-articles.

Buttons

This section is informative. Don't forget that you can add one of our buttons to the page, to indicate the presence of hCalendar microformats. For example: microformat_hcalendar.png. If you can link it back to this page (or even page on your website, about your use of the microformat), so much the better!

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

Informative References

This section is informative.

Specifications That Use hCalendar

Related Work

Inspiration and Acknowledgments

Thanks to:

Related Reading

This section is informative. Some further reading on the broader topic of calendars and calendaring formats.

Right now people can do that by publishing .ics files, but it's not trivial to do so, and it's work on the part of other people to look at them. If it's not HTML hanging off our friend's home page that can be viewed in any browser on a public terminal in a library, the bar to entry is too high and it's useless.

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.

Translations

Read the hCalendar specification in additional languages: