Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

hcalendar

2009-01-17T19:12:56Z

Allthatmalarkey:

<entry-title>hCalendar</entry-title>

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 HTML or XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. hCalendar is one of several open [[microformats|microformat]] standards.

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.

__TOC__

== 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 ===
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.

{{MicroFormatPublicDomainContributionStatement}}

=== Patents ===
{{MicroFormatPatentStatement}}

=== Inspiration and Acknowledgments ===
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.

== Introduction ==
The iCalendar standard ([http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt 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.

{{rfc-2119-intro}}

== 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 ==
=== In General ===
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.

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)
* ... 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 most commonly used for hCalendar.

=== More Semantic Equivalents ===
For some properties there is a more semantic equivalent, and therefore they get special treatment, e.g.:
* <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 .
* 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.

=== 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 <code><nowiki><abbr></nowiki></code> element is used for a property, then the '<code>title</code>' attribute of the <code><nowiki><abbr></nowiki></code> 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 <code><nowiki><abbr></nowiki></code> elements be used for the following iCalendar properties:
* DTSTART, DTEND, DURATION, RDATE, RRULE

== Example ==

Here is a sample event in an iCalendar:
<pre>
<nowiki>
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//XYZproduct//EN
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
URL:http://www.web2con.com/
DTSTART:20071005
DTEND:20071020
SUMMARY:Web 2.0 Conference
LOCATION:Argent Hotel\, San Francisco\, CA
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
</nowiki>
</pre>

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

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vevent">
<a class="url" href="http://www.web2con.com/">http://www.web2con.com/</a>
<span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:
<abbr class="dtstart" title="2007-10-05">October 5</abbr>-
<abbr class="dtend" title="2007-10-20">19</abbr>,
at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

which could be displayed as:

<div class="vevent">
<span class="url">http://www.web2con.com/</span> 
<span class="summary">Web 2.0 Conference</span>:
<abbr class="dtstart" title="2007-10-05">October 5</abbr>-
<abbr class="dtend" title="2007-10-20">19</abbr>,
at the <span class="location">Argent Hotel, San Francisco, CA</span>
</div>

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

=== Example 2 ===

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.

<pre><nowiki>
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
</nowiki></pre>

The equivalent in hCalendar:

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vevent">
<h3 class="summary">XYZ Project Review</h3>
<p class="description">Project XYZ Review Meeting</p>
<p>To be held on <abbr class="dtstart" title="1998-03-12T08:30:00-05:00">12 March 1998 from 8:30am EST</abbr>
until <abbr class="dtend" title="1998-03-12T09:30:00-05:00">9:30am EST</abbr></p>
<p>Location: <span class="location">1CP Conference Room 4350</span></p>
<small>Booked by: <span class="uid">guid-1.host1.com</span> on
<abbr class="dtstamp" title="19980309T231000Z">9 Mar 1998 6:00pm</abbr></small>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This could be displayed as:

----

<div class="vevent">

<h3 class="summary">XYZ Project Review</h3>
<p class="description">Project XYZ Review Meeting</p>
<p>To be held on <abbr class="dtstart" title="1998-03-12T08:30:00-05:00">12 March 1998 from 8:30am EST</abbr>
until <abbr class="dtend" title="1998-03-12T09:30:00-05:00">9:30am EST</abbr></p>
<p>Location: <span class="location">1CP Conference Room 4350</span></p>
<small>Booked by: <span class="uid">guid-1.host1.com</span> on <abbr class="dtstamp" title="19980309T231000Z">9 Mar 1998 6:00pm</abbr></small></div>

----

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 <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.

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: [[iso-8601|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.
The notation <code>YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss</code> should be used for better readability, following the format of RFC 3339.

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 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.

==Buttons==
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!

=== More Examples ===
See [[hcalendar-examples|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 [[hcalendar-examples-in-wild|separate page]].

See [[hcalendar-examples-in-wild|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 [[hcalendar-implementations|separate page]].

See [[hcalendar-implementations|hCalendar Implementations]].

== References ==
=== Normative References ===
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/ XHTML 1.0 SE]
* [[hcard|hCard]]
* [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt iCalendar RFC2445]
* [[rfc-2119| RFC 2119]]
* [[iso-8601|ISO8601]]

=== Informative References ===
* [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://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://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

==== Specifications That Use hCalendar ====
* [[hreview|hReview]]

==== Related Work ====
* [http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/ietf-calsify/ IETF-calsify archives]
* [http://www.softwarestudio.org/iCal/2445Issues.html RFC2445 Issues List]
* [http://ietf.webdav.org/calsify/ CALSIFY WG Links And Resources]

== Further Reading ==
* [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://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.
* See also [http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/referer.html blogs discussing this page] and the [http://technorati.com/tags/hcalendar hCalendar tag]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCalendar Wikipedia article on hCalendar] (requires expansion)
* [http://www.ablognotlimited.com/articles/getting-semantic-with-microformats-part-4-hcalendar/ Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 4: hCalendar] by [http://www.ablognotlimited.com/ Emily Lewis]
* [http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=webdesign&seqNum=356/ Microformats: The Art of Markup: hCalendar] by [http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/ Andy Clarke]
* [http://forabeautifulweb.com/blog/about/a_tribute_to_microformats_a_reader_question_answered/ A tribute to Microformats (a reader question answered)] by [http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/ Andy Clarke]

== Related Pages ==
{{hcalendar-related-pages}}

[[Category:Specifications]]
[[Category:hCalendar]]

hcard

2009-01-16T22:49:19Z

Allthatmalarkey:

<entry-title>hCard</entry-title>
__TOC__
hCard is a simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard ([[rfc-2426|RFC2426]]) properties and values in [[semantic-xhtml|semantic HTML or XHTML]]. hCard is one of several open [[microformats|microformat]] standards suitable for embedding in HTML, XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.

Want to get started with writing an [[hcard|hCard]]? Use the [http://microformats.org/code/hcard/creator hCard creator] to write up some contact information and publish it, or follow the [[hcard-authoring|hCard authoring tips]] to add hCard markup to your current contact page.

== Specification ==

<div class="vcard">
; <span class="role">Editor</span>
: <span class="fn">[[User:Tantek|Tantek Çelik]]</span> (<span class="url">http://tantek.com/</span>, and before at [http://technorati.com Technorati, Inc.], and at [http://microsoft.com/ Microsoft Corporation])
</div>
; Authors: [http://tantek.com/ Tantek Çelik] (affiliations above)
: <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">[[User:Brian|Brian Suda]]</span> (<span class="url">http://suda.co.uk/</span>)</span>

; Acknowledgments: See [[hcard#Inspiration_and_Acknowledgements|acknowledgments]].

[[hcard#Copyright|copyright]] and [[hcard#Patents|patents]] statements apply.

== Introduction ==
The vCard standard ([[rfc-2426|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 [http://microformats.org/code/hcard/creator hCard creator] and copy the HTML code it generates to your blog or website to publish your contact info.

{{rfc-2119-intro}}

== Format ==
=== In General ===
The vCard standard ([[rfc-2426|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'''
* <span id="property-list-n">'''n'''<sup style="font-size:smaller">[[#note1|1]]</sup> (family-name, given-name, additional-name, honorific-prefix, honorific-suffix)</span>
Optional:
* nickname, sort-string
* url, email (type, value), <span id="property-list-tel">tel<sup style="font-size:smaller">[[#note2|2]]</sup> (type, value)</span>
* adr (post-office-box, extended-address, street-address, locality, region, postal-code, country-name, type, value), label
* geo (latitude, longitude), tz
* photo, logo, sound, bday
* title, role, org (organization-name, organization-unit)
* category, note
* class, key, mailer, uid, rev

=== Property Notes ===
<span id="note1">[[#property-list-n|1. ^]]</span>: The 'n' property is {{optional}} if any [[hcard#Implied_.22n.22_Optimization|implied 'n' optimization rules]] are in effect.<br />
<span id="note2">[[#property-list-tel|2. ^]]</span>: tel - Authors {{may}} follow the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.123 E.123] standard for writing values of telephone numbers. Letter values (e.g. +1-555-FORMATS) {{must}} be converted to numbers. Use an <code>abbr</code> to display letters and provide a numerical value simultaneously, e.g. <code><nowiki><abbr title="+15553676287">+1-555-FORMATS</abbr></nowiki></code>.

=== Singular vs. Plural Properties ===
Singular properties: 'fn', 'n', 'bday', 'tz', 'geo', 'sort-string', 'uid', 'class'. 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 <code><abbr></code> element is used for a property, then the '<code>title</code>' attribute (if present) of the <code><abbr></code> 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 <code><a></code> 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 <code>href="..."</code> attribute provides the property value.
# For other properties, the element's content is the value of the property.

If an <code><img></code> 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 <code>src="..."</code> attribute provides the property value.
# For other properties, the <code><img></code> element's '<code>alt</code>' attribute is the value of the property.

If an <code><object></code> 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 <code>data="..."</code> 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 "<code>value</code>" 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:<br />

vCard:
<pre><nowiki>
TEL;TYPE=HOME:+1.415.555.1212
</nowiki></pre>

hCard:
<pre><nowiki>
<span class="tel">
<span class="type">home</span>:
<span class="value">+1.415.555.1212</span>
</span>
</nowiki></pre>

This hCard fragment could be displayed as:

<div style="border: thin dashed black; width: 95%; padding: .5em 1em;">
<span class="tel">
<span class="type">home</span>:
<span class="value">+1.415.555.1212</span>
</span>
</div>



=== 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 [[rfc-2426|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 <code><title></code> element in HTML documents) to construct the NAME property, {{may}} output a PROFILE value of "<code>VCARD</code>" per [[rfc-2426|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 [[rfc-2426|RFC2426]] Section 3.6.9.

=== Organization Contact Info ===
If the "FN" and "ORG" 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 ([[rfc-2426|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, [http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard#Organization_Contact_Info 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 OR if the second word is a single character (optionally followed by a period "."), then the first word (minus the comma at the end if any) 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
* family-name (comma) given-name-first-initial
* family-name (space) given-name-first-initial (optional period)

=== 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 [[hReview|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.:

<pre><nowiki>
<span class="vcard">
<span class="fn nickname">daveman692</span>
</span>
</nowiki></pre>

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:
<pre><nowiki>
TEL;TYPE=HOME,PREF:+1.415.555.1212
</nowiki></pre>

hCard:
<pre><nowiki>
<span class="tel"><span class="type">Home</span> (<span class="type">pref</span>erred):
<span class="value">+1.415.555.1212</span>
</span>
</nowiki></pre>

This could be displayed as:

<div style="border: thin dashed black; width: 95%; padding: .5em 1em; ">
<span class="tel"><span class="type">Home</span> (<span class="type">pref</span>erred):
<span class="value">+1.415.555.1212</span>
</span>
</div>

==== 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.

<pre><nowiki>
<span class="tel"><span class="type">Home</span> +1.415.555.1212</span>
</nowiki></pre>

is equivalent to:

<pre><nowiki>
<span class="tel"><span class="type">Home</span><span class="value"> +1.415.555.1212</span></span>
</nowiki></pre>

And thus the type is "home" and the value is "+1.415.555.1212".

==== adr tel email types ====
The following lists are ''informative''. See [[rfc-2426|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, [http://flickr.com/photos/tags/carcellphone/ car], isdn, pcs
* email type: INTERNET, x400, pref, "other IANA registered address types"

=== XMDP Profile ===

See [[hcard-profile]] for the [http://gmpg.org/xmdp XMDP] profile of hCard which contains the above complete list of properties, with references to their [[rfc-2426|RFC2426]] definitions.

=== Parsing Details ===

See [[hcard-parsing|hCard parsing]].

== Examples ==

This section is informative.

=== Sample vCard ===

Here is a sample vCard:

<pre><nowiki>
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Çelik;Tantek
FN:Tantek Çelik
URL:http://tantek.com/
END:VCARD
</nowiki></pre>

and an equivalent in hCard with various elements optimized appropriately. See [[hcard-example1-steps| hCard Example 1]] for the derivation.

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="vcard">
<a class="url fn" href="http://tantek.com/">Tantek Çelik</a>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This hCard might be displayed as:
<div style="border: thin dashed black; width: 95%; padding: .5em 1em;">
[http://tantek.com/ Tantek Çelik]
</div>

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 [http://www.commerce.net/ Commercenet]'s contact details, as a live hCard which will be detected, on this page, by microformat parsing tools:

<div class="vcard">
<div class="fn org">'''CommerceNet'''</div>
<div class="url">'''<nowiki>http://www.commerce.net/</nowiki>'''</div>
<div class="adr">'''<span class="type">Work</span>:'''
<div class="street-address">'''169 University Avenue'''</div>
<span class="locality">'''Palo Alto'''</span>, <span class="region">'''CA'''</span>  <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"><nowiki>info@commerce.net</nowiki></span>'''</div>
</div>

The mark-up, emboldening omitted for clarity, with the following semantic improvements:
* <code>abbr</code> to expand abbreviations
* hyperlinking the org name with the url

<pre><nowiki>
<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>
</nowiki></pre>

=== More Examples ===
See [[hcard-examples|hCard examples]] for more examples, including all examples from vCard [[rfc-2426|RFC2426]] converted into hCard.

==Buttons==
You can use these buttons on pages with hCards. See [[buttons#hCard]] for any recent additions.

* http://www.crowley.nl/images/hcard.png (mirror: http://www.davidjanes.com/images/mf_hcard.png)
* http://rbach.priv.at/2006/buttons/hcard.png
* http://www.boogdesign.com/images/buttons/microformat_hcard.png
* CSS-powered button, as evidenced at [http://re-run.com/about/microformat-badges microformat badges @ re-run]

== 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 [[hcard-examples-in-wild|separate page]].

See [[hcard-examples-in-wild|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 [[hcard-implementations|separate page]].

See [[hcard-implementations|hCard Implementations]].

== Copyright ==
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.

{{MicroFormatPublicDomainContributionStatement}}

== Patents ==
{{MicroFormatPatentStatement}}

== References ==
=== Normative References ===
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/ XHTML 1.0 SE]
* [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2426.txt vCard RFC2426]
* [http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-E.123-200102-I/en ITU recommendation E.123] format of telephone numbers (chargeable document)
* [[rfc-2119|RFC 2119]]

=== Informative References ===
* [[hcard-history|hCard history]]
** [http://wiki.oreillynet.com/foocamp04/index.cgi?SimpleSemanticFormats FOO Camp 2004 Simple Semantic Formats presentation, 2004-09-10]
** [http://tantek.com/log/2004/09.html#hcard hCard term introduced and defined on the Web, 2004-09-30]
** Contributed from http://developers.technorati.com/wiki/hCard 2005-06-20
* [http://www.dante.net/np/ds/osi/9594-6-X.520.A4.ps X.520 in Postscript] ([http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:FjqzsFu4h20J:www.dante.net/np/ds/osi/9594-6-X.520.A4.ps HTMLization courtesy of Google Cache]) - vCard refers to ROLE as being "based on the X.520 Business Category explanatory attribute".
* [http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/rfc2426 HTML reformatted version of RFC2426]
* [http://w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1 CSS1]
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11 XHTML 1.1]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.123 Wikipedia summary of ITU-T Recommendation E.123] - for "TEL" values.
* [http://www.imc.org/pdi/ Internet Mail Consortium Personal Data Interchange vCard and vCalendar]
* [[iso-8601|ISO8601]]

==== Specifications That Use hCard ====
* [[adr]]
* [[geo]]
* [[hcalendar|hCalendar]]
* [[hreview|hReview]]

==== Similar Work ====
* [http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceBetterPersonElement Atom PaceBetterPersonElement]
* [http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0054.html JEP-0054: vcard-temp]

== Inspiration and Acknowledgments ==
Thanks to: my good friend [http://vadim.com/ 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''.

<div id="Semantic_XHTML_Design_Principles">See: [[hcard-design-methodology]].</div>

=== 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:
* <code>URL</code> in vCard becomes <code><a class="url" href="...">...</a></code> inside the element with <code>class="vcard"</code> in hCard.
* Similarly, <code>EMAIL</code> in vCard becomes <code><nowiki><a class="email" href="mailto:...">...</a></nowiki></code>
* <code>PHOTO</code> in vCard becomes <code><img class="photo" src="..." alt="Photo of ..." /></code> or <code><object class="photo" data="..." type="...">Photo of ...</object></code>
* <code>UID</code> in vCard simply becomes another semantic applied to a specific URL (or EMAIL) for an hCard.

=== Singular and Plural derivations ===
The [[hcard#Singular_vs._Plural_Properties|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.

== Further Reading ==
* [http://www.digital-web.com/articles/microformats_primer/ Digital Web Magazine: Microformats Primer] by Garrett Dimon has a good intro to hCard
* [http://24ways.org/advent/practical-microformats-with-hcard Practical Microformats with hCard] by Drew McLellan
* [http://www.naturalsearchblog.com/archives/2006/09/28/tips-for-local-search-engine-optimization-for-your-site/ Local Search Engine Optimization using Microformats] by Chris Silver Smith
* [http://thedredge.org/ Andrew D. Hume] has written a blog post on [http://usabletype.com/articles/2005/usable-microformats/ usable microformats] which discusses hCard
* [http://www.thefutureoftheweb.com/blog/2006/1/hcard Jesse Skinner's introduction to hCard]
* [http://blog.usweb.com/ Shaun Shull's] great post on [http://blog.usweb.com/archives/how-microformats-affect-search-engine-optimization-seo How Microformats Affect SEO], including his [[hcard|hCard]] as an example.
* [http://24ways.org/2006/styling-hcards-with-css 24 Ways: Styling hCards with CSS] A 24 Ways article - John Allsopp on styling hCard using CSS
* See also [http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/referer.html blogs discussing this page] and the [http://technorati.com/tags/hcard hCard tag]
* [http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4770.txt <nowiki>RFC 4770</nowiki> Extensions for Instant Messaging]
* [http://ungeekdapo.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/a-real-life-use-case-of-microformat-hcard-in-action/ A real life use case of Microformat hCard in action] by Bob Ngu
* [http://www.ablognotlimited.com/articles/getting-semantic-with-microformats-part-3-hcard/ Getting Semantic With Microformats, Part 3: hCard] by [http://www.ablognotlimited.com/ Emily Lewis]
* [http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=webdesign&seqNum=354 Microformats: The Fine Art of Markup: hCard] by [http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/ Andy Clarke]

== Related Pages ==
{{hcard-related-pages}}

[[Category:Specifications]]
[[Category:hCard]]