Calendar Parts

How do the calendar parts work in VisualCard?

Normally, calendars in VisualCard have three types of parts that define a calendar:

• Strings (GetString())

• Integers (GetInteger())

• Array of parts (GetPartsArray())

In the current version of VisualCard, the following parts are supported:

Key	Type	Component	1.0	2.0
PRODID	String	Root	●	●
METHOD	String	Root		●
CALSCALE	String	Root		●
ATTACH	Array	Event, to-do, journal, or alarm	●	●
CATEGORIES	Array	Event, to-do, or journal	●	●
COMMENT	String	Event, to-do, journal, or free/busy		●
GEO	Array	Event or to-do	●	●
LOCATION	String	Event or to-do		●
RESOURCES	Array	Event or to-do	●	●
ATTENDEE	String	Event, to-do, journal, free/busy, or alarm	●	●
CREATED	Array	Event, to-do, or journal		●
DCREATED	Array	Event or to-do	●
DTSTART	Array	Event, to-do, free/busy, or standard/daylight timezone components	●	●
DTEND	Array	Event or free/busy	●	●
DTSTAMP	Array	Event		●
CLASS	String	Event, to-do, or journal	●	●
UID	String	Event, to-do, journal, or free/busy	●	●
ORGANIZER	String	Event, to-do, journal, or free/busy	●	●
STATUS	String	Event, to-do, or journal	●	●
SUMMARY	String	Event, to-do, journal, or alarm	●	●
DESCRIPTION	String	Event, to-do, journal, or alarm	●	●
TRANSP	String	Event	●	●
ACTION	String	Alarm		●
TRIGGER	String	Alarm		●
TZID	String	Timezone		●
TZURL	String	Timezone		●
TZNAME	String	Timezone		●
TZOFFSETFROM	Integer	Timezone		●
TZOFFSETTO	Integer	Timezone		●
RRULE	String	Event, to-do, journal, or daylight and standard time zone components	●	●
RDATE	Array	Event, to-do, journal, or daylight and standard time zone components	●	●
EXDATE	Array	Event, to-do, journal, or daylight and standard time zone components	●	●
PRIORITY	Integer	Event or to-do		●
SEQUENCE	Integer	Event, to-do, or journal	●	●
PERCENT-COMPLETION	Integer	To-do		●
COMPLETED	Array	To-do	●	●
DUE	Array	To-do	●	●
DAYLIGHT	Array	Event, to-do, journal, or daylight and standard time zone components	●
AALARM	Array	Event or to-do	●
DALARM	Array	Event or to-do	●
MALARM	Array	Event or to-do	●
PALARM	Array	Event or to-do	●
RELATED-TO	String	Event, to-do, or journal	●	●
LAST-MODIFIED	Array	Event, to-do, journal, or time zone	●	●
EXRULE	String	Event or to-do	●
RECURRENCE-ID	String	Event, to-do, or journal		●
REPEAT	Integer	Alarm	●	●
DURATION	String	Event, to-do, or alarm		●
REQUEST-STATUS	Array	Event, to-do, journal, or free/busy		●
URL	String	Event, to-do, journal, or free/busy	●	●
TZ	String	Root	●	●
CONTACT	String	Event, to-do, journal, or free/busy		●
RNUM	Integer	Event or to-do	●

The following status types that are allowed in events, to-dos, or journals are:

• vCalendar 1.0

  • Event

    • NEEDS ACTION

    • SENT

    • TENTATIVE

    • CONFIRMED

    • DECLINED

    • DELEGATED

  • To-do

    • NEEDS ACTION

    • SENT

    • ACCEPTED

    • COMPLETED

    • DECLINED

    • DELEGATED

• vCalendar 2.0

  • Event

    • TENTATIVE

    • CONFIRMED

    • CANCELLED

  • To-do

    • NEEDS-ACTION

    • COMPLETED

    • IN-PROCESS

    • CANCELLED

  • Journal

    • DRAFT

    • FINAL

    • CANCELLED

Additionally, the event or to-do alarm type for a single alarm component can be one of:

• AUDIO

• DISPLAY

• EMAIL

For the ATTENDEE property, you can either specify nothing as a type (without typing the TYPE= parameter) or specify VCARD and any X-nonstandard type. Same applies for the AALARM property, except that it supports only PCM, WAVE, AIFF, and any X-nonstandard or IANA type as types.

The below sections describe how exactly to parse all the supported types.

You can access all extra X-named and IANA properties by calling GetPartsArray, passing it the ExtraInfo type as a generic type argument. You can also get all parsed extra X-named and IANA components using the Others property from the root calendar.

Strings

Strings in vCalendar and VisualCard are the simplest of the types that allow you to input just text that represent that property. The above table shows all the properties, and those that are listed as a String, such as CLASS, can be get as a string using a function called GetString(). You can also get a dictionary of a list of parsed strings using the Strings property.

This function returns one of the following strings:

• An empty string

  • If the string is not supported in the calendar's vCalendar version.

  • If the string is not defined in the calendar's vCalendar instance.

  • If the string is explicitly blank.

• A string value

  • If the string is defined, supported, and is not empty.

When using the above function, it returns an instance of ValueInfo<string> that contains the following properties:

• Property: An instance of PropertyInfo that shows you a dissection of raw prefix, group, and values. It contains the following properties:

  • Arguments: An array of parsed ArgumentInfo instances that contains the following properties and functions:

    • Key: Argument key name

    • Values: An array of a tuple that describes the value case sensitivity and the unquoted value

    • AllValues: An array of unquoted values

    • MatchValue(): A function that lets you match a value

  • Value: Raw value, as it appears on a vCalendar representation

  • Prefix: Raw prefix, as it appears on a vCalendar representation

  • Group: Raw group, as it appears on a vCalendar representation

  • NestedGroups: Nested groups separated by a dot

• AltId: Alternative ID. If it's not specified, it returns -1.

• ElementTypes: Card element type (home, work, ...)

• ValueType: Value type (usually set by VALUE=)

• Group: Property group

• NestedGroups: Nested groups for a property (separated by a dot)

• Value: A string value

• IsPreferred: Is this part preferred?

You can also use the following functions:

• HasType(): Checks to see if this value has a specific type

Integers

Integers in vCalendar and VisualCard are the simplest of the types that allow you to input just a number that represents that property. The above table shows all the properties, and those that are listed as an Integer, such as PRIORITY, can be get as an integer using a function called GetInteger(). You can also get a dictionary of a list of parsed integers using the Integers property.

This function returns one of the following integers:

• -1

  • If the integer is not supported in the contact's vCard version.

  • If the integer is not defined in the contact's vCard instance.

  • If the integer is specified as -1

• An integer value

  • If the integer is defined and supported.

When using the above function, it returns an instance of CardValueInfo<double> that contains the following properties:

• Arguments: An array of parsed ArgumentInfo instances that contains the following properties and functions:

  • Key: Argument key name

  • Values: An array of a tuple that describes the value case sensitivity and the unquoted value

  • AllValues: An array of unquoted values

  • MatchValue(): A function that lets you match a value

• AltId: Alternative ID. If it's not specified, it returns -1.

• ElementTypes: Card element type (home, work, ...)

• ValueType: Value type (usually set by VALUE=)

• Group: Property group

• Value: An integer value

• IsPreferred: Is this part preferred?

You can also use the following functions:

• HasType(): Checks to see if this value has a specific type

Array of Parts

Parts that can be more than one part (i.e. can be put to an array and can exist more than once per vCard instance) exist in vCard. The above table shows all the properties that are listed as an Array. If they are listed as such, like ATTENDEE, you can get it using GetPartsArray(). You can also get a dictionary of a list of parsed parts array lists using the PartsArray property.

GetPartsArray() is a generic method. This means that you can specify one of the Info classes, as long as it represents a valid class that points to a valid part, such as AttendeeInfo. In this case, you'll have to call it like this:

// Either
Calendar.Events[0].GetPartsArray<AttendeeInfo>()

// or
Calendar.Events[0].GetPartsArray<AttendeeInfo>(CalendarPartsArrayEnum.Attendee)

You can directly get a value of a property without having to cast the resultant part to the correct part info class. The same base properties also apply to the normal Parts.

You can also get any parts array as a base, though you can't call the non-parameterized function against the base part, BaseCardPartInfo. You'll also have to cast the resultant part if you need to access something other than the base properties as mentioned above.

Calendar.Events[0].GetPartsArray<BaseCardPartInfo>(CalendarPartsArrayEnum.Attendee)

This function returns one of the following:

• An empty array

  • If the parts array is not supported in the contact's vCard version

  • If the parts array is not defined in the contact's vCard instance

• An array of parts

  • If the part is supported and defined in the contact's vCard instance

Any attempt to specify an incorrect type or enumeration in the second overload of GetPartsArray, such as Calendar.Events[0].GetPartsArray<DateCreatedInfo>(CalendarPartsArrayEnum.Attendee), will throw an exception. However, it doesn't throw an exception in case BaseCardPartInfo is specified.

Getting a Blob Stream

Image parts, icon parts, sound parts, and key parts in a vCalendar instance allow you to get a blob stream from the encoded data that allows you to represent the actual data decoded from the BASE64 encoding as a blob. VisualCard exposes this feature to allow you to perform various operations on them, such as displaying calendar attachments, saving sound attachments as sound files, etc.

You can make use of this feature by invoking the GetBlobData() function from the VcardParserTools class.

This feature doesn't support non-blob values, such as an HTTPS URL to a logo file.

Events, To-dos, and more

A calendar instance may contain one or more of the following components nested inside the root calendar component:

• Events

• To-dos

• Journals

• Free/busy instances

• Timezones

  • Standard times

  • Daylight times

• Event and to-do alarms

You can access this information using their individual properties found in the calendar instance as follows:

• Events

  • Alarms

• Todos

  • Alarms

• Journals

• FreeBusyList

• TimeZones

  • StandardTimeList

  • DaylightTimeList