Secrets of the iPod and iTunes (Fifth Edition) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Va-va-va-vCal

To understand how your iPod handles appointments and events, it helps to know what's going on behind the scenes.

A Little History

Flip back a chapter, and you'll learn that during the 1990s, the Versit group created the vCard standard. Undoubtedly, as the members of this group clapped themselves on the backs for a job well done, one member interrupted with "Ahem, excuse me, but since the bus to the airport won't be here for another hour, what say we hammer together a standard for swapping calendar information as well?"

And thus were born the vCalendar and iCalendar standards.

vCal, as the vCalendar standard is affectionately known, is a format for exchanging calendar and scheduling information between vCal-aware applications and devices. (vCal-aware devices include Palm Computing devices and the iPod.) iCalendar, which lacks an affectionate nickname, is a format for exchanging calendars on the Internet. You can recognize iCalendar files by their .ics file extension (mycalendar.ics, for example). The iPod can read both vCal and iCalendar files.

These standards were written to be platform-independent, meaning that you can use them on a variety of computers running an assortment of operating systems (such as Windows, the Mac OS, and Linux).

Anatomy of a vCal File

Were you to open a very basic vCal file in a text editor, you'd see that it contains such information as the application you used to create the file (Apple's iCal or Microsoft Outlook, for example); your time zone (U.S. Pacific, for example); and the date, time, and duration of your appointment. These files can also contain alarm information (whether to display an audible or visual alarm, or both), notes, and attendees (those whom you've invited to your appointment).

Here are the contents of a vCard file I created with Apple's iCal application:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
X-WR-TIMEZONE;VALUE=TEXT:US/Pacific
METHOD:PUBLISH
PRODID:-//Apple Computer\, Inc//iCal 1.0//EN
X-WR-CALNAME;VALUE=TEXT:Meeting
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
SEQUENCE:10
DTSTAMP:20050109T223001Z
SUMMARY:My Appointment
UID:D26B4DF8-F432-11D6-82DE-00039366F0C4
ORGANIZER;CN=Bubba Jones:mailto:bubba@bubba.com
X-WR-ITIPSTATUSML;VALUE=TEXT:UNCLEAN
DTSTART;TZID=US/Pacific:20050109T160000
DURATION:PT1H30M
DESCRIPTION:Mention the goat?
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

The entries worth paying attention to are:

PRODID.
This entry is the name of the program you used to create the file.

DTSTAMP.
This entry is the date and time that you created the file. I created this file on January 9, 2005thus, the 20050109 entry.

SUMMARY.
This entry is the name of my appointment.

ORGANIZER.
This event was created by my alter ego, Bubba Jones, so Bubba's name and email address are attached to the file.

DTSTART.
The event is scheduled for January 9, 2005, U.S. Pacific time at 4:00 p.m. (The T160000 entry indicates 4:00 p.m. on a 24-hour clock.)

DURATION.
This entry details how long the appointment lasts. In this case, my appointment is scheduled for an hour and a half.

DESCRIPTION.
Any notes you've created for the appointment follow the DESCRIPTION entry.

If you add an appointment to your iPod, this information will appear in the Event screen:

The date of the appointment.
Displayed in day/month/year format11 Jan 2005, for example.

The time and duration of the appointment.
Displayed as 4:005:30 PM, for example.

The name of the appointment.
If you've named it My Appointment in your computer's calendar application, so shall it be named on your iPod.

The attendees.
If you've added attendees to the appointment in your computer's calendar application, those names will appear next in the Event screen.

Notes.
Any notes you've entered on your computer will appear last in the Event screen.

Visual and audible alarms are also transferred to your iPod. But you'll see no indication in the Event screenor anywhere else, for that matterthat such alarms exist (though you'll have a pretty good idea when the alarm goes off).