README

Author::     Sam Roberts <vieuxtech@gmail.com>
Copyright::  Copyright (C) 2008 Sam Roberts
License::    May be distributed under the same terms as Ruby
Homepage::   http://vpim.rubyforge.org
Download::   http://rubyforge.org/projects/vpim
Install::    sudo gem install vpim

vPim provides calendaring, scheduling, and contact support for Ruby through the
standard iCalendar and vCard data formats for "personal information" exchange.

= Thanks

- http://ZipDX.com: for sponsoring development of FREQ=weekly and BYSETPOS in
  recurrence rules.
- http://RubyForge.org: for their generous hosting of this project.

= Installation

There is a vPim package installable using ruby-gems:

  # sudo gem install vpim (may require root privilege)

It is also installable in the standard way. Untar the package, and do:

  $ ruby setup.rb --help

or do:

  $ ruby setup.rb config
  $ ruby setup.rb setup
  # ruby setup.rb install (may require root privilege)

= Overview

vCard (RFC 2426) is a format for personal information, see Vpim::Vcard and
Vpim::Maker::Vcard.

iCalendar (RFC 2445) is a format for calendar related information, see
Vpim::Icalendar.

vCard and iCalendar support is built on top of an implementation of the MIME
Content-Type for Directory Information (RFC 2425). The basic RFC 2425 format is
implemented by  Vpim::DirectoryInfo and Vpim::DirectoryInfo::Field.

The libary is quite useful, but improvements are ongoing.  If you find
something missing or have suggestions, please contact me. I can't promise
instantaneous turnaround, but I might be able to suggest another approach, and
features requested by users of vPim go to the top of the todo list. If you need
a feature for a commercial project, consider sponsoring development.

= Examples

Here's an example to give a sense for how iCalendars are encoded and decoded:

  require 'vpim/icalendar'

  cal = Vpim::Icalendar.create2

  cal.add_event do |e|
    e.dtstart       Date.new(2005, 04, 28)
    e.dtend         Date.new(2005, 04, 29)
    e.summary       "Monthly meet-the-CEO day"
    e.description <<'---'
  Unlike last one, this meeting will change your life because
  we are going to discuss your likely demotion if your work isn't
  done soon.
  ---
    e.categories    [ 'APPOINTMENT' ]
    e.categories do |c| c.push 'EDUCATION' end
    e.url           'http://www.example.com'
    e.sequence      0
    e.access_class  "PRIVATE"
    e.transparency  'OPAQUE'

    now = Time.now
    e.created       now
    e.lastmod       now


    e.organizer do |o|
      o.cn = "Example Organizer, Mr."
      o.uri = "mailto:organizer@example.com"
    end

    attendee = Vpim::Icalendar::Address.create("mailto:attendee@example.com")
    attendee.rsvp = true
    e.add_attendee attendee
  end

  icsfile = cal.encode

  puts '--- Encode:'

  puts icsfile

  puts '--- Decode:'

  cal = Vpim::Icalendar.decode(icsfile).first

  cal.components do |e|
    puts e.summary
    puts e.description
    puts e.dtstart.to_s
    puts e.dtend.to_s
  end

This produces:

  --- Encode:
  BEGIN:VCALENDAR
  VERSION:2.0
  PRODID:-//Ensemble Independent//vPim 0.357//EN
  CALSCALE:Gregorian
  BEGIN:VEVENT
  DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20050428
  DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20050429
  SUMMARY:Monthly meet-the-CEO day
  DESCRIPTION:Unlike last one, this meeting will change your life because\nwe
    are going to discuss your likely demotion if your work isn't\ndone soon.\n
  CATEGORIES:APPOINTMENT,EDUCATION
  URL:http://www.example.com
  SEQUENCE:0
  CLASS:PRIVATE
  CREATED:20060402T231755
  LAST-MODIFIED:20060402T231755
  ORGANIZER;CN="Example Organizer, Mr.":mailto:organizer@example.com
  ATTENDEE;RSVP=true:mailto:attendee@example.com
  END:VEVENT
  END:VCALENDAR
  --- Decode:
  Monthly meet-the-CEO day
  Unlike last one, this meeting will change your life because
  we are going to discuss your likely demotion if your work isn't
  done soon.
  Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 UTC 2005
  Fri Apr 29 00:00:00 UTC 2005


More examples of using vPim are provided in samples/.

vCard examples are:
- link:ex_mkvcard.txt: example of creating a vCard
- link:ex_cpvcard.txt: example of copying and them modifying a vCard
- link:ex_mkv21vcard.txt: example of creating version 2.1 vCard
- link:mutt-aliases-to-vcf.txt: convert a mutt aliases file to vCards
- link:ex_get_vcard_photo.txt: pull photo data from a vCard
- link:ab-query.txt: query the OS X Address Book to find vCards
- link:vcf-to-mutt.txt: query vCards for matches, output in formats useful
  with Mutt (see link:README.mutt for details)
- link:tabbed-file-to-vcf.txt: convert a tab-delimited file to vCards, a
  (small but) complete application contributed by Dane G. Avilla, thanks!
- link:vcf-to-ics.txt: example of how to create calendars of birthdays from vCards
- link:vcf-dump.txt: utility for dumping contents of .vcf files

iCalendar examples are:
- link:ics-to-rss.txt: prints todos as RSS, or starts a WEBrick servlet
  that publishes todos as a RSS feed. Thanks to Dave Thomas for this idea,
  from http://pragprog.com/pragdave/Tech/Blog/ToDos.rdoc.
- link:cmd-itip.txt: prints emailed iCalendar invitations in human-readable
  form, and see link:README.mutt for instruction on mutt integration. I get
  a lot of meeting invitations from Lotus Notes/Domino users at work, and
  this is pretty useful in figuring out where and when I am supposed to be.
- link:reminder.txt: prints upcoming events and todos, by default from
  Apple's iCal calendars
- link:rrule.txt: utility for printing recurrence rules
- link:ics-dump.txt: utility for dumping contents of .ics files

= Project Information

vPim can be downloaded from the Ruby Forge project page:

- http://rubyforge.org/projects/vpim

or installed as a gem:

- sudo gem install vpim

For notifications about new releases, or to ask questions about vPim, please
subscribe to "vpim-talk":

- http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/vpim-talk