The high-level framework¶
Overview¶
The high level iCal feed-generating is supplied by the
ICalFeed
class.
To create a feed, write a ICalFeed
class and point to an instance of it in your
URLconf.
With RSS feeds, the items in the feed represent articles or simple web pages.
The ICalFeed
class represents an
iCalendar calendar. Calendars contain items which are events.
Example¶
Let’s look at a simple example. Here the item_start_datetime is a django-ical extension that supplies the start time of the event.
from django_ical.views import ICalFeed
from examplecom.models import Event
class EventFeed(ICalFeed):
"""
A simple event calender
"""
product_id = '-//example.com//Example//EN'
timezone = 'UTC'
file_name = "event.ics"
def items(self):
return Event.objects.all().order_by('-start_datetime')
def item_title(self, item):
return item.title
def item_description(self, item):
return item.description
def item_start_datetime(self, item):
return item.start_datetime
To connect a URL to this calendar, put an instance of the EventFeed object in your URLconf. For example:
from django.conf.urls import patterns, url, include
from myproject.feeds import EventFeed
urlpatterns = patterns('',
# ...
(r'^latest/feed.ics$', EventFeed()),
# ...
)
Example how recurrences are built using the django-recurrence package:
from django_ical.utils import build_rrule_from_recurrences_rrule
from django_ical.views import ICalFeed
from examplecom.models import Event
class EventFeed(ICalFeed):
"""
A simple event calender
"""
# ...
def item_rrule(self, item):
"""Adapt Event recurrence to Feed Entry rrule."""
if item.recurrences:
rules = []
for rule in item.recurrences.rrules:
rules.append(build_rrule_from_recurrences_rrule(rule))
return rules
def item_exrule(self, item):
"""Adapt Event recurrence to Feed Entry exrule."""
if item.recurrences:
rules = []
for rule in item.recurrences.exrules:
rules.append(build_rrule_from_recurrences_rrule(rule))
return rules
def item_rdate(self, item):
"""Adapt Event recurrence to Feed Entry rdate."""
if item.recurrences:
return item.recurrences.rdates
def item_exdate(self, item):
"""Adapt Event recurrence to Feed Entry exdate."""
if item.recurrences:
return item.recurrences.exdates
Note that in django_ical.utils
are also convienience methods to build rrules
from
scratch, from string (serialized iCal) and dateutil.rrule
.
File Downloads¶
The file_name parameter is an optional used as base name when generating the file. By default django-ical will not set the Content-Disposition header of the response. By setting the file_name parameter you can cause django_ical to set the Content-Disposition header and set the file name. In the example below, it will be called “event.ics”.
class EventFeed(ICalFeed):
"""
A simple event calender
"""
product_id = '-//example.com//Example//EN'
timezone = 'UTC'
file_name = "event.ics"
# ...
The file_name parameter can be a method like other properties. Here we can set the file name to include the id of the object returned by get_object().
class EventFeed(ICalFeed):
"""
A simple event calender
"""
product_id = '-//example.com//Example//EN'
timezone = 'UTC'
def file_name(self, obj):
return "feed_%s.ics" % obj.id
# ...
Alarms¶
Alarms must be icalendar.Alarm objects, a list is expected as the return value for item_valarm.
from icalendar import Alarm
from datetime import timedelta
def item_valarm(self, item):
valarm = Alarm()
valarm.add('action', 'display')
valarm.add('description', 'Your message text')
valarm.add('trigger', timedelta(days=-1))
return [valarm]
Tasks (Todos)¶
It is also possible to generate representations of tasks (or deadlines, todos) which are represented in iCal with the dedicated VTODO component instead of the usual VEVENT.
To do so, you can use a specific method to determine which type of component a given item should be translated as:
from django_ical.views import ICalFeed
from examplecom.models import Deadline
class EventFeed(ICalFeed):
"""
A simple event calender with tasks
"""
product_id = '-//example.com//Example//EN'
timezone = 'UTC'
file_name = "event.ics"
def items(self):
return Deadline.objects.all().order_by('-due_datetime')
def item_component_type(self):
return 'todo' # could also be 'event', which is the default
def item_title(self, item):
return item.title
def item_description(self, item):
return item.description
def item_due_datetime(self, item):
return item.due_datetime
Property Reference and Extensions¶
django-ical adds a number of extensions to the base syndication framework in order to support iCalendar feeds and ignores many fields used in RSS feeds. Here is a table of all of the fields that django-ical supports.
Property name | iCalendar field name | Description |
---|---|---|
product_id | `PRODID`_ | The calendar product ID |
timezone | X-WR-TIMEZONE | The calendar timezone |
title | X-WR-CALNAME | The calendar name/title |
description | X-WR-CALDESC | The calendar description |
method | `METHOD`_ | The calendar method such as meeting requests. |
item_guid | UID | The event’s unique id. This id should be globally unique so you should add an @<domain_name> to your id. |
item_title | SUMMARY | The event name/title |
item_description | DESCRIPTION | The event description |
item_link | URL | The event url |
item_class | `CLASS`_ | The event class (e.g. PUBLIC, PRIVATE, CONFIDENTIAL) |
item_created | CREATED | The event create time |
item_updateddate | LAST-MODIFIED | The event modified time |
item_start_datetime | DTSTART | The event start time |
item_end_datetime | DTEND | The event end time |
item_location | LOCATION | The event location |
item_geolocation | GEO | The latitude and longitude of the event. The value returned by this property should be a two-tuple containing the latitude and longitude as float values. semicolon. Ex: (37.386013, -122.082932) |
item_transparency | TRANSP | The event transparency. Defines whether the event shows up in busy searches. (e.g. OPAQUE, TRANSPARENT) |
item_organizer | ORGANIZER | The event organizer. Expected to be a vCalAddress object. See iCalendar documentation or tests to know how to build them. |
item_attendee | ATTENDEE | The event attendees. Expected to be a list of vCalAddress objects. See iCalendar documentation or tests to know how to build them. |
item_rrule | RRULE | The recurrence rule for repeating events. See iCalendar documentation or tests to know how to build them. |
item_rdate | RDATE | The recurring dates/times for a repeating event. See iCalendar documentation or tests to know how to build them. |
item_exdate | EXDATE | The dates/times for exceptions of a recurring event. See iCalendar documentation or tests to know how to build them. |
item_valarm | VALARM | Alarms for the event, must be a list of Alarm objects. See iCalendar documentation or tests to know how to build them. |
item_status | STATUS | The status of an event. Can be CONFIRMED, CANCELLED or TENTATIVE. |
item_completed | COMPLETED | The date a task was completed. |
item_percent_complete | PERCENT-COMPLETE | A number from 0 to 100 indication the completion of the task. |
item_priority | PRIORITY | An integer from 0 to 9. 0 means undefined. 1 means highest priority. |
item_due | DUE | The date a task is due. |
item_categories | CATEGORIES | A list of strings, each being a category of the task. |
calscale | CALSCALE | Not yet documented. |
method | `METHOD`_ | Not yet documented. |
prodid | `PRODID`_ | Not yet documented. |
version | VERSION | Not yet documented. |
attach | ATTACH | Not yet documented. |
class | `CLASS`_ | Not yet documented. |
comment | COMMENT | Not yet documented. |
resources | RESOURCES | Not yet documented. |
duration | DURATION | Not yet documented. |
freebusy | FREEBUSY | Not yet documented. |
tzid | TZID | Not yet documented. |
tzname | TZNAME | Not yet documented. |
tzoffsetfrom | TZOFFSETFROM | Not yet documented. |
tzoffsetto | TZOFFSETTO | Not yet documented. |
tzurl | TZURL | Not yet documented. |
contact | CONTACT | Not yet documented. |
recurrence_id | `RECURRENCE_ID`_ | Not yet documented. |
related_to | `RELATED_TO`_ | Not yet documented. |
action | ACTION | Not yet documented. |
repeat | REPEAT | Not yet documented. |
trigger | TRIGGER | Not yet documented. |
sequence | SEQUENCE | Not yet documented. |
request_status | `REQUEST_STATUS`_ | Not yet documented. |
Note
django-ical does not use the link
property required by the Django
syndication framework.
The low-level framework¶
Behind the scenes, the high-level iCalendar framework uses a lower-level
framework for generating feeds’ ical data. This framework lives in a single
module: django_ical.feedgenerator
.
You use this framework on your own, for lower-level feed generation. You can also create custom feed generator subclasses for use with the feed_type option.
See: The syndication feed framework: Specifying the type of feed