AddToCalendar
A ruby gem to generate 'Add To Calendar' URLs for Android, Apple, Google, Hey, Office 365, Outlook, Outlook.com and Yahoo calendars.
If this gem brings you some value feel free to buy me a coffee :)
Installation
Add this line to your application's Gemfile:
gem 'add_to_calendar'And then execute:
$ bundle
Or install it yourself as:
$ gem install add_to_calendar
Requirements
- Ruby 2.0 or higher
Usage
# create new instance, adding your event attributes
@cal = AddToCalendar::URLs.new(
start_datetime: Time.new(2020,12,12,13,30,00,0),
title: "Christmas party!",
timezone: 'Europe/London'
)
# access 'add to calendar' URLs
@cal.google_url
#=> "https://www.google.com/calendar/render?action=TEMPLATE&text=Christmas%20party%21&dates=20201212T133000/20201212T143000&ctz=Europe/London"
@cal.yahoo_url
#=> "https://calendar.yahoo.com/?v=60&view=d&type=20&title=Christmas%20party%21&st=20201212T133000Z&dur=0100"
@cal.hey_url
#=> "https://app.hey.com/calendar/ical_events/new?ical_source=BEGIN%3AVCALENDAR%0AVERSION%3A2.0%0APRODID%3A-//AddToCalendar//RubyGem//EN%0ABEGIN%3AVEVENT%0ASUMMARY%3AHolly%27s%209th%20birthday%21%0ADTSTAMP%3A20240913T151029Z%0ADTSTART%3A20240906T123000Z%0ADTEND%3A20240906T133000Z%0AUID%3A-20240906T123000Z-Holly%27s%209th%20birthday%21%0AEND%3AVEVENT%0AEND%3AVCALENDAR"
@cal.office365_url
#=> "https://outlook.office.com/calendar/0/deeplink/compose?path=/calendar/action/compose&rru=addevent&subject=Christmas%20party%21&startdt=2020-12-12T13:30:00Z&enddt=2020-12-12T14:30:00Z"
# For outlook.com, different to Outlook the desktop application below
@cal.outlook_com_url
#=> "https://outlook.live.com/calendar/0/deeplink/compose?path=/calendar/action/compose&rru=addevent&subject=Christmas%20party%21&startdt=2020-12-12T13:30:00Z&enddt=2020-12-12T14:30:00Z"
# ical provides a data-uri which will download a properly formatted *.ics file (see 'Creating HTML links' section)
@cal.ical_url
#=> "data:text/calendar;charset=utf8,BEGIN:VCALENDAR%0AVERSION:2.0%0ABEGIN:VEVENT%0ADTSTART:20201212T133000Z%0ADTEND:20201212T143000Z%0ASUMMARY:Christmas%20party%21%0AUID:-20201212T133000Z-Christmas%20party%21%0AEND:VEVENT%0AEND:VCALENDAR"
# android_url, apple_url and outlook_url are simply helper methods that call ical_url and return the same string.Creating HTML links
<!-- Simply pass the url into the href Eg. in ERB -->
<a href="<%= @cal.google_url %>">Add to Google Calendar</a>
<a href="<%= @cal.yahoo_url %>">Add to Yahoo Calendar</a>
<!-- for ical_url, android_url, apple_url and outlook_url you can set the filename like so -->
<a download="calendar-event.ics" href="<%= @cal.ical_url %>">Download iCal</a>Event attributes
event_attributes = {
start_datetime: Time.new(2020,12,12,9,00,00,0), # required
end_datetime: Time.new(2020,12,12,17,00,00,0),
title: "Ruby Conference", # required
timezone: 'America/New_York', # required
location: "20 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001",
url: "https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/",
description: "Join us to learn all about Ruby.",
add_url_to_description: true, # defaults to true
all_day: true, # defaults to false
organizer: {
name: "First Last",
email: "email@example.com"
}
}
cal = AddToCalendar::URLs.new(**event_attributes)| Attribute | Required? | Class | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| start_datetime | Yes | Time | |
| end_datetime | No | Time |
|
| title | Yes | String | |
| timezone | Yes | String | Must be in tz database format Eg. 'Europe/London', 'America/New_York' |
| location | No | String | |
| url | No | String | Most providers do not have a native URL field. If you set url it will be added to the end of the description field (see add_url_to_description) |
| description | No | String | Accepts newlines by passing \n Eg. "Join us for fun & drinks\n\nPS. Smart casual"
|
| add_url_to_description | No | true/false | Defaults to true. Set add_url_to_description: false to stop the URL from being added to the description |
| all_day | No | true/false |
|
| organizer | No | Hash |
|
Timezones and offsets
- Offset values eg. "2020-05-13 15:31:00 +05:00" are ignored. It is only important that you have the correct date and time numbers set. The timezone is set directly using its own attribute
timezone. - You must set a timezone so that when users add the event to their calendar it shows at their correct local time.
- Eg. London event @
2020-05-13 13:30:00will save in a New Yorker's calendar as local time2020-05-13 17:30:00
- Eg. London event @
Browser support
- IE11 and lower will not work for
ical_url,apple_urlandoutlook_url(IE does not properly support data-uri links. See #16). - IE11 will also not work with
Yahoo, but this is because Yahoo is deprecating IE 11 support and only offers a simplified interface which does not work with the add event URL.
More details
- Read the Wiki for more specific details
Why build this?
I couldn't find an approriate gem or javascript library that did exactly what I wanted. So I decided to scratch my own itch to solve a problem for a startup I'm working on: https://www.littlefutures.org
Releases
Development
After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.
To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.
Contributing
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/jaredlt/add_to_calendar.
License
The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.