Create an iCal URL to Export Calendar

[meg-gutshall]

This was suggested by @vishwin at a meetup tonight.

[quintrino]

I think this might be a duplicate of #38
Either way I'm very keen for it to happen!

[MikeRogers0]

This is a duplicate, but this ticket explains what we need way better :)

@meg-gutshall - What was the meetup?

I'm also super keen for this, hopefully I'll get some time to jump on it soon (Unless someone else makes a PR before me :) )

[meg-gutshall]

Oops, my bad! I threw it up there during the meetup so I wouldn't forget. I'll make sure to check the other issues first next time.

The meetup is called Self-Taught Software Developers. Here's an invite to their Discord: https://discord.gg/RxpVhqMX. It's called Clueless Coders. 😆

I walked them through the backend as best I could but I was kinda doing it on the fly so I'm sure I fucked a lot of the explanation up. Lol! @MikeRogers0, if you join the Discord, just introduce yourself and say you're the one who owns the Ruby calendar that I shared last meetup. And @quintrino, let them know you're another contributor on the project. They're a cool bunch but unfortunately our meetups are at 7:00 EDT so that's rough Mike but Nick might be able to make one! 😃

[MikeRogers0]

https://ruby-meetup-calendar.mikerogers.io/ical.ical - This is in production now :) I'm going to keep an eye on it for a bit, the I'll link to it more publicly :)

[fabionl]

Added to my calendar, seems to be working great! Thanks! I'll let you know if anything changes.

[meg-gutshall]

iCal Feed

Testing

Hey @fabionl! Which calendar service did you add it to? Also what time zone are you located in? We should track these things and screenshot the results for beta testing purposes.

I just added this to my calendar as well. I use Google calendar in the browser and I'm on EDT. The time zones look like they're lining up okay on my end. Here's a screenshot of an event:

A Suggestion for When It Goes Live

@MikeRogers0 Let's add some how-to documentation on how to get the feed into a few popular calendar services, or at the very least link to the calendar's own docs. When I click on the link you had pasted above, it automatically downloads a .ical file so at first I imported that file to Google calendar. Then I was wondering how I would get calendar updates without having to manually import every time when it dawned on me that I have to create a new calendar from the URL you pasted. The way Google has it structured in settings isn't very intuitive and the .ical auto-downloading on click didn't help either. Below is my DUH! moment explained in a screenshot. 😅

[fabionl]

@meg-gutshall, I'm using Google Calendar, and I mostly access it from Apple Calendar.

This is on my iOS Calendar:

This is on my Google Calendar:

I've also added it to my Outlook calendar for testing, but for some reason these older events doesn't show on my calendar.

Just in case, here is another event on my Outlook:

[meg-gutshall]

I've also added it to my Outlook calendar for testing, but for some reason these older events doesn't show on my calendar.

Thanks for pointing that out @fabionl.

Group Think

Do we necessarily need older events to display on the calendar? What are the pros and cons of having past events display on the calendar vs. starting from the date the user adds the feed to their person calendar?

Also @fabionl, could you update us in a few days once all those events go off for tomorrow and let us know if they still appear on your calendar as past events or automatically delete themselves? I'm assuming they'll still be there, but I've learned through experience to never make assumptions. 😆 Thank you good sir!

[MikeRogers0]

Do we necessarily need older events to display on the calendar? What are the pros and cons of having past events display on the calendar vs. starting from the date the user adds the feed to their person calendar?

Right now I am just dumping all the events into the iCal. I'm not 100% sure how Google handles removing past events right now, but I imaging limiting it a 4 month window would be reasonable :)