Re: Question regarding VCOMMAND, VQUERY

[spider@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Greg Scallan)]

Doug Royer wrote:

> It is still an iCalendar object (VCALENDAR). Do you store VERSION
> in the STORE? No - commands are at the same level.

Actually, I also think Version should be at a higher level. It almost seems
that iCalendar was originally created to represent just 1 calendar, and now
additional properties are kinda being wedged in. VERSION seems like a property
of, say, a VICAL object, which should be able to contain multiple VCALENDAR
objects.

(I honestly have no clue on the historical aspects as I'm relatively new to
this work, which I think is great stuff, BTW).

> Our idea was that if we put VCOMMAND and VQUERY inside of VCALENDAR
> then the entire object is intact. You can email it, ftp, ...
> and not worry about signatures or any other text that may
> be around the object while in transit.

It seems to me that what you really need is a higher level object (VICAL) that
can contain multiple VCALENDARS and support other iCalendar Objects which are
not strictly properties of VCALENDAR.

Thus you would see something like:


     BEGIN: VICAL
       ...
     BEGIN: VCOMMAND
     END: VCOMMAND

     BEGIN: VCALENDAR
     ... # vcalendar properties and children go here...
     END: VCALENDAR

     BEGIN: VCALENDAR
     ... # vcalendar properties and children go here...
     END: VCALENDAR

     END: VICAL

This will maintain your desire for an intact iCalendar object and will enforce
that only properties or children objects of a vcalendar can belong within the
iCalendar for that calendar.

> They are properties if the object in transit. That does not mean
> you need to store them.

They are properties, but not of the calendar they are contained in (because
VCOMMAND has a TARGET which points to any number of calendars).

It sounds like what I'm hearing is that arbitrary iCalendar Properties can
exist within a VCALENDAR even if they are not properties and have no
relationship with that VCALENDAR. (ie VCOMMAND).  If that is the case, I find
the structure of the iCalendar format somewhat confusing, especially since
some objects (like VALARM) cannot be arbitratily placed within the iCalendar
Object, but are tied to their component (VEVENT, VTODO).  Why not have VALARMS
have a TARGET property for the target event to be consistent with the VCOMMAND
object.

I guess the iCalendar objects seem inconsistent to me.

Maybe part of my confustion is that I do not understand how to have multiple
calendars included in an iCalendar object.  It seems that you can only have
one calendar (VCALENDAR), but properties can reference multiple calendars (ie
VCOMMAND.TARGET property).

Just some thoughts,
Greg