ical-generator

ical-generator is a small but fine library with which you can very easily create a valid iCal calendars, for example to generate subscriptionable calendar feeds.

Installation

npm install ical-generator

️ Quick Start

import ical, { ICalCalendarMethod } from 'ical-generator';
import http from 'node:http';

const calendar = ical({ name: 'my first iCal' });

// A method is required for outlook to display event as an invitation
calendar.method(ICalCalendarMethod.REQUEST);

const startTime = new Date();
const endTime = new Date();
endTime.setHours(startTime.getHours() + 1);
calendar.createEvent({
    start: startTime,
    end: endTime,
    summary: 'Example Event',
    description: 'It works ;)',
    location: 'my room',
    url: 'http://sebbo.net/',
});

http.createServer((req, res) => {
    res.writeHead(200, {
        'Content-Type': 'text/calendar; charset=utf-8',
        'Content-Disposition': 'attachment; filename="calendar.ics"',
    });

    res.end(calendar.toString());
}).listen(3000, '127.0.0.1', () => {
    console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:3000/');
});

See the examples folder for more examples.

API-Reference

• Index
  • ICalCalendar
  • ICalEvent
    • ICalAlarm
    • ICalAttendee
    • ICalCategory

Date, Time & Timezones

ical-generator supports native Date, Day.js, Luxon's DateTime, the older moment.js, moment-timezone, TZDate and Temporal objects. You can also pass a string which is then passed to javascript's Date internally.

It is recommended to use UTC time as far as possible. ical-generator will output all time information as UTC time as long as no time zone is defined. For day.js, a plugin is necessary for this, which is a prerequisite. If a time zone is set, ical-generator assumes that the given time matches the time zone. If a time zone is used, it is also recommended to use a VTimezone generator. Such a function generates a VTimezone entry and returns it. For example, timezones-ical-library or @touch4it/ical-timezones can be used for this:

Example with @touch4it/ical-timezones

import { ICalCalendar } from 'ical-generator';
import { getVtimezoneComponent } from '@touch4it/ical-timezones';

const cal = new ICalCalendar();
cal.timezone({
    name: 'Europe/London',
    generator: getVtimezoneComponent,
});
cal.createEvent({
    start: new Date(),
    timezone: 'Europe/London',
});

Example with timezones-ical-library

import { ICalCalendar } from 'ical-generator';
import { tzlib_get_ical_block } from 'timezones-ical-library';

const cal = new ICalCalendar();
cal.timezone({
    name: 'Europe/Berlin',
    generator: (tz) => tzlib_get_ical_block(tz)[0],
});
cal.createEvent({
    start: new Date(),
    timezone: 'Europe/London',
});

If a moment-timezone object or Luxon's setZone method works, ical-generator sets it according to the time zone set in the calendar/event.

Tests

npm test
npm run coverage

FAQ

Where's the changelog?

It's here. If you need the changelog for ical-generator 1.x.x and older, you'll find it here.

I get a ReferenceError: TextEncoder is not defined error (in some browsers)

This library uses TextEncoder, which is available in node.js ≥ 11.0.0 and all modern browsers. Outdated browsers may not have the necessary API and generate this error when generating the calendar.

Copyright and license

Copyright (c) Sebastian Pekarek under the MIT license.