vCalendar
vCalendar is an industry standard for exchanging calendar data and appointment information. This data format is used by software on PCs , PDAs and cell phones . vCalendar has been replaced by iCalendar . The file extension of vCalendar files is ".vcs".
vCalendar only specifies the format of the data without presupposing a specific method of data transmission . The data exchange can take place, for example, via files , by e-mail or wirelessly via an infrared interface or Bluetooth .
vCalendar was developed with broad industry support and published in 1996 by the Internet Mail Consortium (IMC) together with vCard , a standard for exchanging address information . The further development of vCalendar took place under the umbrella of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which published the successor format iCalendar in 1998 , which contains numerous extensions. Software with support for the newer iCalendar format also supports the older vCalendar format to a large extent , so it is backwards compatible. However, some functionalities, such as repetition rules, are not compatible. Likewise z. B. All-day appointments only supported by iCalendar.