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The CalConnect Developer's Guide gets a fresh new look

Announcements The world of calendaring

The CalConnect Developer’s Guide gets a fresh new look

If you’ve visited calconnect.org recently, you’ve probably noticed that the CalConnect website has a whole new look. Today we’re excited to announce that the CalConnect Developer’s Guide has been refreshed to match the new theme and style of the CalConnect homepage.

The Developer’s Guide is one of CalConnect’s most important community resources — a practical "cookbook" that helps developers at all levels work with calendaring and scheduling standards like iCalendar, CalDAV, CardDAV, and jsCalendar. Whether you’re building your first calendar event or wrestling with recurring event patterns and time zones, the DevGuide is there to help you get it right.

What’s new

The refreshed DevGuide brings a number of improvements that make it easier to use and more pleasant to read:

  • Unified design — The DevGuide now shares the same visual language as the main CalConnect site, providing a consistent experience across all CalConnect web properties.

  • Dark mode — A long-requested feature. Toggle between light and dark themes to suit your preference and working environment.

  • Better navigation — An improved sidebar and table of contents makes it easier to find what you need and browse between topics.

  • Mobile-friendly — The guide is now fully responsive and comfortable to read on phones and tablets, not just desktop browsers.

  • Modern typography — Crisper fonts and improved code formatting make technical content easier to follow.

Under the hood, the DevGuide now runs on the shared jekyll-calconnect-theme, the same theme gem powering the CalConnect homepage. This means future improvements to the shared theme will benefit all CalConnect sites at once.

A resource built by the community, for the community

The DevGuide was first announced in 2016 as a community-driven effort to lower the barrier to entry for calendaring standards. Over the years, contributors have built up a comprehensive resource covering everything from the basics of iCalendar data to advanced topics like scheduling with iTIP and iMIP.

But there is always more to do. Calendaring standards continue to evolve, new use cases emerge, and there are gaps in coverage that only practitioners can fill. That’s where you come in.

We’re calling for new contributors

The DevGuide thrives when the people who use calendaring standards every day share what they’ve learned. If you’ve ever fought with a recurring event edge case, debugged a CalDAV sync issue, or figured out the right way to handle time zones across platforms — your experience belongs in the DevGuide.

Contributing is straightforward. The content is maintained on GitHub, and contributions can be as simple as fixing a typo, adding an example, or writing up a new FAQ entry. No contribution is too small.

Here are some areas where we’d especially welcome help:

  • jsCalendar — This emerging standard needs more examples and implementation guidance

  • Time zone best practices — Real-world patterns for handling DST transitions and timezone data

  • CalDAV client development — Step-by-step guides for building CalDAV clients

  • Code examples — Working examples in popular programming languages

If you’re interested in contributing, head over to the DevGuide repository on GitHub or reach out to the TC DEVGUIDE mailing list.

What’s ahead

This refresh is just the beginning. With the new theme in place, we can focus on what matters most: expanding and improving the content.

We have plans to add more interactive examples, expand coverage of newer standards like jsCalendar, and create more "quick start" guides for developers getting started with calendaring for the first time.

The future of the DevGuide is bright — and it’s shaped by its contributors. We look forward to seeing you there.

Thomas Schafer (TC DEVGUIDE Chair)