A Project On Integrating VCard File Format For Import And Export

#1

The VCard Contacts .vcf file format seems to me to be the most universal handled by all kinds of devices. It makes sense to have TiddlyWiki one of the ways we can store our contacts.

@pmario posted at “Any CalDAV or WebDAV server plugin?” that .vcf files can be imported properly. I tried it and it works! Thank you, Mario.

Naturally, the thing would be to enable an export of those tiddlers so that they are returned in their original .vcf. The information on how to do that can be found at TiddlyWiki.com:

https://tiddlywiki.com/#Creating%20a%20custom%20export%20format

The instructions take only a couple of minutes to follow. So importing and exporting are IN THE BAG!

However, there remains a small issue. When importing a .vcf file or any file for that matter, the extensions are included in the tiddler title. And that results in the extensions being duplicated when exporting. You might get something like this: AlfieA.vcf.vcf

. So that might need to be worked on.

Another thig that Mario brought up is a way to make the vcards presentable. So perhaps we could work on a list filter tiddler which will show the contacts as you would have them shown on one of your devices (phones).

There are some other things we might want to include such as filtering (work/home/friends, etc.).

Next, we could handle ICalendar ics. That’s going to be a big one.

Your thoughts.

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#2

One more thing: I know it’s bad manners to dump a AI chat into a post like this. But it may be helpful to the readers to include an upload of the the query in say, a tiddler. I have saved hundreds of such queries and I would like to share the one I had on this particular topic. I hope this is acceptable, but if it is not, please be sure to let me know. Thank you.
202504-161543-202504-161543-TWRS25-INQR00-Query-TiddlyWiki-VCARD-Adaptability-Import-Export.tid (7.6 KB)

#3

Update: VCards and iCalendars and .gpx and all sorts of files are importable to TiddlyWiki. Are they exportable? They most certainly are! Do this for every .wtv (WhaTdeVer) and you will get the raw text and extension you are looking for. Instructions are here:

[TiddlyWiki v5.3.6 — a non-linear personal web notebook](https://tiddlywiki.com/#Creating%20a%20custom%20export%20format)

VCards, iCalendars, GPX Tracks, and everything are importable and exportable through TiddlyWiki.

Ok.

Now. What to do with the iCalandar? VCard and iCalandar are established formats.

That’s what I am working on now.

But there’s more… !! hint: can TW interpret email .eml? Answer:yes. Just a matter of time.

Could TiddlyWiki ever handle emails? Of course! So, for Project 2036 TW, let’s make it happen.

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#4

HTML mailto:// links work in TiddlyWiki and you can place details and body text in these links if carefuly crafted. The key gap is attachments, as a rule we need to convert the payload/attachments to a mime type to embed in the body of a generated email.

  • This allows the local machine or email handler to do the sending

I have long dreamed of being able to send an email with an attachment derived from the activity of a user on a website as a form of content generation and capture.

  • It needs this conversion to mime process.

No doubt there are Already javascript projects that could be installed for tiddlywiki to convert to mime types including images and binaries.