API for showing free/busy time in iCal (Apple people?)

Question

In Snow Leopard there is a possibility to show free/busy time in iCal event. I've searched the headers of CalStore.framework and couldn't find any property that describes this field. How can i retrieve free/busy property of calendar event?

Answer 1

Pretty certain there is no public API in Calendar Store for this. You'll have to file a bug requesting it. Alternatives:

• See if iCal has AppleScript support for the property
• Use Sync Services which has access to the full iCal schema

Answer 2

As a hack could you request a CalDav file for the event and parse that?

Answer 3

When I export an iCal 4 calendar I notice that "busy" is coded as "TRANSP:OPAQUE" and "free" as "TRANSP:TRANSPARENT". I have not been able to find something equivalent in the Applescript dictionary for iCal.

Answer 4

iCal server has a method of retrieving free/busy, see: http://www.webdav.org/specs/rfc4791.html#rfc.section.7.8.4

However it's not trivial, you will have to essentially write your own API. You issue the server queries using NSURLRequest and NSURLConnection.