Webcal links being rewritten on publishing

• 

  jtok59 · Member · Jan 19, 2015 at 2:08 am

  • Copy link
  • Add topic to favorites

  When I create a hyperlink that starts with webcal:// it is automatically re-written as https:// when I publish it.
  When I create the hyperlink, it shows correctly in the text tab. When I publish it, the link is https://. When I go back and edit the post, it just starts with //.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

• 

  shawnajroberts · Member · Jan 19, 2015 at 5:42 pm

  • Copy link

  Can you give me the link you’re trying to add to your site?

• 

  jtok59 · Member · Jan 19, 2015 at 5:58 pm

  • Copy link

  webcal://www.google.com/calendar/ical/2519qknqhupup6anso07p43obk%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

• 

  shawnajroberts · Member · Jan 20, 2015 at 12:21 am

  • Copy link

  Thanks for that! Are you trying to add a link to show people your Google Calendar? Or would you like to embed the calendar? We have some integrations with Google Calendar which you can set up following these directions:

  Embed a Google Calendar

  Let me know if that doesn’t suit your needs. :)

• 

  jtok59 · Member · Jan 20, 2015 at 1:25 am

  • Copy link

  I am not embedding the calendar, I am just trying to post a standard hyperlink that begins with “webcal://” instead of “https://”. The problem is that the hyperlink I’m creating isn’t being honored by something in WordPress.com, but is instead being rewritten when published.

• 

  shawnajroberts · Member · Jan 20, 2015 at 1:52 am

  • Copy link

  I understand what’s happening when you try to make this link. But I do not understand what your end goal is.

  Just to confirm, you want people to click on this link and be prompted to download the calendar file? Or do you want people to click on this link and view the calendar in their browser?

• 

  jtok59 · Member · Jan 20, 2015 at 3:25 am

  • Copy link

  Basically, having the hyperlink begin with webcal instead of https allows certain applications and devices to know that they should treat the ics file as an internet calendar that can be subscribed to instead of just a link for download.

  It’s basically a URI scheme that will trigger an external protocol handler that will be passed the URL instead of the contents of the ics file for download. Basically how “feed://” is sometimes used to trigger external RSS readers. Essentially the “webcal://” protocol prefix dictates that the calendar should be subscribed to by the client, rather than imported into a calendar application as would happen with a simple download.

• 

  shawnajroberts · Member · Jan 20, 2015 at 4:14 am

  • Copy link

  Thanks for the follow up! I just did some testing setting up this webcal link and I’ve reproduced the stripping of the ‘webcal:’ portion of the URL.

  I’ll report this to the developers and let you know when I hear back!

• 

  shawnajroberts · Member · Jan 26, 2015 at 6:41 pm

  • Copy link

  Hi there!

  One of our developers pushed a fix for this a little while ago. Can you try updating your webcal link and let me know if you see any more issues with this?

• 

  jtok59 · Member · Jan 26, 2015 at 8:15 pm

  • Copy link

  That appears to have fixed it.

  Thanks!

• 

  shawnajroberts · Member · Jan 27, 2015 at 6:52 pm

  • Copy link

  Great! Let me know if I can help with anything else.