iPhone Event Kit : programmatically create a EKCalendar? - iphone

Question

I would like to insert events in my app, so they can be viewed in iPhone Calendar.app. But since I don't want to mix the user events with those from my app, I wanted to create a EKCalendar like "MyApp Events"
Is this possible ? How would you filter your events otherwise ?
Thanks !

Answer 1

It is absolutely possible to create your own calendar - the catch is that you need iOS 5:
EKEventStore* eventStore = [[EKEventStore alloc] init];
NSString* calendarName = #"My Cal";
EKCalendar* calendar;
// Get the calendar source
EKSource* localSource;
for (EKSource* source in eventStore.sources) {
if (source.sourceType == EKSourceTypeLocal)
{
localSource = source;
break;
}
}
if (!localSource)
return;
calendar = [EKCalendar calendarWithEventStore:eventStore];
calendar.source = localSource;
calendar.title = calendarName;
NSError* error;
bool success= [eventStore saveCalendar:calendar commit:YES error:&error];
if (error != nil)
{
NSLog(error.description);
// TODO: error handling here
}

Answer 2

Do you (or anyone else) have any progress with adding a new Calendar?
I've got the same situation. I can programmatically add events to the default calendar perfectly well, but I'd like to add them to a new calendar, so they don't interfere with the users exsisting events, and can be easily deleted/hidden by the user instead of removing all events manually.
You can't set the properties for a new EKCalendar object. It looks like you can only assign an exsiting one like defaultCalendarForNewEvents to an EKCalendar object.
However, I know it's possible to programmatically create a new calendar, because I've seen iPhone app doing this (without leaving the app).
Could it be that they use a workaround by doing some trick with an external ICS file?
Maybe it is possible to do this by "subscribing" to a local (on the iPhone/app filesystem) generated ICS file, instead of an URL. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Answer 3

This is how you can check out whether a calendar already exists with specific title.
If it does not exists then you can create it programatically.
Declare a Boolean Type Variable
BOOL doesExist=NO;
EKEventStore *eventStore=[[EKEventStore alloc] init];
NSArray *calanders=[eventStore calendarsForEntityType:EKEntityTypeEvent];
//Now Iterate through every calendar in the array and match its title
// with the title that you want to create
for(EKCalendar calendar in calendars)
{
if([[calendar title] isEqualToString:#"youdesiredname"])
{
doesExist=YES;
}
}
// so now check if our bool variable contains value YES it means that a calendar with same name/title already exists.if no then you can create
if(!doesExist)
{
NSString* calendarName = #"DesiredCalendarName";
EKCalendar* calendar;
EKSource* localSource;
for (EKSource* source in eventStore.sources) {
if (source.sourceType == EKSourceTypeLocal)
{
localSource = source;
break;
}
if (!localSource)
return;
calendar = [EKCalendar calendarWithEventStore:eventStore];
calendar.source = localSource;
calendar.title = calendarName;
EKEvent *event = [EKEvent eventWithEventStore:eventStore];
calendar = [eventStore calendarWithIdentifier:self.calendarIdentifier];
event.calendar = calendar;
// Set the start date to the current date/time and the event duration to one hour
NSDate *startDate = [NSDate date];
event.startDate = startDate;
event.endDate = [startDate dateByAddingTimeInterval:3600];
//And to save the event to the event database:
NSError *error = nil;
BOOL result = [eventStore saveEvent:event span:EKSpanThisEvent commit:YES error:&error];
if (result)
{
NSLog(#"Saved event to event store.")
}
else
{
NSLog(#"Error saving event: %#.", saveError);
}
NSError* error;
bool success= [eventStore saveCalendar:calendar commit:YES error:&error];
if (error != nil)
{
NSLog(error.description);
}
}