How can I let users drag-and-drop a calendar event from my app to iCal?

Question

I'm writing a Mac app. In this app there are elements which I'd like to let the user turn into calendar events. I'd like the user to be able to drag an element into iCal, and preferably BusyCal as well. But I'm not sure what to put on the drag pasteboard.

I want to be able to set the URL property of these events, which means plan text is (as far as I know) not a solution.

iCalendar data seems like a good fit. Unfortunately, part of the VEVENT spec in iCalendar is the start and end times of the event, and neither iCal nor BusyCal seem to like VEVENTs without those properties. I'd like the user to select the time for the event by dragging it to that place in the calendar.

Any idea what I can put of the pasteboard to make this work?

Answer 1

As it turns out, the best way was to put URL data (public.url) on the pasteboard. iCal will use this as the name and the URL of the new event. If a public.url-name is specified as well, BusyCal will use it as the name instead. iCal will still use the URL to name the event.