Stream: boston

Topic: add to Google Calendar link

Philip Durbin (Jun 13 2026 at 21:48):

I just added a "add to Google Calendar" link on the website. See https://github.com/bostonopen/bostonopen.github.io/pull/20

Here's how it looks:

Adrian (Jun 14 2026 at 02:47):

I wonder if an ICS link to subscribe to would be better

Adrian (Jun 14 2026 at 02:47):

Then it can be add once and have all future meetups show up

Adrian (Jun 14 2026 at 02:48):

FOSSRIT.github.io has a calendar with an ICS feed thats generated with Jekyll if thats a workflow that fits how this site is built

Philip Durbin (Jun 14 2026 at 13:19):

Well, at least one person asked for a Google Calendar link and I use it myself so I don't want it go away. :smile:

But sure, if you want to make a pull request to also add an ics file, please go for it!

Dan (Jun 14 2026 at 16:11):

Can you at least have partial functionality as a Google user with the ICS link?

Dan (Jun 14 2026 at 16:11):

Wondering for my own purposes, not even for a tech event.

Philip Durbin (Jun 14 2026 at 16:38):

As a Google Calendar user, I find ics files to be a poor user experience. You click the ics file. It shows up in your "downloads" folder. You dig around in Google Calendar for the right place to import the file. You click import, you browse for the ics file. It's really not great.

Dan (Jun 14 2026 at 17:13):

I imagine it sucks. I'm just curious if it at least works though as a lowest common denominator for everything. (Though, on a phone I'm surprised that the Google Calendar app doesn't intercept it as soon as you download it)

Philip Durbin (Jun 14 2026 at 17:20):

Why not both?

Adrian (Jun 15 2026 at 03:26):

One time ICS downloads aren't a good experience. Instead what I do is copy the link to the ICS and "subscribe" to the url. Then google calendar does the downloading and updating of events for you as they change

Adrian (Jun 15 2026 at 03:27):

I also wouldn't be surprised if it's possible to set up a Google Calendar link to automate setting that up.

Philip Durbin (Jun 15 2026 at 09:54):

Oh, I see what you mean. Subscribing to a calendar. The main problem (eventually) is having too many subscribed calendars in your sidebar. Plus, it sounds like you'd want to maintain a history whereas my solution is focused only on the next event.

Adrian (Jun 16 2026 at 22:25):

We could always just delete old events from the feed/update it instead of adding new events

Dan (Jun 19 2026 at 19:08):

Let's make sure to talk about this on Sunday. I'm curious about this for my own purposes. I don't know the proper behavior of ICS. I would think that deleting items would imply that the event didn't happen.

Adrian (Jul 12 2026 at 22:17):

https://moralcode.github.io/bostonopen.github.io demo of the "add to calendar" links

Last updated: Oct 11 2026 at 03:59 UTC