Support loading webcal calendar directly from the Nextcloud server

[mpeter50]

Hi!

I'm using DAVx5 with my local Nextcloud server. Among others I have all external calendars imported into my account there that I need to use.
DAVx5 (and probably the Nextcloud API too) treats these calendars differently, and they show up in the Webcal menu. There is no problem with that, but when I choose in DAVx5 to synchronize a Webcal calendar, it opens ICSx5 with a prompt to sync the calendar from its original URL.

For various reasons, I dont want to do this.
So I did a little experiment, and if I grab the "export" URL from the Nextcloud interface, I get an URL that points to my Nextcloud instance, and when I open it in my web browser the download dialog appears for the .ics file.
If I paste this URL into ICSx5 on my phone, allow authentication and fill in my credentials, ICSx5 can sync the calendar just fine, directly from my Nextcloud server!

Would it be possible to support passing this export URL to ICSx5, instead of the original URL that points to the public server? The URL is basically the same format as the URL of the normal CalDAV calendars, but with ?export apprended to it.
If not, would it at least be possible to make doing this manually a little easier? Right now the export URL needs to be copied on a PC, sent to the phone somehow, copied there and pasted into the ICSx5 app. Having a copy button that copies the Nextcloud calendar URL of the webcal calendar would be better than nothing too.

To illustrate the similarity of the URLs:

URL of CalDAV calendar as seen in DAVx5	https://nextcloud.lan/remote.php/dav/calendars/peter/personal/
URL of webcal calendar export	https://nextcloud.lan/remote.php/dav/calendars/peter/my-ics-calendar/?export

[ArnyminerZ]

Hi, as of right now there isn't any easy way. It's the first time I hear someone having this issue, but I agree that making it easier to copy the URL instead of just launching in ICSx⁵ must be useful.

What I can suggest right now is that you copy the URL directly from ICSx⁵'s text field once it's launched, and we will think how, when and if we change this kind of integration.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[mpeter50]

What I can suggest right now is that you copy the URL directly from ICSx⁵'s text field once it's launched

I might have been ambiguous, but the URL in ICSx5's text field is the wrong one here. As I understand either DAVx5, or Nextcloud's web interface (or possibly its android app) can give me the link that I would like to use in ICSx5.
To put it another way, when clicking "subscribe" in DAVx5, ICSx5's text field will contain the external calendar URL (a public URL on an internet site), but I would prefer it to have the URL that points to my Nextcloud server on my private network (also accessible by VPN so it works always) so to keep the connections inside of the network.

This is useful for easing server load on the public server, avoiding rate limiting and instability issues, and I believe it has some privacy advantages too by hiding the number and the kinds of clients I use, the times they are online and such. Basically all the advantages of a single device doing the queries and sharing the results with the others, instead of all my devices checking for updates themselves.

[ArnyminerZ]

It's really strange what you are proposing, since it's working fine for a lot of other Nextcloud users. I understand that you'd want to use the local IP to surpass limitations, but this is simply not a feature in the CalDAV protocol.

DAVx⁵ takes the URL given by Nextcloud, what it does in the web UI is really unknown to us, we just take the URL set by the server, and we really can't "make up" another one.

So... I really don't know how to help here, you will have to do it manually, sorry.