Calendar Suggestions

[Freddie Bingham]

I have these as suggestions for the next Calendar:

Calendar Events that span multiple days
Annual Events
Private Event Reminder
Semi-public events, that are visible only to members of a specific usergroup. Eg, events that only administrators can see.
Users can subscribe to events
Users can comment on an event and a new thread is started in a specified forum
Link forum messages to calendar - Post a message in a forum and check a box that would cause it to also appear on the calendar. After clicking submit, you would be prompted for the date(s) where it should appear. When someone visits the calendar and clicks on the link, they would be shown the message or a link to it
Calendar moderators
Please expand on these and add to them. If possible please explain how you expect these features to function in detail.

[ethank]

Just want to add an option for a Moderated calendar, where people can submit public events, but they won't show until they are approved by a moderator.

Ethan

[Raz Meister]

Isn't that what a 'Calendar moderators' moderates?

[Wayne Luke]

A few more that would be good...

1. Weekly view.
2. Event Categories set by the Admin... i.e. Chat, Seminar, Contest.
3. Share private events with other users. This would send invites to other users that they can accept or deny.
4. Not totally related to the calendar but close. Birthday Reminders. Send reminders of the users birthday if selected in the buddy list.

[orca]

Well, that are all great suggestions.

[Chen]

Originally posted by wluke
4. Not totally related to the calendar but close. Birthday Reminders. Send reminders of the users birthday if selected in the buddy list.
One of the better ideas I've heard lately.

[Raz Meister]

What about showing public events on the main page?

[mister]

add h:m:s to the events, instead of just m-d-Y

[Reeve of Shinra]

Allow users to post an icon for an event or reoccurring event.

[twobrain]

yay... more calendar options is good... very good.... :D

[laughlen]

also usefull:

regularly repeating events with criteria along the lines of outlook etc (i.e. every 2nd monday of each month until...., the next 4 wednesdays)

event location information in the event database tied to views, so that users could choose to view one of: all events, national, local, other countries etc (ideal for our global alumni association.. we need global and national currently, and by city or region in the future)

event types (sports, social, lecture, workshop, webcast etc) so users see events that interest them

views: day, week, month, quarter, year

some means of automatically connecting events info in a forum to the calendar to save duplicate entry when there is a forum to discuss a particular event

:D

ps.. an import facility (XML?) from other event data sources (such as national holidays etc) would be useful also

[veken]

How about an option to turn birthdays on and off while viewing the calendar.

my visitors like the birthdays(especially when it's posted on the main forum page) but they clutter up the calendar so our events get drowned out in all the noise.

Veken

[Ruth]

(1) ability to insert events from the registration form by users, and the option to moderate them as well. just like the birthdate field.

(2) Insert events using hour:Min:Second.

[Treat]

The ability to list the weekly events under the day of the week headers would clean up the calendar greatly.

[Freddie Bingham]

Click on the last link in my signature. Is that sufficient for recurring events? :D It has been there a week now and no one has discovered it and I have little patience (as you probably noticed). The calendar could be a script onto it's own if I am able to put everythig in to it that I want to.

[Fusion]

Yea, that would work, Freddie. Nice!

[Ruth]

Originally posted by freddie
Click on the last link in my signature. Is that sufficient for recurring events? :D It has been there a week now and no one has discovered it and I have little patience (as you probably noticed). The calendar could be a script onto it's own if I am able to put everythig in to it that I want to.


very nice!!

is this going to be on 2.0.4?

[Chen]

Sure I discovered that freddie... I just didn't want to spoil it for the others. ;)

Damn, 3 posts at the same time.

[Steve Machol]

That's very cool freddie!

[Freddie Bingham]

2.0.4 will be a bug fix only release.

[SysMom]

Hey, Freddie,

That's terrific!

I don't suppose you're willing to volunteer when it will be ready, hmmm?

I'd be happy with just a calendar hack for recurring events. :)


deb

[Freddie Bingham]

Q1 2002 - I have so much more to add to it that it has to wait until the next major version of vBulletin.

[Steve_C]

Everything you have on your list thus far is very cool.

I also would like to see submitted calendar events approved before they are displayed to the world (there is a hack for this already on here for those that may be interested).

[Littlebit]

Could an option for hiding the calendar from guest view without hiding the forums/threads from being viewed by guests be offered for admins in the next update as well?

[Wally Hartshorn]

It would be nice to list the birthdays together, rather than individually. For example, instead of:
Rob Watson's birthday (#) (33)
John Blazis's birthday (#) (24)
Lindsay Miller's birthday (#) (35)
I would prefer something like:
Birthdays:
Rob Watson (#) (33)
John Blazis (#) (24)
Lindsay Miller (#) (35)

[Floris]

Originally posted by freddie
Q1 2002 - I have so much more to add to it that it has to wait until the next major version of vBulletin.

Probably a stupid question, but.. when can we expect a 'next major version of vbb' ? .. at the end of 2002 or will we have to wait for 2003 ?

[Chen]

Read what you quoted again, xiphoid. :)
"Q1 2002", meaning first quarter of 2002.

[Floris]

Originally posted by FireFly
Read what you quoted again, xiphoid. :)
"Q1 2002", meaning first quarter of 2002.


Ah, ok.

I read it like this...

reply to a question.. q1 2002,
but, due to the amount of stuff i need to implement, it will have to wait until next major vbb update..


and. i thought: is that planned first qua. 2002 ? or does he mean it like i read it..

[Fusion]

He meant it as first quarter in the year 2002 AD, yes. In other words, it's likely we'll see the next major upgrade on March 31st. ;)

[Myriad]

... and add time/date options for the event so that the event time can translate based on the user's time zone settings!

[Fusion]

Huh? It doesn't now? Ack, I'd taken that as a given.

[tubedogg]

The date is automatically adjusted based on the user's timezone but there is currently no way to enter the time of an event so I'm not quite sure what Myriad means.

[Myriad]

What I am trying to say--but not very articulately--is to have the ability to add a start time and end time of when a particular calendar event will occur. Simply, just an extra field that displays the start time and end time, if available of an event. The start time and end time would be adjusted to the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) standard, and further time zone adjustments would be based on that for each user.

[alanvo]

please add national holidays, like Christmas, halloween, etc on every year.

[Chen]

Originally posted by alanvo
please add national holidays, like Christmas, halloween, etc on every year.
That's already done (in vB3 calendar, that is). :)

[Fusion]

Quite the little tease, aren't you, FireFly. :D

[Chen]

Originally posted by Fusion
Quite the little tease, aren't you, FireFly. :D
That's what they pay me to do. ;)

[Marc Smith]

Originally posted by veken
How about an option to turn birthdays on and off while viewing the calendar.

my visitors like the birthdays(especially when it's posted on the main forum page) but they clutter up the calendar so our events get drowned out in all the noise.

Veken I second this if it hasn't already been. If so I third it or whatever.

[Kohhal]

Damn, I'm really hanging out for these new calendar features.
5 weeks left in Q1 2002.....

[XiXora]

do mods get access to alpha stages?

[Reeve of Shinra]

Well, if your running out of idea's, make it sync with my pda's calander j.k lol

[Pete Kottmann]

I would like the ability to see automated PDI (based upon the event data entered) or simply allow the ability for one to upload an iCalendar attachment.

:confused: refer to: http://www.imc.org/pdi/

[Floris]

Original by freddie
* Events that span multiple days & Annual Events
Original by alanvo
> please add national holidays, like Christmas, halloween, etc on every year.
Original by FireFly
This is already done!



Having events that span over a period of time, or even return on a anual base, is very good.
I also hope that there is an option for events that might last a few days/weeks. to be repeated anually.
The reoccuring events was one of the features I certainly missed on the calendar.

Original by freddie
Private events Reminder
Original by wluke
4. Not totally related to the calendar but close. Birthday Reminders. Send reminders of the users birthday if selected in the buddy list.


Having reminders is very nice, I'd second that!
I think it would be nice that users can click a checkbox so they get a reminder, prior to the event.
At least have the admin set a global time for this? (1 day?) or in such a way that users can select, hour/day/week (checkbox and dropdown menu)
Besides private events, let there be an option for the admin to also set globablly that they can set reminders for public events.

Original by wluke
2. Event Categories set by the Admin... i.e. Chat, Seminar, Contest.
Original by Wally Hartshorn
It would be nice to list the birthdays together, rather than individually.
Original by Razzie
How about showing public events on the frontpage?



Yes, it would be very nice to have the admin set a few cats for the calendar, so sections like contest, news, birthdays, can be added (where birthday's is pre-set)
That way it can be used for showing is like:
News (5)
Birthdays (3)
Contest (2)
Holiday: Christmas
(one event will display the event, otherwise it will collapse)
And on the frontpage, it can be displayed (optionally)
**Todays Events**
# News (3)
- New version of vbulletin installed
- Imported 150 members from old forum
- Microsoft.NET released
# Birthdays (3)
- freddie (55)
- john (54)
- xiphoid (99)
# Contests (2)
- Win a 'forum' T-shirt!
- Nominate board of the month
# Holidays: Merry Christmas
Hope you get what I am aiming for :P At least have some option for calendar events to be published on the frontpage (by calendar moderator or admin through event>edit>checkbox?)

Original by freddie
* Users can comment on an event and a new thread is started in a specified forum
* Link forum messages to calendar - Post a message in a forum and check a box that would cause it to also appear on the calendar. After clicking submit, you would be prompted for the date(s) where it should appear. When someone visits the calendar and clicks on the link, they would be shown the message or a link to it

Oh, that would be nice! Now I have to do this all manually, and hope they see the link in the post, but most times they dont, because they expect a 'post reply' button.
I'd see myself creating one category for the forum discussions with a board for calendar events, with possibly subs for different categories from the calendar like news/contests/holidays/birthdays,etc.

Views:
yes, it would be nice to get the calendar in different layouts,
like browse through: days/week/month/ maybe even year?

Little request, could the timestamp in the database be a real timestamp and not year-mm-dd?

Big request, but I understand this is not an option.
It would be nice to have some way of implementing some kind of overview of weekly/montly events or birthdays. Like sometimes displayed on portal's. Uhm, I have been working on a little box, can use that as example now I think: last 10 events from database (http://www.marietje.nl/vbb/portal/events.php). This so it can be used on the main page? Or yes, even on a portal. This would be nice, because I think users will be more involved in the events, if they see what kind of events they missed, or are happening this week, or whatever possible scenario. (I speak of events, but this could do/be the same for birthdays).

Bigger request, .. /me twinkles his eyes to freddie .. how about a sneak peak teaser preview of a calendar page from v3? ..

[CondorZ]

I'd like to see the ability to make event titles in different colors, to have a contrast from the birthdays. We want to keep our birthdays visible but would like our events to stand out from them. :)

Maybe even optional italics and symbols besides a dot.

[Floris]

Originally posted by CondorZ
I'd like to see the ability to make event titles in different colors, to have a contrast from the birthdays. We want to keep our birthdays visible but would like our events to stand out from them. :)

Maybe even optional italics and symbols besides a dot.

This is already done
birthday's have different colour on forum then events
and pub events have diff. colour then private events.

[CondorZ]

Already done?? Ours are all in black. How do you make them different? We even tried vB code. We're running ver 2.2.1

[Floris]

Originally posted by CondorZ
Already done?? Ours are all in black. How do you make them different? We even tried vB code. We're running ver 2.2.1 '

I currently use 2.2.2, but I this was already implemented in 2.2.1:

[Floris]

(here is where you can alter it)

[CondorZ]

Thanks xiphoid! :D

[!!freebsddude]

I am sure this has been suggested a million times and we hope it is in vb3.

In the meantime, I have put together a hack if anyone is interested. It is available on vbulletin.org here (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35880).

Based on the hack, here are some more detailed suggestions:

1. Allow users to turn reminders on/off and maybe the ability to say how many times they want to be reminded before the event.
2. Customize reminder email templates for birthdays and private events.
3. Provide some kind of a template to say from email, subject, mail server, etc. etc.
4. Provide the ability to define a reminder for another member.
5. Events should be identified by timestamp instead of just a date.

Thanks!

[InvictuZ]

Originally posted by wluke
A few more that would be good...

2. Event Categories set by the Admin... i.e. Chat, Seminar, Contest.


I need this feature really badlly!!! :)

[Ghostsuit]

Ok love the ideas so far. I especially like the categorys ones, I'm currently using ours to list Gigs/concerts that happen in our city. Now What I'd like to see is

Category: Concert, Chat, Meeting etc
Location: Hall, Pub on the Board , chat room etc
Date & Time of Event: Time spanning ability as mentioned would be excellent.

[SysMom]

I made a mod the other day to print the DATE on the Display Event -- I hope it's in the new one.

If it's not, I'll be adding it again, I feel it is that important.

It took me ALL these months to even realize it wasn't there -- no wonder I was getting confused users sometimes.

deb

[Marc Smith]

Sounds like many people really need a stand alone full blown calendar / PIM / scheduling 'module' / software.

Does anyone know of any stand-alone software that will do all these things?

[Ghostsuit]

Hmm I'm just hoping alot of these things are in the vB 3 for me theres not alot of extras required and if it's not in vB 3 I might try adding them myself

It's just that the first hack is the most scary I think :)

[SysMom]

Originally posted by Ghostsuit
It's just that the first hack is the most scary I think :)
The second one can be even scarier, depending on how the first one went... :ducking:

[Marc Smith]

It runs on cgi scripts, but there's an interesting calendar (think ideas) at:

http://www.asq.org/cgi-bin/webevent/webevent.cgi?cmd=opencal&cal=cal1&

[InvictuZ]

I'm sure there are .php coders amongst us here, what would it take for one to add events and be able to remove / add event types in the admin cp? anyone know? would it be that hard?

[Marc Smith]

I guess my point was/is that one can get pretty elaborate with different views (month / day / year / etc). The details view and such. Not being a php coder, I have no idea how difficult it would be.

[InvictuZ]

That calendar script is nice, but for a 5 person calendar (5 admin able to access admin features and add/subtract events) its $500.00 thats entirelly too much money for something like that. :\

[Marc Smith]

I didn't even consider buying it so I didn't investigate the cost. Yeah - that's a rip off totally IMO. I'm just getting into the calendar function on my board and I do see some potential with respect to my application - I just decided to start posting my schedule there for clients so we can better arrange meetings and such. I'm begiinning to better see the possibilities and potentials of the calendar aspect of vBulletin.

[mcahill]

I was looking for an calendar to use on my intranet today. Hopefully vBull 3.0 will replace it with a sweet forum/subforum specific calendar.

There were at least 10 different calendar projects that looked like they'd do the trick. I'll be installing one tomorrow.

sourceforge.net (http://sourceforge.net/)

Mark

[Marc Smith]

Originally posted by mcahill
I was looking for an calendar to use on my intranet today. Hopefully vBull 3.0 will replace it with a sweet forum/subforum specific calendar.

There were at least 10 different calendar projects that looked like they'd do the trick. I'll be installing one tomorrow.

sourceforge.net (http://sourceforge.net/)

MarkPlease do keep us informed. If you try something and like it, or will take a minute and mention the ones you've found, we (I ?) sure would appreciate it.

[lyonsdigital]

My calendar issue may be unique, but in addition to the Gregorian calendar, I also have to keep track of dates on the Hebrew calendar. It would sure make it easier to administer dates, if I could get Yom Kippur and Passover (as well as others) to repeat on the appropriate dates since the two calendars are not in sync with one another.

[Mefod]

freddie, those are excellent suggestions.

i would love to see them implimented in an upcoming version

[Freddie Bingham]

For those of you requesting "multiple calendars", can you please detail to me how you envision it working from the user's perspective. You hit calendar.php and then what's next?

[Mefod]

A Calendar Summary page - like the Forum Home page

with descriptions and post #s

just a thought. i cant think of it in any other way

[Floris]

When we view a event, can the date be included? :D
(like I have done for vB2, like here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44059))

[hacker]

Originally posted by freddie
For those of you requesting "multiple calendars", can you please detail to me how you envision it working from the user's perspective. You hit calendar.php and then what's next?

The implementation could be like the one shown here:

http://www.webevent.com/cgi-bin/demos/basic/webevent.cgi?cmd=opencal&cal=cal1&

[jacy]

Curious as to how much longer it will be before the new-and-improved calendar becomes available. I have a client desperate for a multiple calendar and I'm trying to hold her off until this one's ready. Is there a beta available anywhere?

TIA

[Marc Smith]

As I understand it, the calandar improvements are to be released with the next major version --> 3 (?) - in late summer. I could be wrong.

[bensonw]

Since a search of
calendar print* didn't turn up much, I'll make a suggestion here:

Make the calendar with a PRINTER FRIENDLY link. Click the link, set the page setup to 'landscape', and blammo, nice calendar for the fridge.

This, along with flexible event entry and display, i.e.

a. Enter repeating events (2nd Tues of every month; 12th of every month, etc)
b. Calendar option for displaying a limited amount of title text on the month view (30, 40, 50 characters per event). If this is hardcoded to a too-small amount, the printed calendar would not be too useful.
c. Time of the event to show up on monthly calendar

would make a hugely nice improvement.

One of our clients (one with vBulletin, wouldn't you know?) wants a web calendar AND a printed calendar, both using the same interface. I've been looking high and low for something that would be appropriate.

[Fusion]

I couldn't agree more. It would be nice, very nice indeed.

[cteselle]

vCalendar (http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/Terms/vcalendar.html) support would be cool.

[dwh]

In terms of functionality, I think the detail view is most important. For example this page:
http://www.timeoutny.com/clubs/
which prints out the dates there are events for and the details of it is the most functional way to see a calendar, at least imho. That's what I would default calendar.php to personally...

I think having a monthly view by default as now, very soon turns into an unmanageable hard to view page. On my site, which is moderately big, the calendar is just a mishmash and if someone actually posted an event it would totally get lost...

[BustaCap]

Originally posted by hacker


The implementation could be like the one shown here:

http://www.webevent.com/cgi-bin/demos/basic/webevent.cgi?cmd=opencal&cal=cal1&

Yeah, that's exactly what I want. A month view that also allows you to see a detailed day view.

[juno]

Maybe I missed it, but I really would like the ability to add reoccurring events on a weekly basis.

[Steve Machol]

Originally posted by juno
Maybe I missed it, but I really would like the ability to add reoccurring events on a weekly basis. That will be in 3.0.

[ukdiver]

Probably somewhere above, I have not read all in detail..

User defined classes of event in user defined colours ie

Event type 1 in blue
Event type 2 in red

etc

[irc]

Originally posted by Myriad
... and add time/date options for the event so that the event time can translate based on the user's time zone settings!

In my case, I'm not sure that is a good thing. People use my calendar to promote shows. So adding a time field is essential. I see the need to translate times on the fly for web based events. But in my case it might be annoying or confusing for someone in California to see a show time in New York listed as 4 in the afternoon. Can there be a switch to translate times?

As a general note, I can't wait for new options. I'm sure you are going to do a terrific update to the calendar. I definitely want categories for my calendar, multiple calendars would work, but so would one calendar with categories.

One thing I would like is to have more than one category. For instance on my board, people plug shows and events. I would love to be able to create categories based on city, type of event, and venue. For instance, someone might plug an improvised show, in Chicago at the ImprovOlympic Theater or a class in New York at the UCB Theatre. I would like to have fields or categories I create, to classify events by event type, city and venue.

Then what would be even cooler would be to give individual users the ability to choose which categories they want to appear on their version of the calendar. For instance, maybe they only want to view events in Chicago, or events at a particular venue, or only classes in New York.

Even if you don't give us extensive ways to sort and display events by these fields, I would still want to be able to easily add fields (like we can for users). Then I could create my scripts to display the events, sorted by various fields on my own.

[Ken 01-Cobra]

I have a small vBulletin 2.2.8 Board running for Ford SVT Owners in Atlanta, and one of my users tried to enter a recurring monthly event. He sent me an email asking how to tell the calendar he wanted to post the same event for the third Saturday of every month.

I started from the get-go on this thread, and the only reference I saw to code to allow this was a reference to the second link in a sig which contained no links. Did I miss it somewhere along the way? You folks are talking like it is a done deal, but I just put the latest 2.2.8 code in about 2 weeks ago, and I don't see a way to enter multiple or recurring events other than to copy and paste it to each month.

Any help or url's to code to fix this would be appreciated! :)

[Steve Machol]

There is no recurring event option in vB 2.x. This will be a feature in vB 3.0.

[Ken 01-Cobra]

Originally posted by Steve Machol
There is no recurring event option in vB 2.x. This will be a feature in vB 3.0.
I assume I cannot roll the calendar code from the V3 beta into 2.2.8 or 2.2.9? :(

[Steve Machol]

Well since you don't have acces to the vB3 code, that answer would be no.

[Ken 01-Cobra]

Originally posted by Steve Machol
Well since you don't have acces to the vB3 code, that answer would be no.
Heh...okay, I'm a newbie! Slap me! I didn't realize that the beta code was limited distribution! ;) :D

I guess my user will just have to wait for the release of 3 and do it the hard way until then. Pooooor user.... ;)

[Paul]

Originally posted by Ken 01-Cobra
Heh...okay, I'm a newbie! Slap me! I didn't realize that the beta code was limited distribution! ;) :D

I guess my user will just have to wait for the release of 3 and do it the hard way until then. Pooooor user.... ;) I just did a quick search over on vbulletin.org and saw at least one hack that might be of interest to you:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34240&highlight=calenda r+recurring

Not sure if it will accomplish what you're looking for, but it's a start.

Best wishes,
Paul

[Ken 01-Cobra]

Originally posted by LoveShack
I just did a quick search over on vbulletin.org and saw at least one hack that might be of interest to you:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34240&highlight=calenda r+recurring

Not sure if it will accomplish what you're looking for, but it's a start.

Best wishes,
Paul
Thanks Paul. It looks as if that could be fairly easily modified to do a recurring monthly event if I had the time to mess with it. I don't, so Mr. user can cut and paste his recurring event. ;)

[2root4u]

I didn't read all 6 pages of this thread, so forgive me if this is a repeat.

I would like to have the ability to create multiple calendars. So when you create a forum, the options would be Forum/Category/Calendar. This would allow my groups to each have their own group calendar to organize events without having to see clutter from other groups.

Another feature (although fancy and probably intensive) is to allow subcalendar events to propogate up to the main calendar.

Just some ideas.