Calendar Enhancements - vB Event Forums

Introduction

This is a continuation of my Event Forums plugin/addon from 3.5. You can find the old version here. The original plugin was developed by Endquote, and I have since taken it over to bring it to what it is today. I hope you can find it useful!

What is this addon?

This is a plugin which allows you to create relationships between calendars and events, giving each event a thread of its own for users to discuss. I have tested this alot, and I am running it myself on a live board.

Sure, so whats it do?

Some examples of the features this plugin offers

• When a new event is created in a calendar, an associated thread is created in the linked forum.
• Links to events in the calendar are forwarded to the associated thread, or optionally a seperate New Event button can be added with a minor template edit.
• New thread links in the event forum are redirected to a new event form.
• A summary can be shown at the top of the event forum which shows the up and coming events over the next 'x' days.
• The date and time shown in the thread and post title, is calculated on the current viewing users timezone. In other words, times always show in the users timezone, not forced to GMT.
• Full moderation support.
• Editing a thread or event, will update its associated event/thread.

Screenshots

Some screenshots of this plugin

• Admin Options
• Event Thread
• Event Thread with Reply
• Thread List

How do I install it?

For upgrading, please see the section below.

Summary

• 1 xml import.
• 1 (optional) template change.
• 1 (optional) gif file upload.

Step 1

Install the product
Download the product XML file.

Goto your Admin CP at your forums, then goto Plugin System -> Manage Products. Click [Add/Import Product] at the bottom of the page. Browse to the location where you downloaded the xml file and then click the Import button.

Step 2

Calendar ID:
Goto your Admin CP at your forums, then goto Calendar Manager. Find the calendar you want to link to a forum, then click Edit.
Right at the top of the page you should see:

Calendar: NAME (id: ID)

Make a note of the ID, you will need this soon.

Forum ID:
Goto your Admin CP at your forums, then goto Forum Manager. Find the forum you want to activate as your event forum, then click Edit Forum.
Right at the top of the page you should see:

Forum: NAME (id: ID)

Make a note of the ID, you will need this soon.

Link a Calendar to a Forum:
Goto your Admin CP at your forums, then goto vBulletin Options and find Event Forums.
The first option you should see is Calendar/Forum Map.
Enter in your IDs into the box, as CALENDARID:FORUMID.
Example, my Calendar is 5 and my Forum is 14:

5:14

Click Save.

Step 3

Base permissions check:
You will need to check that users using the Event Forums, have basic permissions to both the Linked Forum AND Calendar.
Basic Permissions include: Can View Forum and Can Post Threads and possibly some others.

Step 4 (Optional template edit)

Add the New Event button:
You only need todo this if you want to show a seperate New Event button next to the New Thread button.

First of all, upload newevent.gif to your images/buttons folder. NOTE you will need to upload this to any custom image folders too for different styles you might have.

Second, open up FORUMDISPLAY template for each of your styles you want to show the button, find and add the highlighted code below:

<td class="smallfont"><if condition="$show['newthreadlink']">
<a href="newthread.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newthread&amp;f=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="nofollow"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/newthread.gif" alt="$vbphrase[post_new_thread]" border="0" /></a>
<if condition="$show['neweventlink']">&nbsp;<a href="newthread.php?$session[sessionurl]do=newevent&amp;f=$foruminfo[forumid]" rel="nofollow"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/newevent.gif" alt="$vbphrase[lv_vb_eventforums_phrase_post_new_event]" border="0" /></a></if>
<else />&nbsp;</if></td>

Lastly, go into the Event Forums options, and change the option Show the New Event button on the thread list to yes.

Step 5

Install on VB.org:
Browse back to this thread, and click the INSTALL button so you can recieve updates whenever I update this plugin.

How do I upgrade it from an old version?

Step 1

Import xml
Download the product XML file.

Goto your Admin CP at your forums, then goto Plugin System -> Manage Products. Click [Add/Import Product] at the bottom of the page. Browse to the location where you downloaded the xml file. Make sure the overwrite option is set to ON and then click the Import button.

Can I give you money to make this?

This isn't a commercial plugin, and can be used by anyone for free. However, a few people have said to me that they would like to donate some money for my time working on the plugin and for picking it up and continuing the development of new features etc. If you do want to donate some money my way, then you can do so through paypal by clicking this link. Thanks!

Bugs / Support

If you find a bug, then please post in this thread and let me know. There are a few bugs that haven't been fixed since the old version, so i'm hoping that we can fix these soon. I will do my best to support the plugin as much as possible, however I also have a busy job which takes up alot of my time.

Known Bugs

Here is a list of known bugs to date

• Soft delete actually hard deletes the thread.
• Search doesn't search the first post of an event thread.
• Inline ajax edit bugs thread title. Need to remove date and time from it before edit.

Feature request list

Here is a list of the requested features. Please note that because it makes this list, doesn't mean it will be added.

• Intergration with the event attendance plugin.
• Customisation of the order of the custom fields in the thread title.
• An option to "import" all the previous events from a Calendar into threads.
• Extra post options support (Attachments, Post Icons, Sticky etc).
• Custom ordering of the %datetime variable.
• Custom ordering of %custom variable.
• Better handling of recurring events.

Credits

Thanks to endquote for originally creating the plugin.
Thanks to the Ninja :ninja: for helping me infiltrate the vb code and finding those hidden hooks!
Thanks to anybody that helps test this plugin.

Changelog

Version: 3.3

• Added Farcasters Event Attendance patch to the mod. I've added a self check so it will only run when the Event attendance mod is installed and active.

Version: 3.2

• Fixed a bug which was prevent the thread from being deleted when you try to delete an event.

Version: 3.1

• Fixed a bug which would cause an error with undefined function on the forum display page when summary is turned on.

Version: 3.0

• Version now compatible with 3.6. Please note this plugin will no longer install on a board older than 3.6. I would recommend you upgrade your board as soon as you can!
• Added an optional template edit to show a New Event button next to the New Thread button.
• Plugin no longer in BETA. I feel this has been running enough stablely to take this out of BETA. There are still some bugs which need fixing, but as a whole it works and is used by quite a few people.

Version: 2.7 and below

• See the old thread here

[dieselpowered]

HAHAHA ok are you ready for this one.

I went into the event forum and clicked on "New Thread"

I noticed that while typing, anytime I hit the space bar, it would save the thread but not close the window...I then had 4 versions of my event.

Could not get to do it again, however, thought it was odd.

I would recommend though, when you click on new thread in the event forum, the add new event dialog comes up...it lets you enter a date, however, no times or recurring options. Anyway to get it to do that?

[GrendelKhan{TSU]

clicks install.

great job.

[Crazy Serb]

Originally Posted by popowich

The way my site is set up we have an Upcoming events forum, and this forum is associated with our one calendar. When an event has passed, I manually move it to a recent events forum. This keeps the event discussion forum from getting cluttered. In fact, maybe this is a good idea for an automated option? When an event time has passed, move the thread to another forum? A cron to do this once a day at midnight would be fine

-Raymond

I second that idea.

Originally Posted by snyx

I have a question, im not sure if this is already a feature or if its possible. I remember trying to mod this back in the previous version without luck. Okay in the Forum view, is there a way to force the listing of event thread in order of event date. So regardless of a new post or new event thread they stay in chronological order?

Originally Posted by Evercraft

There isnt currently a way with this mod. I'm not really sure if its very well possible, it might be.

Why is that impossible BUT sorting the events in the "summary box" is done by date? Why not just use the same sorting function/code from that?

Having the events all over the place and with dates in no specific order makes one hell of a mess on a forum that depends on "date sorted" events...


the easy way of fixing this issue for some of us would be to simply revert back to the old way of creating threads -> embedding the date into the thread title at creation/update time and inserting it into the database like that (so it's not just "virtually added" and goes missing once the thread is moved to another forum). that way we could still sort threads alphabetically, and that would get us threads sorted by dates (with a proper date format).

[Crazy Serb]

nobody? no answer, no help? tsk...

never mind... I hacked the code myself.

now I have it adding the date of the event (in a format customized differently from $datetime var in vb settings) and sorting the events by date instead of alphabetically or any other way...

i guess you can't get anything done around here until you do it yourself.

[benplanet]

Guy can somebody help me ... I followed ALL directions to the book!
but "Upcoming events" is not showing up on the forum....anyone know?

I am using a custom theme (by extremepixels)

thanks!

[shaunh]

Is there any way to delay posting of events?

Example:

Post an entire year of events in the calendar.

Thread created when its within X days of event.

Full scope:

Id like to post the entire year's game schedule of a sports team in the calendar, and have a game-day-thread created 1 day before the event each time automatically then block users from starting threads or creating events. Keeps it uniform and automatic.

[Kanustep]

I also would like some new improvements for this hack. I don't mind to pay.

[Crazy Serb]

Originally Posted by Kanustep

I also would like some new improvements for this hack. I don't mind to pay.

speaking of which, I'm willing to pay $20 for someone to either integrate the "buy thread" mod or edit the buy thread mod for use with this script....

[maroceve]

Not only does the new event button disapears when you turn on the summary but the first post "meaning the event post" disapears also from the thread.

I dunno if anyone is encountering that bug also ?
I also can't seem to be able to add "Recurring Events"

[mrjbs]

Originally Posted by adwade

I had the same problem. Installed & worked fine, except for getting the New Event button to show. Evercraft & myself looked over everything I had done to get it to work and never could figure out why it would not show up. My only guess is that I'm using Miko's ARIA Skins (from vbstyles) and that might have had something to do with it. So not that this helps you any, just to let you know you are not alone.

I have the same problem...no new event button. The button will show if the <if></if> is removed. But then it will show in all of the forums. Is there a different if statement that could be used to choose the forum that it will show up in?