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

[jnrdavo]

major part of my forums also...

I've migrated 2 to VB4, but missing this one already.

Happy to put up some $'s also to get this to work on VB4.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by BBR-APBT

I have started to play with this. I am not using none of this code. I plan to rewrite the whole thing from the ground up. Here are my thoughts.

Thank god!

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by BBR-APBT

I have started to play with this. I am not using none of this code. I plan to rewrite the whole thing from the ground up. Here are my thoughts.

Mine will work with forums and subforums.
Mine will only have usergroup permissions for Posting Only. - Read permissions come from vbulletin settings already in place.
When you click New Event it will forward you to my new file eventthread.php instead of newthread. Thus allowing me to to split this into two database tables and allowing me my own templates so on this page you will see the same thing you see now on add new event from the calender page.

This will then take your post and insert it to the calender and the forum you pressed new event in.

You will have to disable posting of new events on the calender its self if you want every event posted through the forums already an option in the adminCP.

Mine will be simple and sweet. There is no estimated time on a release. I like to work out as many bugs as I can. I will not accept no money. In exchange for a mod this size there will be a very small copyright on the post event page. Please don't blow up my PM box asking when it will be done. This is a major part of my forum and I will release it for all as soon as it is working 100% on my end.

Great to hear. Feel free to let us know if you need any feedback or suggestions. I've personally played with this mod extensively before implementation, as many others have in this thread. If you've started a thread on your proposed mod, please let us know the link so we can keep discussions with you separate from those about this mod.

I'm ecstatic that someone thinks this mod is worthy of carrying over to vb4. I was afraid the concept was really as unimportant as the rest of the world thinks it is.

[Leo Brazil]

Originally Posted by BBR-APBT

I have started to play with this. I am not using none of this code. I plan to rewrite the whole thing from the ground up. This is a major part of my forum and I will release it for all as soon as it is working 100% on my end.

This mod combined with Farcaster's RSVP are a big deal on my board too....vB 4.0 just killed them all

[MedellinStyle]

waitinggggg rspv coool!!!!!

[Shanj]

I know this Calendar mod is on hold waiting for a rewrite.

But to anyone who has used it, is it possible to designate SELECTED events only for the Events forum?
This could be very useful to me on its return, but I wouldn't want every tiny item to have a forum thread - many of my events are small routine things that happen every week.

[BBR-APBT]

This is a lot of work with out using any of this code.

I have no errors but it don't work either. So if any other coder wants to take on this project or work with me on it. Other wise it will not be out any time soon.

[Verionia]

Version 4.0?

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by BBR-APBT

This is a lot of work with out using any of this code.

I have no errors but it don't work either. So if any other coder wants to take on this project or work with me on it. Other wise it will not be out any time soon.

This is a pretty big mod. I didn't think it was going to be easy to write from scratch, but I think there's a lot of efficiency that can be gained from the existing code base.

Have you figured out the pseudocode and the basic functions needed? I can only program enough to make small pieces of code for myself, but I'm willing to help however I can.

[SamirDarji]

Originally Posted by Shanj

I know this Calendar mod is on hold waiting for a rewrite.

But to anyone who has used it, is it possible to designate SELECTED events only for the Events forum?
This could be very useful to me on its return, but I wouldn't want every tiny item to have a forum thread - many of my events are small routine things that happen every week.

This would be hard to implement as it would require another db field to indicate which events have a event thread and which don't.

A workaround is to have two calendars--one for regular events that don't need a discussion and one for those that do. The other thing would be to close the threads for those that you don't want a discussion.