Add-On Releases - World of Warcraft Event Calendar

What does this Mod do?
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This is a calendar mod that supports events created for World of Warcraft that allows signups for mains and alternates. Data for mains and alternates are pulled from the world of warcraft armory automatically and listed/displayed in a table format based on the style of your current site.

Current Version
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Current beta version = 1.2.7 (recommended)
Current stable version = 1.2.6

Whether you are upgrading or installing from new, you ALL need to download the instructions and read them. There is a section for New Installs and a section for Upgrading. Inside there is also a NEW .CHM file (help file) that will also make it easier to read. I kept the instructions file in there as well but it's renamed to wowcalendar.txt instead. Review wowcalendar.chm if you are able to. It works better.

What is required?
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You will essentially need to perform:

• One product XML import
• Two PHP file uploads
• One Profile addition for User Profiles
• One Template Modification
• Uploading image files to the specified path listed in the instructions

Review the "instructions" contained in the zip file before installing this product.

Creating a Calendar Entry
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When you create a calendar entry, single, recurring, etc. - make sure you enable users to signup (located at the bottom of the new calendar event form) (see the screenshot listed in this post). By default, it should place an automatic signup checkmark in that box. Once you submit, users will be able to signup.

Alternates
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If you have alternates on, alternates can be used to signup with (only if people have added additional characters to their user profile. At this time, the calendar only reads the top 3 lines in the profile box so any more characters listed will not be usable in the calendar.

(i.e. if you have 7 characters listed, only the first 3 will be usable.

Armory Data
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Armory Data is pulled as soon as a "registered" user checks the calendar event. This data is then replaced into the armorydata table for use later on with the signups. Remember to set your server and your locale as well. If your server has two words (ex. Scarlet Crusade) you would input Scarlet+Crusade in the server box. If you play on a US server you would put US in the locale box. If you play on a European Server you would input EU in the locale box. Make sure you set all appropriate options.

Options for your Calendar System
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Go into your vb options and you will find two separate sections for setting options - one is for settings and one is for styles. You can change any options in here. Future revisions will include more substitutions/changes in this area.

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
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[name]Farcaster[/name]:
For his initial MOD and ideas which got me started and into customizing the entire calendar. Farcaster's Event Attendance can be found at: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=129088

[name]Gryphon[/name]:
For helping with the original wow parser code and for giving me some tips/advice for working to implement it with the calendar system. In addition, Gryphon, formerly Blackjack, worked with me deeply to allow both this calendar and his current gWoWCharacter mod to be cross-compatible. He also helped with localization. Many thanks!

[Hyrel]

My theory is that the armory is timing out. I'm going to continue to mess with that and see what happens. In the meantime here's the screenshots.

[Hyrel]

yep same thing as Shane

[Masked Crusader]

Yup your screens are the same as mine.

[elricstorm]

Use version 1.2.0 from the previous_versions zip I included. cURL returns an empty array. I confirmed that with some extensive testing. I see nothing wrong with the cURL code but the armory does not like it. Version 1.2.0 does work but there aren't any time out features included with it. However it includes the empty data checking feature. So, if the armory is slow, the event checking will be slow too but I'll find a way around it.

The reason why all of your class/level/race information is coming up blank is because the cURL returns:

Array() in version 1.2.1

In 1.2.0 it returns

Array
(
data..
data..
data..
)

I've included a zip for testing which shows the difference between the normal file_get_contents and also CURL. If you access these directly on your site you will see what I'm talking about.

[elricstorm]

Good news!

This works 100%.

PHP Code:

    function parse_wowarmory($url) 
    { 
        ini_set('user_agent', 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)'); 
    $ch = curl_init();
    $timeout = 30;
        $xml = file_get_contents($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $xml); 
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout);
        require_once(DIR . '/includes/class_xml.php'); 
        $xmlobj = new vB_XML_Parser($xml); 
        return $xmlobj->parse(); 
    curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    } 


I'm doing some tests and will report back in a bit.

[Masked Crusader]

Elricstorm,

I appreciate you staying on top of this bud. I thought I was going to be waiting a month for a response . I am used to it with other mod designers around here.

Anyways, I am looking forward to a new release.

[Gooner]

Originally Posted by shanejeffery86

Elricstorm,

I appreciate you staying on top of this bud. I thought I was going to be waiting a month for a response . I am used to it with other mod designers around here.

Anyways, I am looking forward to a new release.

Elric is Win.

(A New Idea)

I just thought of an idea when i find out sometimes my events page wont load because of armory being down, What if every character gets checked and stored into the database, So then the calander only needs to access the armory once for the first update, And manual updates of character info can be made through the guild members pressing an update button, I think this will solve the problem of not being able to pull then information from the armory when the wow site is down.

Click event -> Check Armory -> pull info from armory into DB or file.

then maybe after that it could go...

Click event -> check armory -> no reply from armory so check DB or file.

or in another instance..

Click event -> check armory ->Different data found to that in DB -> overwrite old data with new data found, If armory dont load then load last best data from DB.
Something like that??

[Masked Crusader]

Originally Posted by Gooner

Elric is Win.

(A New Idea)

I just thought of an idea when i find out sometimes my events page wont load because of armory being down, What if every character gets checked and stored into the database, So then the calander only needs to access the armory once for the first update, And manual updates of character info can be made through the guild members pressing an update button, I think this will solve the problem of not being able to pull then information from the armory when the wow site is down.

Click event -> Check Armory -> pull info from armory into DB or file.

then maybe after that it could go...

Click event -> check armory -> no reply from armory so check DB or file.

or in another instance..

Click event -> check armory ->Different data found to that in DB -> overwrite old data with new data found, If armory dont load then load last best data from DB.
Something like that??

FANTASTIC IDEA! I am going to elaborate on it though.

Put an update button right next to the character name field on the right hand side in the User CP ---> Edit Profile.

That should be easy enough imo.

Maybe I am wrong though

[elricstorm]

thanks to Blacksnake I may have a better piece of code for the new version to be released tonight. We'll see how this new bit of code works first. I'll have it updated this evening.

[Gooner]

sweet, this maybe the virsion i update to, ill be updating every other virsion, because your so fast, otherwise ill be updating every day :P