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

[ksfrogman]

Oh man. I love this addon!

I had been using Farcaster's event attendance 1.2.0, but after installing this mod, was unable to see the event title in the calendar, nor was I able to respond to the rsvp function in Farcaster's event attendance hack. Well, then I found Farcaster's Event Attendance & vB Event Forums Integration addon:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=133970

Now everything works like a charm! I can post events from my calendar, and it takes me to the events forum. Or I can post a New Event from within my forum and it automatically adds the info to the calendar. I can also RSVP so that an event attendance roster is created! AWESOME! It all works like a charm. Thank you!

[adwade]

Originally Posted by dotJoel

Alright I can't get my head around this.

I make the new event in the sub-forums, and the thread is made in the main forum. I want each sub-forum to feed into the same calendar. However it doesn't.

Any advice / help appreciated.

Regards,

Joel

EDIT: Alright I understand what's going on, just need help on how to fix it!

I have setup in the VB Options - Event Options:

2:21
2:22
2:23

Any time "New Event" is clicked in forums 22 and 23 the topic for the event is moved into forum 21.

Any advice on how to fix this would be great! As I want to use one calendar for all of the sub-forums.

Regards,

Joel

This SAME issue kept me confused for some-time as well. I had three different event forums linked to just one calendar and the exact same thing was occuring to me. Whether I posted a New Event in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Event Forum it ALWAYS landed in the 1st Event Forum.

In my case I could figure no way to 'fix' it, so I finally opted instead to have ONE Event forum linked to just ONE calendar and rearrange my forum topics a bit.

In a future release though, it would be nice if there was a way to have several forums linked to just one calendar, but when an event was posted it (correctly) went into the forum it was intended for.(vs. auto-defaulting into the first forum that was created)

[thincom2000]

Some users had complained about the insane number of queries this adds to showthread. I had mentioned that I developed a fix for this, but still haven't posted it. If anyone still needs to get their queries back to normal, let me know.

You will first need the hack I just released (sorry but it needs file edits if you don't want ANY extra queries): CES Pre-Process Hooks. I also made a few database changes to make some of the plugin code a little simpler. I will try to remember what they were. Will post the fix tomorrow.

[Quantnet]

thincom2000,
Sounds interesting. Not sure if the author has anyway around this to fix the extra queries call issues.

Let us know how it goes.

I still have not upgraded to 3.6.5 since I wait for the next release where they have several very nice features.

[TheMilkCarton]

Anybody know a way to get the Thread Prefixes hack working with this one? I'd really like to be able to choose a prefix when creating a new event. Currently, you need to create an event, and then edit the thread it creates to add the prefix.

[thincom2000]

Since I upgraded to 3.6.5 it doesn't save the right userid when posting a new event. Sorry guys but until I figure this out I won't be releasing my addon for this as it hasn't been tested on a working Event Forum.

If anyone knows how to fix Event Forums so it saves the userid and username to the database (looked and those fields in the tables thread and post are empty), let me know. I reinstalled the product 3 times to no avail and tried also tried tweaking eventdata_presave but that had no effect.

EDIT: Looks like when upgrading to vBulletin 3.6.5, I accidentally added another user to my database in the AdminCP by "Add New User." With all blank fields. Somehow this only affected the Event Forums by making everyone's user info change to the blank user's when posting a new event thread.

[mawby]

I've just installed this. I had an event which I edited to tick the RSVP allowed option (another plugin) but when I pressed save I got...

Fatal error: Only variables can be passed by reference in /vbb/includes/class_dm_event.php(569) : eval()'d code on line 41

When going back into the events forum or calendar the edited event is now gone.

I disabled the other plugin and it still happened, I then disabled this plugin and re-enabled the other one and the problem went away.

[thincom2000]

I think you need to install Farcaster's Event Attendance & Event Forums Integration Add-on to fix that.

[mawby]

Originally Posted by thincom2000

I think you need to install Farcaster's Event Attendance & Event Forums Integration Add-on to fix that.

AH OK I didn't install the integration add-on as I saw the following on the first post of this thread and thought it had already been included.

Version: 3.3

* Added Farcasters Event Attendance patch to the mod.

[thincom2000]

Sorry for the delay releasing my addon for this. I've been really busy with work these past few weeks and the addon ended up being a lot bigger than I originally planned, thus there's still a little more debugging to do. I'll post the link here once I upload it: look out for CES vb Event Forums - Query Blaster on the home page.