Calendar Enhancements - Calendar Search and Download

Calendar Search and Download for vB4

This mod addresses yet another basic feature missing from vB4 - calendar search and download


Features:

Replaces the Calendar menu item with a drop-down menu which adds a calendar search and export function. You can search in username, event title, description. custom fields, calendar and by year/month range. You can also export the search results (or the full calendar) as an iCalendar file (for import into a PC, mobile, Google, etc) or as a PDF text document.

Both export functions include email contact information for the event poster (provided that the current user has permission to view member groups and send emails AND the event poster allows email contact).

NEW! - v1.04b onward supports automated Google Calendar updates (view your vB calendar on Google alongside your other calendars!)

You can use the automatic indexing feature in Google Calendars to view your forum calendar (and sync it with your Nokia/iPhone/BlackberryAndroid/etc cell phone). Only calendars that have unregistered user access will be viewable (Unregistered Usergroup->can view calendars & ->view others events to yes).

To setup Google Calendars (http://www.google.com/calendars) to view your vB calendar(s) , select Other calendars->add->add by URL then enter http://your_forum_url/calsearch.php?do=gcal (replacing your_forum_url with your real forum URL!). Google can take many hours to actually index the vB calendar so be patient! If you want to start from a particular year - &startyear=20xx (it defaults to the current year).

Tested with Vbulletin 4.0.2 AND vBadvanced 4 beta. Product has no custom phrases or template/code edits. It uses two template hook locations in the navbar to change the calendar menu to a drop-down.


Settings:
None are needed - it does what it says on the tin .

AdminCP->vbulletin->options->message searching options->search results per page

Determines the number of event items displayed per page.


Installation

1. Unzip the download package and copy the contents of the UPLOAD folder into your forum folder.
2. Go to the VB AdminCP->Plugins & Products click "Manage Products". The click "Add/ImportProduct" at the bottom of the page.
3. Click "Browse" button and point to the product-calsearch-(etc).XML file included in this ZIP package.
4. Click "Import"

... all done


Updates

To update- uninstall the product AND delete the uploaded file calsearch.php then re-install as above.

v1.10
tested with vB 4.0.3
Recurring events now grouped by date
v1.09b
Added month selection options
v1.08b
Now allows reverse date order search (by entering a "To" year less than the "From" year.
Fixed user timezone issue with iCal files
v1.07b
Added full support for recurring events (also included in iCal export)
v1.06b
Changed search option layout
Start year now uses current year if no year selected (iCal/PDF/Google downloads all start from current year).
v1.05b
Standardised phrasing
Added "no events found" message
v1.04b:
Added calendar selection dropdown
Fixed IE layout issues
Added Google Calendar support
v103b:
Fixed time zone issue yet again (it DOES work this time!)
v102b:
Fixed time zone issue properly this time
Added drop down to select search field
Added support for searching custom calendar fields.
v101b:
Fixed time zone date calculation (was showing event on wrong day in some locales)



John

[claystation]

This is looking good, Thanks! Although my links on the calendar search don't link to the event properly.

They seem to be linking to an event the day before the event.
http://www.claystation.com/forum/cal...2010-01-10&c=2

but it should be...
http://www.claystation.com/forum/cal...o&day=2010-01-11&c=2

Also I have a lot of calendars so on the search result page it would look a lot nicer if the results were displayed by calendar and date instead of just the date. Just a suggestion.

Thanks for your work.

[HCGB]

Originally Posted by claystation

This is looking good, Thanks! Although my links on the calendar search don't link to the event properly.

They seem to be linking to an event the day before the event.
http://www.claystation.com/forum/cal...2010-01-10&c=2

but it should be...
http://www.claystation.com/forum/cal...o&day=2010-01-11&c=2

This issue has been fixed - see latest download in first post.

[claystation]

Thanks - I uploaded the file but it didn't do the trick.

[HCGB]

Originally Posted by claystation

Thanks - I uploaded the file but it didn't do the trick.

I've updated the above file again - definitely should work this time

[claystation]

I don't know... it's still not working. :erm:

[starman?]

This looks very good - Tagged.

[TimberFloorAu]

Gonna watch this one

[thesupermario69]

Ive just installed this and it works great, so thank you

Ive been playing around with getting it to sync with Google Calendar which works fine if you download the iCal file and manually sync it with Google Calendar

Would it be possible to make this a Scheduled Task on the forum so that it ran say every day at midnight and saved the iCal output somewhere on the server? That way I could then point Google Calendar at the URL of the saved iCal file and see how it behaves, see if it auto updates when the iCal file is updated

[HCGB]

Originally Posted by thesupermario69

Would it be possible to make this a Scheduled Task on the forum so that it ran say every day at midnight and saved the iCal output somewhere on the server? That way I could then point Google Calendar at the URL of the saved iCal file and see how it behaves, see if it auto updates when the iCal file is updated

Interesting idea - and no reason why it shouldn't work. Google Calendar does update OK from URL files - I use it elsewhere. I can feel another mod coming on

The iCal file would obviously only contain public events - i.e. events viewable by unregistered users.