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]

Ok the error is gone but I'm back to where I was last night.

http://www.rivalnation.com/forums/ca...o=getinfo&e=10

It works but the armory data isn't posting. It shows 1 player in the total signup but not in the classes and level, class, and race are blank.

[Noxious]

i can't get my event pages to load at all now since i updated to 1.2.0, didn't see them have any problems with 1.1.9

[elricstorm]

Hyrel did you check your armorydata table to see what was in there? If it's propogated, see what's posted in that table. In addition post a screenshot of custom user profile fields so I can see their IDs. In addition, show me a screenshot of your vboptions for this addon in complete detail.

Thanks.

[Noxious]

i think i'm having problems getting my pages to load as i also can't seem to get the european wow armory to load either, so at a guess with the timeout being taken out its timing your site out when the armory is also down on your respective wow site

[elricstorm]

Shane, do a complete uninstall and then do a reinstall of the product. Set your vboptions after reinstalling, particularly the field ids and the server information. Create a test event but "don't check allow signups". View the event and make sure their are no sql errors. If not, then edit the event and "allow signups". Let me know what happens. Thanks.

[elricstorm]

Originally Posted by Noxious

i think i'm having problems getting my pages to load as i also can't seem to get the european wow armory to load either, so at a guess with the timeout being taken out its timing your site out when the armory is also down on your respective wow site

Yes you are absolutely correct here. I did a couple of tests on both armory sites for EU and US.

I'm looking into a timeout redirect code that actually works now. I think in your case, you don't have anything wrong and it's just that the european armory site was down for a short while.

Please be patient as I work on a new timeout code that works. My problem is that the timeouts for url checking show up as true even when the armory site is not responding for either european or US. I don't believe that they are really ever down but that they are just bogged down with hits and that they eventually do work. So, timeout settings are very difficult to program for that site. I'll find another solution that works. I'm testing out several options.

I knew the armory would pose some problems but I know I'll get around it.

[elricstorm]

It looks like I found the answer I needed and I had to actually add it directly to the parser function itself.

I'll post the new product in a moment but this appears to do the trick:

PHP Code:

            function parse_wowarmory($url) 
            { 
                ini_set('user_agent', 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)'); 
                $ch = curl_init();
                $timeout = 5;
                curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
                curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
                curl_setopt ($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout);
                $xml = curl_exec($ch); 
                require_once(DIR . '/includes/class_xml.php'); 
                $xmlobj = new vB_XML_Parser($xml); 
                return $xmlobj->parse(); 
                curl_close($ch);
            } 


thanks to Hyrel for providing it. However, it might be returning empty arrays. Still testing with this code further.

[elricstorm]

Product updated to 1.2.1 with cURL changes in effect. I believe this is the best route since fsockopen behaves indifferently with the armory. Let me know if your site performs any better with the code.

The default setting is 10 seconds for timeout. You can edit the default timeout and set it to whatever you would like in your vboptions. The setting is there. And, yes, this time it does work. If you test with the timeout settings, let me know what you feel is a good round timeout number response for both US and EU armory sites. I'm guessing that the safe bet is to set it to 15 seconds but I'll do that just for my own site. Some of you might want your events to load up faster so you could just set it back down to 5 seconds.

I looked at the armory tonight and did a couple of search character tests and it looks like both armory sites are having severe trouble with style sheets and xsl data. So, this might be why the armory is unresponsive.

The timeout is only meant as a workaround for when the armory is down. I'll provide three quick scenarios on how this code will work now:

Scenario One: Armory responding fine with no issues
-- Your calendar will move fast
-- Events will show up quickly
-- Character data will be populated into the armorydata table for main, alternate1, alternate2
-- Alternate1, and 2 are optional so it will bypass these completely if they are blank

Scenario Two: Armory not responding (after) you've populated your database with previous events
-- Your calendar will delay to "x" seconds based on the timer you set
-- Events will show up after "x" seconds based on the timer you set
-- Character data will not be populated into the armorydata table overwriting "good" data
-- Character data will be shown on your events based on what already existed in your armorydata

Scenario Three: Armoy not responding and a "new" member who never signed up before signs up
-- Your calendar will show drop downs for the fields the new member added in their profile
-- Because the armory is non-responsive and the character never had data in the armordata table, fields will show up blank besides character name.

Scenario three is the one scenario I would like to work on. So, I need some input on what you want to see in your table for data that is not there. This would only be for character data that was never populated ever, and it would only show until the next time the character visited when the armory was back up.

Keep in mind, once your databases are fully populated with some type of information, you won't see any issues like this. The worst you would see is "outdated' information because the character info wouldn't have been updated. Again, any input on this would be nice.

Thanks everyone.

[elricstorm]

Okay version 1.1.8 is the current "good" version although it does not have timeout features. However, it tests out fine and does return proper array data. Version 1.1.9 has the first of the timeout features with fsockopen but with unexpected results. Version 1.2.1 has the new cURL features but it's untested and may not produce the right results.

Therefore I put the previous_versions.zip file up and recommend that anyone starting off "new" or for those of you having issues with getting this going - try version 1.1.8 first and if that works, then you can upgrade. Personally, I believe that 1.2.1 needs a bit more testing but I wanted to get it out there just in case it works well.

Thanks,

[Masked Crusader]

Alright got it working.

HOWEVER still somethings that are not working.

NOTE: I have the newest version of the mod.

If a person signs up, it does not show the number of people signed up for that class.

Also, the class, level, and race fields are not populating...the server is correct as is the zone of the server.

Any ideas?