Version: 3.3, by Evercraft
Developer Last Online: May 2013
Category: Calendar Enhancements -
Version: 3.6.1
Rating:
Released: 08-07-2006
Last Update: 09-22-2006
Installs: 752
DB Changes Uses Plugins Template Edits
Additional Files
No support by the author.
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.
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:
Quote:
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:
Quote:
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:
Quote:
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:
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.
I think the events you were trying to show me had passed. Could you take a screenshot of the differences so I can see which times you mean?
I think its likely that it won't be possible to exactly mirror the events block in the forum. This is because I generate all of that myself. So I took the code they use to make the forumhome one, and added extra things to improve it.
The problem is, there is no hooks where i've added code, so it would be impossible to put something in there without editing a php file (which I won't support).
I installed this and it works great. I have our events split up by regions and so I set up a calendar per region and a forum per region and mapped the calendars to the forums.
Is there a way to make the default calendar show all events from all calendars?
I don't think there is. It might be possible to be made as a plugin todo it.
We'd like to use this hack on our parenting board for kids' birthdays. Is it possible to have the new threads post in an already established forum (which is a general forum and contains many other threads)? And is it possible to have the new threads post around midnight on the day of the event, and not several days in advance? And, most importantly, we already have *many* events (birthdays) already added to our calendar ... is there a way to edit these to include this hack, or would we have to re-add all the events?
Thanks in advance.
The only way you could delay posting of events is by moderating events on the calendar, and then they won't appear until you approve them. There might then be a way to approve threads automatically using a cronjob or something, but i'm not sure how you'd go about making that work.
Unfortunatly you would have to re-add all the old events, which I know is quite a pain. On the feature request list is for a utility that you can run which scans a calendar's events and puts them in threads, but like all the other things I want todo time is a bit of an issue atm
hook: newthread_post_complete
it works great in all forums but not in the event forum!
what must i change?
mmm I can't really see why this wouldn't work.
1 thing I could suggest trying, is changing the execution order of that plugin to 4, or 6. 4 will get run before my code, 6 after. 1 of them might work.
I have a small problem with this plugin. It works OK generally speaking and I have no web site errors, but it displays the events on the wrong day on my calendar. For example, I have an event from 7:00pm - 11:30pm tonight, but it displays on the calendar both today and tomorrow Sunday. My forums/users are EST if that matters. Any thoughts on this issue? You can view example events with this issue at WNYPoker.com under the Upcoming Events forum. You're looking for Ray's House.
-Raymond
I think thats todo with a difference in timezones.
Say for example I posted an event in GMT timezone, at say 1am. Then in my control panel my user timezone is set to PST (or something behind GMT) then it would show up as the day before (cos it is rightly so for that timezone).
I have a second issue. If you create a new event the associated thread gets created OK. But if the thread is moved from an "upcoming" to "recent" events forum, and the original event is edited in the calendar, a new thread gets created in the forum associated with the calendar. Shouldn't it only create a new thread when a event is created and not on edits too?
-Raymond
hmm this seems like a bug,
What should be happening with moving between a Event forum -> another event forum, it should move the event to the new calendar as well.
Might have to improve the code abit to stop it creating a thread when you just edit an event.
I appreciate all the offers to pay me to work on the Event Attendance! The main problem atm, is not that I don't want to find the time to work on it, its more I actually don't have time at all my job takes up alot of my time sometimes
I promise I will look at as soon as I have time, but I don't know when that is, maybe I can take some time of work soon
I appreciate all the offers to pay me to work on the Event Attendance! The main problem atm, is not that I don't want to find the time to work on it, its more I actually don't have time at all my job takes up alot of my time sometimes
I promise I will look at as soon as I have time, but I don't know when that is, maybe I can take some time of work soon
Ok, thanks for the reply. But we will keep checking this page just in case :P