Integrated Event Calendar

skube

I know MySchizoBuddy has started work on the much desired Event Calendar. I have no idea how far along Schizo is, but I thought I'd post my mocks anyway. They can be ignored or simply used as reference. Personally, I think simple is best. Features such as drag n' drop are much lower on the list of things I'd like to see, rather, I would like to see upcoming events, upcoming birthdays and upcoming holidays (configurable to each country).




I am very excited MySchizoBuddy is taking on this challenge! Me and my users await patiently. My apologies to Schizo as dates and values are simply placeholders.

MySchizoBuddy

I really like ur mockups, I was looking at the UI of http://30boxes.com as reference what do u mean configurable to each country. u mean localization, the time and date the user sees is of his own time zone. Separation of Birthdays from events means there will be categories of this.

mis-one

Nice mockups skube! I also agree with using 30 Boxes as an example MySchizoBuddy. I like the logic that was used behind the Blog extension in that the Blog itself is displayed on a seperate page as the calendar will be, but the core really comes back to the Discussions/Vanilla end. My users will be loving this calendar extension, now I must finish my theme!

skube

Thanks guys...

@Schizo: I was referring to each country's unique holidays. Perhaps there could be a text file (editable) to hold recurring holidays that are not discussion topics. Any holidays in this text file are rendered differently on the calendar and are shown simply as reference. Does that make sense?

As for birthdays, rather than a specific category I was thinking it would just be a date setting preference within each user's account page. Data would be saved in a new db table to hold each user's (recurring) birth date and/or anniversary's.

MySchizoBuddy

ok skube that makes sense. I dunno where I will get those country specific holiday list though.
Plus i will have to figure out where the user is and only show holidays from his country

there should also be a limit on number of recent events and birthdays to display in the sidebar. On large forums the list can be quite big.
one more thing, u shouldn't merge Sunday and Saturday together, cause they are holidays in the US, in the Arab world Saturday and Sunday are full working day, and Friday is the Holiday. Its best to have all days as working days.

stephen.laporte

I would like to heartily second this Add-on Request.

skube

Hmm I think you are making it more complicated than it needs to be Schizo... I may be wrong, but I envision most Vanilla installations primarily used by groups of people in the same local area, if not the same country. Therefore the holidays wouldn't need to specific for each user. Rather the admin would control which holidays would appear by default for everyone. I don't think it would make much sense to install the Calendar extension for a group of people who are spread out over the world as the primary function is to notify of upcoming events (i.e. gatherings).

I definitely agree, there should be an option/preference to limit the number of upcoming events. I think there should also be an option/preference to set how far in the future to look for upcoming events. I think each user should also have the ability to show/hide either upcoming events and/or birthdays and/or holidays separately.

Excellent point about the Sat/Sun, obviously my headspace is very North American. It would be a bonus to be able to specify which day of the week the Calendar should start on though... Should I update the mocks?

mis-one

The more I think about it, in terms of flexibility, would you really have Birthdays/Holidays built into the core?

skube

Well, everyone has a birthday ... I think the core should definitely be able to specify whether a discussion has a date (or even date range) attached to it. I do think the calendar should be able to display other information besides just upcoming discussion-related events. Holidays/birthdays/anniversary's/and other such recurring events which don't necessarily have a discussion associated with them, should still be displayed on the calendar in my opinion. They should also be configurable by the admin (via a simple text file for example).

iamglenn

Looking great keep up the good work, I would very much appreciate this add on!

ThaRiddla

I think that just the calendar with the ability to have events added and associated with a discussion should be the core.

What if things like Holiday packages were added like language packs are for the core vanilla install.
for example: United States Holiday Pack, Christian Holidays Pack, Jewish Holidays Pack.

All could be added/edited individually without cluttering up the core functionality for those who might not use it.

MySchizoBuddy

So the admin will just select his locale. thats it. If he is in Germany all dates and time should be of Germany
@skube, no need to update the mockup they are fine as it is.
looks like i do have to create categories. If u select Anniversaries as an event then that event shouldn't be included in the Discussion list. It should just be an event.

PLus i have to create a template for the Discussions that are events. cause I have to save the dates/time/location/url/Info etc in the Comment body. this will require some thinking. specially when editing the event.

garvin

I like the idea of having a discussion for an event. But at the same time, I'd also like to have just a calendar that I can add dates to. Not everything needs to be discussed. It just needs to be added for viewing. Some, yes. But not all.

HandyRandyIndy

Sorry for my newbieness. I was starting work on a similar add-on, but had not searched through the 'Add-on Requests' discussions. Duh. I must say that I am glad I did, though ! You folks are hitting some excellent points. It seems to me that functionality for creating an event should be under the calendar and not under 'Start a New Discussion'. Perhaps a link to toggle between displaying the calendar and the event creation form. One of the options on the event creation form should be for creating an associated discussion. When the user clicks the button to create the event, the add-on creates the associated discussion automagically. In this approach the admins could create holidays using the interface, with or without an associated discussion. This also allows easy creation of recurring Holidays that don't always occur on the same date (i.e. Easter, Thanksgiving) with individual non-recurring events. I just think that this approach would be more powerful in the calendaring functionality, and easier to extend. However, since this is an add-on to a discussion forum, I can understand keeping it more closely aligned with the forum.

MySchizoBuddy

The event creation form will be similar to Discussion form except it will have some additional fields. It will also use the same post.php file. I was thinking all events by default have an associated discussion. If you do not want one you will have to click a checkbox. reoccurring events will be hard. I dunno how to do them yet. @Handy Randy have u started making urs yet

TomTester

Public holidays worldwide: http://www.qppstudio.net/worldholidays.htm (not that I think they are needed) Recurring events is a must-have for many people (e.g. networking meeting every last Tuesday of the month). Perhaps external event date import (e.g. from outlook) would suffice for those?

mis-one

I think it's important to use MySchizoBuddy's approach for associating calendar events with topics, being as this is a Vanilla extension. The logic that went behind creating the Blog extension I feel is dead on. If you do not want calendar events to be discussed, wouldn't it make more sense to just authenticate one of the many php calendar scripts with Vanilla? From a community standpoint, I can assure you that user interaction is 10 fold when users can plan, post images, create discussion before and after an event has occurred. Just my little two cents :)

reap

*bookmarked can't wait for this addon.

MySchizoBuddy

All Event based Discussions will automatically sink after the event is over. Users can continue to comment about it, but it won't be bumped up. making room for other events to catch the eye.

mis-one

Great idea, that was definitely an issue on PHPBB board a ran awhile ago that had an integrated calendar (but of course no sink feature :) ).

skube

I don't know if the whole birthday/anniversary thing is out of the core or not, but another idea I was playing around with was having the system automatically create a discussion (Happy Birthday Bot) at some preferred interval on or before the date.

Love the auto-sink feature Schizo. Could there be an option though to enable/disable?