Upcoming event calendar using date, views and cck

wow--- excellent writeup. you should definitely make this a handbook page for the calendar/date modules.

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Thanks for the writeup fhsm! Two questions.

- Any ideas as to how the procedure changes for handling multi-day events, especially in terms of displaying properly within the calendar view?

- For an international audience, whats the best way to handle a timezone field?

The reason I am asking is because, I am trying to set up an international events calendar, on my site, www.issacharnetwork.org/calendar. I need people to be able to enter the local time of their event, but have the time properly converted for others who may be joining the event electronically from different timezones.

My inituition, would be that I would need the event's location, the user's location, and the internal server time to anchor the calculations. So then, if the event location could be picked up by the location module. I would just need the other two data points, and then run it through views properly. Am I heading in the right direction, or right off a cliff?

This was very helpful for me, particularly the part about setting the start time of an event in the calendar, instead of the update time. I wonder why the module maintainer have it set to the update time by default. I guess everyone has different uses for a calendar. Like you, I use it primarily for upcoming events.

Thank you for the excellent write-up. I agree this write-up should become part of the Calendar handbook.

Here are a couple of ways to use the repeating-date api with the event calendar as described in your post, note, you will have to choose the one that fits based on caveats listed.

When created your event_date_time field, choose the option to automatically include a 'To' field. Drupal will add a second field, so you can enter a From and To date. Also, when adding your field using CCK, for the Widget Type, make sure you choose one that includes "repeat options. This allows you to indicate how your event repeats, there are many, many great ways to repeat dates

Caveats with this method - If you create a date that starts on 10/28/2008 at 3:00PM and the To date is 10/31/2008 at 4:00PM, the calendar view will basically show the date 10/30/2008 instance of your event as All Day. In other words, Drupal assumes that your date starts at 3:00 PM on 10/28 and ends on 10/31 at 4:00PM. So, if you are wanting to show, say, a training class that goes from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM each day, this will not work properly.

So, to create an event like this training class, you should create a single event that starts on 10/28/2008 at 1:00 PM and ends on 10/28/2008 at 3:00PM, then use the "repeat" feature to repeat the event until Nov 1. You need it to repeat until Nov 1, because apparently the end date for your repeat is not included, so it causes your class to show on 10/28,10/29, 10/30, and 10/31. NOTE: the start and end times only show on day 1, which would be the 28th.

So, you need to figure the following before you do your work:

Do I need to use the repeat function to repeat single days within an event, where the days have their own start and end time, or do I need to repeat events throughout the years, such as monthly meetings or something like that.

The cool thing is, there are a bunch of ways to do all this stuff, you could create separate start and end time fields and make your event date field the date portion only, this would give you more flexibility.

I hope this helps someone, my experiments have really enlightened me.

UPDATE:
I think that it is much more flexible to store your event start and end times in separate fields. You can create multi-day events that also repeat throughout the year this way.

fhsm - Can't thank you enough for taking the time to write these instructions ... have been too afraid to try this module until now, and thanks to you I have a calendar up and working perfectly! This knocks the socks off of Events in many ways - thank you thank you thank you! And of course a HUGE nod at Earl and everyone else involved with Views. This is just damn cool stuff, even if I don't understand half of it. ;-)

fhsm, thank you for putting this guide together. I had installed all those modules and was trying to get my View running, but I wasn't using the default calendar view. You helped me get back on track.

BUT, now that I've followed your instructions and set up the calendar view, the preview is broken....I'm getting a message that says "An error occurred at /acdrupal/admin/build/views/ajax/preview/classes_calendar."

The preview is not working, and the path to the view, /calendar, brings up a blank page.

Do you or anyone else know anything about this ajax error?

Thanks.

Thank you so much for this, I was trying to use the Events module and it wouldn't do everything I needed. Views has always intimidated me a bit. Your step-by-step instructions worked perfectly. Thanks!

fhsm - this is awesome. In addition to the Handbook, see if they will include the code in the Advanced Help module as an example - typically found at example.com/admin/advanced_help/views?popup=1

I'm not sure if you would ask the maintainer of Advanced Help or views (merlinofchaos) or the maintainer of Calendar (KarenS)...still, I'm sure it has a place among their current examples.

Thanks!
kelly

Love the calendar, and now I want to get fancy. Any thoughts on how to change the background color of a date on the calendar based on the content of a field in the event node?

I'm building a calendar for a sport league and added a field to the event (called event_type) that is a radio button with the options of Home, Away, or Other.

I'd like to make the background of the date change color based on the event_type field (ie. days of home matches would have a blue background or whatever).

Any ideas?

Dashingly,
Dr. Rhomboid Goatcabin

Hey all,
is anybody here know if is it possible to hide all the views week, year,.. and to make a direct link to the article from the calendar displayed.
Thanks for your help!

Hey fhsm,

your tutorial kickstarted my learning of views. thank you very much.

I've started creating variations of what you taught me with your tutorial, and and the calandar clone view you helped me create works well, however now i need to disable it because i have another one doing the same thing.

how do i disable it?

One problem I'm seeing is when I add something to a date, say today, and that thing happens in 2 months, then that thing shows up both today (where I don't want it) and again in 2 months (where I do want it).

What am I doing wrong?

Does anyone know how to extend this event with an RSVP option?

I was thinking of making a custom poll that was selected in VIEWS and then just making it in the format

Q: Attending?
A: Y/N

while inheriting the event date as the time when the poll would close.

HOWEVER, I CANNOT FIND A SINGLE WAY TO MAKE A POLL INTO A CUSTOM NODE. Anyone know how?

This is a really great write up that saved me hours upon hours of fiddling around with these calendar view arguments and what not I'm sure. Thanks fhsm for sharing this with the community.

The thing I'd really like to get out of this tool is for the calendar to display in week and day view with the hours of the day laid out. So, for example when something is happening from 12:00 - 15:00 you can see the rest of the day is open. This would be the final punch as far as I'm concerned to making this thing viable for a long list of solutions. Has anybody got it to do that yet?

First off, great write-up, fhsm! Very easy instructions to follow and work like a charm. I've just got one problem...

I've created a test event to make sure it was all working. I've noticed that when I bring up my calendar in a day view to look at my test event, the enlarged time in the left column does not match the start time for the event. Reference the link to see what I mean:

http://i36.tinypic.com/zo86yc.jpg

Anybody know how to fix this? Thanks in advance! :)

This was a well written tutorial and I was doing great with a fresh/latest install of D6 (with 2.0 rc5 of date and calendar modules and CCK 2.1 and pathauto). I created an event content type and an article of that content type.

The problem started with the arguments panel in step 3.

The tutorial says:

In the Arguments panel
Click Date: Date (node.changed)
Near the bottom of the page under Date field(s):

uncheck = Node: Update date
check Content: Event Date and Time (field_event_datetime value)

I'm sorry, but there was no entry called Content: Event Date and Time (field_event_datetime value), nor any other 'Content' options.

At this point, the tutorial fell apart on me since I had no field to check.

Update: Also tried the latest dev versions of CCK, Date, Calendar, Views with similar results.

I followed all the steps. The Calendar itself works great.

However, when I click on the date of the event that was created in step 2, the calendar page for the day of the event comes up but it is empty.

Shouldn't the text of the event I created appear here? What am I missing?

breck@astorholdings.com

Thanks for the excellent guide. It really showed me how to use the Calendar / Views.
This should definitely be added to the module help.

Hello there,
Thanks for your excellent and detailed write-up! It serves for me both as a tutorial/learning documents and also very pragmatic instruction. I followed your instruction as given above carefully and closely to the letter for twice. I think i have succeeded in setting the Calendar in working nexus with the Event content and View correctly, with only one exception:
1) all the events I entered, like 12-26 and 12-25 (following the format given) all fell on the same day 12-06-2008 which is today as i type, regardless the FROM and TO times that I created for the Events. I checked the mysql, there are correct, in format of 2008-12-25 00:00:00.
2) The Events' titles show up correctly on the Calendar (though again on the wrong date). But, when I clicked on any of the events, which erroneously fall on 12-06, there is no description or detail which I typed. I am not sure if this is because the dates are wrong for Calendar in the first place? I tested the sql query for Views for these times, and they resulted in the correct times. but in Calendar, there are incorrect.

I am sure where goes wrong? Appreciate if you could help!

thanks in advance, hujia

I get to step 3
"Enable the Default Node view: calendar (Calendar)
Clone the default view"

I don't see that as an option, mine goes from

Default Node view: backlinks (default) Enable
Path: node/%/backlinks
Block, Page
Displays a list of nodes that link to the node, using the search backlinks table.

to

Default Comment view: comments_recent (default) Enable
Title: Recent comments
Path: comments/recent
Block, Page
Contains a block and a page to list recent comments; the block will automatically link to the page, which displays the comment body as well as a link to the node.

When I go to create the content on Step 2 I get the following error.

warning: Missing argument 3 for content_permissions_field_access() in /home/whoyou/public_html/cms/sites/all/modules/cck/modules/content_permissions/content_permissions.module on line 21.

Did I miss something on the cck install/Setup?

Thanks for any help.

You saved my bacon

This method worked perfectly for me, thanks for the well written instructions! I do have one question though...when I was entering a test date into the calendar, it appeared like the time was showing up incorrectly in the calendar view for me, but showed correctly when clicking on it. After some messing around with it, I figured out it was just displaying the time I "created" the actual event on the calendar, not the time of the event. Is there any way to remove this, or at least have it show the event's actual time on the calendar instead?

Thanks for this. I was about to go through the steps and noticed that the "Date Tools" module has a wizard that sets up the calendar for you with the correct options. I found this under Administer > Content management > "Date Tools"

How to put the little calendar on all pages, for example, calendar on right navigation block.

I got mini view of caledar to show, but the sunday is at end of week, need to move to first day of week.

also, how to get the mini view of calendar to stay within limits of right block column, it is extending passed it. IE6 IE7.

also my drupal site does not display well in IE 6, the calendar wraps to left column :(.

any help would be great

thanks

If anyone out there sees the same thing, all I did to fix was wander into Administer>>Site Configuration>>Date and Time. I had set all this originally, and when I went there, I didn't change anything, just apparently had to open and save again.

Again, kudos to fhsm, brilliant write-up -- thanks for letting everyone benefit from your experience.

Dashingly,
Dr. Rhomboid Goatcabin

Your site / example is great. My calendar view uses the dhtml / ajax popups when you click and event, and I can't quickly figure out how to turn that off.

Good stuff, though.

sorry, not meaning to hijack this issue BUT i am trying to do exactly what you're doing with those tabs on your groub home pages - is that via a module? could this also be done with tabs in views? i'm still having trouble with both....

thanks in advance for any insights ;)
........................................................................
i love to waste time: http://twitter.com/passingnotes

dugh - you have a very clean looking theme there. Well done.

Can you explain how you did the upcoming events listing? Is it a single block view used in both the right sidebar and on calendar/upcoming? Did you base the view on a cloned calendar view or did you craft the view from scratch? If the former, could you explain how you eliminated the calendar navigation information - through theme changes or view configuration?

If you crafted from scratch, how did you configure it so that repeat events are shown with the correct date? I've tried this approach and can't get repeat events to list against the repeat dates - I only seem to get the date of the first event.

You have a really nice and function calendar there! I would like to replicate what you have. My current problem is, I have a very long list of node titles on the calendar page before the actual calendar! This is also for a school, so some classes repeat themselves twice a week at different hours of a day for 3 months. Therefore, I have 2 different datetime field for the "class" content type, and then I have an event content type with an event start time.

So... how do I make the calendar show all the classes and events coming up, while not showing a list of duplicated node titles (class 101 - chemistry, repeated 30 times) above my calendar? My view query:

Also, how did you get the links out? I couldn't find it in the view's options.

Hi All -

Looks like this thread hit a bit of a nerve with people. I've had a number of folks send me messages asking particular questions. Unfortunately I included 100% of what I know about this problem. Sorry to not be more help. Perhaps someone more active in the involved projects could document this use. Mine should not be the definitive word on how to accomplish this.

OK, the two named fields, field and field2, make sense now, one would be the start, the other the end date. and the query looks OK but still the event I create doesn't appear in the calendar view. There seems to be some kind of trouble with my custom field because stuff appears when I use, say, a modified date.

my query more or less seems to make sense.

ELECT node.nid AS nid,
node.title AS node_title,
node.changed AS node_changed,
node.type AS node_type
FROM node node
LEFT JOIN content_type_calendarevent node_data_field_event_date ON node.vid = node_data_field_event_date.vid
WHERE (node.status <> 0)
AND ((DATE_FORMAT(node_data_field_event_date.field_event_date_value, '%Y-%m') <= '2009-03' AND DATE_FORMAT(node_data_field_event_date.field_event_date_value2, '%Y-%m') >= '2009-03'))
ORDER BY node_changed ASC

I'm no drupal or PHP expert, but I think in my efforts to resolve my own problems with calendar views, I may know the answer to yours.

If you go into "Edit" in your calendar view (/admin/build/views/edit/calendar), you can choose to create a new display of whatever type you desire (block, page, etc). Once you have it, I believe you can click on the only item under "Arguments" (assuming you haven't messed with your defaults) which should be "Date: Date Node: Updated date." When the edit form appears below the main views interface, make sure to click the "Override" button so that you don't mess up the rest of your displays in the view.

Now, your "Action to take if argument is not present" should be set to "Provide default argument." Your "Default argument type" should be "Current date." Scroll down to the "Granularity" section. The default argument it going to get used, and it's going to specify the current date. You can adjust the current date to be the CURRENT YEAR simply by setting the granularity for the date to "Year" (it's on month by default).

That argument should gather all your events for the current year. You can set the rest of the configurable items for your view to tweak it (like using filters to further reduce the number of content items that display in your view). The argument with current date and granularity of year will, in any case, start you off will all the items with a CCK date field in them in that has them scheduled in the current year.

Hope that works for you. :)

PS: if you happen to know of anyone whose "Upcoming" display isn't working because the ">= now" filter is being omitted by the query, I'd love to talk to them.