Event Calendar

The support email list was down from March 31 till April 22, 2009.  If your question didn’t get answered during those three weeks, please re-post it.

Sorry about that.

[DOWNLOAD] I’ve just released v3.2.beta2. This is a BETA release, so don’t use it on critical sites. Give it a go, and tell me what you think.

Changes

This version contains only bug fixes since the last development release 3.2.beta1.

• Fixed processing of $options parameter in ec3_get_calendar() template function.
• Removed unused ActiveXObject emulation. This was causing trouble for other JS, which used the presence of the window.ActiveXObject object as a form of browser detection.
  (Thanks to Helene Zisook Speer for reporting this problem.)
• Fix for months with zero padding.
  (Thanks to Selene Tan for spotting the bug.)
• Suppressed canonical redirection for feeds and any URLs that use ec3 queries.
• Fixed formatting of events in popup. Consistent time format in big calendar.
• Fixed double-encoded HTML entities in calendar tooltips.
• More sophisticated reporting of start and end times for events that straddle midnight.
  (Thanks to Samuel Clemance for reporting all these problems.)
• Don’t bother trying to generate schedule table or iconlets for non-event posts. Removed empty <table> elements that were causing formatting errors for some users.
  (Thanks to Jeff Dodson and Sandra Williams for reporting this bug.)

Bugs Outstanding

1. At least two people have reported incorrect ordering of events that occur on the same day. This only seems to happen on the Big-Calendar.
2. One person has reported a problem with the calendar navigation links, where the “previous months” link has the wrong label, like this…

     <<Jan   January, 2009   Feb>>
     ^^^^^
         wrong - should be "Dec"!
   

I’ve not been able to reproduce either of these problems myself. If you see these things yourself, then please post an example URL – the more reports I get, the more likely I am to be able to see the pattern and solve the problem.

[DOWNLOAD] I’ve just released v3.2.beta1. This is a BETA release, so don’t use it on critical sites. Give it a go, and tell me what you think.

Changes

This version contains only bug fixes since the last development release 3.2.dev-02.

• Much improved query support. Ordering of listings pages is now *much* more sensible. The post numbers reported by archive and category links now match the number of posts that actually appear on those pages.
• New query variable: ec3_listing. Values are:
  events – only show events
  posts – only show posts (not events)
  all – show a mix of posts and events
  disable – turn off EC’s fiddling
• Big Calendars (ta da!)
  Embed a big calendar in a page by adding a tag like [EC3BigCalendar]. You can specify options like this: [EC3BigCalendar:opt=val&opt=val] Supported options are:
  day_length : 1,3,9 letters
  hide_logo : 0,1
  navigation : 0 (above), 1 (below), 2 (off)
  id :
  num_months : 1..n
  show_only_events : 0,1
  The default (with no options set) is equivalent to: [EC3BigCalendar:day_length=9&hide_logo=0&navigation=0&id=ec3_big_cal&num_months=1&show_only_events=1]
• Iconlets (dumb name?)
  This is a new default way to display event times in the post. It’s a lot nicer than the horrid old red boxes. The settings page now allows you to choose between the old and new style – the option is now called “Show times within post content”. We’ve had a lot of people obviously not understand what the old option did, so I’ve reworded it to be clearer. I realise that invalidates lots of translations, but I really think it’s worth it. What’s your opinion?

[DOWNLOAD] Version 3.1.4 is now available for download. Just a couple of minor fixes:

1. Users with “Author” status can now create events.
   (Thanks to Morten Helmstedt for reporting this problem.)
2. Fixed problems in IE7 with date-chooser on Write Post page.
   (Thanks to Terry Ambrose for reporting this problem).

This release also contains an updated Italian translation, thanks to Lorenzo De Tomasi.

Update

The version number’s been bumped up to 3.1.4, because Terry Ambrose’s bug wasn’t completely fixed in 3.1.3. I’m pretty certain we’ve got it now, though.

If any of you are adventurous, then you could give my latest development version a spin. I’ve not tested it very thoroughly, but it all seems to be working. Changes are almost too many for me to list right now, but here are some highlights…

template-functions-new.php:

New *new* template functions, and event iterators.

calendar-sidebar.php & ec3.js:

Totally new calendar renderer. Allows multiple calenders per page.

feed-ical.php & feed-ec3xml.php:

These special outputs are now implemented as feeds.

eventCalendar.php:

Improved SQL code. Lists of mixed posts/events should now sort correctly. New query param: ec3_listing=yes|no – allows you to FORCE whether you want to see posts or not.
For example, try:

http://blog/?ec3_before=today&order=asc&ec3_listing=no

http://blog/2008/10?ec3_listing=yes

calendar-big.php:

Experimental, non-working *sketch* of what a big calender renderer might look like.

Um, loads more, I’m sure. Most of the big changes are done now. However I will probably be tweaking the API a bit over the coming week or so. I want the new templates to be as easy to use as possible. They are still a bit clunky. Feedback welcome.

[DOWNLOAD]

(But you should really be using the SVN, if you want to run code this experimental.)

A 3.1.2 version of Event Calendar with Big Calendar support is now available at
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/event-calendar/download/.

Continue reading →

[DOWNLOAD] I’m pleased to announce the release of Event Calendar version 3.1.2. This new release adds support for the upcoming WordPress 2.7, and a database upgrader for those coming from very old 3.0.x versions.

Event Calendar is stable software that many thousands of people are already running on their WordPress web-sites.

Database Upgrader

Those upgrading from very old 3.0.x versions of Event Calendar are now automatically taken to an upgrade page, where they can manually correct the assumptions made by the (previously fully automatic) upgrader.

Each event post is listed with two dates:

• The POST DATE (which should always be in the past). Post dates in the future are highlighted in red – correct them or your post will disappear.
• The EVENT DATE, which is the date on which your event takes place. Event dates may be in the past or the future.

If you don’t automatically see the upgrader, you can get to it by navigating to:

http://[BLOG]/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=ec3_admin&ec3_easteregg

…and click on the “Upgrade Event Posts” button.

Also new in this release

• Better integration with the latest WordPress. Cosmetic improvements to the settings and Write Posts pages.
• Fixed incompatibility with tags.
• Fixed incompatibility with WP-Sticky plugin.
• Fixed charset problems in iCalendar feed.
• Upcoming Events list widget now uses date format from WordPress settings.
• New translations:
  ru_RU Russian (by Ivan Matveyev)
  sl_SI Slovenian (by Damjan Gerli)

A big thank you to everyone who has contributed or reported bugs. Thank you also to the many many users of Event Calendar, I very much appreciate all your kind support over the years. If you’d like to show your appreciation, then please go and VOTE FOR US.

Active discussions about the future of Event-Calendar are happening in the mailing list.  If you’re interested, or can contribute as a programmer or documentation person, join in.   You also might want to cruise through the mailing list archives. 

If you are interested in testing the future version of EC3, you can download the development version. 

But for goodness sake, DO NOT use that version on your live site. The development version is changing rapidly and may be seriously broken at any given time.  Still, if you like to read code, or want to help with documentation, download it to a test site and join in.  

Use this link for the current stable version. (as of October 2008)  

Note that the current stable version DOES NOT have the big-calendar mods incorporated.  If you need them, just wait.  3.2 is coming.  

(This post accurate as of 20 October 2008.)