Simple Calendar

Copyright © by Lars Ebert <info@no spam pleaseadvitum.de>
Published under the Open Content License available from http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml

Table Of Contents

• 1. EXT: Simple Calendar
  • 1.1. Read online
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  • 1.3. Introduction
    • What does it do?
  • 1.4. This is a simple but powerful calendar extension for Typo3. Events can be created and edited in the backend very easy (see screenshots for details). The extension holds a plugin that can be placed on any page of your frontend and can display the events to the user.
  • 1.5. I created this extension because most calendar-extensions I tried where to ugly or complicated or simply did not have all the features that I needed. So I made this extension as flexible and powerful as possible without making it to complicated.
  • 1.6. Read online
    • Feature overview
  • 1.7. Read online
    • Screenshots
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  • 1.41. Users manual
    • Creating and editing events
  • 1.42. After installing the extension (see "Configuration" for more details) you can start adding events to the calendar. Simply activate the list-module in the Typo3-backend, navigate to the folder where the events should be stored (most probably called "Events") and click the add-button at the top of the page. Then you choose the entry Event located under Simple Calendar.
  • 1.43. Now you simply fill in all the information you wish to and save your changes. The event should then appear in the calendar in the frontend. Events can be edited in the same way.
  • 1.44. Read online
    • Available options for events
  • 1.45. The following fields may be filled by you for every event:
  • 1.46. Read online
    • Importing a csv-file into the calendar
  • 1.47. As it is kind of time-consuming to input all events by hand, I added a little csv-file-importer-script. First you have to put all the events to import into a csv-file, e.g. by exporting it from Excel. Then you select the functions-module in the Typo3-backend, then you choose the wizard named "Import events from csv-file".
  • 1.48. First you need to select the folder from the page-tree, into which the events should be saved (this will most probably be the "Events"-folder.
  • 1.49. Now you are asked to upload the csv-file. After uploading it, you may specify the string-limiter and field-separator. But most of the time, the pre-selected , and " will work.
  • 1.50. In the next step, your csv-file will be analyzed and you are asked to define which column of the file should be used for which property of the event. For date/time-columns, you have to define a format-pattern used to convert the column to a date/time.
  • 1.51. You have to use the letters d (for day), m (for month), y (for year), h (for hour) and i (for minute) for the pattern. For example, if the date is supplied in a format like October 12. 2011, your pattern should be "mdy", for a date like 2011/12/31, the pattern "ymd" would be suitable.
  • 1.52. After defining all the columns (notice that you have to at least define the source for the start-date and title) the script can start importing the events. There may be some lines the script can not process, for example if the date is broken or the title is empty. These lines will be output after the import. You may have to add these events manually to the list.
  • 1.53. Read online
    • Adding the calendar-plugin to the frontend
  • 1.54. If you want to add the calendar-plugin to a page in your frontend, simply activate the page-module and navigate to the page the calendar should be shown at. Then click the add-button to create a new content element. Choose the Calendar-Plugin from the plugins list.
  • 1.55. You may define a heading, but that is not neccessary. More important are the options you need to set under "Plugin".
  • 1.56. First you define the View-Mode, most of the time you may choose "Month", which results in the standard month-view. The mode "Month (simplified)" can be used to place the calendar in a small space, e.g. a sidebar, it results in a mont-view without all the buttons and with smaller fields.
  • 1.57. The option "Reacting to GET-parameters" is useful if you place the simplified month-view in the sidebar. When the user navigates to the page where the full-size-calender is shown and clicks a day to get to the day-view-mode, both the main-version and the sidebar-version of the plugin would react to the parameters and display the day-view. This would totally ruin the sidebar-layout, as the day-view takes as much space as normal content. To prevent this, uncheck the "Reacting to GET-parameters"-option in the sidebar-instance of the plugin and the sidebar-plugin will stay in simplified month-mode.
  • 1.58. Now you have to set the option "Calendar-Page". This tells the plugin where the primary calendar is shown. The buttons and links in the calender will all lead to this page. In case the primary calendar is on the page you are editing, you can leave this empty.
  • 1.59. Finally you should define where the events are stored with the option "Event-Storage". Most of the time this will be the folder "Events".
  • 1.60. Read online
    • FAQ
  • 1.61. This is the very first version of the documentation file, written even before the first release of the extension. So there are no questions asked yet. If you have a question that is not answered in this manual, do not hesitate to write a mail to info@advitum.de.
  • 1.62. Read online
  • 1.63. Installation and Administration
  • 1.64. As you are reading this manual, I will assume that you just downloaded my extension. First of all: thanks, I hope this will help you.
  • 1.65. After you installed the extension, some things have to be done. First you should create a folder in the Typo3-page-tree that will contain all the events. I recommend to name this "Events", as the user can then easily find the right place to put the events in.
  • 1.66. Now you should place the calendar-plugin in the frontend, so your users can see the events. Simply add a new content-element to the page you want to place the calendar on and choose the plugin "Calendar".
  • 1.67. First you define the View-Mode, most of the time you may choose "Month", which results in the standard month-view. The mode "Month (simplified)" can be used to place the calendar in a small space, e.g. a sidebar, it results in a mont-view without all the buttons and with smaller fields.
  • 1.68. The option "Reacting to GET-parameters" is useful if you place the simplified month-view in the sidebar. When the user navigates to the page where the full-size-calender is shown and clicks a day to get to the day-view-mode, both the main-version and the sidebar-version of the plugin would react to the parameters and display the day-view. This would totally ruin the sidebar-layout, as the day-view takes as much space as normal content. To prevent this, uncheck the "Reacting to GET-parameters"-option in the sidebar-instance of the plugin and the sidebar-plugin will stay in simplified month-mode.
  • 1.69. Now you have to set the option "Calendar-Page". This tells the plugin where the primary calendar is shown. The buttons and links in the calender will all lead to this page. In case the primary calendar is on the page you are editing, you can leave this empty.
  • 1.70. Finally you should define where the events are stored with the option "Event-Storage". This is the "Events"-folder you just created.
  • 1.71. Now the calendar basically is up and running. You may add the calendar-plugin to the sidebar, I recommend the view-mode "Month (simplified)" and the "Reacting to GET-parameters"-option unchecked. Now you are ready to go.
  • 1.72. Read online
    • FAQ
  • 1.73. This is the very first version of the documentation file, written even before the first release of the extension. So there are no questions asked yet. If you have a question that is not answered in this manual, do not hesitate to write a mail to info@advitum.de.
  • 1.74. Read online
  • 1.75. Configuration
  • 1.76. Read online
  • 1.77. Most information were already given in the "Installation and Administration"- and the "Users Manual"-sections of this manual. So I will just tell you about the configuration you can access through TypoScript. All options and parameters are listed in the "Reference"-section.
  • 1.78. In the folder pi1/templates, you find the templates used to render the calender. You may edit these in case you need advanced changes to the layout of the calendar.
  • 1.79. Read online
    • FAQ
  • 1.80. This is the very first version of the documentation file, written even before the first release of the extension. So there are no questions asked yet. If you have a question that is not answered in this manual, do not hesitate to write a mail to info@advitum.de.
  • 1.81. Read online
    • Reference
  • 1.82. Read online
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  • 1.84. Known problems
  • 1.85. A few days ago, Martijn de Vries informed me about a very strange bug occurring under yet unknown circumstances. He reports that he is not able to click the "next month"-button very often. After adding an event or altering the calendar in any other way, the button works, but only one time. Then it is unusable again.
  • 1.86. It seems that this is a flow in the caching of the plugin, so I disabled caching for the plugin. If the error still occurs for you, Martijn de Vries solved the problem by adding config.no_cache = 1 to his page-setup.
  • 1.87. If you find some bugs, errors or similar, mail me at info@advitum.de!
  • 1.88. Read online
  • 1.89. To-Do list
  • 1.90. These functions will be implemented in the next view updates, so stay tuned!
  • 1.91. If you have any ideas or wishes, just let me know and I will provide them in the next version of the extension.
  • 1.92. Read online
  • 1.93. Thanks a million
  • 1.94. I want to shout out a huge »thank you« to all of you who have downloaded and installed my extension. It is nice to know that so many of you like and use my extensions and I am happy about all the feedback I receive from you guys out there – so thanks a million!
  • 1.95. Another big »thank you« goes to the people supporting me with new ideas and with bug reports, I could not do this without the help of you, so I really thank these nice persons:
  • 1.96. ChangeLog
  • 1.97. Here you can check what I did to the extension in the past. For an overview over my plans for the future, see "To-Do list"!
  • 1.98. Read online
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This document is related to version 0.1.4 of the extension simplecalendar.