Calendar Help

Features

• Personalized: Users can show events for all the organizations they belong to.
• Group focused: Group login gives access to events for that group.
• Facility oriented: manage all events occuring in a building - Ask if you want to subdivide?

Event classification

• Local events: assign to practices and events only your group has interest.
• Standard events: assign to normal meetings most would want to know about.
• District events: assign to events of interest in your district
• Global events: assign to events everyone should know about
• Coming events: use to flag events coming next year
• Group Assignment: assign an event to a different group. Just select the "body" you want the event to apply to.

Recurring Event Exceptions
There is now an "Except Month" field. Enter the numbers of months to not display separated with a space. For example, except July and August, enter: 7 8 - When the code is implemented, they will no longer be displayed.

Importing Events: Use a text editor or spreadsheet to enter your data under the following headings:
Date | Start | End |
yyyymmdd | HH:MM |HH:MM | Body | Title | Note | E-mail | Link | Icon | Facility | District | Class | Except

Favorite view: See it your way choose day/week/month/year, grid/list, hide header/footer

Coming Features

• Group defaults entered when add event.

Got a problem you can't solve - may I can. Ask.

Table of contents

• Calendar Help
  • Do's & Don'ts
  • Recent Changes
  • Map Link Behavior
  • Group Menu Links
  • Groups
  • FAQ
  • Current Setup
  • Usage
    • Menu Bar
    • User Menu Bar
    • Menu Items
  • Scheduling an Event
    • Recurring Event
    • Copying an Event
    • Edit Events
  • Admin
    • Current User
• Future Changes Planned or Desired

Do's & Don'ts

• Do be frugal in classifing events as global or district. Would you want you calendar cluttered with lodge practices occuring 300 miles away?

Recent Changes

The following changes have not been fully incorporated in the help below which is being converted from a regular web page to a Wiki page to make it easier to keep it up to date.

• Event facility can be long form (with address) or short form only so that new input from user data form works.
• Group Data / User Information Form to enter data to be displayed on the standard menu on a group web site. See WebMasterHelp and DisplayableVariables.
• District class events are now shown for a group or a list of groups. If you classify an event as district and set the district value, then the event will appear when a group in the same district as the event district is selected.
• District and Group pulldown menus have been combined. The CHOOSE DISTRCT & CHOOSE GROUP items are only informational dividers. The Overview calendar now shows all groups and districts. If yours isn't there, it is an oversite, please contact the webmaster@vamason.org.
• An Add pulldown of groups and districts. Choose another group or district to display also. Note your browser address bar. It will show &filter= twice. For bookmarking, only keep the last value for filter. You can manually add groups, by appending a colon : and another group acronym to the value of &filter=.
• In a single view you can see events for all the organizations you belong to. For example: http://vamason.org/cgi-bin/cs/calendar.pl?filter=AMD129:kt5:kt16:no220:yrc95:km30:ra1607:ra1753. Upper/lower case is not considered for the filter. Make yours and bookmark it now. By the way, does your VaMason page have a Bookmark module on the side? If not, you can add it and bookmarks from My Tiki Preferences.

If you see anythong that looks like a problem, please advise webmaster@vamason.org. Through this document "will" means planned, but not quite yet.

Map Link Behavior

The calendars may be displayed in several contexts

1. Independently: on a page by itself.
2. Links in the header map create a new "calendar" page. If you subsequently select another region for the smae page it will use the same "calendar" page.
3. Links to event details all go to the same detail page.

Group Menu Links

The default setup for a group at vamason.org/noXX has a menu with calendar links. Here's what they do.

• Lodge Calendar : Events concerning your group + district & global.
• Facility Calendar : Only events at your facility.
  • (printable) : Above without navigation buttons.
• Facility Groups Cal : Events for designated groups meeting at your facility. District (for each group) and global events will appear. Notify the webmaster of changes. You will be able to specify on the User Information Form this in the future.
  • (printable) : Above without navigation buttons.
• District Calendar : Events that are occuring in your designated district. If you want finer resolution for York Rite, OES, etc, please ask.
• Coming Events : This should only list events that are designated as coming (versus current). These should be very special events for later in the year or next year.

Groups

Currently each group (e.g. Lodge, Chapter, Commandery) is assigned a user name. This makes it simple for several members to manage that groups' events.

There is lots of information below on how to take advantage of the flexibility and features of this calendar system. If you feel it is not clear or you need help, just contact and I'll do what I/we can do to assist you and/or make improvements.

The concept is to set up area calendars that a set of users, e.g. a lodge or chapter, that can add and edit their own events and by default they will all be displayed on the same calendar. Each lodge or chapter will be able to display their own events in standard calendar format or a list which can be copied into a paper based newsletter. In addition events may be classified as global or local. Global events are displayed on all individual group views. Local events only appear on individual group views and not on the overview or district views.

Special features of the vamason template is described below. Several user and event fields have been added to make your life simpler.

FAQ

1. Why can't I see my event on the main calendar view? Make sure it is a "standard" class event. Local events don't show up on the main page to reduce clutter on other calendars for other groups.
2. When I edit events, they aren't on the list? Unless they are recurring within the current month they will not be there. To list all your events search for your group, e. g. no220.
3. Can I enter a lot of events at once? Yes. Once you are logged in, select the Admin item and then the Import Events item. Here is a event_import_template.xls to assist you with the proper format. It works best to edit it with a spreadsheet program and save it as a TSV file (tab separated variable, e.g. event_import_template.tsv). When saving the TSV, use a | character to separate fields and do not allow it to put quotes around any fields. The spreadsheets I've used don't like to output the time field in the proper 24 hour time format, so you will need to manually edit those fields with a text editor like Notepad.
4. Where can I get a spreadsheet program? An excellent "free" spreadsheet and office suite is available from www.openoffice.org. It is compatible with Microsoft Office files.

Current Setup

• View subsets of events by using the pull down lists. You may select a particular group, facility, or all district events.
• Most events are recurring - if they are edited and saved, multiple instances can be created and there will no longer be a single recurring entry. If you set the Split Count to other than 0, it creates that number of separate events on the recurring dates. If the Keep Unbound selection is Yes, it keeps one instance as recurring. This new recurring event is supposed to start after the split events just created, but that's not working yet so you need to manually set the recurring start date until then.
• You automatically approve you own events.
• Download a set of events to import into another program, e.g. Outlook see Search.
• An event can have a lengthy description and contain an entire Trestleboard.
  • NO FTP and NO HTML to learn unless you want to!
  • WYSIWYG htmlArea editor for the description. For support information see Forum for htmlArea. This editor requires MS IE 5 or higher. I have found that you can paste a selection from Word and the formatting is maintained. Sorry you can't upload pictures from here, but you can use the VaMason.org Picture Gallery or Wiki page attachment.
• You can see all the current user accounts and e-mails if by going to Show Calendar Users. You can only see this list if you are logged in to the va calendar and you come back here and click on the link.

Usage

Menu Bar

Before a user is logged in.

User Menu Bar

After a user logs in.

Menu Items

• Facility: Click on the pull down arrow and select a facility.
• Group: Click on the pull down arrow and choose a District or Group.
• Add: Click on the pull down arrow and choose a District or Group to also include.
• Help: Information on calendar usage and design features.
• View: Click on the pull down arrow and select a view option as described below.
  • Search Search a field & get an event listing. At the top of the page a link will appear to download a text file with the listed events.
  • Month ... Duration of the calendar.
  • Grid/List Layout style of the view. Use in combination with a duration.
  • Printable Removes menus from current calendar for printing. Doesn't actually start printing. Use the browser back arrow to restore the menus.
  • Frame Removes header and footer. Not so much for user selection as inclusion of a view in another page using and iframe, e.g.
    <iframe name=iframe1 src="http://www.vamason.org/cgi-bin/cs/calendar.pl?style=List&view=Full-Year&coming=y&frame=y" width=100% height=300 align=top></iframe>
    or using the Today QuickTag:
    

    Remove comment lines. Edit group, facility, etc. as needed.
     || {IFRAME(width=100%, height=300, align=center, marginwidth=0, marginheight=0, 
     frameborder=0, scrolling=auto)} http://vamason.org/cgi-bin/cs/calendar.pl?logo=n
     &month=11&group=no220&facility=lynnhaven&notes=y&style=List&frame=y {IFRAME} ||
     
     or
     < iframe> name=iframe1 src="http://www.vamason.org/cgi-bin/cs/calendar.pl?
     style=List&frame=y" width=100% height=300 align=top>< /iframe>
     
     or some other URL like
     < iframe> name=iframe1 src="http://www.vamason.org/cgi-bin/cs/calendar.pl?
     &group=no220&facility=lynnhaven"
     width=100% height=300 align=top>< /iframe>
     removing the space in the iframe tags and after the ?.

    e.g. Virginia Masonic Calendar
    

    Add_Event

  • Notes Show the contents of the Note field if in a list view. Does nothing in the grid view.
  • Coming Only shows events tagged as coming vs. current.
  • Global Shows all global events. Only meaningful if a facility is selected.
  • ShowAll Enables display of all local events. Only useful if you can to see everything.
• Login: Login to get privileges to do anything other than view the calendar.
• Add/Edit Event: Provides entry of the following fields:
• Body group: Pull down list of Masonic bodies in the area - list is being expanded. I need input! Automatically prefixed to the "Title" in the month view. Will be used to display only that body's events.
• Title: Brief description - must be short as needs to fit in a calendar cell.
• Note: A detailed description of the event or even a lengthy web page.
• E-mail: contact address. Will (not yet) default to user's e-mail. Will automatically become a link to create a new message.
• Link: Any web address that starts with http:. Automatically becomes a web link. Will default to a user preference.
• Icon: Pull down list to select the icon to be displayed before the time:title. If you need something different, please send it to me. There will be 2 or 3 sizes for use in larger displays. The system will know which size to use. Will default to a user preference.
• District: Used to display only that district's events. Will default to a user preference.
• Event Class: Used to determine when to display an event.
  • Global: Event displays on all District & Group view selections. They do not display of facility views unless they are at that facility. Use this to "advertise" your event to the whole area.

    HTML_view_for_note

  • District: Event displays on all District view selections or bodies/groups that belong to that district. Use this to "advertise" your event to your "district", e.g. York Rite or Youth. Resulting event detail display with an example of the note field added using the editor.
  • Standard: Event displays on all District & Group view selections.
  • Local (default): Event displays only on the Body Group view selection that owns the event, i.e. if the Group View selection equals the Body/Group name. Use this for practices, etc.
• Coming Event: Tag as current (default) or coming. In the Coming View, only coming events are displayed for the selected time period.
• Max Split Occurrences (Unbound only): Defaults to 0. If another value is selected, that number of separate instances of the event are created on the appropriate recurring dates.

  Event_Detail_Display

  This will allow you to have different details about each event without having to figure out when the 2nd Tuesday will be next October. If it is a non-recurring event with multiple date entries, a copy of the event will be made for each date. See Scheduling below.
• Keep Recurring Unbound: Defaults to Yes. For an existing unbound recurring event, this will leave one that will still appear at each recurrence on the calendar. Solution pending: For the time being it will be necessary to manually set the recurring start date of occurrences which are split or else it will also appear with the split events. Don't forget to reset the max split occurrences above to prevent future splits.
• Except: Enter the months to be excluded from a recurring event. Separate more than one month with a space, e.g. 7 8 would exclude the display of the event for July and August. Use full to create another event for the Annual meeting or months you do not meet.
• Owner: Pending If editing and event the current owner (your login) will appear. <font ="red">Caution: Only change this value if you want to transfer the ability to edit this event to another user. It is NOT checked for a valid user! If you enter an invalid user it will be necessary to create a new user and/or contact the Administrator.

After entering event information continue on to scheduling it.

Scheduling an Event

Enter a date or click on the arrow to get a pop up calendar. Click on a date or "today". For a different month, click on the month navigation arrows.

Recurring Event

A_recurring event will be converted to individual events at the recurring times. If no date range is given a monthly event will have 6 instances. If you made a significant error you will have to delete all but one instance and edit/reschedule it. This means that you can create a general event for a specific date, edit it 'til your heart's content, make it recurring, and then make particular changes to each, e.g. name of the evening's speaker. This also makes a good method to copy an event - just give it the dates you want to copy to and save it.

Copying an Event

There is more than one way to skin this one.

1. Use Split Multiple Occurance Event:
   1. Add a new date to the schedule and a new entry will be created. They share all information except the dates.
   2. Make it recurring, e.g. 1st Tuesday of the month. Works best if you specify start and end dates.
   3. If an entry is recurring or has multiple dates, set Max Split Occurrences from 2 to 6 depnding how many dates you want to split, a copy will be created at the next occurrence. See Add Event above. In edit event these will no longer have a red asterik. The split events are completely separate and the description, note field, and so forth may be editied independently. If it was recurrent, there should still be a recurring entry. If not, make the last one recurring and set the start date appropriately.

      Edit_Events_List

2. To copy an event and specify a new date, use Copy Event. Be sure to select the correct month. There are some events that have no schedule and there are others that appear as garbage. Please, ignor these until they can be cleaned up.

Edit Events

Lists events in a date range which your group owns. See Add/Edit and Scheduling above for details.

Admin

Goes to the Administration menu and lists the tasks your are privileged to do. See additional documentation and other program information at CalendarScript.

Current User

Logout : Log out to log in as a different user.

Future Changes Planned or Desired

• Change ownership of an event - I can do this manually - let me know if you need one changed. The owner is shown as "By" in the event detail view. The event edit window shows the user, but changes are not currently saved.
• Reminders by e-mail.
• E-mail notification of new events.
• ...
• Please give me your needs and ideas.

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