Event views

[FatherShawn]

Is there a calander view for events or only a list?  The demo site in Drupal doesn't show much and I don't see any sample event views in the Joomla demo.  I'm thinking of using CiviCRM in Joomla...

[Michał Mach]

There is no calendar view, but when you go to Administer CiviCRM -> Manage Events, you can get the link to iCal file (or download it) and use any external calendar application which supports iCal to create functionality you need.

Thx,
m

[geilhufe]

In Drupal, you can display a calendar of CiviEvents like this:

Download the calendar module.
http://drupal.org/project/calendar
(has some other module dependencies)

Enable the ical helper module.

From the docs:

To import iCal feeds from other locations into your calendar, choose the 'iCal' tab you see when looking at your calendar and fill out information about the feeds you want to insert into the calendar.

Sometime you need to make sure access permissions are configured correctly.

[Conga3.com]

So far I've found one Joomla Calendar Component that supports the iCal/vCalendar file import feature.

http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,1343/Itemid,35/

I've loaded it on my website here:

http://www.sincerelysanta.org/index.php?option=com_iwebcal&Itemid=11

It's REAL simple...generate iCal file in CiviCRM:

 CiviCRM  » Administer CiviCRM » Manage Events »  Download iCalendar File

Then use iWebCal to link to it.  A Cron Job could be created to automate all this (Update .ICS file, Reload .ICS file).

I'm not all that impressed with this solution though.  I'm looking at the JCal Pro component.  It doesn't support the .ICS file import, but it shouldn't be hard to modify it to use it.

Any other solutions out there?

[Michał Mach]

It should make things simpler if you could give up authorisation for iCal file in some circumstances - this way you could just tell your calendaring application to use the link and not import the file yourself every time you add new event.

I just posted a proposal for feature in comments to CiviEvent v2 - http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence//x/6iY
Feel free to chip in with your comments.

[Michał Mach]

Just to follow up with calendaring aspect I mentioned in my previous post: the ability to remove authentication has been added to CiviCRM (CRM-1873).

In order to have the iCal file accessible by external applications, you need to turn on "register for events" permission for anonymous user.

I tested it by adding CiviCRM calendar URL to Google Calendar (GC) and it works totally fine - once you add iCal link to GC, all the new events and changes to existing ones in CiviEvent are visible in GC. I assume it should work with all the calendars with iCal support.

Thx,
m

[FatherShawn]

I'm not all that impressed with this solution though.  I'm looking at the JCal Pro component.  It doesn't support the .ICS file import, but it shouldn't be hard to modify it to use it.

I agree that a cron based solution isn't what we need.  Can anyone comment on what's involved in changing the query for these components to draw data from CiviEvent's data store instead?  That's what we really need to do!

[WebTeam]

Doh! Calendar shows, but no events are displayed.

• Role Access: Working off line(maintenance) as Site Admin, so everything is check marked.
• Event added via CiviEvent.
• Saved the ".ics" file and uploaded it to the /files.
• I installed and enabled Drupal modules and required support modules: Calendar, CCK, Date, and Views.
• Drupal>Administer>Site Builder>Views:Selected calendar: edit.
  - No access roles checked.
  - Calendar: Year (Display All Values) (Year)
  - Same for Month and Day
  - Calendar: iCal Feed (Display All Values} (left blank)
• Clicked the Calendar link: domain.com/calendar. Calendar shows with tabs and links. No data.
• Clicked the "iCal" tab and entered name: myevents; url: http://mydomain.org/path/to/files/civicrm/crm_docs/civicrm_ical.ics
• Clicked the "View" tab. Still no data.

Thunder and lightening (again). I'm unplugged for the rest of the night. I'll check back tomorrow. What step am I missing?

Ashford

[Michał Mach]

Looking at what I did differently:
- I also clicked "Add" next to calendar in views administration.
- I didn't save ics file in files, I directly added the link to "Browse iCalendar Listing" to iCal sources in calendar

See also:
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,135.msg476.html#msg476
and
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,135.msg474.html#msg474


michau

[pelicani]

I've set up the same thing, but get an error from the date_ical.inc (part of the date.module)
Invalid input file
It seems that this line, $ifile = @fopen($filename, "r"); fails when trying to open...
http://mydomain.com/civicrm/event/ical?reset=1&page=1

That page itself loads fine in the browser, but the date_ical.inc fails.
Curious why ya'll have no such problem.
/* $Id: date_ical.inc,v 1.1.2.8 2007/03/13 15:19:42 karens Exp $ */

Do ya'll have any tips?

[pelicani]

There is a setting in the php.ini file that needs to be configured to allow fopen to open urls...
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.filesystem.php#ini.allow-url-fopen
If the file fails to open, check this setting.
By default the setting is set to On or True or 1.
This isn't causing my system to have the problem.
But maybe someone else.

So what is causing my problem in opening the url?
Any ideas will be appreciated.

[Donald Lobo]

change this line from:

$ifile = @fopen($filename, "r");

to

$ifile = fopen($filename, "r");

and see what the error is (check the drupal watchdog and your php error file). That will give you/us a better clue on whats failing and why

lobo

[WebTeam]

URL copied from Manage Events:
http://heartwoodtmn.org/civicrm/event/ical?reset=1&page=1

When I put the full URL in the browser window, I see the actual text written to the file.

When I attempt to submit the URL using the [iCal] tab found on the http://domain.org/calendar page, I get the "invalid input file" error. Could it be the Calendar module expects the ".ics" extension?

Lobo, in the previous post, which file were you suggesting we edit?

change this line from:
$ifile = @fopen($filename, "r");
to
$ifile = fopen($filename, "r");

I know. I know. I'm supposed to wait until the handbook instructions are written, but the Calendar is the most important item on our site and right now the entire site has been down for a month while I tried to upgrade everything. The natives are restless and want me brought before the firing squad.

Ashford

[Donald Lobo]

Ashford:

1. Does the link work even as an anonymous user? If not, make sure you have the permissions enabled for the anonymous user

2. I'm not sure if that line is applicable in your case. I was just responding to pelicani's issue of an error with fopen. You might want to read his post for more details

lobo

[pelicani]

I changed the line from @fopen to fopen and got this error...
fopen(http://mydomain.com/civicrm/event/ical?reset=1&amp;page=1) [<a href='function.fopen'>function.fopen</a>]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 401 Authorization Required  in /home/domain/www/sites/default/modules/date/date_ical.inc on line 107.

Sounds like I didn't set something up right.
The Drupal permissions are setup to allow everyone to access the events.
What did I miss?