CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

This relates to my earlier post
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,12802.0.html
about getting upcoming events to list in a sidebar block, but is different enough to warrant a separate post IMO.

I could possibly use the "CiviCRM Upcoming Events" that is part of the CiviCRM core. Looking at the template file for this block, I see that it is somewhat customizable:

{* Block to display upcoming events. *}
{* You can add the following additional event elements to this tpl as needed: $ev.end_date, $ev.location, $ev.description, $ev.contact_email *}
{* Change truncate:80 to a larger or smaller value to show more or less of the summary. Remove it to show complete summary. *}
<div id="crm-event-block">
{foreach from=$eventBlock item=ev}
    <p>
    <a href="{$ev.url}">{$ev.title}</a><br />
    {$ev.start_date|truncate:10:""|crmDate}<br />
    {assign var=evSummary value=$ev.summary|truncate:80:""}
    <em>{$evSummary}{if $ev.summary|count_characters:true GT 80}  (<a href="{$ev.url}">{ts}more{/ts}...</a>){/if}</em>
    </p>
{/foreach}
</div>
However, I need to include the event type in the listing and event type is not one of the parameters that this block has configured as an option.

I'd like to know if I could modify the php somewhere so that event type is included in the eventBlock array so I could add it to the display.

To see what I mean, you could visit my page
www.peachlocal.com
You will see two versions of an upcoming events block in the left sidebar. The upper one is generated by a slightly modified version of the third-party civicrm_eventblock module for Drupal that does include the event type. The event type appears in bold, such as "Potluck" and "Farm Camp Session". I like this display, but the module is malfunctioning and has stopped displaying new events, so I'm giving up on it.

If you scroll down you'll see another upcoming events block that is generated by a slightly modified version of the core "CiviCRM Upcoming Events" block. I like this because it works-- it lists all the events properly and is easily customized but lacks the event type, does not limit the number of events displayed and is not paged.

So...

1) Again, how would I go about getting the event type to display using the core "CiviCRM Upcoming Events" block?

2) What code could be added to the template for the core "CiviCRM Upcoming Events" block that would display only the first ten events? Although not crucial, what code might be added to allow for a pager? Could code be written to display the next ten events in the same block? Would this accomplished through some standard modification of the "foreach" command?

The civicrm upcoming events block template is at templates/CRM/Block and called Event.tpl. It's controlled by CRM/Core/Block.php which in turn calls upon an array that is defined in CRM/Event/BAO/Event.php.

The Event.tpl file says

"You can add the following additional event elements to this tpl as needed: $ev.end_date, $ev.location, $ev.description, $ev.contact_email", but there are more, potentially useful event elements available than have been identified in the preceeding list since they are also part of the array. The complete list is as follows:

ev.title
ev.event_id
ev.summary
ev.description
ev.start_date
ev.end_date
ev.contact_email
ev.event_type
ev.is_show_location
ev.is_online_registration
ev.registration_link_text
ev.registration_start_date
ev.registration_end_date
ev.url
ev.location (is a sub-array called "$address" consisting of the following

 
            $address = '';

            $addrFields = array(
                                'address_name'           => $dao->address_name,
                                'street_address'         => $dao->street_address,
                                'supplemental_address_1' => $dao->supplemental_address_1,
                                'supplemental_address_2' => $dao->supplemental_address_2,
                                'city'                   => $dao->city,
                                'state_province'         => $dao->state,
                                'postal_code'            => $dao->postal_code,
                                'postal_code_suffix'     => $dao->postal_code_suffix,
                                'country'                => $dao->country,
                                'county'                 => null
                                );           
So, I changed the original Event.tpl:

<div id="crm-event-block">
{foreach from=$eventBlock item=ev}
    <p>
    <a href="{$ev.url}">{$ev.title}</a><br />
    {$ev.start_date|truncate:10:""|crmDate}<br />
    {assign var=evSummary value=$ev.summary|truncate:80:""}
    <em>{$evSummary}{if $ev.summary|count_characters:true GT 80}  (<a href="{$ev.url}">{ts}more{/ts}...</a>){/if}</em>
    </p>
{/foreach}
</div>
to this (so that the event type is displayed):

<div id="crm-event-block">
{foreach from=$eventBlock item=ev}
    <p>
    {$ev.start_date|truncate:10:""|crmDate}<br />
    <strong>{$ev.event_type}</strong><br />
    {$ev.title}<br />
    <a href="{$ev.url}">More Info...</a><br /><span><hr style="height: 2px; width: 100%;" color="#f19f0f"></span>
   
    </p>
{/foreach}
</div>
This displays ALL upcoming events. I'd still like to hear ideas about how I might limit this to, say, the next ten events or include a pager in the block, but it works for me now. It's farming season, so it won't probably be until winter when I will have a chance to try this using Views2.

This should be possible with some code changes. Would be great if you can check and code and submit a patch. ping us on IRC if you need help getting started

lobo