Question

Is there a way to integrate CalendarPlugin with TimeTablePlugin to create a combination monthly/weekly calendar?

Environment

-- LynnwoodBrown - 08 Jun 2007

Answer

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A client asked for a combination monthly and weekly calendar and after a fair amount of tinkering, I got a fairly satisfactory solution combining CalendarPlugin and TimeTablePlugin. I also incorporated the add-an-event "wizard" described in CalendarPluginAddEventCommentPluginTemplate. I'm sharing my work here for others that may find it useful and perhaps further refine it.

Here's some screen shots: (click to view full size)

• Month view:

• Week view:

• Event list view:

• Posting new event:

Miscellaneous notes:

• In addition to CalendarPlugin and TimeTablePlugin, this setup uses ToolTipPlugin (which was used by TimeTablePlugin), IfDefinedPlugin, and GluePlugin. GluePlugin really isn't necessary. I just use it because I find it useful. If you don't use it, you'll need to reformat a couple of the tags (which should be fairly self-evident if you look at the code). Likewise, the use of IfDefinedPlugin could be replaced with IfStatements to reduce the requirements. (Again, I just find IfDefinedPlugin easier to use.)
• I incorporated the prior/next month links described in CalendarPluginDev and modified that setup to provide prior/next week links also. I also added a fix so that these would work better with transitions across years (with some kind help from PeterThoeny).
• I tweaked CalendarPluginAddEventCommentPluginTemplate to accommodate the time input. If you don't enter the times, the event is listed at the top in the week view.
• If you look at this in detail, you'll see that because of the differences between the two plugins, I had to make various compromises and a couple of semi-kludge to make it all work. I'm confident that others may be able to add some improvements!

To set it up:

1. Add content from this comment template to UserCommentsTemplate
2. Create a topic using MonthWeekCalendar.txt as a template.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 08 Jun 2007

Comments & Discussion

Thanks Lynnwood for sharing this with the TWikiCommunity!

-- PeterThoeny - 08 Jun 2007

NICE

-- VickiBrown - 08 Jun 2007

is there additional documentation? I have really problems to integrate this greate proposal! The commands ~~~ year="%CURYEAR%" adn ~~~ month="%CURMONTH%" are not working..... Additionally another error occured: No such template def MPL:DEF{PROMPT:AddCalendarEvent} The events aren't displayed in the Month View.

-- StephanMunk - 17 Jul 2007

Stephan - I'm sorry but there isn't more documentation. Regarding ~~~      year="%CURYEAR% and similar lines with "~~~", that is formatting for GluePlugin. If you are not using that plugin, you need to reformat those tags to be on a single line (and remove the "~~~"). Regarding the second error, that suggest that you did not add the CommentPlugin template as instructed in step 1 in my instructions above.

Having worked with this setup for a few weeks now, let me comment that I am not entirely happy with it. Basically, it's a huge hack of a lot of pieces that are prone to break. In particular, the use of ToolTipPlugin adds a level of complexity and fragility that is is not worth it IMHO. I simply included it because CalendarPluginAddEventCommentPluginTemplate used it. If I can figure a way to remove that part of it, I most certainly will. For example, I have discovered that after you have added a few events, the list of events basically breaks the application and the tooltips don't work anymore. :-\ As a work around, I now store the events list in a separate topic.

Also, I just received a report today that the javascript for adding new events doesn't work in MS Vista. I can't even begin to debug that since I don't have a copy of Vista (and have no intent on getting one, thank you).

So, in short, I think this really needs some work in simplifying it to make is less fragile. That's a shame because this is approaching the minimum requirements of a decent calendar application for TWiki IMO. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury to work more on this at present unless someone would like to sponsor the work. I would be glad to share ideas and code with someone else if they would like to work with me on it. (Particularly someone with javascript knowledge and a vista installation.) If I do get some time and/or sponsorship to take this further, I'll certain share the results back here.

-- LynnwoodBrown - 18 Jul 2007

Hi, thanks for your quick reply. Now the Calendar is working half. I have only problems that the start and end dates / time and coloars won't be transferred to the EventsList. Only the description is displayed in the list.... So without extra editing nothing appears in the calendar....any advice?

-- StephanMunk - 18 Jul 2007

Stephan -
The template OUTPUT section is incomplete. I'm working on understanding why myself. (See: Support.IntegrateWeekAndMonthCalendar)

-- VickiBrown - 29 Aug 2007

Closing this after more than 30 days of inactivity.

-- PeterThoeny - 03 Oct 2007