Spark Events Calendar Discussion

[J_Paul]

Featured Component Spark Events Calendar Version 1.4.5
Copyright © 2003, James Peek [www.sparkos.com]

A Flash MX component designed for displaying events that occur in a variety of different patterns including once-off, weekly, monthly and yearly recurring. The design is easily reskinned, and the event data easily extended.

Some example events might be: an event which occurs on the last weekday of September, or one which happens on the 3rd Tuesday of every second month between 9am and 5pm.

Component can also be used as a date selection component.

http://sparkos.com/downloads/components/eventscalendar/

Ask Questions and give your feed back on this component!

[whodini]

Just a quick hello to encourage anyone with questions on the calendar to ask away :)

Also any suggestions for further examples or additions to the calendar are more than welcome.

Would also be interested to know if there was any interest in an admin component which I have in the pipeline, probably won't be a free release at it is more involved than just the calendar, but will see how it goes.

James

[J_Paul]

Hey James,

This may be a stupid question, but do you have a PHP script that one can use to fill in the dates for their events so they don't have to sift through the TXT file?

[whodini]

The XML or TXT data files can be generated by PHP or similar. At the moment I haven't released a free version of an admin module, but have available a coldfusion/flash remoting/mysql admin module, not free at this stage but potentially later.

James

[Mamie Donald]

I would be grateful to know how accessible the Events Calendar is for the disabled e.g. is it possible to read this with a screen reader? Many thanks in advance.

[Mamie Donald]

Thank you for offering to answer questions. I would be grateful to know how accessible the Events Calendar is for the disabled e.g. is it possible to read this with a screen reader? Many thanks in advance.

[bassam]

Hi
I want to know if possible and how to create interface for save event and clear it and update it offline not through server side.
Simply if I click on any date I want to be able to add event for this date and if this data have already event I want to be able to update it.
I know this is very big question but I want to know how to do it then I will develop it myself.

Bassam
Thanks

[ivr]

Here is a swf.file (flash) and swi.file on a calendar it,s made in swish ,

feel free to download it and use it

http://www.warragul.au.bz/calendar.html

[Que]

Hey,

I love this little baby! I saw what djsnoop.com had done with his and I was hooked.
I've tweaked mine plenty visually, http://www.walkersystems.net/, and now I'm ready to dive into hacking the programming. Here's a couple of things I would like to know more about:

1 - How to change it from M T W T F S S, to S M T W T F S.

2 - Main timeline, frame 1:

// simulate a click on today's date to show any events that happen today

That would seem to mean show today's events (if any) when the calendar loads. Mine shows the events of whatever is the first day in the month that has events. So, how would I stop it from showing anything when it first loads up? Or have it show todays events at load time and fade out... I like the blank space and need the real estate on the page.

3 - Is it possible to have flash update the xml file on the server? Of have calendar read from multiple files based on week date etc...? I put a little "add" button in the top right-hand corner and it'd be very cool to be able to click on a day, then click add or edit etc...

4 - Would it be possible to interface it with other programs? Like outlook or the message board, "ikonboard?" Maybe by exporting a csv file from outlook based on a new outlook category "spark" or whatever? It'd be hot to be able to add an event to my palm pilot phone and after hot synching with outlook, have it automatically show up on my webpage!

I added another section to "Date Box Background" class called "today." I simply call that frame label when it's today's date rather than turning on a background and changing the text color. Today, I noticed for the first time that when it's today and there is an event, the box defaults to "action" view. I changed the code a bit to show the "today" view by putting the following directly after the line that sets the mc to "action"

if (this.date.getTime() == this.today.getTime()) {
     this.bg_mc.gotoAndStop("today");
}

how would I go about having yet another section, "today:event" so that not only can I see if it's today, but that today also has an event? In fact, more sections in "DateBoxBackground" for more types of criteria. ie: birthday, level of importance, work related, personal, whatever... the sections could be as simple as having a different colored dot for each type of event that would allow you to have multiple colored dots in one day signifying multiple types of events on one day. Or, a thin colored line that xtends across multiple days for a 3-day long event. In whatever day box the event starts, just add:(dot.width=('AmtOfDaysForEvent'*25)) or whatever. Here's a mock up image of what I mean, sort of like apples iCalendar.


I'm typing a million miles an hour... sorry for the run on.

Hope to hear from you soon!

-=Randy

[lan]

Hi,

I really love this component. I am currently donating my time to a community after-school education centre, and they need an events calendar. The problem is that they are not technically literate enough to write the XML file themselves.

I was wondering if anyone may have a form that can be used to generate the appropriate XML file automatically - this would be an enormous addition to the calendar!

Thanks.

[Que]

- As for changing MTWTFSS to SMTWTFS, duh, it was in the parameters for the calendar component. "First day of week." Can't believe I missed that.

- The wierdness of it showing the first day of the month that had an event vs today's events was in the getEvents.onLoad function located in frame 1 of the _root.
Changed the following at the end of the getEvents.onLoad function:

while(--todayDate){
if(calendar_ec.getDataByDate(todayDate).length){
calendar_ec.getDayByDate(todayDate).onRelease();
}else{
//trace("no events:" + todayDate);
}
}

/to:/

calendar_ec.getDayByDate.onRelease();

and it started showing todays events on loadup.


A new problem that I've found is that I made a mc of "no appointments" (static text) that fades in and then out again but it doesn't fade when testing the swf. I've never seen this before where something that fades perfectly fine in the flash program itself, won't fade in the swf. It simply turns on, then off. I don't mind it, but why isn't it fading??

-=Randy

[baardoa]

Hello, I love this calendar. I am trying to make something out of it, but I can't figure out how to change the font on the calendar? Can anyone help me?

Greetings from Baard

[chengaria]

How should I format a pattern in my XML file for an event that would occur every Thursday?

Any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

[davidfranco]

Can anyone help me figure out how to:
1) make the bg color different on dates that have events? and
2) how to display a small summary of the event in the date box? and
3) how to show past dates with another color, or with an "x" through them?

Please help me!

[superalexman]

Hello, my name is Manuel Alejandro, I'm a computer science student from Mexico, I'm doing my social service ( I don't know if there's something similar to this in your country but it means that we (students) before we graduate must work for the goverment for free a certain number of hours )and I would appreciate if you could help me with this problem.



I modified the calendar so that when the user clicks on a date, it shows the event and a link to some page. It only shows the link when the current date and hour and the event date and hour are the same.

This creates a problem; the problem is that the date and hour are the user's, , well, to solve this I created a program that generates a xml file with the hour and date of the server (the machine where is my page) and I use an xml object to read the file and get the server's hour and date to determine if the link must be shown or not.


This is ok, it works, but there's is another problem, that the calendar shows (highlights )the current day of the user instead of the server's, so my question is how can I modify the calendar so that it highlights the current day of the server(which is accesible through a file), instead of the user's current day because the dates may differ.
In other words the calendar should read the current date and hour from the xml file instead of obtaining from the user's current date and hour.

I have been looking for the place where the calendar take the hour and date but I haven't find it, so it would be of great help if you could tell me if it can be done calling a method or changing the code.

Well that's all, I hope that you can help me, thanks in advance. My english is not so good, because my native language is spanish, so if you didn't understand something, please tell me. bye.

[zygote]

This component rocks! I've found it very flexible, and pretty easy to customize. My question is this: Has anyone found a way of modifying the datebox clip so it displays the first title of an event on any given day (followed by an indicator if there are more events.)

There are a couple of examples on James's page that do this - such as http://www.burgmann.act.edu.au/calendar/

I've been totally banging my head against a wall trying to get it to do this. Any insight would be appreciated.

[zygote]

Anyone? This is killing me...

[gaia-tek]

Hi,

How can I get multiple dates to be selected, and stay selected untill clicked again?
I'm creating a booking application where the user can see what dates are available, and then book a range of dates himself if he so desires...

Thanks...

Don

[ivr]

Here is a Calendar I designed in Swish2 its a swf.file and the file size is nice and small, you can download it on the page.

http://www.warragul.au.bz/calendaryear.html

Regards

[esiegel]

OK...I've made an swf with this calendar on it...and all is well.

But I have another swf that loads the first one into a movieclip (using loadmovie). Running it this way no text shows on the calendar...no titles, no numbers, no nothing.

Any Idea why this would happen
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze327qg/tbe/tbe.html click the Schedules button.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze327qg/tbe/schedule.swf is the movie alone


Any help would be appreciated

[esiegel]

OK...I've made an swf with this calendar on it...and all is well.

But I have another swf that loads the first one into a movieclip (using loadmovie). Running it this way no text shows on the calendar...no titles, no numbers, no nothing.

Any Idea why this would happen
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze327qg/tbe/tbe.html click the Schedules button.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze327qg/tbe/schedule.swf is the movie alone


Any help would be appreciated

[ivr]

Ed Siegel,
I cannot open your url's however it could be that you have to place and remove the calendar items on the timeline and play and stop the items on the scene timeline?, Hope you understand what I mean,
Have a peek at my calendar posted on this page and it will show what I mean.

Originally Posted by ivr

Ed Siegel,
I cannot open your url's however it could be that you have to place and remove the calendar items on the timeline and play and stop the items on the scene timeline?, Hope you understand what I mean,
Have a peek at my calendar posted on this page and it will show what I mean.

Actually, I don't understand what you mean.
The calendar is working fine in the .swf file. But when I load that same .swf into another movie using loadmovie..I get no text.

I checked the urls in my last post and they seem to be working fine.

[esiegel]

the Guest post was from me ....forgot to login

[esiegel]

OK...figured it out.
The Movie clip is behind a mask because of the way the doors are built.

Seems the the Calendar can't be used behind a mask...because the text becomes invisible.

Go figure!

[neltay]

does anyone know how to make the color for dates falling on sundays red on the calendar?

Thanks!

[sneakyC]

Hi,
We are using the spark event calendar feeding it via XML. We have an admin panel the allows people to enter their events and then it generates the XML via coldfusion. A rough draft of that code is available here: http://home.gwu.edu/~reecec/


I have been asked to color code the events and I am not sure how to attack this problem. I have written two more variables to the xml file to define the event type and then when I call the bg_mc movie I changed the code to read like this:

SparkEventsCalendarDateBoxClass.prototype.$addEven t = function (eventData) {
this.eventData_array.push(eventData);
// this doesn't work -- need to find a way to write on top

if (eventData.eventcolor == 0) {
this.bg_mc.gotoAndStop("support");
}
// check to see if it is a support group
else if (eventData.eventcolor == 1) {
this.bg_mc.gotoAndStop("affiliate");
}
else {
this.bg_mc.gotoAndStop("active");}
this.date_txt.textColor = 0x000000;
this.useHandCursor = true;
// capture when date box is pressed and display its event(s)
this.onRelease = function () {
var base = this._parent._parent;
if (base.enabled) base.onDisplayEvent(this.$getEvents(), this.date);
}
}

The problem is that each time the movie is called it seems to write over whatever event was previously written. I am not sure how to handle this problem.
Thanks

[vcortez]

I'd like to creeate a view by year and then display events on the side per quarter begining with the current month.

Any suggestions on the best way to accomplish this.

Thanks