The past few days I’ve been working on a new WordPress plugin. I’m pretty sure it won’t be quite as popular as my WordPress photo gallery plugin (wiki). However, I think it can be helpful and I hope it’s useful. To solidify its usefulness, I need some suggestions from you.
So, I’ve already built the shell to it, I just need some help deciding what it should do or how it should work.
The basics: An event plugin
The basic request, from a friend of a friend, was something which you could just press a button and input the data for the event into a form (kind of like the add-a-link screen, seen below).
The contents are then sent to the editor formatted using the microformats spec for an hCalendar event.
So, the real question is (minus all the technical mumbo jumbo), what would you like it to come out formatted like?
Examples of possibilities:
- inline: “I went to the
Chargers Game last night and ….” - fully formatted:
“What: Chargers Game
Where: Qualcomm Stadium
When: 9/12/2006 8:00pm
Description: Chargers vs Seahawks.” - some hybrid: I don’t know what this would look like
Suggestions? Comments? Questions? Please, let me know what you think.
nate
Barb
Harry
Giovanni
Tom
Posted by nate on Sep 14, 2006 at 11:06am
For posterity’s sake (and my own bookmarking sanity), I’m inserting a few pertinent bookmarks here:
1) Performancing.com: How to add MicroFormats And Why You Should
2) blogHelper.com: Using Microformats in WordPress
3) Microformats.org: Publishing Microformats in Wordpress
Posted by Ben Yoskovitz on Sep 15, 2006 at 08:52am
I think an event plugin is a good idea. I haven’t looked for one yet, but I have the need to use it.
I wouldn’t mind if the display used the calendar available in the WordPress (which to me seems fairly useless since it just goes to the posts per day.)
If the initial display was a calendar, with days highlighted in some way that have events, that’d be a good start.
Perhaps when you mouseover a day it lists the events there (popup style), with the ability to click and view a list of events per day.
Keep me posted on how it goes!
Posted by nate on Sep 15, 2006 at 09:27am
Awesome idea Ben. Thanks for the input. I was thinking less of a calendar style event tracker and more about the fact you were talking about an event you’re going to or went to.
But, that’s a great idea. Maybe I’ll throw that in as an optional component.
Keep those ideas coming. That’s great!
Posted by Paul on Oct 05, 2006 at 03:38pm
Hey nate. This is a great idea. I think it would be perfect for my bands site. We use wordpress for our site and an event plugin could really help us organize the tour dates page. It would be cool to have make a verison with extras for bands. Let me know when its done!
Posted by nate on Oct 05, 2006 at 04:02pm
Paul,
That’s cool. Thanks for the encouragement. In the meantime, you might check out the Eventful.com Google Gadget. If you add tour performances there as events, (and make sure your performer record is attached to the event), you can set the Google Gadget to default the search to your performer id and it will show your upcoming tour dates with links to the details on Eventful.com.
Let me know if you need any help with that. It’s a pretty neat little gadget.
But, I will let you know when I’m done with this plugin. I hope it helps.
Posted by Justice on Oct 31, 2006 at 01:56am
Hello,
Just wondering if anyone could help. I did something stupid and started my blog using a numerical archive system, and now I'd like to change it so that the post title is part of the URL for SEO reasons. Is there any Wordpress plugins that anyone knows of that could switch it without sending Googlers to invalid pages? Maybe some sort of redirector to the correct page?
Thanks.
Posted by nate on Oct 31, 2006 at 04:37pm
Hey Justice,
I don’t know of any of those types of plugins for WP right now, not to say they don’t exist. But, one way you could do it is a mod_rewrite, if you’re so inclined to get your hands dirty. If you don’t know regex or mod_rewrite, then I’m not sure what to tell ya at this point.
On the other hand, if your blog is new and you’re not getting a ton of hits yet, I’d do the switch, redo your Google Sitemap (make sure to get that plugin if you don’t already have it), and ping Google. That will help the googlers you’re worried about pretty quickly. Google fixes those things in about 24 hours usually, from my experience.
Posted by Kelvin on Nov 15, 2006 at 08:08am
Can anyone give me ideas , i might get free time in the future and want to give it for wordpress …
any idea ?
i want idea from simple thing to mid … 1-2 hours –> 8-10 hours .
post your ideas…
Posted by nate on Nov 15, 2006 at 09:36am
Uh, not really sure what you’re talking about Kelvin.
Posted by Reece on Nov 17, 2006 at 09:59am
Does anyone know the name of the wordpress plugin that creates a list of your posts in a category instead of just displaying them one after the other? I want it so that when someone clicks on a category they just get a list of posts from that category.
I'm sure Ive seen one…and sifting through the WP site is a nightmare
Posted by Salvador on Dec 12, 2006 at 01:00pm
What I want to do on my blog, is every few hours take the oldest post and move it to the
front of the queue, all automatically. Anyone know if there is a plugin that can do this or
a simple way to set up another plugin to do this (use my own feed perhaps)?
Thanks.
Posted by nate on Dec 14, 2006 at 08:22am
I haven’t seen either plugin (Reece and Salvador). However, there’s a few good places to check for stuff like that.
Those are the two big places. Let us know if/where you find what you’re looking for.
Posted by CH on Jan 02, 2007 at 11:12am
Hi Nate!
The vevent plugin sounds great! My wishlist would contain
- the forementioned calendar,
- the possibility to display a self-determined amount of events on one static blog page
- blogging the events in a special category shown and/or not shown on the blogs main page.
Did you already code something?
Posted by nate on Jan 02, 2007 at 01:21pm
Hi CH,
Thanks for adding your wishlist. I’ll take them into consideration while building. I have built a really boring basic version for proof of concept, but haven’t integrated a lot of what people want (like the calendar, etc). So, it’s a work in progress.
I will update this comment section and this page when I do have something to show, though.
Posted by elipsoid on Mar 19, 2007 at 02:08pm
I would really love to see this plugin working - I could use it to display tour dates on a website I am currently working on.
Posted by Mendezki on Mar 27, 2007 at 05:55pm
I’d vote for an event calendar that would be able to display an event list divided per (a pre-set number of) months. (as event calendar doesn’t do this) : )
Posted by Tallfreak on Jun 12, 2007 at 07:10pm
Yes, I could use an event plugin for the comedian’s page I’m working on!
Posted by Bernie Hayden on Jul 20, 2007 at 02:22pm
I’m searching for event plugins right now that would be useful in using WordPress as a workout journal. What I envision is each “event” would be a Workout. It would be nice if each event could then have a sub-type like cycling, running, weightlifting, etc. or maybe this can be handled by metadata? Anyway, the important thing is to have the form for the Workout/Event set-up to upload data like heartrate (Polar .HRM files), GPS tracks (.GPX) and track them in a database like MySQL for analysis.
Posted by nate on Jul 20, 2007 at 02:29pm
Bernie,
Wow, that’s interesting. I’ve never heard of the .hrm files before. Sounds like a great request, especially with the gps stuff. I think those kind of requests probably needs a bit more than a wordpress plugin. They probably need to be folded into a full app for you, but it’s a great idea for an app, that’s for sure.
Any takers?
Posted by Bernie Hayden on Jul 20, 2007 at 03:03pm
Right, doing something with the files would be a separate application. All I’d really want as a start is for the database to be able to associate a file(s) with a particular event. I’ve seen a plugin that lists attachments at the bottom of each post along with an icon for the file type so maybe what I’m after is an upload field in the event form. I think the file type is determined based on the extension. I guess a more general application would be to upload stuff like image files; for example a map or event flyer.
.hrm files are just a text file of the workout data saved by Polar heartrate monitors. In the most basic form the just list a heartrate (beats per minute) for each time interval.
Posted by nate on Jul 20, 2007 at 04:12pm
Sounds good Bernie. Let’s see if we have any takers on making something like that. I would, but I just don’t have the time at this point.
Posted by G on Jul 22, 2007 at 12:41pm
any update on the plugin?
Posted by Austin on Aug 11, 2007 at 03:10pm
Adding categories to the calendar items, so that you could have a main events page, then maybe subpages based on the events that are categorized by type of event or perhaps location, etc.
Posted by Bedava on Aug 16, 2007 at 06:01pm
ya i think adding the categories would be a great idea though im not sure how he’d implement that given the api, but the ideas plausible
Posted by Thomas Larsen on Oct 12, 2007 at 05:46am
Can’t wait to try this one
Posted by thinkbanc on Nov 28, 2007 at 07:59pm
That was a really knowledgeable post. I often find that this topic is complicated to get your head round but you have summed it up really well. You reminded me of a guy I was reading the other day who was really good too.
Posted by law of attraction on Dec 02, 2007 at 07:19pm
Normally I wouldn’t comment on posts but I felt that I had to as your writing style is really good. You have broken down a difficult area so that it easy to understand. I think that you would enjoy reading what another good blogger has to say on the subject.
Posted by etoainshrdlu on Dec 15, 2007 at 02:58pm
Awesome, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for!
Having the options for output would be helpful i.e. in a sidebar below the calendar (without reloading) or put it on the main page (again without reloading. Then allow for different categories of events eg. birthdays (could be a simple mouseover box), but minor events like rehearsals could be displayed below the calender (either on a click or just listed) and finally major events such as a performance could be displayed on the main page.
Thanks for taking a crack at this!
Posted by dexter on Dec 27, 2007 at 08:24pm
Cool idea, It should be kept simple and straight to the point, I would love to see it when its complete, keep with it
Posted by o2smedia on Dec 30, 2007 at 01:02pm
I’m looking for something where users can submit an event and it has a bio as well…like what you can do on myspace, facebook ect..abd create events.
Posted by MP on Jan 09, 2008 at 05:44am
How about a event plugin, thats connect wordpress to the facebook events? Im imaging a plugin thats recieve the data from the event profile on facebook and post them on a wordpress blog?
Posted by vc on Jan 31, 2008 at 02:28pm
Dear Nate,
We have a website like this - http://www.cuca.org.uk/
There we have events listed, and as you can see ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’ are quite outdated as it has not been manually updated. However, it would be nice to have a plugin that would just post events and automatically update with system time change, from ‘tomorrow’ to ‘today’ and ‘today’ to ‘yesterday’ and so on.
Many thanks.
Best regards,
Murali.
Posted by Bob on Feb 14, 2008 at 04:34pm
if you could make a wordpress version of this, that would be awesome.
go to http://ekittell.com/ then select scripts > events list
Posted by nate on Feb 14, 2008 at 06:04pm
Bob, with that code, I just might actually do it.
Finally. haha.. I need another boost of the stats for a new WP plugin.
Thanks for the ref.
Posted by ryan on Feb 21, 2008 at 08:35am
Great idea.. I’ve been looking for an event system for a sailing club wordpress site I have been working on. Some functionality that we are looking for includes registration for the event by site members, limiting how many people can register, having dates on when registration can occur, and sending an iCal meeting to the registered user.
Thanks for you help on this.
Posted by jack on Mar 06, 2008 at 01:11pm
Very very interesting… this events plugin
The last few days I’ve been looking at Drupal for making a new website which should list events, but I’m so familiar with WordPress and it’s so much easier to theme, that an events plugin would be great!
In my case I have to make a website for a non-profit organisation that initiates and lists events about psychiatry, whatever happens in a certain region that would benefit a better understanding of people who suffer from a mental illness.
I need to create an overview with: title, date, location, city and what kind of event it is: theatre, music, literature, local, movie, art, cooking, etc.
List 2 mentioned by Bob would be an option, but personally I would want to try and create a more visual display of events, like rectangular blocks, perhaps even each type of event with a different background color: movie=yellow, theatre=blue etc. But perhaps a list would be sufficient too.
Anyway, a seperation of type would also be nice, so next to a flat list with events (ordered by upcoming events) I would also like to have the events ordered by type and then ordered by date or event. If an event could be tagged and these ‘event’tags could come with a css-class, then each kind of tag could have a different color…
Just a few thoughts about such a plugin
Posted by Tom Leith on Apr 05, 2008 at 08:14pm
Hmmmm.
I’m looking right now for something that works like EventCalendar, but has a different output format. My organization’s Calendar of Events is sparse: at most about 30 events per year. Most people just want to know when the next few are coming up: they don’t necessarily want to browse through the whole year looking to see what days events are happening.
Instead of a “calendar” I think I’d like a different output style that looks like a text widget, but has links to the event posts, maybe with a short headline versus the post’s “regular” headline. Maybe it could display something like:
17-Apr Education Event
25-Apr Board Meeting
15-May Networking Event
16-May Education Event
30-May Board Meeting
6-Jun KC Planning Meeting
…
When the time of the topmost event comes, it disappears from the top of the list, and the next one appears at the bottom. Maybe it could scroll so you could see every event that’s scheduled. I’m not sure whether it’s possible to create a link to an “unpublished” or “future” post – this isn’t strictly necessary, only that the dates & titles show up for all the future events.
For extra credit, add a filter to the widget to let me say “display only events tagged in the KC Category”. To be really, really cool, there’d be a set of radio buttons where I could choose a few categories. And to be even cooler than that, place a cookie to remember the default event filter for each visitor/member.
I am just beginning to understand WordPress. If you want to have a gander at what I’m trying to accomplish look here: http://moheg.org
t
Posted by Harry on May 15, 2008 at 04:12am
I find it really a catchy one and also very user friendly
good work Done i am also thinking on same lines for me