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Events on a Departmental Web Page - PHP Code
Display Events on a Departmental Web Page - PHP Code
Stephanie Obodda - 2016-01-04 - 0 Comments - in Brown Events Calendar
NB: The php scripts provided below are versioned. The current version is 1.2.3. If you are
using an earlier version, you are encouraged to update to 1.2.3. Previous versions are no
longer officially supported.
Version 1.2.3 fixes the direct .ics download link. The link changed in the Bedework
update.
Version 1.2.2 creates a separate class with better exception handling (thanks Chris
Keith!)
Version 1.2.1 strips tabs from calendar feeds. Tabs in event data can result in the
feed showing no events.
Step by Step
1. Include the files: Begin by creating a new page in your department web site. Create it
just as you normally would create any other HTML page, but leave the content area blank
for now. Give your file a meaningful name, but be sure that it ends in .php e.g. events.php
2. At the very top of the document before any HTML starts add the following code. This code
includes the PHP script that handles the data feed, and it creates a new instance of the
BedeworkFeed class.
include_once
"/www/data/httpd/htdocs/Templates/common/calendar/1.2.3/bedeworkfeed.cla
ss.php";
$Cal = new BedeworkFeed();
?>
3. Set the dates: Next, the newly instantiated class needs to know what date range to use
when it retrieves events. For the sake of demonstration, here's a sample of code that sets
the date range to be events that occur between one week in the past and three weeks in
the future. Dates can be expressed in any format understood by php's strtotime() function.
Some examples: +1 day, now,next Monday, or 30 April 2010. Be sure to set a start date and
an end date; if you do not specify dates, the class will use its default settings and return
events between last Sunday and next Sunday.
$Cal->setDate("start", "-1 week");
$Cal->setDate("end", "+3 week");
?>
4. Apply filters: You can add one or more categories to your request to filter the feed.
Adding multiple categories is permitted. Filtering by multiple categories will return any
event that matches any one of the categories you specify. So using the code below will
show all events that are categorized asAnthropology or Lectures.
$Cal->addCategory("Anthropology");
$Cal->addCategory("Lectures");
?>
5. Exclude Categories: In addition to adding categories, you can also exclude categories.
This allows you to get a feed of department events, but exclude events of a certain type.
The code below will exclude all events that are categorized as Workshops.
$Cal->addExcludeCategory("Workshops");
?>
6. Fetch the Feed: Once your filters and categories are set, you can fetch the feed. After the
feed is fetched, another call is made to get the events, and in this code snippet, all of the
events are stored in the $events array.
$Cal->getFeed();
$events = $Cal->getEvents();
?>
7. Display events: Finally, it is possible to display the event data on your web site. A
template has been made available to do this as well. Simply include the template where
you'd like the list of events to be on your page. You could also create your own template
and include it instead of this default one.
include_once("/www/data/httpd/htdocs/Templates/common/calendar/1.2.3/bed
ework-event-list.php");
?>
8. Caching: Version 1.2 introduces caching of feeds. Caching dramatically speeds up the
performance of departmental calendar sites. When your site is first visited, a feed is read
from Bedework, but its data is saved locally so subsequent visits open the local saved data.
The result is a significantly faster web page. Feed caches last two hours by default, and
after two hours pass, cache files are created automatically the next time someone accesses
your page. If you find that two hours isn't suitable for your department, you can change the
life of the cache with the following code. NB: the amount of time is expressed in seconds.
e.g. 60*60*5 = 60 seconds times 60 minutes 8 five hours = 18000 seconds = 5 hours.
Setting this to be a high number will make your web site faster, but it will not refresh its
data from Bedework as often.
$Cal->setCacheAge(60*60*5); // five hours
?>
Tips
1. Smaller feeds load faster. Use category filters to reduce the number of events that you
retrieve from Bedework, and limit the time frame to a week or less on very busy calendars.
2. Add RSS. You can easily add a link to an RSS feed and make it auto-discoverable by
adding the following HTML between the and tags:
3. Display (or hide) "Private" Events. By default, "Private" events in Bedework will show up
on your department page. The idea is that private events are private to your department
and its audience, not strictly private to the admin. If you'd like to hide "Private" events from
your department calendar, add this code snippet:
$Cal->hidePrivateEvents();
?>
Should you ever need to reverse this preference, you can use: $Cal->showPrivateEvents();
which will restore the default setting.
4. Cache Busting. You can bypass the caching features by adding "?go-slow=true" to your
URL. Also, you can set the cache age to a low number (like 1) and view the page. This will
cause your cache to be refreshed immediately. Then you can set it back to a high number
again so that other visitors will not have to wait for your page to reload feeds from
Bedework.
A Typical Department Example
Below are two snippets of code for a typical departmental calendar view. You can copy and
paste this code into your web page, and substitute the department category (here, Classics)
with your own. NOTE that the filename of your webpage needs to end in .php (not .htm or
.html), for example: index.php
Place this code as close as possible to the top of the document (this code fetches events,
but generates no HTML):
include_once
"/www/data/httpd/htdocs/Templates/common/calendar/1.2.3/bedeworkfeed.cla
ss.php";
$Cal = new BedeworkFeed();
$Cal->setDate("start", "now");
$Cal->setDate("end", "+4 week");
$Cal->addCategory("Dept: Classics");
$Cal->getFeed();
$events = $Cal->getEvents();
?>
Then, place this code in the document where you want the list mark up to be generated:
include_once("/www/data/httpd/htdocs/Templates/common/calendar/1.2.3/bed
ework-event-list.php");
?>
To format your events, follow the instructions in the article Display Events On A
Departmental Web Page - Use JavaScript for Formatting.