Architecture for Events Calendar

[HowardMarks]

Hi All

We run an events calendar on our website, which I am in the process of revising. It's based around the Arts so its full of things like exhibitions, plays, gallery opening etc. It's always a head scratcher to figure out how best to store and show the information for these events, especially when some of them span multiple days, weeks or even months.

I am just after some opinions or experiences on how best to go around structuring the database and search/retrieval methods for these kind of events. If an event lasts several days, should I use a seperate entry for each day that is is on, or should I be using start/end date for each event and programatically displaying that event on any days which fall inside that date range? One of the problems I find with this method is that some people may enter exhibition which spans several months, and therefore 'clutters up' the page for every single date within those months.

I don't expect anyone to provide a set-in-stone solution (and I doubt one exists anyway), but I would appreciate any thoughts/opinions on how you would approach this issue.

Many thanks for your time

Nick (Webmaster)

http://www.npfx.com

http://www.artswales.org

 

[ChrisHirst]

I think it depends really on the view of the data that is presented to the user.

On a daily view, everything that is on that day should be visible with a short description. Clickable to take you to a fuller event details page.

For a week view. The first day of any event should show the short description and if the event spans two or more weeks the first day for that view. For subsequent days the same event shows "[event title] continues..." (or words to that effect). These should link to the details page.

If it is a monthly overview, maybe use a colour code of clickable squares or numbers in the calendar matrix, with a key chart of the events beneath or alongside it. All linking to the details page.
You can also add a title attribute to the squares/numbers to give a "tootip" with the event title on mouseover.






Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Tarwn]

I assume your going to have something like an Event Type table and an Event table. You could add an icon field to both tables, making the Event one optional. Then instead of trying to squeeze event names into little calendar boxes you could display the Event icon (or if it's null, the Event Type icon) with the title attribute set to the name of the event. Underneath the calendar area you could present a list of all the events that take place in the timespan, ordered by start date. Provided you keep your icons to a smaller size, you could keep your calendar smaller as well and do a nice multi-column table that shows the event name, the event type, the start date, and the location or another significant piece of information.
You would also want some sort of upload capability in the Event admin page when adding an event to allow someone to upload an icon. You could even go so far as to have a small and large icon and show the larger icon on a detail page for the event, arrived at by clicking the event name under the calendar.

Hmm, the longer I sit here the more complicated I make it

Best MS KB Ever:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[mikemedia]

I am trying to create a similar events calendar. The key feature of the calendar would be user administration.

The calendar would retrieve the user added event data from a database and display it in the correlating calendar day. This maybe better developed in .NET, but I'm not sure the calendar control will display data.

I also have to figure out how to make a link between a specific calendar date and it's respective database record.

I've searched for a similar script, and the closest that I've come is this Dreamweaver extension:

http://www.topdreamweaverextensions.com/dreamweaver-visual-calendar

Unfortunately, my SysAdmin disallows PHP upon which the extension is based. I've considered finding a way to translate the PHP to VB.

Anyone got a simpler idea, or even better, the location of a similar script I can tweak??

 

[ChrisHirst]

ASP Event Calendar

http://www.aspin.com/home/webapps/calendars

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.