Filter by categories? (Checkboxes)

databaseninja · Joined: 08 Jun 2006 Posts: 10

I'm pretty excited about this product at this moment. I have a Joomla site integrated using bbPixel with vBulletin. This means my security is handled from vBulletin but since the tables are maintained in both locations this should be no problem.

I've been waiting for vBulletin to build a better calendar but it's not happening very fast. The biggest issue is that they don't support categories. They do support 'reminders' which some other Joomla calendars do not support. Then I saw mention of this product in some forum tonight.

A few questions:

1) How does this scale... I really want one large calendar for a community web site with different categores for different areas: municipal, public school events, Senior community events, entertainment, etc. So I could have hundreds of events active.

2) I'm assuming there are decent management tools to prune old/expired events?

3) My 'wow... this would be great' question... can a user filter by multiple categories? I didn't see this in any demo. I see filtering by a single category but I was hoping to be able to have a person say 'I want to see munical and school events' in my view and have it dynamically filter the calendar view. I'd have the categories be color coded.

4) Any consideration to working on a module for vBulletin? Seems like a major forums player with a weak major component... being its calendar.

5) Assuming this is integrated with Joomla... I have a simple rule... anyone can post events without moderation if they are registered... the general public can see any events but cannot post. I assume this is not an issue. Do people only have the ability to edit/delete their own events they post... I hope. I'm assuming events are tied to the poster and that administrators have the ability to do anything.

6) If I work with this wrapped in Joomla... I assume it will not pop up the calendar 'unwrapped'. I've had some issues with vBulletin and this issue.

7) Does this work with SEF? I have SEF Advanced running on my Joomla site. I'm assuming this doesn't care.

If things look good I'll download this and try it. I'm not excited about adding 'another' component' to my site (i.e. yet another thing to keep in sync) but really have had a hard time finding a decent calendar and as long as you stay in sync with Joomla I guess I'll be OK.

Thanks for the info!

Don

esoft_ian · Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 5275

Hi Don,

Here goes ...

1) Hundreds of events active at a time is not a problem. If they are all repeating events you may see a decrese in performance. A calendar with 600 repeating events (I've never seen that in the real world, but it was tested here) takes a few seconds to generate. Otherwise, you're looking at < 1 second.

2) In the Events tab you can look at Past events and delete them.

3) The color legend module that displays category names and colors allows you to click on any category title to filter by it. If you click on 2 categories, you will filter by both of them. 3 etc..

4) I've been hesitant to work on vBulletin integration because it comes with a calendar. I'll download it and see how much work it would take some day.

5) Yup. This is no problem at all. This is a calendar option called "Strict event security". FYI, people will only be able to post events with Thyme wrapped. I'm assuming this is not a problem given the next question ...

6) Thyme will not pop out of the wrapper.

7) If you use Thyme wrapped, SEF should not be a problem. If you use Joomla Studio, it MAY cause problems, but they are easily circumvented by changing some Joomla Studio items to use non-SEF urls. You would not have to change any of your site's SEF configuration.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Total Hosting · Joined: 28 Jun 2006 Posts: 1

Re: #5

I am not planning on using Thyme wrapped in Joomla, but rather using the Joomla Studio. Can a registered site user post an event?

Does Thyme integrate with OpenSEF? I would like to have clean, search-friendly URLs generated by Thyme. Is it possible?

Can Thyme generate individual RSS Feeds by calendar and/or by category?

Thanks

Pete
http://www.totalhosting.com

esoft_ian · Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 5275

Hi Pete,

Users may only add events when Thyme is wrapped.

Thyme can not do OpenSEF. Since one could potentially browse day-by-day to the year 9999, I'm not sure allowing an internet spider to crawl all of that is desireable.

Thyme can generate RSS feeds per calendar, but not per category.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Guest · Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 2:48 am Post subject:

That's a shame. Is there a reason why, other than "no one has built a bridge" between the two programs to let them share users?

I know Thyme is a standalone calendar, that has a "joomla studio" but that really reduces the community-orientation of a site.

Are there any plans to offer a tighter integration?

Thanks.

Pete

esoft_ian · Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 5275

No, there is no other reason besides no one has built a bridge. They can share users, so that is not an issue.

Theoretically it would not be that hard to bridge them. Especially since Thyme can already share the users. It's just a matter of development time.

There are plans for a tighter integraion as in I hope to do that. I can not guess on a date though. I'll move it closer to the top of "the list". After the current tasks I have going on are complete, I'll take a serious look at developing a bridge. I already have ideas, suggestions, and requests noted on this.

sdi · Guest

esoft_ian · Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 5275

Hi Steve,

You are correct. There is no way to filter calendars in a View.