One of the reasons I didn’t do a calendar until now is because every community’s definition of an event is unique. To make everybody happy we needed two things, 1) a wildly robust Community Calendar, and 2) a drop-dead simple way to attach content to events. We accomplished the first with the new Community Event Calendar, and the second with the new Sueetie Calendar Control.
The Sueetie Calendar Control gives you the ability to create events from any type of Sueetie Content: Blog Posts, Forum Topics, CMS and Wiki Pages, Media Albums and Media Objects. The Control is all client-side, with a WCF Service to take the data hand-off. Another cool feature of the Sueetie Calendar Control is that the events it creates automatically display a “Click for More” link which takes you to the blog post, wiki page or other type of content for more event information. Think how effective this would be for, say, planning a Code Camp, with each session linked to a Media PDF document with session details. Powerful AND simple.
Here’s a screenshot of the Calendar Control form that displays when clicking on a Calendar Icon placed somewhere on the content page. The example below is a Calendar Control placed at bottom of a blog post.
There are more screenshots below in the reprint of the Sueetie Calendar Control Wiki Page, with all of the cool details.
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Creating Community Events of Substance
The Sueetie Calendar Control gives you the ability to create a Calendar Event from almost any type of site content. Calendar Control-created events will display a "Click for More" tab which will link directly to that event's content item. You can create a calendar event from any blog post, forum topic, media album, individual media object, wiki page or CMS page.
An Example of a Community Calendar Event using the Calendar Control
Let's say you're conducting a training session for clients. They would see the training event on the site calendar and would naturally want more information. Thanks to the Sueetie Calendar Control, a "Click for More" link will be displayed on the calendar event which would take them to a CMS page or possibly a blog post with the details. If you wanted to provide training guides in preparation for the event, you could add those links from the CMS page. You could also link the event item directly to a Media Album containing all of the media support materials for the event.
Content Types Supported by the Sueetie Calendar Control
You can link a calendar event to any of the following types of content
- Blog posts
- CMS pages
- Wiki pages
- Forum Topics
- Media Albums
- Individual Media Gallery items like documents, images, audio files, etc
Types of Events and Calendar Views Supported
When events are added using the Sueetie Calendar Control they have the functionality of any calendar event in the Community Calendar. This means you can create:
- All-day events
- Events with set start and end times
- All-day events which extend over multiple days
- All-day and events with set start/end times which occur weekly
The Community Calendar allows you to view events monthly, by week, and for individual days.
The Sueetie Calendar Control in Action
This is where it gets fun: using the calendar control. The calendar control functions identically for each type of content. We're going to look at using it with a Blog Post.
As you see below, the Calendar Control Edit Image appears at the bottom of the blog post for administrators, or more specifically, anyone in the ContentAdministrator group or those you assign with the Control's "Roles" property.
Everything happens through client-side actions with javascript and a Sueetie WCF service, so no page postback occurs and the event form displays instantly.
Using the Sueetie Calendar Control Form
The Sueetie Calendar Control Form contains only two required fields: Event Title and Event Start Date. All of fields are optional. When creating a new event the Event Title is automatically populated from the content's title, in this case the title of the blog post.
The large text area below the title is for the Event Description field. This will appear on the calendar along with the event title. Below the description field is the Start/End Date fields. Remember to use the correct MM/DD/YYYY format. A word about the event End Date. Sueetie Calendar Events can span multiple days, but for best display, particularly in weekly or daily view if you use those display modes, it is best to use only All-Day events to span multiple days. All-Day events have both blank start and end times.
The End Repeat Date is for weekly repeating events that happen each week. Finally, for the Start/End Time fields, you can enter the start time only. When entering start/end times, remember to adhere to the HH:MM AM/PM format. Examples would be 1:00 PM or 10:15 AM.
Use the Process button to create or update a calendar event. You can also use the Delete button which will remove the event from the site calendar. Otherwise use Cancel to close the form without taking any action.
Popup Calendar for Assistance
You'll notice that each of the date fields includes a popup calendar you can use. It is activated with a field click by the mouse, but otherwise will not display if tabbing through the form fields. Here is what the popup calendar looks like.
Success and Error Indicators
When you create, update or delete a calendar event using the Sueetie Calendar Control, the confirmation popup window will display indicating success or failure of the event. Here's an example of successfully updating an existing event.
