module Recurme – Processwire Recurring Dates Field & Custom Calendar Module.

[adrian]

Me again ?

From what I can tell, the find() method only works with recurring dates, or single date events that had the repeat toggle on at some point such that the "dates" json property is populated even if repeat is no longer on.

Is there a way to find single date, non-repeating events? This is obviously a critical feature, but from what I can tell the find method's converted selector before being passed to $pages->find only looks for W months/years.

Thanks for any help to explain what I am missing here.

[adrian]

Hey @joshuag - I really need to bump this find() only working on recurring dates issue. Can you please at least confirm that this is definitely the case because I need to start figuring out an alternative. I don't see how this module can be used without it. How can you generate a list of upcoming events when some are recurring and some are not if the find() method only finds the recurring ones.

Thanks.

[joshuag]

4 hours ago, adrian said:

Hey @joshuag - I really need to bump this find() only working on recurring dates issue. Can you please at least confirm that this is definitely the case because I need to start figuring out an alternative. I don't see how this module can be used without it. How can you generate a list of upcoming events when some are recurring and some are not if the find() method only finds the recurring ones.

Thanks.

Hey Adrian, thanks for all the good feedback in the last few posts. I am working on some fixes. I have confirmed that non-recurring dates are not showing up in find() in my latest version. I will fix this tomorrow and post an update here. 

I appreciate your feedback. 

[adrian]

33 minutes ago, joshuag said:

I will fix this tomorrow and post an update here. 

Thank you very much!

[adrian]

@joshuag - while you are working on things, could you please make sure it's possible to return all events sorted by start date such that recurring and non-recurring events are returned interspersed with each other. Could you also explain what would go in the $selector part of the $recurme->find() to make this work? I haven't tested this yet, but can you please also confirm that "start" works in the selector with $recurme->find() so we can return paginated / ajax loaded events.

Thanks again!

[joshuag]

@adrian Sent you a PM, to answer your questions above. 

[itsberni]

hi,

I'm stucking with outputting some events.?

in my project i use one page to show all available events as an overview. the pagestructure is as follows:
- courses
   - course1
   - course2
   - course3

How can i get the course - dates/times while looping throw the course pages
My code:

$courses = $pages->find("template=event");
foreach($courses as $course)
{
  $outEventList .= "$course->title";
  $outEventList .= "$course->courseData"; // the recurme-field within the course - template
}

i also tried this within the foreach without results:
 

$optionsCourse = array(
	'selector'		=> 'id='.$course->id
);

$eventDate = $recurme->find($optionsCourse);

Any ideas how to access to the specific data for any course?

Many thanks!

[cstevensjr]

On 6/4/2018 at 10:50 PM, joshuag said:

Hey Adrian, thanks for all the good feedback in the last few posts. I am working on some fixes. I have confirmed that non-recurring dates are not showing up in find() in my latest version. I will fix this tomorrow and post an update here. 

I appreciate your feedback. 

Where these updates published somewhere?

[joshuag]

6 hours ago, cstevensjr said:

Where these updates published somewhere?

Yes, you can download the latest copy of Recurme from your original download link. I also send out an email to everyone that has purchased each update. Just in case you don't have it, I have PM'd you a copy of the latest version. Happy Coding.

[BFD Calendar]

Does anybody know how to format the end time of an event?

'timeFormat'  => '%H', does the job fine

'timeEndFormat'  => '%H', does nothing so timeEnd keeps the standard setting of 11:00pm where I want it to be 23u (Belgian/Dutch).

[joshuag]

On 7/21/2018 at 8:21 AM, BFD Calendar said:

Does anybody know how to format the end time of an event?

'timeFormat'  => '%H', does the job fine

'timeEndFormat'  => '%H', does nothing so timeEnd keeps the standard setting of 11:00pm where I want it to be 23u (Belgian/Dutch).

sending you an inbox

[itsberni]

Hi @joshuag

is it possible to have 2 or more Timeperiods within 1 recurme-field?

For example:
Course1 ( template: Event with one recurme-field) takes place on two Times
Thu 9:30 - 11am
Wed 05:00 - 6:30pm

How could i solve this?

Many Thanks!!

[chcs]

Hi @joshuag we're having some problems. Background info, we have an "event_date" recurme field on the "event" template. Simple case studies, I have three event pages.

• start_end - a one day event with a start and end time
• all_day - a one day, all day, event
• three_days - a recurring event that has a start/end time, repeated every day for three days in a row.

oddity #1 - "data"

when you land on their respective pages, <?= $page->event_date; ?> yields a json object (expected). the "dates" key in that object is populated with an array of three dates for the three_days event. however, with the other two pages where you'd maybe expect one date in the array, there's hundreds, stretching for about eight years. https://pastebin.com/1URSn6pF

oddity #2 - $event->start_date

as noted in the documentation, one is expected to get the event data using $event = $recurme->event($page); Now that we've acquired the recurme event object, I would expect access to the date of the event once the user is on the page of the event.

• start_end <?= var_dump ($event->start_date); ?> == NULL
• all_day  <?= var_dump ($event->start_date); ?> == NULL
• three_days <?= var_dump ($event->start_date); ?> == int(1534968000)

The first two single day events being expected to return a result considering there is only one set. The null problem extends to other properties of $event, eg: *->orig_date, *->date, *->month, etc. with the expected strings only existing in the recurring event page.

working off this problem...

oddity#3 - $event->start_date for recurring events

Your $recurme->renderCalendar() or $recurme->renderList() methods render links for the event pages, and taks on a querystring which seems to indicate the start date of the events. However, like the above, the start_end and all_day pages, with querystrings still yield nothing when trying to extract the date conveniently from the $event object. 

Furthermore, with recurring event three_days is on the 22nd of august, 23rd, and 24th. Landing on the the page, with its respective querystring, yields the wrong date. for example:

• foo.com/events/three_days/?date=1535140800

One would arrive at the above page from clicking through from the rendered list, or rendered calendar. However, now echoing the date for the event <?= var_dump ($event->start_date); ?> you would expect to see the integer/date strings for the august 24th date, but you actually get the original from aug 22.

This problem extends into all the respective strings. eg:

• foo.com/events/three_days/ <?= $event->date ?> == "Aug 22, 2018 @ 1:00 pm"
• foo.com/events/three_days/?date=1534968000 <?= $event->date ?> == "Aug 22, 2018 @ 1:00 pm"
• foo.com/events/three_days/?date=1535054400 <?= $event->date ?> == "Aug 22, 2018 @ 1:00 pm"
• foo.com/events/three_days/?date=1535140800 <?= $event->date ?> == "Aug 22, 2018 @ 1:00 pm"

The first two being expected/correct. The latter two I would expect to be Aug 23 and 24 respectively considering these links were generated through the calendar.

---

I'm not sure how to proceed exactly. Certainly I can jump through some hoops on my own end and grab the query string if it exists, or output arrays of dates if it doesn't, and parse json for single day events with no recurrences... but it seems like I am spending more time testing and debugging contingencies than having the field work in ways I expect it to.

Is there maybe something I can do to think about this in a different way, or perhaps some sort of new version (i'm using 1.0.3 and a new dev version of PW)?

Thank you!

 

 

 

[itsberni]

On 8/2/2018 at 11:54 AM, itsberni said:

Hi @joshuag

is it possible to have 2 or more Timeperiods within 1 recurme-field?

For example:
Course1 ( template: Event with one recurme-field) takes place on two Times
Thu 9:30 - 11am
Wed 05:00 - 6:30pm

How could i solve this?

Many Thanks!!

Any Ideas?

 

THX

[Robin S]

@joshuag, when I do...

$event = $recurme->event($page);

...where $page is a page with a Recurme field on it, I get the following notice:

Undefined property: stdClass::$timeEndUnix in ...\site\modules\FieldtypeRecurme\MarkupRecurme.module:851

MarkupRecurme.module version 103. Is this the latest version? I think maybe you don't always bump up the version number as you make fixes? As I've mentioned to you previously via PM, when I purchased Recurme I never received a link to download the latest version so I'm always wondering if I'm using an older version with bugs that have already been fixed.

Also, I think one area where the documentation needs more detail is how event data should be accessed when you are viewing an event page itself. For example, the calendar creates links to events like this:

/path/to/eventpage/?date=1534366800

The date variable is a timestamp for the relevant date, but how is that to be used? Does the Recurme module use this so we can get the equivalent date somehow from $event? Or are we meant to just get that timestamp from $input and convert it to a date, in which case how do we validate that the timestamp is in fact a valid date for that event?

[Robin S]

@joshuag, is there a Recurme method to find the next n events, regardless of date? For example, if I want a listing showing the next 5 events.

Another thing: the docs say that the $dateFrom and $dateTo arguments for the find() method are optional, but when I leave either of them out no events are returned. Edit: I worked this one out by looking at the module code. $dateFrom and $dateTo are set to today if not supplied (I was expecting no $dateFrom/$dateTo limits if not supplied).

$events = $recurme->find(); // empty PageArray
$events = $recurme->find('today'); // empty PageArray

 

[Robin S]

The $dateFrom and $dateTo arguments aren't working with some date strings that are valid for strtotime().

// Not working
$events = $recurme->find('01-08-2018', '31-08-2018');
// Also not working
$events = $recurme->find('08/01/2018', '08/31/2018');

These are being converted by Recurme to the timestamp for "January 1 1970".

[joshuag]

@Robin S @chcs foo.com/events/three_days/?date=1534968000

The date get variable ie. ?date= that is part of the calendar or list href is the day that the link is on. Since an event page holds all the recurrences, you can use this date to show the current date in your event view when visited from a calendar. That is all it's for and is optional. It will always be the date the link is on. No need to 'verify' this date. it's going to be correct, otherwise it wouldn't have shown up on that day in the calendar or list. We use it all the time to highlight this day in the event view when you click a link. It is not used internally. 

@chcs use $event = $recurme->event($page)

@Robin S 

• I will try to reproduce the error you are having with stdClass::$timeEndUnix. The last set of files I sent you were my dev version. 
• Find will return the events of TODAY if there are no dates supplied. If there are no events TODAY then it will be empty.
• I will PM you a New link to download updates. I suspect my emails to you go to your junk. 
• As for date strings, take a look at 137 - 148 in MarkupRecurme.module. You will see that I am actually passing the dates straight to strtotime().

 

 

[chcs]

@joshuag I did use that, I know the post was a bit verbose but it listed all the steps I took and all the problems I found using recurme in three different event/date scenarios

Quote

oddity #2 - $event->start_date

as noted in the documentation, one is expected to get the event data using $event = $recurme->event($page); Now that we've acquired the recurme event object, I would expect...

 

Quote

The date get variable ... It is not used internally

I see, but it leads to an issue when you get to an event page. Let's say ROCKBAND is in town and they are playing 4 nights in a row. On the "events" page you see the 4 dates, and click one of them. As a user you now expect to ge to the event page to get details for the date you clicked... the question becomes how do I output "ROCKBAND, Super Arena, October 3, 2018 8pm" as that is what the user clicked on from the calendar. If it was used internally I'd expect $recurme->event($page)->date to properly output the string, but it doesn't. There is thus no elegant way to access it from the object, requiring us to check for the get string and handle it ourselves, correct? Effectively it makes the ->date property inaccurate and makes me question why I would ever rely on it and why it exists in the first place.

Since the recurme object is generating the calendar, and making the link, and then hopefully getting the date data when I generate the output.. I would expect it to handle it rather than adding my own logic in.

 

 

[Robin S]

On 8/30/2018 at 1:18 AM, joshuag said:

Since an event page holds all the recurrences, you can use this date to show the current date in your event view when visited from a calendar. That is all it's for and is optional. It will always be the date the link is on. No need to 'verify' this date. it's going to be correct, otherwise it wouldn't have shown up on that day in the calendar or list.

Yes, but it can be set by anyone linking to your site, so I think it definitely needs to be verified. If you just display the event date from the GET variable without verifying it then any third party can create a link to your site that causes your event page to display any date of their choosing. I solved it like this:

$req_date = $input->get->int('date');
$event = $recurme->find($req_date, $req_date, "id=$page->id")->first();
if(!$event) {
    // $req_date is invalid for this event
    // ...
}

 

On 8/30/2018 at 1:18 AM, joshuag said:

I will try to reproduce the error you are having with stdClass::$timeEndUnix. The last set of files I sent you were my dev version. 

rrule-gui.js needs updating in this package to account for the timeEndUnix property.

 

On 8/30/2018 at 1:18 AM, joshuag said:

As for date strings, take a look at 137 - 148 in MarkupRecurme.module. You will see that I am actually passing the dates straight to strtotime().

Not quite. You are first passing the string through date()...

// ...
if(date('U',$date)){ $date = $date; }
// ...

...which does not handle those example date strings correctly.

[joshuag]

@chcs You are right, you would have to "manually" use the date from the get variable. I did it this way because I didn't want to make any assumptions about how to use the event data. the event/page Recurme data contains ALL the dates for an event/page. SO, by passing the calendar day date in the url, you are able to highlight the correct day in your template however you want. 

The way we use this on most of our applications is that an event/page will actually list all it's event dates/days and highlight the one that you are currently looking at (by comparing it to the get variable). That is just one way to use it. 

I think you are right, that in some cases, mutating the event/page data internally depending on the date variable could be more convenient in some cases, but what if you don't want to do that? What if there is no date variable in the URL. Either way, you have to make some considerations of how your logic is for your event/page depending on how you are viewing it. The link with the date, is suppose to be an easy and convenient way to have some flexibility. 

Sometimes we have multiple lists and calendars pointing to the same event/page but for different dates. All those links go to the same event/page. 

The ->date property is the original event date. Useful for a number of cases in conjunction with the currently viewed date variable in the url. Maybe the right answer is to have a ->currentDate property or something along those lines for those that want to use it. Default to the original even date if there is no currentDate? or False, will have to think this through. 

Thanks for the great feedback. 

 

[joshuag]

@Robin S

Quote

 Yes, but it can be set by anyone linking to your site, so I think it definitely needs to be verified. If you just display the event date from the GET variable without verifying it then any third party can create a link to your site that causes your event page to display any date of their choosing. I solved it like this:

Oh that is a good point. I never thought of that. 

Quote

Not quite. You are first passing the string through date()...

 

On 9/2/2018 at 2:57 AM, Robin S said:

// ... if(date('U',$date)){ $date = $date; } // ...

ok, I am going to write a test for this line for your 2 examples. I need a better way to test for a unix timestamp. 

 

[Robin S]

@joshuag, currently when an event has no start time or end time entered, Recurme populates "time" and "timeEnd" with "12:00 am". This makes it difficult to distinguish between events that have those fields empty (can often be the case for end time in particular) and events that happen to actually have 12:00 am entered as their start time or end time.

Do you think you could populate "time" and "timeEnd" with "false" or something else recognisable if start time or end time is left empty for an event? 

[Robin S]

@joshuag, how can I configure Recurme permissions so that users can see and use existing calendar(s) in admin, but not configure/delete/add new calendars? I figure what I've described is the most commonly needed scenario, where the developer creates and configures calendars but users can use them to see/edit/add events.

It seems that if I give the recurme-calendar permission to a role then the user gets too much freedom to create disaster, but if I don't give them the permission then they cannot see/use the calendar.

To clarify, in the first screenshot it is the cog icon I want to hide, not the calendar itself.

 

 

Edit: I see now that you can't add new events from the admin calendar. Feature request: it would be cool if you could though, so that hovering a day showed an "Add new" link that started the process of adding a new event with the start date pre-filled.

[chcs]

On 9/3/2018 at 8:18 AM, joshuag said:

I did it this way because I didn't want to make any assumptions about how to use the event data.

I definitely understand the line one has to draw when making assumptions for the user, but it seems that in some instances you do make those assumptions already -- which is why those properties of the object feel really inconsistent and confusing. I think that issue is driving some of the posts in this thread that ask about those properties and why they don't seem to output what we expect.  Depending on whether it's a one time event, an all day event, or a recurring event, they behave a bit differently or in unexpected ways.

It's almost that I would prefer you to make a consistent assumption, but provide the tools to make an alternative output for myself. Right now it seems that the implementation relies much more heavily on simply understanding what I need to do to get the simple output that I expected to get.

It's not an easy question to answer, but I hope you have an understanding of where I (and others?) see the confusion. The admin field, screens, and some of the tools you provide are very slick... but the object for custom output is harder to figure out, or simply not that useful depending on the nature of recurrence (or not).

Thanks!