Advanced Calendars

[Macrura]

Hi all -

I'm running into a snag with a new project - we need a good calendar script that can handle repeating events, and can send an automated (cron) email reminder to the user at some specified interval. I want to do the main site in Processwire, and then incorporate the calendar. Just wondering if anyone has any advice or leads on really good calendars.

A few years back, i discovered an amazing calendar, called Thyme. This script was so advanced, it could handle virtually anything (multiple users, groups, subscriptions, reminders, attachments, etc..). I still use Thyme on 2 sites, and it's really a solid script, and has been a workhorse for me for a really long time.

At some point several years ago, the developer of Thyme vanished, leaving a lot of users 'up the creek', because the script was basically frozen at that point and parts of it were encoded. I have since heard that the company allowed for the script to be de-crypted, and for a while there was a site that hosted it; now you can find it on github: https://github.com/acorscadden/Thyme-Revival

I'm running a version of Thyme on a site where i rewrote parts of the code to make it php 5.3 compatible. In any case, I thought for sure by now someone would have come up with a calendar that could beat Thyme, maybe use ajax, and more modern technologies (Thyme is getting sort of old school in terms of JS and markup);

I finally came across this one that seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel:

http://smartphpcalendar.com/

However, I did a pre-sales inquiry and it turns out that the download version (non-hosted) has a max-user limit (default 20, but they were willing to increase it for me), which i find to be a concern; the script itself is sort of expensive, about $200, which is fine, if there were no user restriction...

One thing that is notable about Smart PHP Calendar is that it has it's own api and can integrate with other web apps; so it seems like a really good choice for something to integrate into PW;

[diogo]

Did you consider google calendar? Their API seems pretty powerful (as I would expect...) https://developers.google.com/google-apps/calendar/

Here's the PHP library https://code.google.com/p/google-api-php-client/

[Macrura]

Hi Diogo - thanks for the recommendation - i have looked at google calendar in the past and just now went and setup some test calendars and events, so i'll see how it goes;

Already I can see that it's lacking many of the amazing features of Thyme, for example extensive location management, separate email templates for reminders based on location, RTE for events, etc..

Edit: Doesn't look like google calendar will work... you can't set a reminder for someone who doesn't have google calendar, the reminders just don't cut it for what we need...

Edited August 20, 2013 by Macrura