CalendarHelp

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Calendars in the N4C Wiki

Calendars are provided in the N4C Wiki using a modified version of the Hex2Bit Calendar extension. It is a simple system that uses structured page titles to tie pages describing events to a calendar and a day of the year within that calendar.

The main N4C Calendar provides information about events relevant to the whole project, such as milestones and dates when deliverables are due.

Using a Calendar

The calendar system displays a page with a month of dates, defaulting to the current month.

There is a box for each day which displays a list of events relevant to that day. Events are tied to a day - there is no capability of extending an event over multiple days.

The first twenty or so characters of each Event Title (not the page title) attached to that day are displayed in the day box. Hovering the mouse over the Event Title will show the complete title as a tooltip. Clicking on the event will display the page for that event.

Creating a Calendar

If you need another calendar, create a new article (page) and insert the special tags 

<calendar></calendar>.


If you wish to name your calendar, you can add a name attribute. 

<calendar name="IT Calendar"></calendar>

By giving a calendar a name, the events won't show up on other calendars with different names or no name.

Note, the names have to be simple and valid for article titles. Some characters will cause the attribute to be ignored completely, such as an apostrophe.

You can also set other attributes in the calendar tag:

startyear
The first year to be shown on the calendar, defaults to this year.
yearsahead
The number of years to include ahead of the current year, defaults to 3.
noadd="1"
Suppresses the "Add Event" tags. This allows you, for example, to have the same calendar on two wiki pages, one with the Add Event tags, and one without.
date='today'
Just show the calendar for today
date='tomorrow'
Just show the calendar for tomorrow
date="2010-07-04"
Just show the calendar for July 4th, 2010

Events

Each event is asociated with a particular day. An article is created for each event or set of associated events on that day. The article title for an event in the N4C calendar for 1st May 2008 would look like 

 Calendar "N4C" (2008-5-1) - Event 2

and the corresponding URL would be 

   http://www.n4c.eu/wiki/index.php/N4C_Calendar/Calendar_%22N4C%22_%282008-5-1%29_-_Event_2

Adding New Events

If the current user is logged in and the calendar attributes do not have noadd=1, a button labelled Add Event will appear with every actual day of the month in the calendar display.

Clocking on this button will start the creation of a new event article for the day that has its button pressed.

Up to 20 event articles can be attached to any one day.

The new event article will be preloaded from Template:Event/Preload which contains a pro-forma that is ready for you to enter the parameters to populate a standard event template.

Editing Events

The standard preloaded event pro-forma is: 

  {{Event
  | Event Title=
  | Event Description=
  | Event Date-Time=
  | Location=
  | Participants=
  | Deliverables=
  | Notes=
  | Footnotes=
  }}

Simply add text after the '=' characters to define any or all of the template parameters. No need for surrounding quotes or any such nonsense. You can insert pretty much any wikitext such as links if you wish and it can go on over multiple lines.

Save the article in the usual way once you are done.

The article can be re-edited in the same way as any other article once it has been created.

Do's and Don'ts for Parameters

  • DO define the Event Title - it is used to identify the event in the calendar.
  • DO make the Event Title short and snappy. Only the first twenty characters are displayed in the calendar (although the whole title can be seen as a 'tooltip' by hovering the mouse over the event in the calendar. Keep the title to one line.
  • DON'T use the vertical bar (|) character in parameters - it terminates the parameter and the template will be confused. You can use <nowiki>|</nowiki> or HTML escapes to get round this if absolutely essential.
  • DON'T move the | Event Title= text away from the beginning of a line: the calendar code identitfies the event title by this pattern.

Adding Extra Categories

The template automatically adds the event to the Events Wiki category. If relevant you can put the event in other categories as well by adding wikitext such as 

 [[Category:Boring meetings]]

The Footnotes parameter is a handy place for such text.

Multiple Events on one Page

If desired, a page can hold more than one event. Simply duplicate the template and edit it for each event. The Calendar will display the titles of all the events.

Non-standard Events

If the template doesn't suit for some special events you can do one of the following:

  • Use an alternate template as long as it has an Event Title in the same way as the default template.
  • Discard the template and provide normal wikitext. The event title(s) will be taken from any level 2 headings in the text (ones surrounded by == ==).
  • Just type in freeform text. The event title will be the first line of text.

Deleting Events

The calendar will never delete events automatically. You can delete an event article in the same way as any other article.

The calendar software will not be fazed by the hole in the numbering sequence, and will reuse the lowest available event number if you subsequently create a new event for that date.

Here is an example of how a completed event article is displayed:

Example Event

An example of the standard format of an Event Article using the Template:Event and the preloaded standard event entry skeleton.

Location

The Reindeer and Parrot Ice Bar, Neesdon

Time and Date

12:00, Sunday, 1 June 2008

Participants

Uncle Tom Cobbley and All

Relevant Deliverables

Several hours of riotous living

Responsibility/Contact

-

Notes

Bring your own bottle

Back to Calendar



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