Orderby and Order Shortcode Parameters

Update: I just figured out (in case this is useful information for anyone) that the default order of upcoming events is determined by the date the event was CREATED. In other words, it’s possible (but not easy) to manually control the order in which upcoming events are ordered by modifying the publication date for each event – including each event recurrence.

Painfully slow to do this manually – but possible. It would be SO much better if there were available shortcode parameters so they could be ordered by event date & time.

I TOTALLY agree with you. Created order is nonsense. Also,to make matters worse, when you have repeating events, they are not always created in date order. Makes most listings of events very difficult to read and find what you are looking for. IMHO the only time created order is valuable is when you just created a new series of events and want to make sure they were all created.

Hello,

Thanks for your valuable feedback.

We have added your request to our list of planned shortcode enhancements and will consider it for future implementation.

We highly appreciate your patience and support.

Thank you eventprimesupport; I look forward to increased flexibility via additional shortcode parameters. Without the ability to control the order of Upcoming Events on event-type pages, a large portion of this plugin’s functionality cannot be used because it’s simply too cumbersome to manage manually (by adjusting the date created relative to all other events).

Also thank you @lpint! This may interest you: after MUCH experimentation (including messing with custom functions & custom sort order plugins without success) I found a simple workaround – although it involves manually tweaking one line of code in the plugin.

I realize that modifying plugin code is ill-advised, but having to update one line of code each time there is a plugin update is MUCH simpler than having to manually adjust the publication date for each event relative to existing events.

If you open this file:
eventprime-event-calendar-management\includes\event_types\controllers\class-ep-event-type-controller-list.php
…and scroll to line 412 (below ‘// get upcoming events for event_type’) you’ll find this:
'orderby' => 'em_start_date',

Comment this out and replace it with ’em_start_date_time’, like so:
// 'orderby' => 'em_start_date',
'orderby' => 'em_start_date_time',

Then upload it to the server.

In my tests, this automatically & correctly orders Upcoming Events by their start date & time regardless of the publication date.

In the unlikely event this causes problems, it’s easy enough to undo this change; simply remove the new line of code and uncomment the original line of code (then save & upload it).

cheers, pk

Hello @lpint and @blackcapdesign ,

Thanks for your feedback!

We are pleased to inform you both that we will be deploying a resolution for the Shortcode issue encountered in our upcoming releases and are working diligently to deliver further feature enhancements to optimize your experience.

We are grateful for your support and active participation.