Page Width

you can try under events > settings > pages > event pages > display events as

I had it set to Page.

I tried “Elementor Canvas” instead. No difference.

under option “display events as” you can choose =Post and then in your theme directory you can duplicate your single.php and rename to single-event.php ( you can also copy your theme full width template )

It turns out to be not that simple. For a start, the OceanWP theme uses the singular.php file introduced in WP 4.3 to control all styles from one place. So I struggled to figure out what to do.

My web host tried a few techniques but could not get it to work either. So, for now, I am going to have to abandon this requirement. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to be able to have easy control over the single event page layout. The layout on my HD monitor is just about acceptable, but on my 2K it looks bad (not easy to scan the page and absorb the content). On a 4k it would be even worse.

To me, the solution would be for the single event display to use a user-defined page with a shortcode to call the specific event. We could then use standard page builder techniques to control the page layout and style.

We bought Events Manager because it’s USP is the ability to manage events in a very user friendly way, in the frontend. It’s a shame that level of user friendliness doesn’t extend to the single-event display.

Looking at your page, it appears that the Event Content is boxed. If you open your browser inspector, you will see a very light gray border around it.

If you want more specific control, then wrap your complete Single Event Page content (in the EM settings) in an extra div – target that with custom css and voilà.

Thanks Patrick

We don’t have the css competencies to do that unfortunately and part of me thinks that it could all be brought within the purview of the WordPress page editor if only you could have a user-defined single-event page with a shortcode. I’ve raised a feature request on the pro site, now that we have bought a pro licence.

It’s a nice to have feature and, TNH, I can park it for a later phase anyway as we march towards go-live. ??

But thank you for your always helpful input. You’re the WordPress meerkat – popping up all over the place! ??

You know, I view it as “instant soup”. That is great for most people, but you might want to personalize it a bit by adding some extra salt and/or seasoning. You cannot “blame” the manufacturer he didn’t take your personal taste into consideration. ??

I feel that is basically the same with a WP theme and/or plugin. The basis should be great, but you might want to add some salt and pepper. ??

Patrick,
I am the web host Paul was referring to. Under settings –> formatting is the HTML code for all the various pages for events. If I were to create a template in Elementor that would have all the necessary placeholders but laid out as Paul requested, could I replace the HTML code with the shortcode given to that template? Would the page display the content of the shortcode correctly?

Hi Heather,

No, I doubt that would work. Simply, because the placeholders would then not be processed. So if you are using #_EVENTNAME outside of the EM Settings, WordPress will output #_EVENTNAME and not “My Incredibly Awesome Event”.

But I really do not get how this theme apparently works. It sounds very unconventional. Normally (and that is what EM based the code on), a theme has several template files (post.php, single.php, comments.php, etc). For single posts and pages single.php will be called (if single-event.php isn’t found).

In that template, EM only targets the_content(); Much like is_singular('event'); It will fill that content section (defined by the theme template) according to the mark-up in Events > Formatting > Single Event Page. In that textarea there should be #_EVENTNOTES somewhere.
#_EVENTNOTES tells EM to use that spot to display any content that is put in the Single Edit Event Page (like normal post content). This allows you to have default content for all events (the settings textarea), which processes the placeholders for event specific info like dates, times, location etc. And yet still be able to add one-time details in the Post Content.

So, depending on how you style the markup in Settings > Single Event Page, it should fit into the theme. If you want a completely different lay-out for events than the theme uses for posts and pages, you’ll need to create single-event.php. Again, EM will automatically use that template file, if present.

What is comes down to, is that you have to let EM work its magic. Again, “all” you have to do is show EM where to execute it.

The event page uses full width and I want to box it. I can’t see how to do that, or how to set a different template style to use. I have an Elementor boxed style template

Not exactly sure what Paul means here, but it sounds like the “Boxed Template” could be copied to single-event.php and EM will use that.

Note though, it is a single event page, so EM will only proces one (= single) event. If “Boxed” means “grid” you’re talking about a whole different approach with a loop.

Btw @paulbarrett1952,
Did you try setting the Elementor Boxed Template in Events > Settings > Pages > Event Pages > Display events as ?

It’s probably better if I butt out and leave the discussion to heather. I am simply not technically competent enough and will only confuse matters further. I misspoke when I said I had an Elementor boxed template. If it was possible to create one I’d use it. And that’s the stumbling block.

What I can do in Elementor is create a section on a page on which I can infinitely adjust the width of the body text. That’s what I did for all the other events pages I have created. The inability to do that for the single event page is what I’m trying to do overcome. From a non-technical user’s perspective, it seems odd that single events aren’t capable of being hosted on a user-defined page. I get that there may be all sorts of technical issues that make that difficult but Elementor empowers numpty users like me to produce reasonable looking sites with minimal technical knowledge. To me, this looks like an unfinished road. ??

But Heather has the bit between her teeth now so I will leave it to her. ??

I did find out that if I view the source code for the elementor template I created and copy that generated HTML to the single event page under formatting, it displays that content. Sort of… It doesn’t pick up on all the CSS, but it gives me an idea of how I might be able to customize the layout.

For now, I think I will just make myself familiar with all the placeholders and conditionals so I can come up with creative ways to use them.

You can easily tell EM which css classes to use in Events > Settings > Formatting > Single Events Page.