[Plugin: All-in-One Event Calendar] Some Feedback and why I uninstalled this plugin

+1 for removing tables when the plugin is deleted.

@wpforums
1. Yes, events are custom post types. My understanding is that most custom post types will require custom views, therefore if you have a widget or plugin that shows the latest 5 or 10 posts then it is designed to display posts, not events or any other custom post type like products for example. Of course, if you want to include events or any other custom post type, you will have to modify the plugin, the theme, or the widget to include the post type in the query.

2. That’s a good suggestion. Unfortunately, we are still at 1.X release and we are unable to cover everything at this early stage.

3. I will check with the developer of the widget, perhaps we can add a setting to hide the widget when there are no events.

4. That’s right, in v1.0.7 we will be using a new approach – every event that ends before 4am will be shown just once. We will also make it optional to show multiday events as separate entries. Basically, we want to show multi-day events from start date to end date as one instance, similar to how google calendar works.

5. Can you give examples?

6. Thanks for reporting this, I will see what’s wrong.

7. We can add a theming system, but it should be quite easy to customize the plugin anyway you want. We are not pushing people to use our support, we are just providing it for those users who cannot make the change themselves or are looking for professional help.

8. Thanks, there are a couple bug reports about this issue. We will be fixing it in next release.

9. Noted, we will add it one of our next releases.

@jon Brown
Noted, we will add it one of our next releases.

Plugin looks very promising indeed Gents.

May I jump on the bandwagon and suggest a few features?

1. Schema.org Events support for Rich Snippets – in itself would make this plugin very popular indeed. [cfi Google have not updated the rich snippet info to support schema.org, but Schema.org is the future]

If you are serious about supporting microdata going forward, then I am happy to integrate it into the plugin and send over a patched version, maybe you could arrange to send me the current dev version?

2. [edit] scrap this one – the facebook feed now saves – waiting for an update [/edit] [strike] Support for facebook ical feeds – being able to post events on facebook and auto-post to wordpress is a killer feature. [/strike]

3. Rewrite custom post type permalink from /ai1ec_event/event_post_name to /events/event_post_name or blank). probably goes something like this:

register_post_type('ai1ec_event', array(
	//...
	'rewrite' => array('slug'=>'events','with_front'=>false),
	//...
));

4. Add default location option for events. I’m guessing a large percentage of users would host internal events at the same location rather than multiple event locations?

5. Publish a list of the post meta custom fields so one can set default values to be set in SFCe – Create Event – This would allow for events to be published to facebook almost automatically.

More than happy to help test out any new features… and let me know if you want me to have a crack at the schema.org integration.

Again, I think this plugin has great potential. Great work.

Cheers
BaC

Great suggestions BaC!
I will give you some updates soon.
Thank you.

@bac
I’ve added 1-5 to our list. Thank you for these great suggestions!

We setup trac here: https://trac.the-seed.ca/
Please use it to track the development, to report issues and to suggest enhancements.

For whatever its worth, I spent about 16 hours this weekend testing different events plugins, including the premium plugins. You weren’t even known to me when I started. I decided to give your’s a try. While I have yet to find the events plugin that has everything I want, your plugin ranked highest. As for its look, personally, think your plugin looks the best right out of the box. So great work!!

I too have spent many hours testing different Event plugins and like this one the best – which I will rate shortly.

Just a quick question – On the side bar upcoming Events widget is it possible to either exclude certain event types or just show events due in the new four weeks?

actually I have two questions ?? The second question is it is possible to have set a default footer/template so that all my events have the widget [attendancelist] included without me typing it each time?

thanks

@smithgt
Thank you for your fair review.

Question 1: Currently, you can exclude events by category or tag in the widget. It makes sense to have a time filter too. I will add it to our list of features.

Question 2: For the moment, it isn’t possible. However, we are planning to create a “template” for adding new events. This means that you can easily use one event to create another.

Hey Yani,

First, I gotta join in on the others here that after testing a lot of different calendar plugins I found this one to be the one suiting my needs best, good work!

One major issue though is that as some have mentioned, the custom page view of the actual events. That makes it clash quite badly with my theme template as the default one is, as I like it, quite narrow. But that looks really bad with your plugin. So maybe you could add an option to the event creation for selecting page template or set a default one for all events in the settings.

Other than that, great work!

@jeaz

How to define a custom template for the calendar page?:
1. Create a new template in your theme folder. Call it page-calendar.php
2. Navigate to WP Dashboard, click on Pages and locate the calendar page. Edit the calendar page, select the newly create template and save it.
3. Navigate to the calendar page to see your changes.

How to define a custom template for single event view?:
1. Create a new template in your theme folder.
2. Name it single-ai1ec_event.php
3. Copy the contents of single.php to single-ai1ec_event.php
4. Edit single-ai1ec_event.php anyway you like.
5. Navigate to any event to see your changes

Hope this helps.

Thanks , that solved it for me.

Hi Yani:

Thanks very much for this events calendar plug-in! I’ve tested my fair share and I think your plugin is the best for one very important function for my users, the .ics file download.

I was specifically looking for an event calendar that has an ‘add to calendar’ button/ics file download so my users can easily add events to their Outlook calendars.

One issue I noticed is that the Add to Calendar button creates a whole new shared calendar in Outlook instead of opening a single event for review and save to the user’s existing default calendar. Am I missing something here or can I tweak the function to create an .ics file for a single event?

Again, thanks so much!
Bob

@tropolisgroup
This is a confirmed bug. We are expecting to have it fixed in the next release(probably next week).

Hi Yani:

It’s great to hear that you’re going to modify the Add to Calendar button to dowload/open the single event, as opposed to adding the entire calendar to user’s Outlook/iCal client.

Have you considered adding a Donate by PayPal button to your Settings page? The Suffusion developer has a link that says something like “Buy Me a Cup of Coffee” to donate. I think you’re plugin adds great value and you’d get some users voluntarily donating.

Have you considered breaking up the Settings option for “Hide Subscriber/Add to Calendar buttons in calendar and single event views” into two options, i.e. hide subscribe button in calendar view and hide Add to Calendar button in single event views?

Cheers,
Bob
Tropolis Group