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Zap Calendar's Calendar View Settings

The calendar view is one of the most powerful features of Zap Calendar; it ties events and categories together in a customizable display.  The amount of options available for customization may be a bit overwelming to the new user; however, this article will try to demystify the meaning of these options and show how they can be used to create the ideal calendar display for your website.

The view options are divided into 10 groups:

  • General
  • Calendar
  • Category
  • Event
  • Link
  • Upcoming
  • Yearly
  • Export
  • Plugins

 

The options in each of these groups will be described below.

General

This group of options define some of the more important view settings

Show Title - Show title at top of calendar

Title - Title used for display

Published - The calendar must be in a published state in order for it to be visible to users

Icon Display - Select icon, text, or icaon and text display modes

Print Icon

Download Icon

Subscribe Icon - Not available with events.

Add/Suggest EventIcon - Zap Calendar's global settings define if this will be an add icon or a suggest icon.

Share Icon - for sharing events on social networks. Only available with events.

Calendar Start - Choose the start date for your calendar. No events will be displayed prior to this date. This can be used by the static list display mode to limit the number of displayed events. It can also be used to limit the number of events exported by the iCal format. For example, if your site is primarily interested in future events, you may not want to export past events.  This field can use an absolute or relative date. An absolute date uses the format "yyyy-mm-dd", where "yyyy" is the 4 digit year, "mm" is the 2 digit month, and "dd" is the day.  A relative date uses the format " #[d][m][y] ", where # is a positive or negative number, followed by either a "d" for day, "m" for month, or "y" for year. A relative format of "-1m" will mean "1 month prior to today".  A relative format of "2y" or "+2y" will mean "2 years from today".  If this field is blank, the the global calendar start date will be used (which could be either an absolute or relative date).

Calendar End - Choose the end date for your calendar. No events will be displayed after this date. See previous discussion on field format.

Theme - Choose from one of the supplied themes to change the appearance of the calendar

Browser Mode - Choose from AJAX Browser, non-AJAX Browser, and Static. Both browser modes allow the display to be changed by the user, typically by using the calendar's browser buttons.  The static mode does not allow the display to be altered. It also provides the list and upcoming display modes, which are not available in the browser modes.  Use Static if you wish to use the list or upcoming display modes, and set the static display option below to one of these modes.

Show Browser Buttons

Browser Display - This display is used when browser mode is set to one of the browser modes.

Static Display - This display is used when browser mode is set to static.

Display Description - When enabled, the description will be displayed in the view.

Description - Description of this view/calendar.

Calendar

This group of options defines settings as they relate to the calendar.

 

Start of Week - Choose either Sunday or Monday as the beginning of the week

Show Weekends

Day of Week Display - Show either full day of week display or an abbreviated display (i.e. "Monday" vs. "Mon")

Add Pre Week to Monthly Calendar - Add a full week prior to the first week of the month

Add Post Week to Monthly Calendar - Add a full week after the last week of the month

Show Week Link in Monthly Calendar - Display week numbers on the left of the calendar, which can be clicked to see weekly view

Maximum # of Events Displayed Per Day - Limit the number of events to display per day in monthly, weekly and mini calendars.  A link to all events is displayed if the maximum # is exceeded (new in 2.0.12).

Hide Calendar - This option hides the calendar display, which is useful for displaying only plugins outside of the calendar (currently, the Google Maps plugin is the only plugin that displays outside of the calendar in the month, week and day views) (new in 2.2.15).

Allow User to Hide Calendar - This works in conjunction with the "Hide Calendar" option above. If enabled, this allows the user to turn the calendar display on and off.  The user can click the power icon to turn the calendar on and off, which is displayed to the right of the calendar browser buttons.  Use the "Hide Calendar" option to initially set the calendar on or off (new in 2.2.15).

Show Popup Month Browser - When enabled, a popup month browser will be displayed when the user hovers over the calendar month name. This popup browser allows the user to quickly jump to any month (new in 2.2.15).

Category

Categories - Specify which categories will be displayed with this calendar.  Multiple categories can be selected. If the categories are defined in a tree structure, then any parent category specified will automatically have its child categories included for display.  This field also determines the categories that a user can use when adding or suggesting an event on the front end.

Show Category Color - Specify none, partial (line of color next to the event, full ( use color for event background) or both (partial for meetings, full for all day events).

Show Category Icon - Show category icon when displaying the calendar.

Event

Allow Popups - When enabled, show popup window when hovering over an event in the calendar.

Show Description - When enabled, include the event description in the popup window.

Description Length - Used with the "Show Description" option above. This sets the maximum number of characters of the description to display in the popup window. Use "-1" to show the entire description.

Date Format - Date format using PHP's date function.  For example, "l, M j, Y" would display "Friday, Mar 5, 2010".

Time Format - Choose either 12 or 24 (military) time format.

AM/PM Short Mode - When enabled, "am" is displayed as "a" and "pm" is displayed as "p" in the calendar (new in 2.2.15).

End Time - When enabled, do not show the end time for a meeting (new in 2.2.15).

Empty List Text - This message will be displayed if there are no events to display, for example, "No events scheduled".

Events Spanning Midnight - This option determines how meetings will be displayed if they go beyond midnight into the next day. The choices are:

  • Always show last day
  • Do not show last day if meeting ends less than 3 hours after midnight
  • Do not show last day if meeting ends less than 6 hours after midnight
  • Do not show last day if meeting ends less than 12 hours after midnight
  • Do not show last day

Note: This only effects meetings. All day events are not affected by this option.

 

Status Field - Select show or hide for the status field in the front-end event display and edit pages (new in 2.2.15).

Private Event Field - Select show or hide for the private event field in the front-end event display and edit pages (new in 2.2.15).

Transparent Field - Select show or hide for the transparent field in the front-end event display and edit pages (new in 2.2.15).

Location Field - Choose how locations are displayed and entered (new in 2.2.15):

  • Text - User can only enter a text description for the location
  • Chooser - User can only select a location from a list of defined locations
  • Both - User has the option to enter a text description or chose a location from a list of defined locations
  • Hide - The option hides the location field int he event display page

 

Contact Field - Select show or hide for the contact field in the front-end event display and edit pages (new in 2.2.15).

Website Field - Select show or hide for the website field in the front-end event display and edit pages (new in 2.2.15).

Owner Field - Select show or hide for the owner field in the front-end event display and edit pages (new in 2.2.15).

Timezone Field - Select show or hide for the timezone field in the front-end event display and edit pages (new in 2.2.15).

Link

When Event Links to the Event Description

When Event Links to an Article

When Event Links to an URL

All three of these options have three choices: Same window, New window, and Modal style.

Itemid Hint - Enter the Itemid to the Zap Calendar component page.  This option is used when this view is used in a module and links to the component page.

View Hint - Enter the view id of the component page to point to in this view's RSS feed.

Choose open mode when displaying a location in an event - When an event is linked to a location, use this option to determine how to link to the location page. Choices are same window, new window, modal style and no link (new in 2.2.15).

Upcoming

These options are used when the browser mode is set to "Static" and the display type is set to "Upcoming".

Upcoming Type

Upcoming Number

Max # of Events

Use these options to display the list of upcoming events. These options allow the display of upcoming items such as upcoming events in the next 3 days, 1 week, 3 months, etc.  Use the maximum # of events option to limit the number of upcoming events to display.

Alternate format for upcoming display - Use this option to use an alternative form to display the upcoming events. If left blank, the default form, "upcomingitem.tpl", is used. To use an alternative format, create a file with the ".frm" extension in the component's forms folder similar to the "upcomingitem.tpl" file in the same folder.  Enter the form's name (without the extension) in this field.

Yearly

Month Start - Choose January as the year's starting month, or pick another starting month.  You may wish to start your calendar in the same month as your fiscal calendar.  Schools may wish to display the calendars from July to June.

Export

Allow iCal Public Export - Allow users to export your calendar as an iCal file.

RSS Feed for this calendar - Use this option to enable the RSS feed for this view.

Use publishDate Tag in RSS Feed

URL Home Page for RSS Feed - Subscribers of your feed will be directed to this page

Event formatting in feed (leave blank for default format) - Use this field to change the default format by creating a custom form to display the event in the RSS feed.

RSS publish mode - Select "Daily" or "Weekly".  In most cases, choose "Daily".  Weekly mode is a special mode used by feedburner.com to publish events on a weekly basis via e-mail using Zap Calendar's RSS feed.

Day Mode - RSS # of upcoming days

Weekly Mode: RSS publish day

Footer

Footer Text -Enter text to display at bottom of calendar.  Leave blank to not display a footer.

Footer URL - Enter URL to use if footer text is clicked.  Leave blank if you do not wish to link your footer text.

Footer Target - Target of URL when footer URL is used.

Show Legend - If enabled, show category legend at bottom of calendar.

Plugins

If a Zap Calendar plugin has view specific parameters, they will be seen here.  The display order of plugins is controlled in Joomla's plugin manager.