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How to choose different calendar displays
DATES! makes it easy for you to decide what sort of calendar you want to be displayed to your web site visitors when they first click to your event calendar. You can decide whether they first see the monthly calendar view, or a list view, or the table view. You can decide whether they first see the current month, or some other month. You can decide to show your visitors a range of dates that is more or less than a single month. You can decide whether visitors should first see all event categories, or only some. You can decide whether visitors can change the type of display themselves, or not.*

You specify these different options by the way you enter the hypertext links to DATES! from your own web site. Briefly, you can pass "parameters" or options as part of the link to your calendar, like this example:
 
  http://hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&v=lv2&sd=4-10-2002&ec=sports,concerts

(This link, by the way, displays events in a two-column list view, that have a start date on or after April 10, 2002, and that fall in the event categories of "sports" or "concerts".)

Best of all, you can create--even on the same web page--many different links, each with different options. That way you can let your web site visitors choose whether they want to see "upcoming sports events" or "this month's concerts" or "next year's academic calendar" or any other combination of event categories and time periods that you want.

If your organization has separate departments that have their own web pages, each department can show their web visitors only the event calendars relevant to the department--even though all departments share a single common DATES! calendar.

In a university setting, for example, the Athletic Department can choose to show only sports events on its web pages, while the Music and Theater Departments can show concerts and performances on theirs. The Public Relations Department can have a third calendar link showing every event of any kind. All this can be done from a single DATES! calendar and account.

Below you'll find two descriptions of how to do it. First are listed several examples that you can copy. Then follows a reference manual that explains the details.

1. Examples

Some organizations like bands or individual performers schedule relatively few events each month. They may not want to display the standard monthly calendar view of DATES! because that view isn't the most helpful one for their audience. Instead, they might want a calendar that shows "all upcoming events" in the form of a list. That's easy: use this URL (using your own calendar ID number in place of the "cid=999" shown here):

http://hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999  [Keep everything on one line]
&m=upcoming&v=lv
 

Or maybe you want to show a calendar for soccer games during the fall of 2003 using the 2-Col list view. Assuming that you have already created an event category called "soccer," use this URL:

http://hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999  [Keep everything on one line]
&ec=soccer&sd=9-1-2003&ed=12-31-2003&v=lv2
   

Or maybe you'd like to eliminate the tool bar--the row of options that appears across the top of calendars like this:

--and also display only the upcoming thirty days' worth of either "faculty meetings" or "staff meetings" in a table that users can sort for themselves. Assuming that you have already created event categories called "faculty meetings" and "staff meetings," use this URL:

http://hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999  [Keep everything on one line]
&ec=faculty+meetings,staff+meetings&m=next30&v=tv
   

The remainder of this page gives more details about all these and other options.

2. Reference manual

DATES! starts with the assumption that you want to see events for the current month and year in a monthly calendar format. So if you don't indicate some other choice on the URL line that brings up a calendar, you get the current year and month's calendar.

You can change the starting assumptions, however, by adding options after the URL. Here are the options you can use. These options must be separated with an ampersand (&) and cannot have any spaces. If you need to use a space for something, then use a plus symbol (+) instead. 

v (view)

Sets the "view" of calendars. View can be:

v=tv  for "table view." This gives you a rows and columns view, with the columns for event name, event date and time, event description, contact person, and location. Clicking the button at the top of any column will sort the events by that column:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&v=tv

v=lv  for "list view" or "1-Col" view. This shows a simple list of events, with date, time, contacts, description, etc., all flowed together as a paragraph of text underneath a heading. The option "lv1" is the same as "lv":

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&v=lv  or  &v=lv1

v=lv2  for "list view-2" or "2-Col" view. This shows a simple list of events, with date, time, contacts, description, etc., all flowed together as a paragraph of text, but with headings arranged to the left as hanging indents:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&v=lv2

hdr, ftr (header, footer)

The "hdr" and "ftr" options allow you to specify a header and footer for a particular calendar display that are different from the ones set up as the default for all your calendars. Defaults are set up from the Editor's Home page (the page that appears just after you log in to edit your DATES! calendar).

To change those defaults just for a particular display, use "hdr=some new header" or "ftr=some new footer" on the URL that brings up that display. Note: because blank spaces in a URL can cause problems, you should replace the blanks with a PLUS sign when you make use of this feature, like this:  

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999 [Keep everything on one line]
&hdr=some+new+header&ftr=some+new+footer

 
Capitalization. Because of the way the web works, capital letters in a header or footer created this way are converted to lower case before DATES! can see them. DATES! therefore follows this policy:

For headers: capitalize the first letter of the first word, but leave the rest in lower case.

For footers: leave everything in lower case.

The examples above would therefore appear as "Some new header" and "some new footer." 

 
Omitting a header or footer altogether. To prevent the display of any header or footer on a particular page, even though default headers and footers have already been chosen, do this:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999 [Keep everything on one line]
&hdr=off&ftr=off

You do not need to use both header and footer options together. For example, to continue to show the default footer, but prevent any header from appearing, do this:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999 [Keep everything on one line]
&hdr=off

 

m (month)

Sets the month or other options for indicating a range of dates to be displayed. 

m=1 or m=2 or m=3 etc. will confine the calendar to that month of the year (1=January, 2=February, etc.). If no year is specified with "y=" then the current calendar year is assumed. To display events in October of the current year, do this:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&m=10

m=upcoming  displays events that take place from today on. No year is necessary and if a year is given with "y=" it is ignored:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&m=upcoming

m=next30  displays events that take place within the next thirty days. No year is necessary and if a year is given with "y=" it is ignored:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&m=next30

m=all  displays all events that have ever been entered into the calendar, past, present, or future. No year is necessary and if a year is given with "y=" it is ignored:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&m=all

y (year)

Sets the year for events that you want displayed. Use it together with "m" to indicate a particular month and year for which you want to see events displayed. To see events for October of 2004, do this:
hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999&m=10&y=2004
You need to use all four digits for "Y".

If you specify a year but not a month, then the current month (whatever month it is now) for that year will be displayed.

If you specify a year (or any date) that is beyond the range of dates that DATES! will work with, you will get the current calendar year. The range of dates for most DATES! customers is three years into the future from the current date, and back in the past to January 1 of whatever year that you signed up for a DATES! account.
   

 

sd, ed (start date, end date)

The "sd" and "ed" options allow you to specify a precise start date and end date for the events you want displayed. Use month-day-year order and also use hyphens like 4-25-2002 to separate the numbers. (Slashes as in "4/25/02" have a special meaning for Internet URLs, so it's best to avoid them.) 

You can also use month names or three-letter month abbreviations, in either order: 25-april-2002 or april-25-2002 or 25-apr-2002 or apr-25-2002. 

You can also use any of three special date abbreviations: "today", "yesterday", and "tomorrow". 

To see all events between today and February 14, 2004, for example, do this:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999 [Keep everything on one line]
&sd=today&ed=2-14-2004

 

To see all events between June 23, 2002, and February 14, 2004, do this:

&sd=6-23-2002&ed=2-14-2004
or this
&sd=june-23-2002&ed=february-14-2004
or this
&sd=23-jun-2002&ed=14-feb-2004  

 

To see all events between June 23, 1998, and yesterday, do this:

&sd=6-23-1998&ed=yesterday

 

If you specify a starting date but no ending date, then all events from that starting date onward into the future are displayed.

If you specify an ending date but no starting date, then all events from the oldest in your calendar up to that ending date are displayed. To see all past events, for example, specify no starting date and an ending date of yesterday, like this:

&ed=yesterday

If you specify starting or ending dates or both, but do not specify a display view, the events are displayed using the "table" view. If you specify starting and/or ending dates and also ask for the "month view," that request will be ignored and "table" view will be used instead.

If you specify starting or ending dates or both and also specify a month and year with "m=" and "y=", the starting and ending dates take priority and override the indication of month and year.
   

ec (event categories)

The "ec" option allows you to specify the event categories that you want to see. If you do not use categories to classify events, this option won't apply to you.

Including categories. Suppose you use four event categories, "Board Meetings," "Concerts," "Deadlines," and "Sports." To see only those events that are categorized as either "Concerts" or "Sports," do this:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999 [Keep everything on one line]
&ec=concerts,sports

Separate event categories with a comma--don't use a space. If a single category name has a space in it, use a plus sign (+) instead. To see only those events that are "Board Meetings," or "Concerts, do this:

&ec=board+meetings,concerts

If you use event categories for some events, but not others, you can find all events that have no category assigned to them by doing this:

&ec=nocategory

To see all events that are either "Deadlines" or "Meetings" or that have no category at all, do this (in any order):

&ec=deadlines,nocategory,meetings

If you do not specify a date range, DATES! will show "Deadlines" and "Meetings" and "no category" events for the current month and year. If you want all "Deadlines" and "Meetings" and events without any category for any date, past or future, then do this:

&ec=deadlines,nocategory,meetings&m=all

If you want all "Board Meetings" and "Concerts" for the month of June, 2003, then do this:

&ec=board+meetings,concerts&m=6&y=2003

If you want "Board Meetings" and "Concerts" for the month of June, 2003, and you want them in a 2-Column list view, then do this:

&ec=board+meetings,concerts&m=6&y=2003&v=lv2
 

Excluding categories. You can also specify event categories "negatively," saying that you want to exclude certain categories by name and see all other categories instead. Do that by putting a minus sign in front of each category that you don't want to see.

For example, to see all events except "sports", do this:

&ec=-sports

To see all events except "sports" and "board meetings", do this:

&ec=-sports,-board+meetings

(Note that the plus sign between "board" and "meeting" is just to indicate a space.) To see all events except "sports", "board meetings", and "holidays," do this:

&ec=-sports,-board+meetings,-holidays
  

If you specify both "included" and "excluded" event categories on the same link, the excluded ones will be ignored. If you do this:

&ec=sports,concerts,-board+meetings,-holidays

you will just get "sports" and "concerts," which is the same thing you would get if you did this:

&ec=sports,concerts

Finally, if you use categories for some events, but leave others with no category, you can see all events that fall into at least one named category by excluding events that have no category, like this:

&ec=-nocategory

 

tb (tool bar)

If the DATES! service plan you subscribe to includes the option for your calendar users to choose the month and year they want to see and to search for events by various search criteria, your users will see calendars with something like this at the top:

DATES! calls this a "tool bar." For some of your calendar displays, you may find the tool bar unnecessary or visually in the way. If so, you can omit it by doing this:

hardySystems.com/calendars.asp?cid=999 [Keep everything on one line]
&tb=no  or &tb=off   [either one does the same thing]
   

Order of options

You do NOT have to remember the right order for options. Any order will work. You can do this:

&m=6&ec=board+meetings,concerts&v=lv2&y=2003

or just as well do this:

&y=2003&m=6&v=lv2&ec=board+meetings,concerts

 

Need more help?

Don't hesitate to contact Hardy Systems tech support with questions about creating the type of calendar displays that you want to see. And thanks for using DATES!

 

 

 

 

 


 *All the options specified apply to Plan 1 subscribers; other plans may have more limited features.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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