The demo offers a preview of some of the new features which are already available to club members (most require Silver membership) - more to follow!

1. Location/Venue Manager (used in the demo)

A special add on component for managing events locations and venues complete with geocoding and Google Maps.  You can even create menu items or modules for specific calendars for events at specific locations.

You can also display a map of locations beneath your main calendar - see this article for a demonstration.

2. Special Layouts (used in the demo)

2.1 Ruthin

Take a look at the Ruthin Layout in the demo. This uses a radically new layout arrangement where multiday events really span many days in the calendar.

The Ruthin layout is available in 4 colour schemes (and more can easily be added).

2.2 Extplus

Take a look at the Extplus Layout in the demo.  This combined the radically new layout arrangement of the Ruthin layout with the styling of the popular Ext layout.  The best of both worlds.

The Extplus layout is currently only available Gray (visible on the demo site) and Blue, Green, Red and Purple.

2.3 Iconic

Take a look at the Iconic Layout here.

3. Managed People/Teams/Resources

You want to create a managed list of artists, event promoters or even the people responsible for making the tea after the event.  The Managed people addon allows you to do this.  Create a menu item or modules for the events associated with one or more artists!

You can use this addon on a sport event calendar - you can associate teams with matches allowing the easy filtering of the calendar by teams.

4. Personal Private Events (used in the demo)

Do your users need to specify that some events can only be viewed by themselves and no one else.  With this Jevents plugin this is now possible.  The plugin can also be used to search for events by creator.  If you login as a demo user and go to the main demo page you can add an event, remember to mark this as private and save it.  The when you view the demo calendar you will see this private event that only this user can view.  If you log out or login as another demo user you will not be able to see this event.

Also if you are logged in to the demo you will see a "private events" sub menu item under Demo - this only shows a user's own private events.

5. Community Builder and JomSocial Plugins

Want to show a list of events created by your CB or JomSocial members?  These plugin adds a user tab to their profile listing the latest event for this user and even offers a link to a full calendar of events they created.  More features will be added later.  Note that these plugins are in final testing and is currently available from the Club Forum.

The JomSocial plugin can be used to mark an event as private to a user's friends - i.e. only the author and his/her confirmed friends can view the event.  See the demo videos here.

6. Event Registration, Invites and Reminders (used in the demo)

Do you need to know who is going to attend your event?  Do you want to invite certain users and make the event invitation and attendance list private to these invitees?  To you want to enable your users to request event reminder emails?

This plugin (available to Gold Club Members) allows you to do all of this.You can read more about this addon here.

A more comprehensive event registration solution is currently in the testing phase but this plugin will meet most users' needs.

7. Calendar Specific Menu Item and Modules

This addon allows you to create multiple native iCals in the backend and associate these with menu items and modules in the same way that you can do with categories.  

This means that you can share 'slice' your data in 2 dimensions e.g. a sports club site can now have a calendar called "men", a calendar called "women" and a calendar called "children" and share the same categories ("tennis", "swimming", "kayaking" etc.)  across all the calendars.

8. Simple Event Registration

Do you need to know who is going to attend your event.  This plugin allows logged in users to record their intention to attend the event.  A more comprehensive event registration solution is currently in the testing phase but this plugin will meet many users needs.

9. Featured Events Modules and Calendars

With the featured events plugin you can mark events as featured/high priority and create featured events modules and calendars.

10. Attend JEvents - Advanced Event Registration Component

This is an advanced registration component that allows you to create complex forms, add guest registrations, accept payments via PayPal.

See the quick intro demo.

11. JEvents Tagging

Tag events with one or more predefined tags and create menu items or module matching these tags.  Available for testing in the silver/gold member forum.

12. Custom Fields

Do you need to add custom fields to your event descriptions?  This is now easy with the JEvents Silver member Custom Fields addon.   The Custom Fields addon allows you to add custom fields into your event.  The available field types are:

• Select List (choose one item from dropdown)
• Text Box
• Text Area
• Boolean (Yes/No)
• Radio boxes
• Multiple Select List (choose one or more items from dropdown)

Configuration is done via a simple XML file (there are detailed notes on how to set this up and a comprehensive sample file).  If you have some decent PHP skills you can even add your own custom field types .

13. Anonymous Event Creation

With this plugin you can configure Jevents so that non-logged in users can create events that must then be approved prior to publication on your site.  There is a demo video of this feature in action available here.

14. Twitter/Facebook Updates via AutoTweet Plugin

There are other developments in the pipeline:

• Advanced event registrations
• Other special templates/layouts

How can you get hold of these extras?

JEvents is a open source project that doesn't charge you to download and use the application unlike other components like JCal Pro.  Development and support of JEvents takes a huge amount of time therefore after JEvents 1.5 is released we wll be starting the JEvents club which you can join to show your support of the project.  Membership will be reasonably priced and you will get access to exclusive club benefits:

• Exclusive club member forums which will always get priority in terms of support response
• Exclusive club member documentation and demo videos/tutorials
• Access to pre-releases of new versions
• Access to club member only addons like the locations manager, event registration component etc.

Conclusion

JEvents will continue to be OpenSource and  the core component, modules and search plugins will continue to be free to download.  If you choose to join the club you will be helping to keep the project going and also get access to lots of extra features and goodies.