Multiple calendars selectable with drop down

[gianpietro]

I manage a website with lots of events per city, it would be nice to have a calendar per city, selectable with a drop down option included at main component and modules (latest, mini calendar, etc). This would take JEvents to a whole other level!

Each user would only be interested of the events of their own city.

Each city has a number of categories, so handling everything with categories does not scale.

Is there a way to implement something like this today?

Thanks,
Gianpietro

[Geraint]

If you use the managed locations addon then you can associate specific venues with events (or could just use cities instead of venues if you prefered).

Then you can filter menu items by location/venue, city or state. You can also list your venues and link to events at those venues.

Does this help?

[gianpietro]

Hi!

I am using the managed locations addon to define venues, still, not sure how to completely separe events from one city with another.

What do you mean by "filter menu items by location/venue"?

Anyway, I think it would be easier and more user-friendly to have independent calendars per city. Imagine, for example, that when users log in the page they automatically see the calendar, minicalendar and latests events for the city they are loging from...still being able to change the calendar, for example if they are planning to travel, etc.

thanks,
Gianpietro

[Geraint]

When you create a JEvetns menu item - take a look at the menu Component parameters you should see an option "Country/State/City Filter" this can be used to filter the events displayed to match the country, state or city.

As an alternative you could use the jevents filter module and put 'locationcity,locationstate' in the filter string. This can then be used to filter the events displayed on any page to those matching the selected location. You could use the filter string 'geofilter' to do a proximity search too.

[gianpietro]

I guess that's the problem, I was not using the menu item, I had it unpublished and was linking a button straight to the component.

So now I think I get it, I can create a different menu items for each filtered calendar I want, right? for example, a menu that links to a calendar filtered by City1, another one for City2, etc.

Now a new question arises, I'm looking for a nice way to show this different menu items, do you know a way of putting them like in a drop down?

thanks!!
Gianpietro

[Geraint]

There are lots of dynanic menu systems listed at extensions.joomla.org - is there one that comes with your template?

[gianpietro]

Hi Geraint,

I'm using an accordion menu at works fine, but now I'm having a problem with SEF.

When I define the menus, they all have the same link and I guess that's normal:
index.php?option=com_jevents&view=month&task=month.calendar

The only difference between each other is the alias and the city filter. When using Joomla Router, it translates the original links to the aliases, so it works fine. But if I completely disable SEF, or use SEF Advance 2008 (my SEF component), the links are generated based on the component's links (not the aliases), and since it is always the same, it can't differ between each other.

I would love to find a way to use Joomla Router for some components and SEF Advance for others, but I can't. Or to make SEF Advance use the aliases instead of the component links, but that's not possible either.

Is there an alternative that comes to your mind?

Thanks a lot for your support!

Gianpietro

[Geraint]

I'm afraid this is a deficiency in your version of ACE sef - one of the key points of the alias is to allow the unique identification of a specific menu item.

What you are implying is that this is not possible? I think you should send Emir a support request for advice - index.php?option=com_jevents&view=month&task=month.calendar&Itemid=23 should not resolve to the same SEF URL as index.php?option=com_jevents&view=month&task=month.calendar&Itemid=25

Geraint

[gianpietro]

Hi Geraint,

Right, this should work based on the different Item Ids... just found out that Emir has a post that explains Item Id issues and I think it's related to it:
http://forum.mamboserver.com/showpost.php?p=189990
(it's not 100% clear for me)

Anyway, I have asked him for a workaround, I hope we find one.

thanks again!
Gianpietro