Event Calendar

[Steven Fry]

I am making a site for my church using the Authentic theme. Great stuff and your help is excellent and appreciated. I would like to add an events calender to the site. On other sites I have made in Dreamweaver I used the google calender and like the way it functions and love the fact that clients can add their own events. Will Google Calendar work in this theme or is there a better alternative for a Word press site?

[Bill Robbins]

Great question. I like a plugin called The Events Calendar (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/the-events-calendar/). It lets you add and manage events from inside the WordPress dashboard quite easily. We use it on our church site too.

[Steven Fry]

Thank’s Bill! I have only spent 5 minutes downloading, installing and trying it. Super easy! Thanks!

[Bill Robbins]

Glad to hear it Steven! Event calendars used to be a huge weak point in WordPress. It’s nice to have a simple one that works.

[Steven Fry]

The only problem I am having with the event calendar is the page title. It doesn’t have one. If I choose default events template I get the look I want but no page title, the url appears in the tab. If I choose default page template it appears to pick a random event and use it for the title. It also shrinks the calendar. I want to get the add ons but not if I cannot define the page title. I know it is not your plug in but they don’t offer support until you spend money, another negative.

[Bill Robbins]

You could always edit the plugin if you need to. I had to do that with an early version of it for a local university’s site. At one point in time, they let you add layout templates to your theme so you could get the exact look you’re after.

Next week, we’re working on a site that will use this plugin. If I notice anything, I’ll let you know.

[Steven Fry]

Thanks Bill! I appreciate that. I also received a response from tribe offering help. They tell me that what I am experiencing should not be happening and are working to fix it. I will let you know what we work out.

[Bill Robbins]

Sounds good. I’m glad they’re offering to help too.

[Steven Fry]

Hi Bill,
Tribe would like a copy of the Authentic theme to try to fix the problem with page titles. They want to load it locally to work out the problem. If I switch to the 2011 theme the page title works correctly. Your thoughts?

[Steven Fry]

Bill,
I have another problem with this calendar. (sorry you recommended it? 🙂 ).

When an event is clicked a new window opens. After the event there is a search box and then a bunch of links for past posts, archives etc. How do I get rid of all that?

Thanks Bill,
Steve
ps: http://rcsbb.com

[Bill Robbins]

The content below the event details are actually widgets. It’s attempting to load a sidebar of some type. If you can’t locate the widgets in your widget menu, you can just hide them. To do that add this bit of code to the bottom of your style.css file:

. single-tribe_events #sidebar {display:none;}

I believe I can help you out with the titles. We’ve nearly finished an update that switches this theme to the same framework used by our other themes. After using the one currently in Authentic for a few weeks, it became clear it just wasn’t going to work as well as I’d like. One of the areas it needed some improvement was with the title tag in the header.

The new version has a different title generator that works quite a bit better with custom post types (the events are a custom post type).

You could select to disable the built in SEO and instead use a plugin such as WordPress SEO by Yoast. I use it on my own sites as well as most sites I manages since it not only handles the code side well, but it also prompts me to make sure I have my content thought out in terms of SEO too.

Let me know if you need any other help,
Bill

[Steven Fry]

Wow this is driving me nuts! The unwanted side bar goes away if I choose Default Page Template instead of Default Events Template. Deep breath……. okay.

[Bill Robbins]

Part of the trouble inherent in plugins is they really can’t create templates. Thankfully this one will now let you select some. I wish more would.

[Steven Fry]

Thanks Bill. I will keep an eye out for the update. Thanks for your patience, you make learning fun!

[Steven Fry]

Bill,
I tried adding the code to the style.css file. I did not notice any change in the side posts appearing. However, the Home Bottom widgets on the home page went from side by side to one on top of the other. I restored the style.css file but the bottom widgets did not move. So I deactivated the calendar plugin and the calendar pro plugin and still no difference. Not sure what I did but how do I put the bottom widgets on the home page back to side by side?

On another note, I installed the same calendar plugin on a site I am making with the Foundation theme and do not have any problems with the page titles. The problem with the side bar on events pages is there but modern tribe says that is by design on the Default Event Template.

Thanks Bill,
Steve

[Steven Fry]

Well this just got better. Apparently the bottom home is side by side in Firefox but not IE. But even in Firefox it does not display correctly. What to do?

[Bill Robbins]

It’s looking ok to me with the default page template used. Just a few widgets in the sidebar and it should be nice.

[Steven Fry]

Bill, you are referring to the calendar page right? The issue with the home bottom widgets is my pressing issue. They are not displaying correctly in any browser I have used although IE is the worst.
Steve

[Bill Robbins]

I took a look at your home page in IE 8 & 9, Firefox, Chrome and Safari and didn’t see anything too odd. The title on the contact widget is a bit longer than intended which is causing it to cover up the marker icon a bit, but that’s all I came upon.

What specifically are you seeing and in which browsers specifically?

[Steven Fry]

Thanks for pointing out that the title was too long. I Fixed that. In Firefox and on my iPhone IO5 the home page looked fine. However in IE9 the calendar widget was appearing above the contact widget instead of next to it. But, after I clicked the compatibility view button everything straightened out. I still have title issues but modern tribe says the next update will fix that. All set I think. Thanks Bill!

[Bill Robbins]

Steven,

Glad to hear it. Disable the onboard SEO and use the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin to straighten out your title now if you’d like to.

[Steven Fry]

I should have listened the first time you told me! The WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin works great.
Thanks Bill,
Steve

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