Block module that displays events from a public google calendar or iCal file.
=== Simple iCal Block === Plugin name: Simple iCal Block Contributors: bramwaas Tags: Event Calendar, Google Calendar, iCal, Events, Block, Calendar, iCalendar, Outlook, iCloud Requires at least Joomla: 4.0 Tested up to: 5.0.3 Requires PHP: 7 Stable tag: trunk License: GPLv3 or later License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
== Description ==
Simple block to display events from a public google calendar, microsoft office outlook calendar or an other iCal file, in the style of your website.
This simple block fetches events from a public google calendar (or other calendar in iCal format) and displays them in simple list allowing you to fully adapt to your website by applying all kinds of CSS. Google offers some HTML snippets to embed your public Google Calendar into your website. These are great, but as soon as you want to make a few adjustments to the styling, that goes beyond changing some colors, they're not enough.
== Module Features ==
Adjusted settings for start with summary:
Start with summary.: "true"
Date format first line: ".<\b\r>l jS \o\f F"
Enddate format first line: " - l jS \o\f F"
Time format time summary line: " G:i"
Time format end time summary line: " - G:i"
Time format start time: "<>"
Time format end time: "<>"
Tag for summary: "strong"
== Installation ==
== Frequently Asked Questions ==
= How to use Google Calendar? =
First you have to share your calendar to make it public available, or to create a public calendar. Private calendars cannot be accessed by this plugin. Then use the public iCal address or the Google calendar ID. More details on Google support
= Where do I find the Google Calendar Id? =
You can find Google calendar ID by going to Calendar Settings / Calendars, clicking on the appropriate calendar, scrolling all the way down to find the Calendar ID at the bottom under the Integrate Calendar section. There's your calendar id. More details on Google support
= How to merge more calendars into one module/block =
Fill a comma separated list of ID's in the Calendar ID field.
Optional you can add a html-class separated by a semicolon to some or all ID's to distinguish the descent in the lay-out of the event.
E.g.: #example;blue,https://p24-calendars.icloud.com/holiday/NL_nl.ics;red
Events of #example will be merged with events of NL holidays; html-class "blue" is added to all events of #example, html-class "red" to all events of NL holidays.
= Can I use HTML in the description of the appointement? =
You can use HTML in the most Calendars, but the result in the plugin may not be what you expect.
First: The original iCalendar standard allowed only plain text as part of an event description. Thus probably most calendars will only give the plain text in the Description in the iCal output.
Secondly: For security reasons this plugin filters the HTML to convert characters that have special significance in HTML to the corresponding HTML-entities.
But in this module if you trust the output of the calendar application you can set a checkbox to allow safe html in the output. So if you manage to get the HTML in the Description and you set the checkbox to allow safe html you can get that html in the output, with exception of the tags that are not considered safe like SCRIPT and unknown tags.
And with the current version of Google Calendar you can put some HTML in the Description output. (April 2022) I saw the <a> (link), <b> (bold text), <i> (italic text), <u> (underlined text) and <br> (linebreak) tags in a iCal description. They will all come through with "Allow safe html" checkbox on. Probably even more is possible, but Google can also decide to comply more to the standard.
With Microsoft Outlook the HTML tags were filtered away and did not reach the iCal description
In case you have all kinds of HTML in your appointments a plugin that uses the API of te calendar-application might be a better choice for you.
= How to use Microsoft Office Outlook Calendar? =
First you have to share your calendar to make it public available, or to create and share a public calendar. Private calendars cannot be accessed by this plugin. Then publish it as an ICS link and use this link address. (something like https://outlook.live.com/owa/calendar/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/.../cid-.../calendar.ics) More details on Microsoft Office support
= How to use Apple Calendar (iCloud Mac/ios)? =
Choose the calendar you want to share. On the line of that calendar click on the radio symbol (a dot with three quart circles) right in that line. In the pop up Calendar Sharing check the box Public Calendar. You see the url below something like webcal://p99-caldav.icloud.com/published/2/MTQxNzk0NDA2NjE0MTc5AAAAAXt2Dy6XXXXXPXXxuZnTLDV9xr6A6_m4r_GU83Qj. Click on Copy Link and OK. Paste that in the "Calendar ID, or iCal URL" field of the block.
More details on the MacObserver
= Error: cURL error 28: Operation timed out after 5000 milliseconds with 0 bytes received =
Probably the calendar is not public (yet), you can copy the link before the agenda is actually published. Check if the agenda has already been published and try again.
= I only see the headline of the calendar, but no events =
There are no events found within the selection. Test e.g. with an appointment for the next day and refresh the cache or wait till the cache is refreshed. Check if you can download the ics file you have designated in the block with a browser. At least if it is a text file with the first line "BEGIN:VCALENDAR" and further lines "BEGIN:VEVENT" and lines "END:VEVENT".
= Can I use an event calendar that only uses days, not times, like a holiday calendar? =
Yes you can, I have tested this with https://p24-calendars.icloud.com/holiday/NL_nl.ics .
= How do I set different colours and text size for the dates, the summary, and the details? =
There is no setting for the color or font of parts in this plugin. My philosophy is that layout and code/content should be separated as much as possible. Furthermore, the plugin should seamlessly fit the style of the website and be fully customizable via CSS
So for color and font, the settings of the template are used and are then applied via CSS. But you can give each element within the plugin its own style (such as color and font size) from the theme via CSS.
If you know your template css well and it contains classes you want to use on these fields you can add those class-names in the Settings Tab Advanced : "SUFFIX GROUP CLASS:", "SUFFIX EVENT START CLASS:" and "SUFFIX EVENT DETAILS CLASS:"
Otherwise you can add a block of additional CSS (or extra css or user css or something like that), which is possible with most templates.
IMPORTANT:
In order to target the CSS very specifically to the simple-ical-block, it is best to enter something unique in the settings of the module Tab Advanced in "HTML ANCHOR", for example 'Simple-ical-Block-1' the code translated into a high-level ID of the module.
With the next block of additional CSS you can make the Dates red and 24 px, the Summary blue and 16 px,
and the Details green with a gray background.
/*additional CSS for Simple-ical-Block-1 */
#Simple-ical-Block-1 .ical-date {
color: #ff0000;
font-size: 24px;
}
#Simple-ical-Block-1 .ical_summary {
color: #0000ff;
font-size: 16px;
}
#Simple-ical-Block-1 .ical_details {
color: #00ff00;
background-color: gray;
}
/*end additional CSS for Simple-ical-Block-1 */== Documentation ==
=== Recurrent events, Timezone, Daylight Saving Time ===
Most users don't worry about time zones. The timezonesettings for the Joomla installation, the calendar application and the events are all the same local time.
In that case this block displays all the recurrent events with the same local times. The block uses the properties of the starttime and duration (in seconds) of the first event to calculate the repeated events. Only when a calculated time is removed during the transition from ST (standard time, wintertime) to DST (daylight saving time, summertime) by turning the clock forward one hour, both the times of the event (in case the starttime is in the transition period) or only the endtime (in case only the endtime is in the transition period) of the event are pushed forward with that same amount.
But because the transition period is usually very early in the morning, few events will be affected by it.
If a calculated day does not exist (i.e. February 30), the event will not be displayed. (Formally this should also happen to the time in the transition from ST to DST)
For users in countries that span more time zones, or users with international events the calendar applications can add a timezone to the event times. So users in other timezones will see the event in the local time in there timezone (as set in timezone settings of Joomla) corresponding with the time.
The block uses the starttime, the timezone of the starttime and the duration in seconds of the starting event as starting point for the calculation of repeating events. So if the events startime timezone does'not use daylight savings time and and timezone of the block (i.e. the Joomla timezone setting) does. During DST the events are placed an hour later than during ST. (more precisely shift with the local time shift). Similar the events will be shift earlier when the timezone of the starttime has DST and the timezone of the block not.
Of course the same effect is achieved when you schedule the events in UTC time despite using local time DST in your standard calendar.
In these cases, a special effect can be seen of using the same times twice in the transition from DST to ST. If an event lasts less than an hour. If the event starts in the last hour of DST then it ends in the first hour of ST in between the local clocks are turned back one hour. According to the local clock, the end time is therefore before the start time. And the block shows it like this too. The same also applies to Google and Outlook calendar.
Theoretically this could als happen with recurrent events in the same timezone with DST. In my test I have seen this with Google calendar but not with the block. PHP and therefore the block uses the second occurence if the result of the calculation is a time that is twice available (at least in the version of PHP I use), but using the first occurence like Google does is just as good.
Test results and comparison with Google and Outlook calendar with the wordpress plugin have been uploaded as DayLightSavingTime test.xlsx.
=== From the ical specifications ===
see http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5545.txt for specification of te ical format,
or https://icalendar.org/iCalendar-RFC-5545/
(see 3.3.10. [Page 38] Recurrence Rule in specification
.____________._________.________._________.________.
| |DAILY |WEEKLY |MONTHLY |YEARLY |
|____________|_________|________|_________|________|
|BYMONTH |Limit |Limit |Limit |Expand |
|____________|_________|________|_________|________|
|BYMONTHDAY |Limit |N/A |Expand |Expand |
|____________|_________|________|_________|________|
|BYDAY |Limit |Expand |Note 1 |Note 2 |
|____________|_________|________|_________|________|
|BYSETPOS |Limit |Limit |Limit |Limit |
|____________|_________|________|_________|________|
Note 1: Limit if BYMONTHDAY is present;
otherwise, special expand for MONTHLY.
Note 2: Limit if BYYEARDAY or BYMONTHDAY is present; otherwise,
special expand for WEEKLY if BYWEEKNO present; otherwise,
special expand for MONTHLY if BYMONTH present; otherwise,
special expand for YEARLY.== Copyright and License ==
This project is licensed under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later. 2022 – 2022 © Bram Waasdorp.
== Upgrade Notice ==
== Changelog ==