EventCalendar

Easily show multiple, overlapping events across calendar days and rows.

See dev.elevationblog.com/2009/7/23/event-calendar-rails-plugin for a screenshot.

After install, the "calendar" method will be available within your views.

To customize the look, modify the included stylesheet and/or change the default options.

Install

  script/plugin install git://github.com/elevation/event_calendar.git

To generate the necessary static files AND the example below:

  script/generate event_calendar

Options:

• —static-only: Only generate the stylesheet and javascript
• —use-jquery: Generate jquery javascript

You can change the default event model name (Event) and view name (Calendar) by passing in two name arguments:

  script/generate event_calendar EventModel ViewName

Generated Files

Make sure to include the stylesheet and javascript in your layout/view.

Static files

  public/stylesheets/event_calendar.css
  public/javascripts/event_calendar.js

Unless the —static-only option is given, the following will be generated. Names will differ if name arguments were passed to the generator.

db/migrate/XXXX_create_events.rb

  class CreateEvents < ActiveRecord::Migration
    def self.up
      create_table :events do |t|
        t.string :name
        t.datetime :start_at
        t.datetime :end_at

        t.timestamps
      end
    end

    def self.down
      drop_table :events
    end
  end

At minimum we need to have start_at and end_at fields.

An event can also have a color field (hex value stored as a string) which determines the color of the event. Or simply override the default virtual attribute on the model. For example, if events are associated to a calendar model, then the events can get their color from the calendar.

app/models/event.rb

  class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_event_calendar
  end

config/routes.rb

  map.calendar "/calendar/:year/:month", :controller => "calendar", :action => "index", :year => Time.now.year, :month => Time.now.month

app/controllers/calendar_controller.rb

  class CalendarController < ApplicationController

    def index
      @month = params[:month].to_i
      @year = params[:year].to_i

      @shown_month = Date.civil(@year, @month)

      @event_strips = Event.event_strips_for_month(@shown_month)
    end

  end

app/helpers/calendar_helper.rb

Some helper methods are created, but you could put this in the view. The key is our calendar method, which takes some options.

  module CalendarHelper
    def month_link(month_date)
      link_to(month_date.strftime("%B"), {:month => month_date.month, :year => month_date.year})
    end

    # custom options for this calendar
    def event_calendar_options
      {
        :year => @year,
        :month => @month,
        :event_strips => @event_strips,
        :month_name_text => @shown_month.strftime("%B %Y"),
        :previous_month_text => "<< " + month_link(@shown_month.last_month),
        :next_month_text => month_link(@shown_month.next_month) + " >>"
      }
    end

    def event_calendar
      calendar event_calendar_options do |event|
        %(<a href="/events/#{event.id}" title="#{h(event.name)}">#{h(event.name)}</a>)
      end
    end
  end

Notice you can pass in a block to the calendar method. In this example I’m passing a link to the event details, and displaying the event’s name.

app/views/calendar/index.html.erb

Then in calendar view, simply:

  <%= event_calendar %>

Default Options

The default options for the calendar are:

  defaults = {
    :year => Time.zone.now.year,
    :month => Time.zone.now.month,
    :abbrev => (0..2),
    :first_day_of_week => 0, # See note below when setting this
    :show_today => true,
    :month_name_text => Time.zone.now.strftime("%B %Y"),
    :previous_month_text => nil,
    :next_month_text => nil,
    :event_strips => [],

    # it would be nice to have these in the CSS file
    # but they are needed to perform height calculations
    :width => nil,
    :height => 500,
    :day_names_height => 18,
    :day_nums_height => 18,
    :event_height => 18,
    :event_margin => 1,
    :event_padding_top => 1,

    :use_javascript => true,
    :link_to_day_action => false
  }

You can override any of these by passing your options to the calendar method. In the above example, update the event_calendar_options helper method.

Details

• See the notes in the plugin’s calendar_helper.rb for more info.
• width: Optional, if none is given it will stretch to the containing element.
• height: Defaults to 500px. This is the approx minimum total height of the calendar. It could be greater if a calendar row(s) need to stretch to fit additional events.
• use_javascript: If you set it to false, cleaner HTML will be output, without inline Javascript, but events spanning multiple days will not be displayed correctly. This option should therefore only be used if your calendar uses only single-day events.
• link_to_day_action: Will make the calendar’s day numbers links to the given Rails action. Note, you’ll probably want a corresponding route, controller action, and view to go with this action. Example:

  Helper/View calendar option:

    :link_to_day_action => "day"
  

  Route (the controller is the same as your other calendar route):

    map.calendar_day "/calendar/:year/:month/:day", :controller => "calendar", :action => "day"
  

Notes

• If you want to change the first day of the week from the default of Sunday (0), then set the new value in an instance variable and pass it to event_strips_for_month (in the controller), and to the event calendar options (in the helper/view).

  Controller:

    @first_day_of_week = 1
    @event_strips = Event.event_strips_for_month(@shown_month, @first_day_of_week)
  

  Helper/View calendar options:

    :first_day_of_week => @first_day_of_week
  

• If you need access to the events, not just the event strips, then instead of calling event_strips_for_month call these 3 methods:

    start_d, end_d = Event.get_start_and_end_dates(@shown_month) # optionally pass in @first_day_of_week
    @events = Event.events_for_date_range(start_d, end_d)
    @event_strips = Event.create_event_strips(start_d, end_d, @events)
  

• The event select color is set in the event_calendar.js file.

Contributors

• Jeff Schuil
• See commit history for list of additional contributors.
• Thanks to those who have added features, fixed bugs, and/or reported issues.

History

• Though EventCalendar has diverged greatly, it was…
• Originally based off of James Urquhart’s www.cuppadev.co.uk/webdev/making-a-real-calendar-in-rails/
• This in turn started as Geoffrey Grosenbach’s CalendarHelper.

Copyright © 2009 Elevation, released under the MIT license