ColdFusion Calendar

[jsabarese]

message to forums requesting help about approach to crowbar calendar

I have been working on a dynamic calendar for a local music venue.
when i'm finished with it, i want it to be able to display the new content
while using a preformatted template and css, so that the formatting remains
consistent with,
for example, this static page
[url]http://www.crowbarlivemusic.com/calendarfiles/cal_053005.htm[/url]

the formatting, i'm pretty sure i can handle, but each unique date displayed
needs to have an
absolute URL reference so that one visitor may view a link to, for example the
may 30th link above,
while another is viewing July 8th for example-- but that data needs to disply
w/out any third party user input.
in other words, i need to be able to send a link (as the static html link
above) to someone and have them be able to access
any date of any week via the URL i send them. when they view the URL, they
will need NOT input data
in order to see the intended text-- it will already be displayed.

visitors should also be able to reach the dynamic calendar data also from a
main calendar page,
such as this link: [url]http://www.crowbarlivemusic.com/calendar.htm[/url]

what is the best approach to starting to write this application? how will i
utilize the unique identifiers
from my database to organize the data so that the correct info displays on the
correct date?

the very beginings of my administrative interface for adding new calendar data
is here:
[url]http://www.alleycatmusic.net/coldfusion/eureka.cfm[/url]

the idea behind this dynamic calendar is to help the venue manager to boost
his productivity
when entering new concert events on the calendar.

thank you very much for your help! please notify me via e-mail or private
message if you have a suggestion
for me.

[genmud]

I may be wrong, but couldn't you just have it take the URL.QUERYSTRING and look
at the database? so it would be calendar.cfm?date=12-22-05

And then what you could do is throw a little database together and put all the
information about the concert, like guest name, time, date... etc.

What I would do is make a database driven calendar system that would have
event information, have a main page that will display the calendar info and
then have another page to display the main information with a querystring about
that particular event.

Also if you wanted to have a search feature, you could make a page that will
use a get method to view the date info.

Dont know if this helped or not, my replys some times don't make that much
sense when I sleep 14 hours over a 5 day period :)... Feel free to aim me(
genmud2 ) or pm me for questions.

[jsabarese]

thanks for the reply!
i'm not sure what you mean by URL.QUERYSTRING, but i'll do some research. i am
just a beginner.

the database is already set up, as you can see from
[url]http://www.alleycatmusic.net/coldfusion/eureka.cfm[/url] -- all of the concert info
on that test page is being pulled from the db. i can add stuff like ticket
prices, event time, etc., later. the db currently has columns only matching the
form fields at the URL in my reply here, and the unique identifier ID column as
well, which is an MS Access auto-number.

i guess where i'm getting confused in my conceptualization of it all is that i
can't think how once the data is in the db, how it will automatically appear on
a month-view style calendar, and then also automatically create a date-view
page for the absolute URL links.

[jsabarese]

I've added a few columns to the file, and i've encountered some problems which
i must correct before i move on.

please take a look here
[url]http://www.eastcoastbandnetwork.com/cfdocs/eureka_new.cfm[/url]

i don't understand why i often get a "1" or "0" in the #All Ages# <cfoutput>
(see all ages in the dynamic text)

i also need to know how to have CF print "N/A" (as in, "not available") when
no ticket prices are input in the form. please test by submitting a form so
that you can see what i mean.

thanks!!

[jmj]

>i don't understand why i often get a "1" or "0" in the #All Ages# <cfoutput>
(see all ages in the dynamic text)
Check your database. What data is in #all Ages# (BTW Do you really have a
space between All and ages- not good use _ Spaces will make life wacky) You
said you added some fields to your database. Maybe that is the problem- you
are inserting data into the wrong field. (ie: In SQL you must have the
<cfprocparam> lined up in the same exact order as in the stored procedure)

>CF print "N/A" (as in, "not available") when no ticket prices are input in

the form. Is it showing as a blank or as 0.
You'll need to do an if statement.
1. Decide a new variable name for your field that you want to output. (Make
it different than you db one)
2. Write an cfif statement.
<cfif queryname.ticketprice is '' or queryname.ticketprice is '0'>
<cfset newticketprice="N/A">
<CFELSE>
<CFSET newticketprice=queryname.ticketprice >
</CFIF>
3. Replace the old variable with the new variable name in the output.
(note: put the cfif in a loop if you are looping through data)
About the urls to show the data from different dates. Your url link will have
the database info in it to show the user the correct data. Usually you'd use
some id.
For example <a href= "blah.cfm?=BandId=#BandID#>#BandName#</a>

There are many calendar resources on the exchange. I don't know if there's
one exactly like you want as yours sound like a formatting thing/ I'd look at
shopping carts too.
Hope this helps.

[dempster]

It looks like you have the foundation of a system - a database that tracks the
information, including a date. To display information for a particular date,
you want a URL that can pass the appropriate parameters in the CGI query
string. This is the part of a URL that follows the question mark.

For example, you could have a URL like this:
[url]http://www.crowbarlivemusic.com/calendar.cfm?yr=2005&mo=5&da=31[/url]

With those parameters, you can create a date object in ColdFusion:
CFSET showdate = CreateDate(URL.yr, URL.mo, URL.da)
This would allow you to query the database for records that match this date.

Dates can be tricky, so you need to be aware of how you create date values in
the database and how you query them. Date fields in Access actually contain
dates and times, but if you don't specify a time it defaults to 00:00:00. I
usually query for a date by looking for all date values between times 00:00:00
and 23:59:59 on a particular day.

As you build your database, you can use different date functions to create
weekly or monthly calendars in addition to individual days.

-Paul

Paul Dempsey
Dickinson College

[jsabarese]

Thanks! your comments are very helpful!

i'm not sure if this is what you mean or not, but i have the show time column
set in access as "medium time" and the date of show set as "short date".

i feel like the info you've provided will put me on the cusp of a finished
project-- i only need you to please be a bit more specific about how i should
organize that data, and if i need to code any special settings in CFML in order
to reach my desired result. if i read you correctly however, i believe "short
date" takes care of the time problem.

any ideas about the no ticket price problem? could i accomplish that w/ a
<cfif> statement? if so, any suggestions on how to handle that data?

and what about the "1" , "0" vs yes / no for the all-ages category?

thank you very much!

[jsabarese]

now that i see how many people have apparently tested this page, i'm thinking
that i need to have ColdFusion process the dates-- so no two Events are allowed
to be posted on the same date-- to avoid human error... or at least a warning
message should pop-up in the case that it is necessary to disply two seperate
events on the same date. suggestions for that?

[jsabarese]

Originally posted by: jmj1. Decide a new variable name for your field that you
want to output. (Make it different than you db one)
2. Write an cfif statement.
<cfif queryname.ticketprice is '' or queryname.ticketprice is '0'>
<cfset newticketprice="N/A">
<CFELSE>
<CFSET newticketprice=queryname.ticketprice >
</CFIF>
3. Replace the old variable with the new variable name in the output.
(note: put the cfif in a loop if you are looping through data)
About the urls to show the data from different dates. Your url link will have
the database info in it to show the user the correct data. Usually you'd use
some id.
For example <a href= "blah.cfm?=BandId=#BandID#>#BandName#</a>


will this go at the top of the document along w/ the <cfquery...> INSERT into
tablename</cfquery>? should it be inside of the original query in place of the
current code:
<cfif IsDefined("FORM.TIX_ADV") AND #FORM.TIX_ADV# NEQ "">
#FORM.TIX_ADV#
<cfelse>
NULL
</cfif>

?

[dempster]

Short date and short time are Access input masks. The actual date object in the
field is a full ODBC date/time. Depending on how you insert a record into the
database, it may just have the default time of 00:00:00.

You may need to validate data and check for duplicates before you add a
record. I tried to submit Feb. 30, 2006 and of course it crashed with an error.
And as you noted, without checking people can add multiple events for a given
date.

You do need to learn more about using dates and times - as I mentioned before,
it can be pretty complex.

-Paul

[jsabarese]

the date field in the form looks like this:

<tr valign="baseline">
<td nowrap align="right">Date of Show (mm/dd/yy) :</td>
<td><input type="text" name="DOS" value="03/05/06" size="32"></td>
</tr>

and the query looks like this:

<cfif IsDefined("FORM.DOS") AND #FORM.DOS# NEQ "">
'#FORM.DOS#'
<cfelse>
NULL
</cfif>

does that help you to help me? where do i need to look to determine if i'm
doing it the "right" way?

[dempster]

If you are going to allow the user to enter a date as a string of text, you can
use a ColdFusion feature that validates data as a date type. Place this hidden
field in your form:

INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="DOS_date" VALUE="Enter valid date for show."

If the user enters an invalid date, ColdFusion will flag this when processing
the form and will display the error message.

You can also control date input a little more by using select boxes to display
months, dates and years. You can use ColdFusion to generate these in your form:

<SELECT NAME="month">
<CFLOOP INDEX="mo" FROM="1" TO="12"><OPTION
VALUE="#mo#">#MonthAsString(mo)#</CFLOOP>
</SELECT>
<SELECT NAME="day">
<CFLOOP INDEX="dd" FROM="1" TO="31"><OPTION VALUE="#dd#">#dd#</CFLOOP>
</SELECT>

Then when the form is submitted, use the CreateDate function to put together
the month, day and year to make a date object.

You might want to consider making the show date and time a single date field.
This could be a little more efficient in your database. You would want to add
time fields to the form and then use CreateDateTime to put it all together
before adding to the database.

-Paul

[jsabarese]

i just realized that my form and the corresponding insert query were not setup
the way i thought i had it. i was overlooking some simple stuff-- typical case
of looking at the same or similar code for way too long!

the hyperlinks are now properly generated w/ dynamic data, and the ALL_AGES
insert now results in the appropriate text instead of ones and zeros.

i browsed the exchange, but i didn't find what i'm looking for-- perhaps
because i don't know precisely what to call it. i thought it would be great to
solve the DOS (show date) problem w/ a pop up java (or otherwise) calendar,
which would look like a calendar, months could be selected, and it would
control the data by allowing the user to only submit certain values, and it
would add a "neat-o" factor as well.

anyone have code for something like i've described?

dempster, i copied and pasted your code (from your most recent post above)
and put it in the bottom left corner of my modified page. it's not submitting
data as part of my form, but i wanted to see what it looked like.
is [url]http://www.eastcoastbandnetwork.com/cfdocs/eureka_new.cfm[/url] how it's supposed
to behave? i very much appreciate all of your help, but i'm confused w/ that
code.

thanks again!

[dempster]

Make sure you enclose the code in CFOUTPUT tags to display the values of the
variables. I've attached some code that also shows the year field, starting
with the current year and allowing the user to go forward 3 years. This code
also pre-selects the current month and day as a starting default.

-Paul



<CFSET TDATE=NOW()>
<CFOUTPUT>
<SELECT NAME="month">
<CFLOOP INDEX="mo" FROM="1" TO="12"><OPTION VALUE="#mo#"<CFIF MONTH(TDATE) EQ
MO> SELECTED</CFIF>>#MonthAsString(mo)#</CFLOOP>
</SELECT>
<SELECT NAME="day">
<CFLOOP INDEX="dd" FROM="1" TO="31"><OPTION VALUE="#dd#"<CFIF DAY(TDATE) EQ
DD> SELECTED</CFIF>>#dd#</CFLOOP>
</SELECT>
<SELECT NAME="year">
<CFLOOP INDEX="yy" FROM="#Year(tdate)#" TO="#Evaluate(Year(tdate) +
3)#"><OPTION VALUE="#yy#"<CFIF YEAR(TDATE) EQ YY> SELECTED</CFIF>>#yy#</CFLOOP>
</SELECT>
</CFOUTPUT>

[jorgepino]

if you going to usethe pull down, remember to check if the date is valid, IsDate(string)

[jsabarese]

forgive me-- i haven't attempted to code for the ability to send absolute URLs,
in a weekly calendar event newsletter for example.

i guess i'm intimidated by the available options.
you've seen my main "admin" data entry page. now that i have IT working the
way i want, what should be my next page that i need to create? how many
supplemental pages will i ultimately need?

i plan to have a template that the dynamic code will use so they all look the
same, so i guess that's one page-- unless i library item is used, but where do
i go from there?

i feel that once i get that part started, the rest will come to me--
epsecially considering all of the extremely helpful posts in this thread!