Event Calendar

Usually, posts dated in the future don't appear in your blog until the date and time set within them. The Event Calendar plugin makes them available right away. This enables you to create a calendar of upcoming events (Figure 40), each of which are tied to a blog entry that can provide additional event details. Best of all, events scroll off the calendar and events list automatically when they have passed.

Figure 40. Event Calendar makes it easy to maintain a calendar of upcoming eventsright in your blog.

Event Calendar was written by Alex Tingle. It can be found at blog.firetree.net/2005/07/18/eventcalendar-30.

Tip

• Maria makes extensive use of Event Calendar to list upcoming holidays, Town Council Meetings, and other events on her local area Web site, wickenburg-az.com.

To install, activate, & configure Event Calendar

1.	Upload the eventcalendar3 folder and eventcalendar3.php file to the plugins folder in your wp-content folder (Figure 41). Figure 41. Copy the eventcalendar3 folder and eventcalendar3.php file to your plugins folder.
2.	In the Plugin Management administration panel, activate the Event Calendar plugin.
3.	If necesssary, display the Manage Categories administration panel and add a new category named Events (Figure 42). Figure 42. If you don't already have a category created for events, add one.
4.	Click Options and then click Event Calendar to display the Event Calendar Options administration panel (Figure 43). Figure 43. You can set options for Event Calendar in its administration panel.
5.	Choose Events from the Event category drop-down list (Figure 44). Figure 44. Be sure to choose the Events category from the Event category drop-down list.
6.	To display events only in the Events category and not on the front page of your blog, choose Keep Events Separate from the Show events as blog entries drop-down list.
7.	Set Calendar Display options as desired.
8.	Click the Update options button to save your settings.

Tips

• In step 3, you can name the event calendar category anything you like. Just be sure to choose that category in step 5.

• Consult the Read Me file that comes with Event Calendar for more information about setting options and customizing the appearance of your calendar. It also explains a problem that may crop up with early versions of WordPress 2, and how to deal with that problem by editing some files. We were not affected by the problem and did not have to edit any files.

To use Event Calendar

1.	Use your browsers Copy command to copy the Example Sidebar Code at the bottom of the Event Calendar Options administration panel (Figure 43).
2.	Use your favorite text editor to open the sidebar.php file for your theme.
3.	Use the Paste command to paste the code where you want the calendar of events to appear (Figure 45). Figure 45. In this example, we've pasted the Event Calendar code into the sidebar.php file for the default theme.
4.	Save the sidebar.php file.
5.	Use the Write Post administration panel to create one or more posts for future events. For each event, be sure to set the Post Timestamp to the correct future date and time and set the Categories to Events (Figure 46). Figure 46. It's vital that you choose the Events category and set a future date and time when creating a post for an event.
6.	View your blog. You should see a calendar and a list of Events in the Sidebar (Figure 40). Click the link for an event to see its details on a blog entry page.

Tip

• We tell you all about creating posts in Chapter 3.