posted February 22, 2004 02:22 PM            

finally there is also a rss template for the calendarscript
(I've cleaned up the full year template for this template and changed some code)
I don't know if rss is so popular and necessary, nevertheless here is the code:

file name = rss.xml
save it in tour template directory

to call the rss: http://foo.bar/cgi-bin/.../calendar.cgi?view=rss&calendar=yourcalendat&template=rss.xml

****************************
<%= "<rss version=\"0.92\">" %>
<%= "<channel>" %>
<%= "<title> YOUR TEXT HERE - " %><% CALENDAR NAME %><%= "</title>" %>
<%= "<description>" %><% CALENDAR DESCRIPTION %><%= "</description>" %>
<%= "<link>" %><%=$CGI_URL%><%= "?calendar=" %><% CALENDAR KEY %><%= "</link>" %>
<%= "<language>en</language>" %><% $STYLE = $in{style} | | "Grid"; $VIEW = $in{view}; if ($VIEW eq "rss") {$sd = $DATESTRING; substr ($sd, -2, 2) = "01"; &getEvents( { 'duration'=>'90d','startdate'=>$sd } ); }%><% if ($VIEW eq "rss") { %><% if ($STYLE eq "Grid") { %><%FOREACH GRID ROW%><%FOREACH GRID COLUMN%><%IF DISPLAY%><%FOREACH EVENT%><%$i++;%>
<%= "<item>" %>
<%= "<title>" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(date) %><%= "/" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(month) %><%= "/" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(year) %><%= " (dmy) :: " %><%= EVENT FIELD(title) %><%= "</title>" %>
<%= "<description>" %><%= EVENT FIELD(subject) %><%= "</description>" %>
<%= "<link>" %><%=$CGI_URL%><%= "?month=" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(month) %><%= "\&calendar=" %><% CALENDAR KEY %><%= "&view=Event" %><%= "&event_id=" %><%= SCHEDULE FIELD(event_id) %><%= "&datestring=" %><%= SCHEDULE FIELD(datestring) %><%= "</link>" %>
<%= "</item>" %><%/FOREACH%><%/IF%><%/FOREACH%><%/FOREACH%><% } %><% } %>
<%= "</channel>" %>
<%= "</rss> " %>
****************************

posted June 20, 2005 03:56 PM         

code:

---

syntax error at (eval 1) line 7, near "| |" 

---

And it highlights this line:

code:

---

print "\n";print "<language>en</language>";print "";$STYLE = $in{style} | | "Grid"; $VIEW = $in{view}; if ($VIEW eq "rss") {$sd = $DATESTRING; substr ($sd, -2, 2) = "01"; &getEvents( { 'duration'=>'90d','startdate'=>$sd } ); }print "";if ($VIEW eq "rss") {print "";if ($STYLE eq "Grid") {print "";foreach $ROW (0 .. $Grid->{rowcount}-1) {print "";foreach $COL (0 .. $Grid->{colcount}-1) { $DAY = $Grid->{grid}->[$ROW]->[$COL]; my ($EVENTS) = $Grid->{grid}->[$ROW]->[$COL]->{events};print "";if ($DAY->{'display'}) {print "";foreach $EVENT (@$EVENTS) {print "";$i++;

---

I'm using CS 3.21.

Anyone else get RSS feeds working?

posted June 20, 2005 04:25 PM            

This forum software adds a space between "| |" characters which should not be there.
You will have to remove any space(s) between | | characters in the code posted above.

If you find it works Ok, maybe I'll make a full fledged template out of it
and add it to the Unofficial CalendarScript - Mods and Plugins site.

JFYI

Dan O.

posted June 20, 2005 06:10 PM         

Yes, that helped.

Once I got that fixed, I found errors in the URLs created. In properly formed XML, ampersands have to be encoded in URLs, so here's the fixed code:

******************
<%= "<rss version=\"0.92\">" %>
<%= "<channel>" %>
<%= "<title> YOUR TEXT HERE - " %><% CALENDAR NAME %><%= "</title>" %>
<%= "<description>" %><% CALENDAR DESCRIPTION %><%= "</description>" %>
<%= "<link>" %><%=$CGI_URL%><%= "?calendar=" %><% CALENDAR KEY %><%= "</link>" %>
<%= "<language>en</language>" %><% $STYLE = $in{style} | | "Grid"; $VIEW = $in{view}; if ($VIEW eq "rss") {$sd = $DATESTRING; substr ($sd, -2, 2) = "01"; &getEvents( { 'duration'=>'90d','startdate'=>$sd } ); }%><% if ($VIEW eq "rss") { %><% if ($STYLE eq "Grid") { %><%FOREACH GRID ROW%><%FOREACH GRID COLUMN%><%IF DISPLAY%><%FOREACH EVENT%><%$i++;%>
<%= "<item>" %>
<%= "<title>" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(date) %><%= "/" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(month) %><%= "/" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(year) %><%= " (dmy) :: " %><%= EVENT FIELD(title) %><%= "</title>" %>
<%= "<description>" %><%= EVENT FIELD(subject) %><%= "</description>" %>
<%= "<link>" %><%=$CGI_URL%><%= "?month=" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(month) %><%= "&calendar=" %><% CALENDAR KEY %><%= "&view=Event" %><%= "&event_id=" %><%= SCHEDULE FIELD(event_id) %><%= "&datestring=" %><%= SCHEDULE FIELD(datestring) %><%= "</link>" %>
<%= "</item>" %><%/FOREACH%><%/IF%><%/FOREACH%><%/FOREACH%><% } %><% } %>
<%= "</channel>" %>
<%= "</rss> " %>
****************
Argh... this board...

Okay, the line for the link ("<%= "<link>" %><%=$CGI_URL%><%= "?month=" %><% SCHEDULE FIELD(month) %><%= "&calendar=" %>.... where it says "&calendar", that standalone & should be the & a m p ; (minus the spaces). This board seems to not like that. Do that for &calendar &view &event_id &datestring.

I've only tested this in Safari 2.0 and NetNewsWire 2.0 (both worked great). If others could take a whack at it, that'd be good.

(kids, don't forget to get rid of that extra space at the pipes!)

------------------

posted July 15, 2005 12:26 AM            

Thanks Walter.

Dan O.

posted October 16, 2005 11:34 PM         

1) <%= "<description>" %><%= EVENT FIELD(description) %><%= "</description>" %> won't parse because the parser sees the second 'description' as an error. Most of us use the unique field id 'description' because it is defaulted into calendarscript and would be hard to change in all our custom templates. I tried a standard backslash escape character but no luck yet. Will keep you posted.
2) The feed won't validate because of the html tags fed from the default template. A new working template without them would need to be created and called from the rss.xml template, or coding to strip the tags in the template.
3) Although not required, an RFC-822 compliant <date> field in the channel would be nice.

I'll play with some of this in my spare time, but you may already have some ideas.

DanO, could an alias for EVENT FIELD(description) be coded to circumvent problem 1)?

posted October 17, 2005 12:58 AM            

I'm afraid you will have to further explain the problem(s) as I am not at all familiar
with rss requirements and don't fully understand what you've described.

** won't parse **

Won't parse where? By CalendarScript or a RSS reader?

** an RFC-822 compliant <date> field in the channel would be nice **

In what format?

Dan O.

posted October 17, 2005 10:08 PM         

-- For some reason the second use of the word 'description' even within perl brackets as in <%= EVENT FIELD(description) %> crashes the RSS parsers (I have tried both RssReader and Firefox). This also answers your second question. I have tried adding the standard backslash '\' escape character at different points in the statement without success. I think the second use of the word 'description' is confusing the RSS parsers.

As evidence, if I use the statement <%= EVENT FIELD(location) %> which is a custom field in my Calenderscript installation, as in <%= "<description>" %><%= EVENT FIELD(location) %><%= "</description>" %> in the rss.xml facade that Walter created, the RSS parsers work correctly and that field shows up in the parser output without issue.

Hope this helps. The other problem, being the inclusion of html tags like <head></head> and body></body> which may or may not be problematic depending on the RSS parser being used, I think can easily be excluded by creating a "rss" template which does not use those tags. A proper validation of the feed at http://feedvalidator.org is a prerequisite for getting your feed sydicated and displayed on the major services.

As to your third question, the example '16 Oct 2005 19:38:32 MDT' validates correctly as RFC-822 compliant at feedvalidator.org

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide,
Mark

------------------

posted October 17, 2005 10:50 PM         

"I don't know if rss is so popular and necessary, nevertheless here is the code:"

RSS is both "popular and necessary."
Otherwise, Google, The New York Times, Yahoo!, MSN, BBC, Reuters, Playbill, AP, and hundreds of other major media services wouldn't be using RSS as their primary means of electronic information deployment.

You're on the right track, Walter. Keep up the good work!

------------------

posted October 18, 2005 01:23 AM            

An RSS parser shouldn't even see that tag as it will be replaced by the 'description' event field
when CalendarScript parses the template first.

You are calling it through CalendarScript rather than directly aren't you???

The order goes; CalendarScript parses the template, removes all ASP-like tags (eg. <% ... %> )
and replaces any event field tags (eg. <%= EVENT FIELD(description) %> ) with the actual
event field data (in that case the event description field). Only THEN does the RSS
parser get what code is left.

<%= EVENT FIELD(description) %> should be *completely* gone
from the output BEFORE the RSS parser even gets it.

Dan O.

posted October 18, 2005 07:37 AM         

I will dig into it further when time is available.

posted October 18, 2005 01:15 PM            

If you would supply a real address for it we might be able to look into what's going on.
Something isn't right if any of the <% ... %> tags are still present after being called.

JFYI

Dan O.

posted October 20, 2005 11:07 AM         

I was wrong about the <%= EVENT FIELD(description) %> being the cause of the problem. It is illegal characters (for xml) that appear between the tags in the content. These include
'
"
&
<
>
\

They could be escaped or enclosed in [CDATA[ blocks to give a well-formed xml output. I am going to try the latter approach since it seems simpler. Changing them to html equivalents has been shown to cause problems with some versions of Firefox.

I also found that something like this <%= "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>" %> should appear as a declaration line at the top of the template. An encoding declaration could also appear, but apparently is not required.

As to serving the feed as text/html which feedvalidator.org doesn't like, I found this line in calendar.pl
unless ($no_header) { print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; }

If that could be appended to print application/rss+xml or text/xml when the View is rss, that should solve the problem.

I'm just scratching the surface, so I haven't tried incorporating any changes yet.

------------------

posted October 20, 2005 01:56 PM            

JFYI. Any text you want printed out verbatim, you don't need to enclose in
<%= ... %> tags. just put the actual code where it would be. Eg.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="0.92">
<channel>
<title> YOUR TEXT HERE - <%= CALENDAR NAME %></title>
<description><%= CALENDAR DESCRIPTION %></description>

Just calendar variables and Perl programming code needs to be within the ASP-like tags.

** If that could be appended to print application/rss+xml **

AFAIK, that could only be done from within a plug-in, not just from a template.
Maybe if someone can come up with a working template, I might look into that
part of it... if no one else does in the mean time.

JFYI

Dan O.

posted October 21, 2005 10:02 AM         

** that could only be done from within a plug-in, not just from a template.**

I tried adding some lines to my calender.pl but I am a little syntax-stupid. In one case I got it serving as application/xml but killed text/html for other views.
In another attempt, I got it to do both but it just printed the content type in the xml output rather than serving it that way.

Will keep twiddling as time permits.

posted October 21, 2005 01:17 PM            

* I tried adding some lines to my calendar.pl *

I should have clarified that: It can only be done through a plug-in other
than modifying the calendar.pl file *which is not a good idea* as it
isn't very portable. It might be Ok for just testing though.

JMO

Dan O.

posted November 22, 2005 03:43 PM         

It outputs valid RSS 2.0 with one minor exception of the "Content-type:" issue noted above. The xml parses correctly in everything I've tried sofar including My! Yahoo.

Niceties (but not necessities) would be the ability to pass day names in the search results, and 'hh:mm:ss zzz' to the lastBuildDate.

The zipped template is here: ftp://shell.dimensional.com/users/musicvid/pub/utilities/RssCalendar.zip

A working example can be seen here, assuming you have a reader, personalized page, or Firefox: Ballroom Dance Events
(You would right-click on the link and "Copy Link Location")
Note that the example only searches for "Ballroom" events from the master calendar for 185 days. You can leave the '&FIELD_=' criteria blank to display all events in a calendar.

I'll check back here for feedback and bugs before issuing a final version.

[This message has been edited by musicvid (edited November 22, 2005).]

posted November 25, 2005 06:02 PM         

Find:

unless ($no_header) {
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
}

Change To:

unless ($no_header) {
unless ($in{'template'} =~ m/.xml$/) {
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
}
else {
print "Content-type: application/xml\n\n";
}}

Usually not necessary, but there if you need it or like squeaky-clean output like I do.

------------------

posted December 01, 2005 12:13 PM         

Then you can call the date like this: <%= $rfc822_date %>
The drawback is this only works on Unix servers, and is a bit slower than calling it from Calendarscript.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2)This method involves creating some more template variables in calendar.pl that call the current hh mm ss in the output:

IN CALENDAR.PL FIND:
($Template::TODAY_YEAR,$Template::TODAY_MONTH,$Template::TODAY_DATE) = ($now_yy,$now_mm,$now_dd);

REPLACE WITH:
($Template::TODAY_YEAR,$Template::TODAY_MONTH,$Template::TODAY_DATE,$Template::TODAY_HOUR,$Template::TODAY_MINUTE,$Template::TODAY_SECOND,$Template::TODAY_WEEKDAY,$Template::TODAY_ YEARDAY,$Template::TODAY_DST) = ($now_yy,$now_mm,$now_dd,$now_hh,$now_mi,$now_ss,$now_wd,$now_yd,$now_dst);
$Template::TODAY_MM = &LZ($Template::TODAY_MONTH);
$Template::TODAY_DD = &LZ($Template::TODAY_DATE);
$Template::TODAY_HH = &LZ($Template::TODAY_HOUR);
$Template::TODAY_MI = &LZ($Template::TODAY_MINUTE);
$Template::TODAY_SS = &LZ($Template::TODAY_SECOND);

Note that the last five variables force a two-digit output ('01' instead of '1')

Now you can print an RFC-822 date as follows (Change the time zones to your own):
<% print "$DAY_ABBREVIATIONS->[$TODAY_WEEKDAY], $TODAY_DATE $MONTH_ABBREVIATIONS->[$TODAY_MONTH-1] $TODAY_YEAR $TODAY_HH\:$TODAY_MI\:$TODAY_SS ";
if ($TODAY_DST eq "0") {print "MST";}
elsif ($TODAY_DST eq "1") {print "DST";}
else {}; %>

Or you can do this:
<%= $DAY_ABBREVIATIONS->[$TODAY_WEEKDAY] %>, <%= $TODAY_DATE %> <%= $MONTH_ABBREVIATIONS->[$TODAY_MONTH-1] %> <%= $TODAY_YEAR %> <%= $TODAY_HH %>:<%= $TODAY_MI %>:<%= $TODAY_SS %> <% if ($TODAY_DST eq "0") {%>MST<% else %>MDT<%}%>

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's an example of a NON compliant date using the new variables (above) that you can put in your calendar templates and demonstrate what you can do with the new variables:
<% my $pm_hour=$TODAY_HOUR-12;
print "Viewed on $DAY_ABBREVIATIONS->[$TODAY_WEEKDAY], $MONTH_ABBREVIATIONS->[$TODAY_MONTH-1] $TODAY_DATE $TODAY_YEAR at ";
if ($TODAY_HOUR eq "0") {print "12\:$TODAY_MI\:$TODAY_SS am ";}
elsif (($TODAY_HOUR > "0") && ($TODAY_HOUR < "12")) {print "$TODAY_HOUR\:$TODAY_MI\:$TODAY_SS am ";}
elsif ($TODAY_HOUR eq "12") {print "12\:$TODAY_MI\:$TODAY_SS pm ";}
elsif ($TODAY_HOUR > "12") {print "$pm_hour\:$TODAY_MI\:$TODAY_SS pm ";}
else {};
if ($TODAY_DST eq "0") {print "MST";}
elsif ($TODAY_DST eq "1") {print "DST";}
else {}; %>

The output looks like this: 'Viewed on Thu, Dec 1 2005 at 9:09:09 am MST'
------------------

posted February 18, 2006 01:48 PM            

JFYI

Dan O.

posted March 11, 2006 01:47 PM         

------------------

posted November 25, 2006 05:09 PM            

It looks like Date/Manip.pm may not be part of the standard Perl distribution package in which
case users would have to install it on their server in order to use musicvid's XML template.

JFYI

Dan O.

posted December 01, 2006 10:16 PM         

Re Dano's post above, this new one uses Posix (strftime) OR Date::Format to get the RFC822 date, one or both of which should be on 100% of Perl 5+ server installations.

The new version also has two selectable modes, a Basic mode that utilizes any of the &getEvents functions with only minimal configuration, and the Advanced mode that filters the results in concert with Dano's Searchlink plugin as before.

Other new features:
-- Works with multiple calendars by generating feeds "on the fly," using a single RSS/Event View template set.
-- MetaCalendar friendly, also retrieves which calendar the item came from.
-- Displays the calendar name or description if desired, automatically uses the calendar's custom colors for event display, passes the event day of week or abbreviation, also your organization name or abbreviation, the channel image, and the date/time of last update.

A working example of RssCalendar2 in Basic mode is here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/LcmaEventsCalendar
The raw feed XML is here: http://littletonmusic.org/cgi-bin/calendar/calendar.pl?calendar=default&template=rsscalendar.xml

An example of RssCalendar2 in Advanced mode that only fetches "Ballroom" events for the next 185 days is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LcmaBallroomEventsCalendar
The raw feed XML is here:
http://littletonmusic.org/cgi-bin/calendar/calendar.pl?calendar=default&template=rsscalendar.xml&view=Search&command=search&FIELD_event_type=Ballroom&duration=185

I have used this on my sites for 6 months without issues, but I need to "genericize" it a bit before releasing it and sending a copy to DanO. I plan to do this over the holidays. Hope this will be useful to someone.

posted December 02, 2006 02:07 AM            

quote:

---

Internet Explorer cannot display this feed

This feed contains code errors.

An invalid character was found in text content.
Line: 250 Character: 63

<description><![CDATA[Sun, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm -- BOARD MEETING

---

Sun, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm -- BOARD MEETING ? LCMA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Sunday, November 19, 2006 ? 1:30PM ? 3:30PM

The RssCalendar2 in Advanced mode displayed fine.

JFYI

Dan O.

posted December 02, 2006 10:52 AM         

quote:

---

Internet Explorer cannot display this feed

This feed contains code errors.

An invalid character was found in text content.
Line: 250 Character: 63

---

Sometimes individual characters encoded in ASCII-US creep into XML titles or descriptions and IE doesn't know how to handle them -- like when some email content is pasted directly into an event listing, which is what happened in this case. It's a problem with XML, and some browsers/readers/validators are more picky about it than others.

Anyway, I retyped the offending entry, and it looks fine in my IE now. Let me know if you see any other issues (you may have to clear your IE cache to see the most recent content). Will send you the template files after I have removed a couple of personal customizations.

Thanks DanO!

------------------

posted December 02, 2006 02:30 PM            

Dan O.

posted March 01, 2007 02:45 AM            

Can't locate Date/Manip.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/domain.com/cgi-bin/calendar/calendarscript/plugins/EmailNotify2/ /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/domain.com/cgi-bin/calendar/calendarscript/lib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.2/mach /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.2 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.2/BSDPAN /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.2/mach /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.2 .) at (eval 3) line 3. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 3) line 3.

its strange that it mentions EmailNotify2

------------------

posted March 09, 2007 07:51 PM         

Just follow the instructions.

------------------