[CLUE-Admin] Re: CLUE Calendar Questions

[Jeffery Cann]

On Thursday 29 May 2003 10:37 am, Paul Bille wrote:
> The logic I use here is:  The calendar belongs to CLUE, hence the CLUE
> logo and references back to CLUE.  Often there are hot links to
> supporting docs for events sponsored by other organizations.

I'm against the idea of our logo being associated with other's events.  I 
think it's misleading.  Community-interest events are great, just don't 
associate CLUE's logo with them, please.

> Some of this is of course philosophical.  We should get together as a
> group and discuss how this works and ways to improve the process.
> Unfortunately, I'm strapped financially and find myself forced to work
> for money; this project has to wait 'til I have "free" time available.

In January, I asked Paul to fix his calendar application so it will compile 
and run on Linux asap -- he has library problems and currently is running on 
a flavor of Windows.

I am sympathetic to Paul's lack of free time and financial concerns.  I also  
appreciate Paul's efforts to keep the calendar manually up-to-date.  I think 
the calendar is a good idea.  

I have said several times that I am against the plethora of manual updates for 
the web site, calendar, presentation page, etc.  It's inefficient and can 
result in incorrect data because of the multiple sources / persons updating 
each location.

Paul has been prohibited from working on his application due to greater 
personal concerns.  Given this, it seems unreasonable for him to change code 
to accomodate our desire for a single update.   This is in addition to the 
Linux compilation problem.  He maintains that he does not have the time and 
he hasn't for the the past 9 months.

In addition, he has not yet offered to give us his calendar code to fix it 
ourselves.  I don't know if he is willing to release it under the GPL or if 
anyone of us has time to sort out the compilation problems and enhance it.  
But I think it is a problem for a Linux user group -- we advocate GPL / Open 
Source software, yet our calendar is not released under the GPL and it 
doesn't run on Linux :)

Perhaps with Jed's proposed changes for presentations, it would be possible to 
integrate another calendar so that we have a single update point which feeds 
a calendar, home page, and presentations history page.  This would simplify 
the process of keeping the web site and calendar in-sync and up-to-date and 
only require a single update. 

So, I think we should research additional calendar software.  Here are some 
that I have seen:

http://php-calendar.sourceforge.net/
http://myPHPCalendar.sourceforge.net/
http://freshmeat.net/projects/event_calendar/

It's possible that none of these have an API or automated update, which leaves 
us in the same boat as we are now.  However, these items are GPL, so we can 
modify them.  In addition, we can host them on the CLUE Linux server and 
possibly contribute a source code changes that facilitate our needs.

Give it some thought.
Jeff



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jed S. Baer [mailto:thag at frii.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 9:34 PM
> To: Paul at eBille.cudenver.edu
> Subject: CLUE Calendar Questions
>
>
> Hi Paul.
>
> A couple things actually.
>
> Dunno if you're on the CLUE-Admin list (I assume you are). But is it
> feasible to directly update the calendar database with meeting
> announcements? Well, I'm sure it is, but the question would be how to do
> it. If there were a form the admins used to upload/enter meeting info
> (topic, etc.), how would that form insert (or update) the info? Looking
> around at the various calendar entries, it looks more or less free-form.
> I infer that the database is pretty simple then? I'm concerned about
> formatting for this case. The subject should be coming up soon on
> CLUE-Dev anyway, but  If you're not on the clue-admin list:
>
> http://clue.denver.co.us/pipermail/clue-admin/2003-May/001674.html
>
> Also, I noted that some non-CLUE events are displayed with the CLUE
> logo. Perhaps that's misleading? And, I note that the calendar entries
> open a new browser window, and the page displayed has a linkback to the
> main calendar page, which then opens a new window for an entry when it's
> clicked (lather, rinse, repeat).
>
> Later,
> jed

-- 
"Keep yourselves far from every form of exaggerated nationalism, racism and 
intolerance."
-- Pope John Paul II