Creating and Naming your Calendar
Before creating your calendar, you would be wise to join the Calendars Net Private Email List (form is on home page). There may come a time when we have to make changes to Calendars Net that you will need to know about in order to use your calendar. So far we haven't made any such changes, but it could happen. We have been sending out about two messages per month. We also won't give your email address to anyone else or use it for any other purpose.
To create a calendar, click on Create a Free Calendar above. Enter a name for your calendar. It can have up to 16 alphanumeric characters. It cannot have spaces or punctuation (periods, colons, semi-colons, slashes, etc). It is just like naming a DOS file without an extension. The name of your calendar is in fact its file name.
If you have forgotten your calendar's name, contact the Lost Calendar Retrieval Post.
Your Calendar's Address and Linking To It
If Your Users Do Not Use the Email Notification FeatureThe Email Notification feature sends email to your list of addresses when an event on your calendar is added or changed). Your users will probably never use this, so use this web address for your calendar: my.calendars.net/NAMEOFCALENDAR where NAME is the 1-16 character name you entered when creating the calendar.. Give this address to those who will be using your calendar, or put this hyperlink in your web pages: <a href=http://my.calendars.net/NAME>Calendar</a>The my.calendars.net server is not only faster, but it also avoids any Access Problem due to User's Firewall, which is described below. You can also use the older address, www.calsnet.net/nameofcalendar.
|
<A HREF=http://my.calendars.net/NAME><IMG SRC="http://www.calendars.net/images/ical2.jpg" ALT="Calendar" BORDER="0"><BR>Calendar</A> |
If Your Users Do Use the Email Notification FeatureIn this very unlikely event, then the web address for your calendar is: email.calendars.net/NAMEOFCALENDAR where NAME is the 1-16 character name you entered when creating the calendar.. Give this address to those who will be using your calendar, or put this hyperlink in your web pages: <a href=http://email.calendars.net/NAMEOFCALENDAR>Calendar</a>You can also use the older address, www.calsnet.com/nameofcalendar.
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<A HREF=http://my.calendars.net/NAME><IMG SRC="http://www.calendars.net/images/ical2.jpg" ALT="Calendar" BORDER="0"><BR>Calendar</A> |
If you want your link to have this small
calendar image, use the code in blue:
I Lost My UserID or Password
You can ask for your userid and password by at the Calendars Net Security Post.
Linking Back to Your Home Page
You can link back to your home page by putting an HTML link in your calendar's title, header, or footer, like this:
<a href=http://www.mysite.com/myhomepage.htm>Link Back to My Home Page</a> |
To see how to put hyperlinks into your calendar's title, header, footer, events, and popup text boxes, see Putting Hyperlinks into your Calendar.
Changing Your Calendar's Name or Deleting Your Calendar
If you want to change the name of your calendar:
- You can abandon the first calendar and create another one. If you do, please contact Calendars Net and tell us to delete the calendar you have abandoned. OR ...
- If you want to save the events you have already entered, contact Calendars Net and tell us to change the name of your calendar.
If you want to delete your calendar, ask us to do so at Calendars Net.
In both cases, you must tell us the settings-level password. Without that, we will not know that you are authorized to delete or rename the calendar. You will find the settings-level password on the Security menu.
Better Access with Alternative Calendar Servers
If you do not use the Email Notification feature, then you will get faster service by using this address to access your calendar:
my.calendars.net/NAMEOFCALENDAR
If you do need the Email Notification feature, use this server:
email.calendars.net/NAMEOFCALENDAR
Here is the HTML code to link to each of these alternative servers:
<a href=http://my.calendars.net/NAMEOFCALENDAR>Calendar</a>
<a href=http://email.calendars.net/NAMEOFCALENDAR>Calendar</a>
Please do not use any of the server's port numbers (8187, 8194, etc.) you might notice in your calendar's address shown by your browser. These may change in the future, which will break your link. But the various virtual directories listed above will remain correct. Linking to the virtual directory name instead of the port number allows us to direct hits to servers that are currently up and running. So please also tell your users not to bookmark addresses that show the port numbers.
Finally, some users may have found Calendars Net via other domain names that search engines index (such as www.calendar.org or www.schedules.net, etc.) that actually point to www.calendars.net. Your calendar's name is as indicated above, part of www.calendars.net.. These other domain names may presently work, but we may later use these names for other purposes.
Another way to speed up access is to reduce the size of your calendar by deleting very old events. On the main Calendar Settings menu you will find the selection Delete Month Events. You can use this to delete entire months of old events, making your calendar load a little faster. Note that this function deletes only individual events and does not delete periodic or duration events.
Speeding Up Your Calendar by Deleting Old Months of Events
If you continue to add more events to your calendar, its file size will grow. The bigger its file size, the slower it displays. If your calendar is large, you can greatly speed up the loading of your calendar by deleting obsolete old months of events.
This will not be useful, unless your calendar has, say, more than 100 events or has a lot of events that have lengthy pop-up text with them. You can see how large your file is by using the Calendars Net Download System and downloading a copy of your calendar datafile to your own computer. If the file is larger than 100k, you most certainly should reduce its size.
From your calendar, go to Administer this Calendar, Delete Month Events and choose which old months to delete. This function deletes only individual events and does not delete periodic or duration events, no matter when they occur.
One precaution you should take before doing this is to use the se the Calendars Net Download System to download a copy of your calendar datafile to your own computer. If you then accidentally delete more months than you intended, you can use the Calendars Net Upload System to upload the copy of your calendar that you downloaded, thereby returning your calendar to its original state.
Note: If you by accident delete more months than you wanted to, immediately send email to Restore My Calendar and stop editing your calendar. Usually within 24 hours, we will restore the most recent backup of your calendar file. We backup files on the public server every 24 hours.
If you want your users to continue to have access to the old months, while still having a fast current calendar, you can take one of these courses:
- Go to Administer, Publish Calendar, and choose a block of old months to "publish" to static HTML pages.
- Download those pages to your own computer using the instructions at Posting Static Calendar Pages on Your Web Site "Publish Calendar.
- Post those static pages on your own web site. As long as all of the static HTML pages are in the same directory, they will correctly interlink
- Use Administer, Delete Months to delete the events from the old months (periodic and duration events are not affected).
Request That We Archive Your Big Calendar. Just send email to Archive a Copy of My Large Calendar, telling us the name of the calendar and the last month you intend to delete. For example, if your calendar is named mycalendar and you intend to delete all events earlier than January 2001, you would state that the last month you intend to delete is December 2000. You then wait to hear back from us, before using the Delete Month Events function. We will make a copy of the calendar and name the copy the same as the original, except with numbers at the end to indicate the last month you intend to delete. In the mycalendar example above, we would name the archive mycalendar0112 (because "0112 means 2001, month 12). After we notify you by return email that the archive has been created, you can proceed to delete old months of events on your original calendar. You and the other users of your calendar can still then reach the archived version (in this example, mycalendar0112), although the archived calendar will probably be much slower to load.
Archive Your Big Calendar by Yourself. Use the Calendars Net Download System to download a copy of your calendar datafile to your own computer. Rename that file by adding to it numbers to indicate the last month you intend to delete. For example, if your calendar's filename is mycalendar.cal and you intend to delete all months up to and including December 2000, rename it to mycalendar0112.cal (because "0112 means 2001, month 12). Then use the Calendars Net Upload System to upload the renamed calendar. Then use the Delete Month Events function on your original calendar to delete the old months. You and the other users of your calendar can still then reach the archived version (by putting a "0112" at the end of the address, in the case of the "mycalendar" example above), although the archived calendar will probably be much slower to load.
Create and Save a Set of Static Calendar Pages. You can create a set of static HTML pages for the calendar months you want to delete and post those static pages on your own web site, before you use the Delete Month Events function.
This will create on your web site a group of interlinked months. If your calendar pages display graphic images you have previously uploaded to Calendars Net, you will need to put copies of those images, with the same file names, in the directory where you put your static pages. If the images in your calendar pages are links to images elsewhere on the internet, then you do not need to do this.
You can also create the static HTML pages by downloading the free version of iCal, installing it on your own Windows machine. You can then generate the static HTML files, using steps 1 and 3 from the method described above.
What if Old Events are Missing from My Calendar?
If your calendar file becomes so big that it starts to bog down our servers, and if there is no obvious email address on your calendar or on the web page linked to your calendar, then we may be compelled to delete old months of events from your calendar. In general, we will not delete events less than 6 months old, and we will only delete "daily" events, not periodic or duration events. If we do this to your calendar, and you notice that very old events are no longer there, you will find those events in your archived calendar, which is a snapshot of your calendar that we take just before deleting the old events. Your archive calendar is named xxxx1, where xxxx is the name of your calendar. Thus, if your calendar's name is mycalendar, then your archived calendar is named mycalendar1. You can download your archived calendar using the Calendars Net Download System and entering xxxx1.cal as its name (again, where xxxx is the name of your calendar).
In the very unfortunate event that we have to do this to your calendar more than once, then the second archived version will be named xxxx2.cal, where xxxx is the name of your calendar. If we have to do it again, the third archived version will be named xxxx3.cal. So to be sure you have all the old versions of your calendar, try to view calendar xxxx1, then xxxx2, then xxxx3, etc.
The usual reasons that a calendar become huge is that it has many Periodic Events created with the "Generate Daily Events" option. Using this option can instantly create thousands of daily events. Please use it with caution and only when absolutely necessary.
Putting a Title on Your Calendar
After you name your calendar, the Calendar Settings menu appears. Click on General Settings and give your calendar a title (replacing "iCal Default Calendar"). You can also enter a Title (which appears at the top of the calendar) and a Description of the calendar (which does not appear on it), but you can also add or edit these later, using the Administer menu.
We suggest that you use your email address for the Description. This will not appear on your calendar, but it is a field we can search on, should you ever lose the userIDs or passwords you create when setting up Security on your calendar. It also allows us, with confidence, to email back to you your lost userID or password, should you request it from the Calendars Net Security Post.
Just one request: Please send email to Calendars Net and tell us how you found this site. Which search engine did you use? What search terms did you use? Thanks. |
Embedding Your Calendar into Your Web Site
It is amazingly easy to make your calendar on Calendars Net appear inside your own web page. Just put this code in the page where you want the calendar to appear:
| This is the part of your page above the calendar. <ILAYER SRC="http://my.calendars.net/testcaltest"></ILAYER> <IFRAME NAME="cal" SRC="http://my.calendars.net/testcaltest" frameborder=0 height=780 width=100%></IFRAME> This is the part of your page below the calendar. |
To see how this page appears, click here: Sample Web Page with Embedded Calendar.
The ILAYER tag is used by Netscape 4.xx and is ignored by all other browsers. The IFRAME tag is used by Internet Explorer, Netscape 6.xx, Mozilla, and Opera.
You must, of course, insert the name of your calendar in place of "testcaltest" in the code. And you can remove the comments about the parts of your page.
If you set the IFRAME height attribute to 100%, not all of the calendar will show; so a vertical scroll bar will appear. If your calendar has a big title, header, or footer, of if it has many events, you should increase the height setting inside the IFRAME tag in order to avoid the appearance of a scrollbar.
Now it gets even better. You can put your calendar inside a cell in a table on your web page by using this code:
| This is the part of your page above the table containing the calendar. <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2"><TR> <TD WIDTH="620" HEIGHT="400"> <ILAYER SRC="http://my.calendars.net/testcaltest" height=400 width=620></ILAYER> <IFRAME NAME="cal" SRC="http://my.calendars.net/testcaltest" frameborder=0 height=400 width=620></IFRAME></TD> <TD HEIGHT="400" BGCOLOR="#FFCCCC">This is the right cell of row 1 of the table</TD> </TR><TR><TD WIDTH="620" BGCOLOR="#99CCFF">This is the left cell of row 2.</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#CCFFCC">This is the right cell of row 2.</TD></TR></TABLE> This is the part of your page below the table containing the calendar. |
To see how this page appears, click here: Sample Web Page with Embedded Calendar Inside Table.
Again, Netscape 4.xx uses only the ILAYER tag, while all other browsers use only the IFRAME tag.
You can determine the size of the "window" that looks at your calendar by changing the height and width settings. This allows you to flow text or other HTML elements around your calendar (to its left or right).
This code will display your calendar in its default mode, probably block/month. We set the default on the testcaltest calendar to block/week, because that fits well into a small area. But you can change that to any combination of views (block, list, condensed) and time periods (day, week, month, year) by going to Administer This Calendar, General Settings, and changing the default view.
Limitations of Embedding. Not all is a bed of roses:
- If you click on any link in the calendar in Netscape 4.xx, the calendar breaks out of its cell and occupies the whole web page. With any other browser, however, the calendar stays confined in its cell and is not released for good behavior.
- A user using Netscape 3.xx or 4.xx will not be able to see any popup text linked to your events. Too see such text, these users will need to go to the List or Condensed views of your calendar. No other browsers we know of have this problem, including IE, Netscape 6.xx, Opera, or Mozilla. But approximately 5% of all internet users do browse with Netscape 3.xx or 4.xx.
In order to make sure all of your users can see popup text you have established with your events, you can use the "framing" technique described below.
Printing or Viewing Several Calendar Months at the Same Time
You can embed as many IFRAMES OR ILAYERS on your web page as you want. This allows you to create a web page that will show (and therefore print) several full months of your calendar. Here is some sample code to do this:
| <P>This is the part of your page above the calendar.</P> <P><ILAYER SRC=http://plus.calendars.net/testcaltest/d27/02/2002?display=M&style=B&positioning=A></ILAYER> <IFRAME NAME="cal" SRC=http://plus.calendars.net/testcaltest/d27/02/2002?display=M&style=B&positioning=Aframeborder=0 height=1080 width=100%></IFRAME></P> <P><ILAYER SRC=http://plus.calendars.net/testcaltest/d01/03/2002?display=M&style=B&positioning=A></ILAYER> <IFRAME NAME="cal" SRC=http://plus.calendars.net/testcaltest/d01/03/2002?display=M&style=B&positioning=A frameborder=0 height=1080 width=100%></IFRAME></P> <P><ILAYER SRC=http://plus.calendars.net/testcaltest/d01/04/2002?display=M&style=B&positioning=A></ILAYER> <IFRAME NAME="cal" src=http://plus.calendars.net/testcaltest/d01/04/2002?display=M&style=B&positioning=A frameborder=0 height=1080 width=100%></IFRAME></P> <P>This is the part of your page below the calendar. |
To see how this page appears, click here: Sample Web Page with 3 Embedded Calendar Pages.
Obviously, you will need to modify the code so that it refers to your calendar (instead of "testcaltest") and so that it refers to the months that you want to show (instead of to 02/2002, 03/2002, and 04/2002). The "dxx" in from of the month and year can be any two numbers appropriate for a date in that month. You can change the display= and positioning= parameters, if you want the calendars to display in some fashion other than by month (M means month) in absolute mode (A means absolute). If you want the calendars to show in your calendar's default mode, just delete all of each link starting with the question mark and ending with "repositioning=A".
Notes:
- The ILAYER tag is used by Netscape 4.xx and is ignored by all other browsers. The IFRAME tag is used by Internet Explorer, Netscape 6.xx, Mozilla, and Opera. About But 5% of all internet users do browse with Netscape 3.xx or 4.xx. If you do not care about them, you can omit all of the ILAYER tags.
- You must manually set the height of the IFRAME so that all of your calendar month will show (and so there will be no vertical scrollbars on your web page). This is tricky, because some months have 5 rows of days, while other months have 6 rows of days. So you have to set the height of the IFRAME to accomodate a month with 6 rows.
- Whether your calendars will have vertical scrollbars also depends on the user's browser settings. For example, if the user has set her browser text size to large, then it is likely that scrollbars will appear, and the page will not show each month's entire calendar.
"Framing" a Calendar on Your Web Site
You can put a Calendars Net calendar inside a frame on your web site, using normal HTML coding. It may be too wide for your frame, however, and cause both horizontal and vertical scroll bars to appear. To correct this, you can use the Administer/General Settings menu to specify the overall width of your calendar in pixels, so you can fit it into your frame without horizontal scrolling. Or use that menu to set your calendar to automatically Fill Browser Window.
Here is the code to use to put your calendar in a frame on your site. You can create the necessary 3 files by copying the HTML code from the yellow boxes below. Then just put all 3 files on your website. To view this very simple example of a frameset with a calendar, check out MyCal Frameset Example.
| First, you need a page that establishes the frameset, such as this (which you could name calframeset.htm or some other name): |
</HEAD> |
| Next, you need to create the "leftframe.htm" file, which can contain anything you want but should include a link to your calendar: |
<HEAD><BASE target="main"></HEAD> |
| Finally, you need to create the "calendarframe.htm" file to act as a placeholder for your calendar: |
<HEAD><BASE target="main"></HEAD> |
If for some reason you cannot use frames on your web site, you can still encase your calendar inside your own menus or boxes. Visit the Example of Vertical Menu Calendar. To make a vertical menu, use the HTML code below and modify it with your own text, links, etc.
Warning: While all other browsers (IE, Mozilla, Opera, Netscape 6.xx) display calendars with vertical menus quite rapidly, it can take Netscape 4.xx about an extra 10 seconds to render the page. You just have to wait for it.
Calendar with Vertical Menu |
|---|
Put ths code into the calendar's header: |
<HTML><HEAD><LINK REL=stylesheet TYPE=text/css HREF=cal.css></HEAD> |
Put this code into the calendar's footer: |
</blockquote></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></body></html> |
Or visit the Example of Dual Vertical Menus Calendar, which can be created with the HTML code below.
Warning: While IE, Netscape 6.xx, Mozilla, and Opera display calendars with dual vertical menus, Netscape 4.xx does not. So if any of your users rely on Netscape 4.xx, this is not a good idea.
Example of Calendar with Dual Vertical Menus |
Put ths code into the calendar's header: |
<HTML><HEAD><LINK REL=stylesheet TYPE=text/css HREF=cal.css></HEAD> |
Put this code into the calendar's footer: |
</blockquote></td></tr></table></td></tr></table> |
Please don't try to use these vertical menus unless you are very familiar with HTML. If you make an error in the code, you calendar may stop displaying. If so, you can still get to the header and footer menus by going to http://my.calendars.net/[name of your calendar]/admin/headfoot. From there you can delete the code in the header or footer that may be causing your calendar not to display.
Establishing Security for your Calendar
It is crucial that you establish security, so no one can change or delete what you have posted! If you do not establish security on Settings and on Editing, anyone can trash your calendar, and we have no way to restore the events that are lost (except that we do back up the event data files every day).
- User IDs and passwords are case sensitive! It's best to use all lowercase letters. Don't use periods or @ signs or any kind of punctuation. You can use spaces in the userid..
- Before any of the 4 levels of security is effective (who can change the settings, who can edit or delete events, who can add events, and who can view events), you must fill in the boxes and click the radio button "userID/Password required" on all levels higher than the level you want to establish. In other words, if you want to put a username and password restriction on who can view events, you need to do the same for each of the 3 security levels above that. If you want to put username/password restriction only on who can change the settings and who can edit events already entered, you only need to fill in the highest two levels.
- As noted above, you can request your lost userID or password from the Calendars Net Security Post.
"Logging In" to your Calendar
You do not need to log in to your calendar, except when the security settings you have created require a userID and password. So, if you do not establish view-level security, for example, then anyone can view your calendar simply by going to its web address, such as http://my.calendars.net/mycalendar. But no one can add events, edit or delete existing events, or change your calendar's settings, unless that person knows the userIDs and passwords you have established for those levels of security (see the instructions immediately above this section).
No one needs to "sign-in" to your calendar at the Calendars Net web site (http://www.calendars.net). Users just go directly to your calendar. If you have set up security on your calendar, it will request a userID and password, when needed.
What if the calendar asks for userID and password and does not provide a box for you to enter the login information? Then you need to change your browser settings to enable logging in. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Internet Options, Security, Internet, Custom Level, and go to the bottom of the list of settings. Check either "Automatic logon only in Intranet zone" or "Prompt for user name and password." Unless one of these two options are selected, you will have trouble logging into many web sites.
What if the calendar does not appear to be checking for userID and password but just lets me in? What is probably happening is that you have already entered your settings-level or admin-level userID and password, which your browser caches until you either exit the browser or load a different calendar on Calendars Net. If you think that security is not working, just completely exit your browser, load it again, and try your calendar. We have never seen an actual case where the calendar fails to ask for userID and password, if security has been set on the level the user is seeking to use (view, add, edit/delete, settings/admin), if the browser cache is cleared this way.
Adding Events
To add an event or to edit an existing event, just click on the date or click on Daily, Duration, or Periodic at the bottom of the page.
By "click on the date" we mean click on the day number. If you want to create an event for June 3rd, for example, you click on the 3 in the calendar.
Events can include HTML code, including hyperlinks, tables, colors, and images. You can add Popup Text that will appear in a separate smaller window, but your users will need a browser capable of reading javascript to read this popup window. The popup text also appears in full, with any browser, in the List view. Here is more information on Creating Calendar Events.
- Adding Duration or Periodic Events if Calendar does not Show the Edit Bar: If you have set General Settings to not show the Edit Bar, you can still add or edit Duration or Periodic events by clicking on any date and clicking on Duration of Periodic on the form that then appears.
- Event Must Have Text for Popup to Work: You need to enter some text in the Calendar Text box before the Popup Text feature will work. You can't leave Calendar Text blank, because the program needs something to use as the link to the Popup.
- Periodic Events Bugs:
- The normal recognition of http:// as the start of a hyperlink does not work inside the popup text part of a periodic event. If you want the popup text of a periodic event to include a link to another web site, you need to use the normal HTML tags, like: <a href=http://mypage.mysite.com>My Page</a>.
- The program actually will not set up a periodic event to occur weekly on more than one weekday. In other words, if you set an event to Repeat by Day of Week and then use Ctrl-Clicks to select more than one weekday name (say, Sunday and Tuesday), the event will actually show up only on the first such weekday name selected (in this example, Sunday). If you want an event to repeat weekly (or every 2 weeks or every 4 weeks, etc.) on two different weekdays, then you have to set up two periodic events (one for Sunday and the same event, separately, for Tuesday). The next version of iCal will correct this.
- Annual Events: You can enter birthdays and other events as periodic events that happen on the same date every year, but it is a bit tricky. In the periodic event form, specify the date range within which the annual event will show by using the "From" area and the "Until" area. The actual date that will recur annually is then determined by the month in the "From" area and the date selected from the pick list under "Date(s)" in the box below the "From" area. Then click the button for Every Year in that box. Note: This is confusing and will soon change.
- Exceptions to Periodic Events: Sometimes your meeting won't happen when usually
scheduled (as a periodic event). You can schedule the periodic event, then automatically convert it to individual
"daily" instances. You can then delete any of the daily instances. When you create the event with the
Periodic event edit page, check the box that says Generate Daily Events before hitting Submit. This will create
a series of individual events instead of a periodic event. You can then delete any of the individual instances
of the event. Just go back to viewing your calendar, navigate to the month of the event to delete, click on that
day, and delete that instance.
- Be careful doing this. This is a one-way conversion from an event formula to individual events. You cannot reconvert the individual events into a periodic event formula.
- Also, you can by mistake generate hundreds of daily events, which will be a pain to delete. If you need to delete a lot of such events, you might want to try Offline Editing.
- One Year Extent of Periodic Events as Default: When you create a new periodic event, the form will by default make it persist for 1 year from the first day of the current month (for example, the first Tuesday of every month for 1 year, ending April 1, 2000). You can change this persistence length to whatever you want.
- Colors for Events: You can specify the background color and text color for each event. You can enter any HTML hex color codes. Convenient tables of those codes are located at HexMixer. You can also use color names that are not longer than 8 characters. For example, "skyblue" will work, but "darksalmon" will not. We are working to fix this limitation. We have posted a table of HTML Color Names for reference. Here is an even better table of HTML Color Names.
Editing or Deleting Events
You can edit or delete any event you have authority over. Click on a date or on Daiily, Duration, or Periodic at the bottom of the calendar. You will then see a list of existing events for the day chosen or for the duration or periodic events that affect the current month If the duration or periodic event you want to edit does not show up, navigate to the correct month using the menu at the top.
Click Edit next to the event you want to Edit, and the event details will appear. Make your changes and be sure to hit SUBMIT at the bottom of the frame.
You don't actually need to hit SUBMIT. Anything you have entered in the form is automatically saved, if you click on View Calendar or any of the other hyperlinks (except the links that go to the previous month or next month).
Hitting RESET at the bottom of the form will remove any changes you have made. Hitting CANCEL returns you to the Event List, without making changes to the event you were editing. Hitting DELETE deletes the event you were editing, as does clicking on the scissors next to the event in the Event List.
New Feature: If you edit an existing event and then click the Copy Event box before saving it, the newly edited event will be created, but the old event will not be deleted. This is a fast way to make several similar events to occur on different days, particularly if the days are irregular and cannot easily be tracked with a periodic or duration event. For example, you could create one event, save it, and then edit it (with the Copy Event box checked) to change only its date. You can do this as many times as you need to create the "same" event on various days.
A Bug in Editing Periodic and Duration Events: If you have two very, very similar periodic events (or two very, very similar duration events) scheduled on the same day, you may find that you are unable to edit one of the two events. Instead, if you try, for example, to edit the second event, the edit form will come up for the first event. This happens only when the first 24 characters of both events are exactly the same. Thus, you can avoid this problem by not creating multiple periodic or duration events, which include the same date, which have the same first 24 characters. If this has already happened to you, how can you fix it? Edit the "first event" in the example above so that it no longer has the same first 24 characters as the second event.
Adding Event Categories
A new feature in iCal 3.5 is Event Categories. You can create any number of predefined event categories, each with its own color and border scheme. Then, when you create an event, you can choose from the categories you have created, instead of needing to enter color and border information manually for each event. This is particularly useful, if you want your events to have unusual color schemes (or schemes that match your web pages) that require entering color codes which are easily forgotten. This also enables you to change the color scheme for any set of events, no matter how many, just by changing the color selections for that category.
Note: A category name cannot have any spaces or punctuation in it. It can have an underscore, such as Important_Event.
It is also easy to put a legend for your categories in your calendar's header or footer. Here is an example of HTML code that will show a table of color codes:
<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="4"> |
We are working with the program authors to make it possible for merging server users to create sets of categories that will be available on all of the calendars on the merging server. For now, however, you must establish the categories on each separate calendar.
Determining the Order of Events in a Day
Setting the order of events in a day, other than by time, is not easy. We are asking the program authors to make it easier.
Currently, the events appearing in each day are ordered as follows:
1. Duration Events.
2. Periodic Events
3. Daily (single) events with time specified.
4. Daily (single) events with time not specified specified.
So you can do some ordering of events merely by creating a different type of event. For example, say you want a Daily (single) event with no specified time to appear first in the day. Then make it a 1-day duration event, and it will appear first in that day.
Within the category of Daily (single) events, you can sort events within a day by assigning a time to each one of them.
Daily events which have no time specified ("non-time specified") appear in a somewhat random order
Another way to sort "non-time specified" events is to assign to each event a specific time in the event creation form and then make the time "invisible" on your calendar. To make your time assignments "invisible", use the Colors menu to change the Events in the Month colors to white on white. Then at the start of the event text in each event, insert <font color=black>. That way the assigned time for the event will not show up on the calendar, but the events will sort within each day according to the "invisible time" assigned to each one.
Of course, if you associate popup text with the event, then you will need to set Links in the Month also to white on white (using the Colors menu). Just remember to start every event and and every popup text with <font color=black>.
One disadvantage to this "invisible time" method is that all of the times of all of the events in your calendar will be invisible, so you will have to enter each event's starting time as part of the event text, after the <font color=black> tag.
We are also recommending to the program authors, Brownbear Software (http://www.brownbearsw.com/ical/newical.htm), that the program allow the admin to set the Event Time Text font face to null, so that the Event Time Text would actually not appear, if that is what the admin desires.
Choosing Font Faces and Sizes for Calendar Elements
You can select font faces and sizes for almost every element on the calendar with the Fonts menu on the main Calendar Settings page (which you access by clicking on the Administer this Calendar link, usually at the bottom of your calendar). You can enter any font face name you want, but whether your users will actually see face depends on whether that face is installed on their computers. If you choose a font your user does not have on her computer, the face will revert to the default setting (which also is determined by the user's browser settings). So, if you choose some unusual fonts, you should also alert your users to install those fonts on their computers.
Caution: If you change the Event Time Text font face or size, that change will also apply to the event text in all events that have a start time but not an end time. This is a bug. You still get the Event Time Text to stand out from the event text by manually restoring the font and size you want at the beginning of your event text. Say you changed the Event Time Text font to Albertus Extra Bold but want the event text to remain in Arial. Just start your event text with the HTML tag: <font face=arial>. This problem should be remedied with the next version of iCal.
Applying Styles to Change the Appearance of Your Calendar
Previously, you could upload your own HTML cascading stylesheets and apply them to your calendar. When we upgraded to iCal 3.1 in March 2000, this ceased to work. Instead, iCal 3.1 has menus (Administer/Fonts) and Administer/Colors) that allow you to determine the exact appearance of just about every element in the calendar. What continues to work, however, is inserting your own style codes in your calendar's header, which then apply to all lower elements of your calendar.
For example, say you want to eliminate the underlining of links in the calendar and have the links instead appear as bold text. You can do that by inserting the following code into your calendar's header:
| <style>:link{Text-Decoration:None;Font-Weight:Bold} :active{Text-Decoration:None;Font-Weight:Bold} :visited{Text-Decoration:None;Font-Weight:Bold}</style> |
Or say you want the links to be in regular, non-underlined and non-bold text. Then insert this code:
| <style>:link{Text-Decoration:None} :active{Text-Decoration:None} :visited{Text-Decoration:None}</style> |
Similarly, you can insert any valid style codes into your calendar's header, and they will apply to all elements of your calendar (except the title). If you want the style to also apply to the title, put the code also at the beginning ot the title.
You can cut and paste these styles from any cascading style sheet file (.css), which is just a text file and will include the codes. Just enclose the codes inside the <style> and </style> tags.
Special Formatting Tips
- Don't put the # mark in front of the numerical color codes.
- Wherever the calendar asks for input of a color, you can use hex codes or HTML color names:
- Here is a List of Color Names and associated colors. All but one part of Calendars Net will recognize all of these names. When you create or edit an event, those color selection boxes will accept (in addition to any hex code) only color names that are 8 or fewer characters long. Thus, you can enter "azure" or "tomato" but not "mediumpurple". This is a bug that we hope will get remedied. You can, however, create Categories (see Administer/Categories) using any font color names, regardless of length. You can then assign your event to a category, thus bypassing the 8 character limitation in the event creation/editing form.
- Here are many Lists of Hex Codes showing the colors each code produces. You can enter any hex color code wherever you are asked to specify a color..
- If you want to implement a style sheet that makes the hyperlinks in your calendar appear in bold
instead of underline, insert this in your calendar's header:
See the example at Extremely Thin Calendar.<style>:link{Text-Decoration:None;Font-Weight:Bold}
:active{Text-Decoration:None;Font-Weight:Bold}
:visited{Text-Decoration:None;Font-Weight:Bold</style> - If you don't use spaces between words, your calendar's columns may get distorted. Each column will expand to fit the longest unbroken string of characters. This seems to be a particular concern for calendars in German (very long words). You can also use this "feature" to make any of your calendar's columns wider than usual. Just create an event with text that includes a block of underscores (________) or of words connected with underscores instead of spaces. The width of the column will change to the length of the unbroken string.
- If you use a narrow width calendar (such as the Fits 640 setting under Administer/General Settings), then the Wednesday column may be wider than the events within that column. Solutions: Use the Month/Day Headings menu under Administration to shorten the column headings for the days of the week (Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun). Or use <font size=-1>Wednesday</font> as the "Long Name" for Wednesday.
- Send your tips to Calendars Net.
Putting Hyperlinks into your Calendar
There are several ways to put hyperlinks into your calendar:
- Inside the title, header, or footer, or inside an event you create, use ordinary HTML code to insert a hyperlink, such as:<a href=http://www.mywebsite.com/mypage.htm>Go To Mypage</a>
- If you want the entire text of your event to serve as a hyperlink to a small popup box with additional information, simply place the additional information in the Popup Text box on the event entry form. This will convert all of your event text into a hyperlink to the popup box.
- Inside a Popup Text box on the event entry form, there are two ways to insert a hyperlink:
- Use the ordinary HTML <a href=> tag, as shown above. Note: If you put any HTML tags into the Popup Text, then all of the text in the Popup Text box will be interpreted at HTML code. In order to have a line break, you will need to insert a <br> tag, for example. Or to start a new paragraph, you will need to insert a <p> tag.
- Or just type the destination into the Popup Text box like this: http://www.mywebsite.com/mypage.htm. Most browsers will interpret this as a hyperlink. The remainder of the text in the Popup Text box will be considered as plain text, so you will not need to insert a <br> tag to cause a line break or <p> to start a new paragraph.
Using Search to Create Many Calendars in One
To display only those events that contain a certain term, click on Search at the bottom right of the calendar. Enter your search term and how you want the results to be displayed. You can enter only one term; boolean logic is not yet implemented.
The search function enables you to maintain schedules for many persons or groups in a single calendar. You can search by text, by category, or both.
Search by Category
The easiest way to create many calendars in one is to assign a category to each group using the calendar. (Categories are created by clicking Administer this Calendar, Categories.) Then search by category, and the result will be all of the events for that group. You can then copy the URL that the search produces and put that URL into a link on your web page. Anyone who clicks on that link will get a calendar comprised only of the events of the group/category you selected. If you have, say 8 groups, you can do this 8 times and put 8 links on your web page, one to each group. Or you can simply put those links into the header of the calendar, as explained below
Search by Text
You can also search for text in the events and/or in the popup text. Just make sure that all events for Mary include the word "Mary" or that all events for the group CIR include the term "CIR". If two groups are sponsoring the same event, just enter it once like this: "Joint Event (CIR OLCV)". Then it will be displayed by a search for CIR or a search for OLCV. Because the search function does not yet have boolean logic, you can't search for "CIR or OLCV" to see the events for both groups on a single calendar. You can accomplish this, however, with a multiple merging calendar, which allows you to checkmark any number of group schedules you want to see.
Note that a completed search has its own web address that can be copied and put into your web pages (or can be put into the header of your calendar). Look at the Search Test calendar. The link in the header to the Alliance for Democracy events was created by (1) searching for AFD, (2) saving the location (click on the location bar, then Ctrl-C), (3) creating a header and inserting the link into the header.
Important Notes
Doing a search puts the user into a "search results mode" and displays the first month where the search term is found, even if that month is in the past. The user can then can navigate to other months of interest and will stay within the "search results mode" until clicking on Normal at the top of the calendar page. In "search results mode," only matching events are displayed.
When you are in "search results mode" you can navigate to other months, weeks, etc., in the calendar, and the calendar will show only the events that match your search. Thus, if you searched for events in the category Birthdays, and the result showed birthdays in July, if you click on August it will continue to show only birthdays in August. To resume Normal mode (which shows all events), click on the Normal in the upper right part of the calendar.
Note: Netscape 4.xx does not handle this. If you are in search results mode and click on a different month, you also leave search results mode.
Note: Using IE, Netscape 6.xx, Mozilla, or Opera, you stay in the search results mode as long as you click on other months. If your calendar is set to absolute mode or week mode, then clicking to move to a different time period will put you back into Normal mode.
One useful technique is to perform a search, then click on Year and List to see a list of all of the matching events in the current year. You can then navigate to other years. Then hit Normal at the top to get back to the normal calendar display.
Other Settings on Administration Menus
You can also change many aspects of the appearance of the calendar with the options under General Settings.
- If you put lots of text in the pop-up windows, you should seriously consider changing your default display style from Block (conventional calendar) to List, which shows each event and its pop-up text side by side. This also allows non-Javascript capable browsers to see the pop-up text. When you look at the Cool Calendars, check out their List views, which often show additional hyperlinks and graphics) and provide much more information than the regular, block views.
- Absolute position means that the monthly calendar displayed starts with the week of the 1st of the month. Sliding position means that the monthly calendar displayed starts with the current week. Be careful using the Sliding feature, as your users may expect the monthly calendar to start at the beginning of the month.
- Be sure to hit Save after making changes.
On the main Calendar Settings page you can:
- Change the color of text and backgrounds. If you use a background other than white, you should set your browser
not to print the background. For ideas on color schemes and layout, check out the Cool
Calendars. Keep in mind that many color combinations will print out on a laserjet printer as black-on-black
or gray-on-gray, not showing the words. If you need a printed calendar, your color scheme should be very light
text colors on dark backgrounds or dark text colors on very light backgrounds.
- You can select colors from the pop-up window or you can click on Alternate Color Assignment and enter colors
as RGB hex codes or color names.
- Note: Here, all valid HTML color names work, even those with more than 8 characters.
- Be careful about making the color of text the same as the color of background. Obviously, that will cause the text to disappear!
- Here is a cool, very small program named Color Picker, which shows you the hex code for the color upon which your mouse pointer rests. You can use this to determine exactly the hex codes of the colors on your web site. You can then use the Alternate Color Assignment page to make your calendar colors match precisely.
- You can select colors from the pop-up window or you can click on Alternate Color Assignment and enter colors
as RGB hex codes or color names.
- Put a background image or texture behind your calendar. For details, see Putting Images in a Calendar.
- Specify font faces and sizes for virtually all elements of the calendar screen. To see what fonts you have installed on your computer, go to Tools/Internet Options/Fonts in MS Internet Explorer or go to Edit/Preferences/Appearance/Fonts in Netscape or Mozilla.
- Add headers and footers to appear on your calendar. These can include HTML, hyperlinks, and images.
- Change the month or day headings; some users have changed these headings to Spanish, German, Danish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Czech, Swedish, Finnish, Russian, and some languages we do not recognize.
- Use the Add-Ins menu to check any Add-In lists you want your calendar to display, such
as various sets of holidays (U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Muslim, Jewish,
Christian) or Moon Phases. Some sets of national holidays (U.S., Britain, etc.) and Christian Holidays overlap
somewhat (Christmas, for example), so checking both boxes will produce some redundancy on your calendar. If
you have other sets of holidays to contribute, email them in ASCII text to Calendars
Net. Save this file to see the format of the add-in file. We would really
appreciate getting holidays lists in languages other than English.
- Thanks to Fred Farber for extending the Jewish holiday schedule through 2006.
- If you see events on your calendar that you cannot delete by using the regular event editing links, it is very likely that these events are on your calendar because an Add-In box has been checked on this menu, perhaps by accident. Look carefully at the list and uncheck all of the boxes.
- Note: You can upload your own add-in lists; save this file to see the format of the add-in file, which need the .idt extension. After composing your list locally, use the Calendars Net Upload System to upload it to us. Any .idt file you upload will be entirely public and available to all users of the public server. You then would go to your calendar, Administer, Add-ins, and check the box next to your new list.
- Every add-in list must have the extension .idt. Some ASCII text editors automatically add a .txt extension to any file they save. Thus, you may think you have saved myaddinlist.idt when in fact you have saved myaddinlist.idt.txt. Uploading files with final .txt extensions will not make them available on Calendars Net. You can in most cases stop your ASCII text editor from adding the .txt extension enclosing the file name you want to save in quotation marks. Thus, you would save "myaddinlist.idt".
- Publish your calendar to a one or more static HTML files: see Printing a Calendar and Posting Static Calendar Pages on Your Web Site below.
- Delete entire months of old events, making your calendar load a little faster. Note that this function deletes only individual events and does not delete periodic or duration events.
Oops, I Removed the Administer Link from my Calendar
At the bottom of the General Settings menu are checkboxes that allow you to show or not show the Navigation Bars, the Style Bar, or the Edit Bar. If you do not show the Edit Bar (which has the Administer This Calendar link), the only way you can administer your calendar is to go to:
my.calendars.net/NAME/admin
or
www.calsnet.net/NAME/admin
where NAME is the name of your calendar.
Direct Links to Administration Menus
You can also get to administration submenus via the browser address line by adding the following to the end of your calendar's web address:
| General Settings | /admin/settings |
| Colors | /admin/colors |
| Headers, Footers | /admin/headfoot |
| Fonts | /admin/fonts |
| Security | /admin/security |
| Add-Ins | /admin/adins |
| Month/Day Headings | /admin/dayheadings |
| Email Notification | /admin/emailnotify |
| Publish Calendar | /admin/publishcal |
| Delete Month Events | /admin/cleancal |
| Data Importing | /admin/dataload |
| Data Exporting | /admin/dataexport |
For example, if you want to go directly to the security settings, you would go to http://my.calendars.net/mycalendarname/admin/security. Just add the /admin/security to the end of the URL you use to get to your calendar.
What if Weird Birthdays or Other Events are Showing Up on My Calendar?
If you see events on your calendar that do not appear to be yours, and if you cannot seem to access these events by clicking on the number of the date on which they appear, it is very likely that you have inadvertently checked one of the numerous Add-In event lists that Calendars Net users have uploaded. To correct this, go to Administer This Calendar, Add-Ins, and make sure that only the Add-Ins you want are checked.
Putting Images into a Calendar
Images in Calendar's Header, Footer, Events, or Pop-up Text
You can embed into your calendar any image that resides anywhere on the internet, although this may cause your calendar to load slowly (depending on the responsiveness of the server where your image resides). You can also use the Calendars Net Upload System to upload an image to our server and then put that image in your calendar.
Just use HTML to put images in your calendar's header, footer, events, or pop-up text. Say you want to put an image named "myimage1.gif" anywhere in your calendar. It can go in the header, footer, or in any event (daily, duration, or periodic) Say that file resides at http://www.freeservers.com/thisuser/graphics/myimage.gif. Just put this code where you want the image to appear:
<img src="http://www.freeserverscom/thisuser/graphics/myimage1.gif">
You don't need to upload the image to Calendars Net, unless it is not on any internet site anywhere else. If you don't have any other server for the graphic, you can upload it to Calendars Net Upload. You would then refer to it as:
<img src=/myimage1.gif>
Note that you must have a / in front of the file name. If you leave that off, the image will display only on the current selected month (or day or week or year) and not on any calendars you navigate to. This offers an interesting way to speed up calendar display. If you want the user to see your graphics once and do not care whether they then appear on other calendar views for that user, just leave out the / in the src= reference.
If you upload an image to Calendars Net, please give it a very unusual name, based on your calendar's name, so it doesn't overwrite any other user's graphic already on the site. If you calendar is named "thisnow", then name your images thisnow1.gif, thisnow2.gif, etc. Note that you must put a slash in front of the image name, or it will not always appear when you want it.
Background Images
You can also put a background image or texture behind your calendar, using the Page Background Image box on the Colors menu. You can embed into your calendar any image that resides anywhere on the internet, although this may cause your calendar to load slowly (depending on the responsiveness of the server where your image resides). You can also use the Calendars Net Upload System to upload an image to our server and then use that image as background for your calendar.
To use an image somewhere else on the internet, put a reference to the image in the Page Background Image box on the Colors menu, like this:
http://www.mywebsite.com/goodimage.gif
Please do not try to refer to an image on Tripod, because it probably won't work.
Or you can upload the image to our servers, using the Calendars Net Upload System. You would then refer to it in the Page Background Image box on the Colors menu. For example, if you want your background image to consist of the image clubeventsredpaper.gif (which you have uploaded to Calendars Net), then you would enter "clubeventsredpaper.gif" in the Page Background Image box.
If you upload a background image to Calendars Net, please give it a very unusual name, based on your calendar's name, so it doesn't overwrite any other user's graphic already on the site. If you calendar is named "thisnow", then name your background images thisnowbgnd1.gif, thisnowbgnd2.gif, etc. Or at least start the name of the image with the name of your calendar. This also helps us move the correct files to the Premium Server, should you later decide to put your calendar there.
By default, the background image shows through only around the outside of the calendar, not inside the calendar elements. But you can change this. If you want the background image to show through every day on the calendar, for example, then go to Administer This Calendar, Colors, Direct Color Assignments, and put a blank in the box for Day Colors-Background Color. This will allow the background image to show through all of the days of the month or week or whatever view option you are using. Similarly, you can let the background image show through all of the other elements of the calendar, merely by setting the Background Color for that element to blank on the Direct Color Assignments menu. So you can have the background image show through the title, header, footer, week day titles, navigation bars, etc. Note: This does not work to change the background of pop-up text boxes.
Some users of Netscape 4.x report that, unless there is some color indicated for Day Colors-Background Color, all days with events in them show up as solid black. To avoid this, go to Administer This Calendar, Colors, Direct Color Assignment and make sure there is some color name or number indicated in the Day Colors-Background Color box.
Why is a Big Image Missing from My Calendar?
Calendars Net servers are slowed down by loading calendars that link to huge image files that users have uploaded.
To speed up the system for everyone, on June 29, 2001, we removed all image files larger than 100k. If you see an image missing from your calendar, this is probably the reason.
If your images are missing, you can restore them by saving your images as smaller files and uploading them back to Calendars Net. There are many programs that reduce the file size of images, including shareware or trialware, such as Xat Image Optimizer. You can dramatically reduce the size of GIF and JPG files just by changing the color depth from to 256 colors using shareware programs like such as ACDSee (available at Download.com and eslewhere). You can also convert BMP files (very big) to GIF, JPG, or PNG formats (much smaller) with no apparent loss of clarity.
If you absolutely need to have us restore your huge image file, then please Request Restoral of Big Image File.
Exchanging Data with Microsoft Outlook and Other Programs
Data Importing: iCal 3.5+ allows the user to import data from a MS Outlook calendar and to export data that an Outlook calendar can use. It can also import and export files using the iCal field format, but that is pretty complicated.
To import your Outlook calendar data into your Calendars Net calendar:
- In Outlook, export your Outlook calendar to a comma separated values (.csv) text file.
- Outlook by default will name the .csv file it generates "outlook.csv." You must change the name of that file on your computer to the name of your calendar but with .csv on the end, like "johncalendar.csv".
- Outlook often produces a .csv file with a blank line at the bottom. You must delete this line, so that the last thing in the .csv file is the last character on a line that actually contains an event. You can delete the blank line using an ASCII text editor, such as MS Notepad or MS Wordpad.
- Use the Calendars Net Upload System to upload to Calendars Net the .csv file generated on your computer by Outlook.
- Then, on your Calendars Net calendar, go to Administer This Calendar, Data Importing. Choose "CSV MS Outlook" as the file type and enter the name of the .csv file you uploaded in the Import Server File. Then hit the Import File button.
Data Exporting: You can export your Calendars Net data into MS Outllook or other programs this way:
- With your Calendars Net calendar, go to Administer, Data Exporting and complete the form. The result will be the generation of a file with the name of your calendar but with a .csv extension. You will not be able to click on this file to download it; that is what we are working to fix. Instead:
- Use the Calendars Net Download System to download this CSV file. Just put the name of the file (your calendar's name with .csv extension) in the box calling for Full Name of Your Calendar Data File to Download.
These steps will produce a CSV file on your computer that MS Outlook can import.
Calendars in Other Languages, without Instant Translation
The various links to other languages in this site go to Altavista Babelfish, which provides instant translations of the page. These translations are not always good, and Babelfish gives up before providing full translations of long HTML pages.
All of the public (free) servers and Premium Servers now use iCal 3.6, which allows each calendar's administrator to choose to have the calendar and its menus displayed in English, German, Danish, or Dutch. Just click on General Settings on the Calendar Administration menu. Translations of the Calendar structure and menus into other languages are in progress (Norwegian is almost ready).
Anyone who contributes a complete and competent translation of the calendar template iinto any other language can choose from these services, free:
- Free Year of Premium Server Calendar on Calendars Net ($36 value)
- Free Year of a Multiple Merging Server on Calendars Net ($170 value)
- Free Registered Copy of Ical Professional ($395 value), which can be used on any Windows NT/2000 server (see Brownbear Software for details).
Just email us at I Want to Translate the Template and tell us your language.
In addition, you can also set the Month and Day headings in your calendar to anything you want, in any language. From your calendar, click on Administer this Calendar, Month/Day Headings, and fill in the form.
Instant Translation of Calendars into Other Languages
You can also offer users "instant translations" versions of your English-based calendar into Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portguese, Japanese, Chinese, or Korean.
- Get the HTML code here.
- Select the target languages.
- Change "CALENDARNAME" in the HTML code to the name of your calendar.
- Copy and paste the modified code into the header of your calendar.
Notes:
- For the calendar to display property, your users must have installed the proper fonts, particularly the non-Latin fonts for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
- Once the calendar is translated into, say, French, you cannot then click on Version Espagnole and expect the French to be converted to Spanish. To get the Spanish version, you have to go back to the English version and then click on Spanish Version.
- If you click on the List display, all of your pop-up texts are translated. In Block mode, however, if you click on an event linked to pop-up text, the pop-up text is not translated (and is not even found!).
Automatic Email Notification of Events
In order to use email notification, you must access your calendar with one of the many servers other than my.calendars.net. See Your Calendar's Address and Linking To It and Better Access with Alternative Calendar Servers, above. This does not mean that you have to move your calendar. It just means that, when you want email notification to go out when you add or change an event, you need to use one of the other servers (not my.calendars.net) when you are adding or editing that event. All other times you and the other users of your calendar can use the faster my.calendars.net server.
Calendars Net provides 2 systems of email notification about events:
Notification that Goes Only to the Calendar Administrator
You can make the calendar notify you, the administrator, by email whenever anyone adds, edits, or deletes an event. (Of course, you will continue to control who can perform such functions and can prevent anyone from doing so.) Just go to the Administer/Email Notification menu, enter your email address and check the boxes for Notify on Add and/or Notify on Update. You will then receive immediate email notification whenever anyone adds or changes an event on your calendar.
Notification that Goes to Others
There are 2 separate ways to do this:
- If there is someone who also wants email notification whenever any event is added or changed,
just add that person's email address to the box entitled "My Email Address," separated
from your own email address by a comma. You can use this to allow users to "subscribe" to
your calendar and receive immediate email updates whenever the calendar is changed. To let
users know this is available, you could put something like this
in your header or footer, using your own email address, of course.
To subscribe to this calendar and receive immediate email updates whenever events are added or changed, contact the <a href=mailto:myname@mymailserver.com?subject=Subscribe to Calendar>Calendar Administrator</a>.
- If you check the box "Forms," an email notification form will appear as part of every form for adding or editing an event. That means that anyone who has authority to add or edit events on your calendar can also decide to email a notification of that specific addition or change to anyone else. This may cause problems, however, because any of your users who can add or edit events can then also send email notifications to people who do not want them. Every notice includes a message that abuse should be reported to Calendars Net. If we get complaints, we will warn the calendar's administrator and may have to disable the calendar if the abuse continues.
Tips
- It is usually best to check the button to send the notification in "Ascii Text and HTML," which does not really include the notification twice but sends it in a form that can be read by both HTML-aware email readers and Ascii text email readers.
- Obviously, in addition to entering individual email addresses in the forms, you can enter the addresses of listserves that you have access to on other systems. For example, if you have a listserve set up at Yahoo Groups, you could enter into the forms "calendargroup@yahoogroups.com" or whatever is the name of your group at Yahoo Groups. Then the notification will be sent to the listserve, for distribution according to the rules of the listserve. Thus, you can use the much more powerful features of Calendars Net in tandem with the listserve feature of Yahoo Groups or Topica or other listserve providers.
What if your listserve only allows members of the list to send messages to the list?
In late May 2000, we changed the "return address" for messages generated by the Calendars Net email system to Notice_Robot@calendars.net, for these reasons:
- We hope this will discourage those who receive your notifications from replying to them. All replies go to Notice-Robot@calendars.net and are discarded.
- This enables you to use email list services, such as eGroups, with the setting that allows members of the list to send messages to the list. Thus, you would make Notice_Robot@calendars.net a member of your list, so that notifications from your calendar would indeed go to your list.
We would prefer that you not include Notice_Robot@calendars.net in your email list. If necessary (see above), please add it to your email list in a way that does not require us to confirm the subscription to eGroups or other service. Because some services do require such confirmation, we have to scan the subject lines of email received by Notice_Robot@calendars.net to see whether we need to confirm a subscription to your list.
If you have previously subscribed postmaster@calendars.net to your list, please delete it and replace it with Notice_Robot@calendars.net.
Adding an Interactive Discussion to Any Event
Another way to create an event and invite users into a discussion is to go to QuickTopic and start a discussion. This takes less than 1 minute, really. QuickTopic then emails to you a link. Copy that link to your clipboard. Then create your event (say, a future meeting). Describe the meeting in a few words in the Calendar Text box, then paste the link into the Popup Text or URL Link box. Then click Submit or just View Calendar. Anyone who clicks on this event will be taken to the discussion you have set up on QuickTopic. See the example every Tuesday in the Big Demo Calendar or just go to the Calendars Net Test QuickTopic Forum. This is a very easy way to get information or comments related to your event.
- An easy way to copy the link from your email to your clipboard is to right click on the link and choose Copy Shortcut (if using a Microsoft product) or choose Copy Link Location (Netscape) or Copy Link Address (Mozilla).
Having Users Bookmark the Calendar: A Caution
You can put a reminder in your calendar's header or footer that users should bookmark the calendar. Note, however, that using the IE or Netscape bookmark features will save the exact URL that the user is seeing. This is not a problem, as long as the user has used the simple link you provided (such as http://my.calendars.net/nameofcalendar). This link will always take the user to your calendar in its default format (block, list, or condensed) and in the current month, week, day, or year (depending you your default viewing mode).
If the user bookmarks the calendar after having navigated to other pages within the calendar, then that bookmark will always take the user back to the specific page where the bookmark was set. If you navigate to, say, a different month, you will see that the URL contains various codes to specify that month and whether the viewing mode is block, list, condensed, etc. A bookmark will save that information and will take the user back to that page, not to the current day's view of your calendar.
Thus, if you ask users to bookmark your calendar, you should explain this to them. One way is to simply refer them to this explanation, which is at http://www.calendars.net/calsetup.htm#bookmark. Or just tell them that the bookmark should not include any codes after the first word after the name of the calendar in the URL.
Adding a Hit Counter to Your Calendar
You can see how many times your calendar is viewed by others by inserting hit counter code in the your calendar's header or footer. Some hit counters will work and other will not. One that appears to work well is Webtracker, and it is also relatively unobtrusive.
Adding One or Many "To Do" Lists to Your Calendar
The Big Demo Calendar shows one way to insert "To Do" lists into your calendar. Just create a periodic event and set it to occur on the first Sunday of every month (Sunday, 1st occurrence of the month). The event text should read something like:
Bob's To Do List
Placing code like this into the box for the event's popup text will create an automatically numbered list of tasks. You can cross out the tasks you have completed by using the HTML <strike> tag.
<ol>
<li> go to the store<br>
<li> get all my work done and retire early to a life of leisure in Hawaii
<li> <strike> bicycle from Hanoi to Saigon</strike>
<li> walk the parrot
<li> <u>this important task is underlined</u>
<li> <i>this important task is in italics</i>
</ol>
Note that the entire list appears when you switch to the calendar's List view.
You can create as many to do lists as you want, using this same method.
What Users Can Do
As a user, you can:
- change the calendar display to Year, Month, Week, or Day
- see the events presented in a list instead of a block calendar format
- start the calendar at the beginning of a month (Abs) or in the current week (Slide)
- search the calendar and display only those events containing the desired words
- permanently save the data in the calendar by going to any month and choosing File/Save As from your browser's menu. That will save that month's data in an HTML file. If you later decide to buy iCal from Brownbear Software and want your raw calendar data file, you can get it with File Download.
Depending on your Security settings, a user can add new events, edit existing events, and administer the calendar (change the settings).
Printing a Calendar, Including a Big One on a Single Page
You can use your web browser to print out your calendar. If you have set your calendar's width to Fill Browser Window (using the /Administer/General Settings menu), it will print out to the size of the paper you are using, automatically. Or you can use that menu to specify the overall width of your calendar in pixels, so you can print the full calendar correctly in either portrait or landscape mode. A good width for printing a calendar in portrait orientation is 700 pixels; for landscape, use 920 pixels.
Calendars printed with black-on-white printers look best with high contrast font and background colors, such as black on white or the reverse. You will find that laser printers will print some color combinations as gray on gray, which cannot be read.
Print a Monthly Calendar with Lots of Events on One Page
If you have a lot of events on a calendar, the printout will take more than one page. We know of 4 ways to avoid this:
The first way is to use Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or above. Strangely, if you click on View, Text Size, and change it to smaller or smallest, the calendar shrinks for printing purposes also. This is the easiest way to make your big calendar print on one page.
Another way is to change the settings on your printer to shrink-to-fit. Some printers have "shrink-to-fit" options buried somewhere inside "Properties" or "Options" or "Layout" or "Setup". Set those options to print the web page on a single sheet. How to do this varies with each type of printer.
Another way is to use Microsoft Word 2000. Go to the calendar month or week you want to print in your browser. Save the file with an .htm extension. Load that file into Microsoft Word 2000. Use the File/Print Preview menu choice (Alt-F,V). Click on the Shrink to Fit icon in the Print Preview toolbar (it shows two pages and an arrow pointing to one page; it is the second icon to the left of Close). Then click on the print icon. This will print your calendar onto a single page, unless it is so huge that MS Word and your printer cannot handle the fonts. Note: Earlier versions of Microsoft Word cannot read the complex HTML files that iCal generates.
Here is a dorky way to to use Microsoft Word 2000 to print big calendars on a single page: Hit Ctrl-P to print the page. Then choose more than one "Pages per sheet" in the Zoom headings in the bottom right of the menu. This will print more than one page per sheet but will likely break your calendar in the middle of a month.
Another way is to use Fineprint by Single Track Software. Fineprint enables any Windows program to print in a variety of special formats (such as 4 pages per sheet, etc) and will shrink very large pages into letter-size printouts. The registered version is $40; there is a free version that works fine but limits any printing job to 8 pages (not a problem here) and puts a small identifier for Single Track Software at the bottom of each page printed.
To print a large calendar on one page:
- Download FinePrint from FinePrint Software and install it.
- Use your browser to go to the calendar month you want to print.
- Go to the /administer/general settings menu to change the width of the calendar, if you want. The default width
is "Fill Browser Window," and that should work fine.
- If you want to set a specific pixel width for a Portrait page, change the width to 930 pixels.
- If you want to set a pixel width for a Landscape page, change the width to 1440 pixels.
- Remember, you don't have to set a pixel width at all if you use the "Fill Browser Window" setting.
- Use your browser to print the page and select FinePrint as your printer. You will then see a Properties button to the right. Use that to button to select "Ledger 11x17" as the paper size and to select either Portrait or Landscape mode, as you wish. Save your changes to the properties. Hit OK to print the page.
- When the FinePrint screen appears, you will see a mini-preview of your printout. Set Layout to 1 up, Borders to off, and Margins to none. If you are printing on a black/white printer but have colored text in your calendar, you might want to hit Options and set colored text to black or to the color correction setting, both of which will darken text that might otherwise be too light gray to read.
- Then hit OK to print.
The result should be one calendar month on one page, even if the month has many events. Here is a related FinePrint Tutorial on shrinking to fit.
Other Ways to Print
You can also print your calendar using the Administer/Publish Calendar function. This will create HTML pages for the range of months you specify. You can then navigate to these HTML files (the program goes to the first one created; which correctly hyperlinks to the others) and print out each month from your browser. These printouts are the same as those directly from your active calendar but do not show the various menu bars that otherwise appear along the bottom of each month (although you can eliminate those menu bars anyway in the /Administer/General Setting menu).
Some users generate these linked static HTML pages and post them on their own web servers, which keeps the traffic local and eliminates any delay from users accessing the Calendars Net servers. Perhaps the best way to use this feature is in combination with Offline Calendar Editing (see next section). You can download your calendar's data file and use iCal on your own computer to read your calendar and to generate locally the static HTML files you can then access and post to your own web site.
Posting Static Calendar Pages on your Web Site ("Publish Calendar")
Although we do not recommend this, you can generate static calendar pages and post them on your web site, instead of linking to your interactive calendar. Anytime you change your calendar, however, you will have to generate and save the static pages again. In any event, here is how it works:
Click on Administer this Calendar (usually at the bottom of your calendar). Go to Publish Calendar, select the span of months you want, and hit Create. That will produce static HTML pages and will display to you a page with a link to a static version of the first static month. Click on that link, and the first static month will display. Save that HTML file to your own computer with your browser. Then click on the link for the next month you want to save. Save that HTML file to your own computer with your browser. Repeat this process until you have saved each static month that you want. Put a link on your web page to the static version of the first month, and all of the months will correctly inter-link on your own system.
Offline Calendar Editing
You can now download your calendar data file from Calendars Net, edit it offline with ical or with an ASCII text editor, and upload it back to Calendars Net. This enables you to edit your calendar faster, with no waits for the Calendars Net servers to respond to every edit. If you use an ASCII text editor, you must be very careful and sure that you understand the structure of the data file. Better choice is to use the free version of iCal running on your own computer. Here are the 3 steps. And here are handy links, if you already know the steps:
Calendars Net |
Offline Editing |
File Upload |
File Download |
These links are found on the bottom of many pages.
Eliminating the Calendars Net "Credits" from Footers
At the bottom of each calendar (in a footer) are one or two small graphics. One identifies and links to Calendars Net; the other links to Brownbear Software, which produces the program (iCal) that runs the calendars. We may also display logos for other products that work well with Calendars Net. If you want to eliminate this footer so that your calendar appears completely internal to your site, please go to the Calendars Net Order Form and choose the Calendars Net Ad-Free Calendar. Be sure to include your calendar's file name in the box. Your calendar will be moved to the ads-free server within 24 hours. The address for your calendar will stay the same.
Another way for Users to Subscribe to a Calendar and Get Updates by Email
A less efficient way for users to get automatic notification when your calendar changes is by using a free web page change monitoring services, such as Tracerlock. The user registers with Tracerlock and sets up notification for the calendar's URL, such as: my.calendars.net/mydates. Tracerlock appears to generate change notices and email them out once per day.
There are similar fee-based services, such as Mind It.
Each of these services can only track changes to events in the current month only and their emails seem to go out on an unpredictable schedule. The advantage of these systems, over using the Calendars Net Email Notification System, is that a user can subscribe to the calendar with no need for the calendar administrator to do anything. Then again, these systems do not provide the calendar administrator with a list of their subscribers, either.
Note that a user who establishes notification for a Calendars Net URL at Tracerlock or Mind It will automatically receive a notice of change on the first of every month, whether or not the calendar has actually changed. The default display page of the calendar will automatically shift to the current month, which the monitoring services will see as a "change."
Subscribe to this Setup Page
We add to this Setup page at least once a week, as we add features to Calendars Net or as users tell us new
ways to use the system. If you want to know when the Setup page changes, subscribe to it via one of the free web
page change monitoring services, such as Tracerlock.
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