META: Improve events on backdropcms.org

[Wylbur]

Follow-ups based on agreements in the comments below:

• add an iCal feed for events #1004
• Make it easier for people to add Backdrop-related events to their calendars #1005
• Why is office hours on the events page? What does it need? #1006

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Original issue

Describe the need

??

Proposed solution

Create a calendar feed based on events in the https://backdropcms.org/ website

Add fields to event content type

• Add a boolean conditional to add or exclude items to the calendar feed
• Add a date/time field with start and end values that is required of boolean field is checked

Create Events Feed

• Add iCal module
• Create view display to publish events feed - https://backdropcms.org/calendar.ics
• Use this view to store this new display https://backdropcms.org/admin/structure/views/view/events

Create Calendar Display

• Add Fullcalendar NG
• Create view display to show Events - https://backdropcms.org/calendar
• Use this view to store this new display https://backdropcms.org/admin/structure/views/view/events

Date Repeat

• Add and test Date Repeat module to see if that can create recurring events for the feeds and the calendar

Implement Calendar on Website

• Replace links and references to old Google calendar with new links to Calendar and Feed
• Update Events on existing Google Calendar feed with Sunset message, and links to new Calendar Feed

Calendar Links on Events

• Add addtocal module
• Configure a "Add to Calendar" link on event pages

[Wylbur]

Thanks for everyone's feedback, we will start development of this.

[irinaz]

@Wylbur , please let me know if you need any help with this task.

[jenlampton]

@Wylbur I don't think this is a good idea for the Backdropcms.org website. We don't really have any need for a meetings or calandar-ing system, and trying to re-create something that complicated on a website this important to us -- especially when we don't really need them -- is going to be a long-term maintenance nightmare.

Before we do anything here, let's talk about what we do actually need, and not start with a solution. What is the problem this is attempting to solve?

[irinaz]

@jenlampton , here is update for the issue

Describe the need

Currently there is huge interest in BackdropCMS and we want to post lots of events that can answer people's questions, seminars, talks, etc. There is a huge need for an events site, not a google calendar.

We can extend (https://events.backdropcms.org/). to be this calendar

[quicksketch]

@stpaultim and I discussed with @irinaz today on the request here. I can see a couple opportunities here for improving our event management.

1. The Google Calendar is currently totally separate from https://backdropcms.org/news/events. Right now it's totally manual that someone (usually @jenlampton) copies important events into the Google Calendar. It would be great automatically generate an ICS feed to remove this manual, restricted action.
2. For people wanting to add individual events to their own personal calendar, https://backdropcms.org/news/events doesn't provide a way to do that. It fails in multiple ways: There's no time information (important for things like office hours). Not all events are in the Google calendar. And it's a multiple step process to add a calendar item even if you're using Google Calendar.

@stpaultim has suggested that maybe we should move this issue to https://github.com/backdrop-ops/events.backdropcms.org. The events site was always intended to do more than just Backdrop LIVE. And developing this feature over there might streamline the development process and lower the overall risk, since backdropcms.org is a crucial property for us.

The downside of moving the events is that it's more work to remove and redirect everything from https://backdropcms.org/news/events over to events.backdropcms.org.

[jenlampton]

The Google Calendar is currently totally separate from https://backdropcms.org/news/events. Right now it's totally manual that someone (usually @jenlampton) copies important events into the Google Calendar. It would be great automatically generate an ICS feed to remove this manual, restricted action.

I 100% agree on this for all events (but not for meetings)

For people wanting to add individual events to their own personal calendar, backdropcms.org/news/events doesn't provide a way to do that.

This is what the google calendar provides, and why we have one. I think all we need to do is get the "Add to calendar" option from google calender to appear on our event nodes, and that should solve that problem.

@stpaultim has suggested that maybe we should move this issue to backdrop-ops/events.backdropcms.org.

I don't think that's a great fit either, for two reasons

1. The events site is set up to run the events, not advertise other events that have nothing to do with us (like drupal camps and other conferences). We would need to build something from scratch since there's nothing similar there already. As Nate mentioned, it would be a lot of work.
2. We want people to easily be able to promote their own events, and everyone will probably have a log-in to b.org. They may not have one to events.b.org.

We can extend (https://events.backdropcms.org/). to be this calendar

I don't think we should add anything to the site to make it into a calendar. It should be a promotional site that provides people with information, in a list :)

... we want to post lots of events that can answer people's questions, seminars, talks, etc.

This does not describe the need for the changes as proposed in this issue. The website already provides a place that lists events that can be posted by anyone. If that's all that was needed we could close this issue, but it's clear that something more was needed, but without documenting the need it's very hard to recommend alternative solutions :)

[jenlampton]

For people wanting to add individual events to their own personal calendar, backdropcms.org/news/events doesn't provide a way to do that. It fails in multiple ways: There's no time information (important for things like office hours). Not all events are in the Google calendar. And it's a multiple step process to add a calendar item even if you're using Google Calendar.

A thought: We do have two different google calendars. One is for events, and the other is for meetings. The reason they are separate is because they are managed differently. We did expect anyone to be able to add an event, but meetings are "official" and are only added by people who are authorized to create them.

Things like "Office hours" fall directly into this category of "meetings" that should not be created by just anyone. We had never planned for meetings (including "office hours") to be part of b.org. All official (recurring) meetings are documented on https://backdropcms.org/support/resources instead.

At some point we started mis-using "events" for office hours, and now it sounds like we are trying to do the same with webinars.

Let's take a step back and see what the office hours need was, and see if we can solve that in another way that also works for webinars. Maybe these things can also auto-feed into our other google calendar (or what I'd prefer, would be feed from the calendar to the website) I'll create a follow-up for that too.

[quicksketch]

This is what the google calendar provides, and why we have one. I think all we need to do is get the "Add to calendar" option from google calender to appear on our event nodes, and that should solve that problem.

The current calendar only works for Google Calendar users, but not for Outlook or local calendars (e.g. iCal.app). If you try to use "Copy to calendar" from a Google Calendar it redirects you to https://workspace.google.com/products/calendar/?hl=en-US to sign-up for Google Calendars. Something like https://github.com/backdrop-contrib/addtocal is usually needed to provide an adequate Add to Calendar link, since how you add to calendar depends on what calendaring software you use.

[jenlampton]

great, i added that into he relevant issue: #1005

[irinaz]

We also need a third sub-task "Make it easier for people to find Backdrop Events". Right now set up is very confusing - https://events.backdropcms.org/ only shows BackdropLive - only insiders understand this. If all events are on https://backdropcms.org/news/events it would be very helpful to have big block on front page of https://events.backdropcms.org/ with link back to events page. Also there are more types of events now, not only office hours and internal meetings.

[jenlampton]

@irinaz that thrid subtask exists: #1006