a LuxSoft product

LuxCal Event calendar

Installation Guide

Table of Content

  1. Installation of Updates

  2. New Installation

  3. Calendar Configuration

  4. Managing the Calendar

  5. Embedding the Calendar in an Existing Web Page



1. Installation of Updates

To upgrade to a new version of the LuxCal Event Calendar consult the "release_notes_luxcal.html" and follow the instructions given for the relevant release.

2. New Installation

Requirements

For the installation of the LuxCal Event Calendar on the server of your hosting provider, you will need:

Installation Steps

To install the LuxCal Event Calendar on the server of your hosting provider, follow the next steps:

3. Calendar Configuration

Configuration Variables

The calendar configuration variables which are automatically generated during the installation process are stored in the configuration file config.php. Most settings can be changed at a later stage by the calendar administrator via the Settings page in the drop down menu on the navigation bar at the top right corner of the screen.

For those interested in technical details: The following are explanations of the PHP variables stored in the configuration file config.php:

3.1 Installing Automatic Periodical Function

The following automatic periodical functions are available:

To make the automatic periodical functions work, a cron-job needs to be created on the server (or on an external server), which starts the file lcalcron.php, in the root directory of the calendar, daily at 2:00am. For cron job details see the header of the lcalcron.php file.

If you are not familiar with cron-jobs, ask your hosting provider for help.

- The Email Notification Feature

For events entered in the calendar the user can choose to receive an email reminder (notification) one or several days before the event is due. When chosen, for recurring events (e.g. birthdays) an email notification will be sent to the user the selected number of days before each occurrence of the event. Imagine: never forget to buy flowers for your (girl)friend's birthday anymore!

- The Email Calendar Changes Feature

In a multi-user environment it could be useful to be aware of changes being applied to the calendar content, i.e. a list with events added, edited and deleted. Such a list can be called up via the Views drop-down menu in the navigation bar. It is however also possible to have a list with changes automatically sent daily to one or more email addresses.

Via the Settings page the administrator can specify the number of days to look back for changes and a list with email addresses. If the number of days to look back for changes is set to 0 (zero), no emails with changes will be sent.

- Automatic Deletion of Unused User Accounts

The account of users who have not logged in during a certain number of days can be automatically deleted. Via the Settings page the administrator can specify the number of 'no login' days after which the user account will be deleted. If the number of 'no login' days is set to 0 (zero), no user accounts will be deleted.

This function can be particularly useful when users are allowed to self-register (this feature can be switched on/off on the admin's Settings page).

3.2 Installing a New Language

= Note: in the following text the part {language} (including the braces) of the file names represents the name of the relevant language. =

A new language for the user interface of the LuxCal calendar can be installed as follows:

IMPORTANT NOTE: When using special characters (e.g. accents) in the language files, the ui and ug files must be saved with character encoding: utf-8 without BOM (Byte Order Mark). If your text editor does not support utf-8 without BOM, you can download and use Notepad++ (Notepad++ on Sourceforge).

4. Managing the Calendar

Managing the LuxCal calendar is the responsibility of the calendar administrator, who has all calendar access rights.

In order to define users, to set up categories for the calendar, to change configuration settings and to add events, you must select Log In in the navigation bar at the top right corner of the screen. Enter the administrator name or email address and password you specified during the installation, and log in. On the right side of the navigation bar the administrator drop down menu will be displayed.

Event Categories

A good place to start in managing your calendar is to create a number of categories for your events, each with its own color. Adding categories with different colors - though not required - will greatly enhance the views of the calendar. Categories can be for example: meeting, important, holiday, birthday, etc.

The initial installation has only one category which is named "no cat". To manage categories, select Categories in the administrator drop down menu. This takes you to a page with a list of all categories where you can add new categories and edit or delete current categories.

When adding / editing events the defined categories can be selected from a pull down list. The order in which categories are displayed in the pull down list is determined by the Sequence field on the Categories page.

The fields Text Color and Background define the colors used to display events in the calendar belonging to this category.

Calendar Users

The Users menu in the navigation bar allows the calendar administrator to add and edit users and their rights for using LuxCal. There are two main areas that can be edited, i.e. the name / e-mail address / password area and the access rights area. Possible access rights are: "View", "Post Own", "Post All" and "Admin". It is important to use a valid email address for each user to be able to receive email notifications of due dates of events.

The initial installation has two users defined. One is the Public Access user, who initially has "view" access and the other is the calendar administrator, with the administrator name, email address and password specified during the installation. The administrator has all access rights.

Unless the calendar administrator has given "View" access to Public Access users, users must log in to use the calendar using their name or email address and password. Depending on the type of user, a user can have different access rights which can be set by the calendar administrator.

If the administrator has enabled, on the Settings page, user self-registration, users can register themselves via the Login page. Self-registered users have the access rights specified by the administrator on the Settings page.

Calendar Database

The Database menu in the navigation bar allows the calendar administrator to start the following functions:

CSV File Import

CSV (Comma Separated Values) text files with event data can be imported into the LuxCal calendar. This function can for instance be used to import a CSV file with event data exported by MS Outlook. The dialogue to import CSV files is opened by selecting CSV Import from the admin drop-down menu in the navigation bar.

The CSV file contains one line per event and each line contains a number of fields each separated by a comma (or any other unique character). The order of the fields in each line of the CSV file is: title, venue, category id, date, end date, start time, end time and description. The first line of the CSV file is ignored by the import function and can be used for column descriptions (default in MS Outlook exports).

Sample CSV files - with different date/time formats - can be found in the files/ directory of the LuxCal Calendar installation and have the file extension ".csv".

iCal File Import/Export

Events from iCalendar files can be imported into the LuxCal calendar. The content of the iCal file to be imported must meet the [RFC5545 standard] of the Internet Engineering Task Force. The LuxCal calendar can also export events into an iCal file which can be downloaded by the calendar administrator. The dialogue to import/export iCal files is opened by selecting iCal Import / iCal export from the admin drop-down menu in the navigation bar.

This function can for instance be used to back up the events of your LuxCal calendar, or to exchange events with other calendars, e.g. to import public holidays available in iCal format on the internet. Please note that some LuxCal event fields are not supported in the iCal format (e.g. private event, notify, email addresses) and consequently are not copied to the iCal file. Some iCal event repetition rules are not supported by the LuxCal calendar; these events will be displayed and earmarked as such, but will not be added to the calendar.

Various sample iCal files can be found in the files/ directory of the LuxCal Calendar installation and have the file extension ".ics".

Calendar Configuration Settings

The Settings menu in the navigation bar can be used to easily change the calendar's configuration variables which are stored in the config.php file (see section 3 above). These variables, for instance, define the calendar title, the time zone, the language file to be used for the user interface, the default initial view when the calendar is started, the number of weeks/months displayed in the various views, the date and time format, etc.

IMPORTANT: Currently the TimeZone is set to "Europe/Amsterdam". If you are in a different time zone, change the TimeZone to your local time zone. See the PHP Supported Timezones for possible values.

5. Embedding the Calendar in an Existing Web Page

To use the calendar on an other web site, the following possibilities are available:

Link to the Calendar

To link to the LuxCal calendar in an existing web page and open it in a new window, the following HTML code can be used:

<a href="http://www.mycalsite.com/luxcal/" target="_blank">Go To My Calendar</a>.

Embed the Full Calendar

To embed the full LuxCal calendar in an existing web page, an inline frame (iframe) can be used. This can for example be done with the following HTML code:

<iframe src="http://www.mycalsite.com/luxcal" width="80%" height="800px"></iframe>.

Via the CSS styles the iframe can be positioned at the desired location and the width and height can be set to fit your needs.

Embed One Specific Calendar View without Navigation Bar

To embed the LuxCal calendar without navigation bar, the parameter hdr=0 should be added to the URL as follows:

<iframe src="http://www.mycalsite.xx/luxcal/?hdr=0" width="80%" height="800px"></iframe>.

The visitor will not be able to navigate the calendar and select other views. The following parameters can be added to select the view to display and the user-interface language:


For example the HTML code to show the Upcoming Events page without navigation bar, in the French language looks as follows:

<iframe src="http://www.mycalsite.xx/luxcal/?hdr=0&cP=5&cL=Francais" width="80%" height="800px"></iframe>.


Via the CSS styles the iframe can be positioned at the desired location and the width and height can be set to fit your needs.


Important:
The parameter hdr=0 is remembered via the PHP session mechanism; this means that if you access the embedded calendar without navigation bar, then thereafter, when accessing your normal (not-embedded) calendar you will also see no navigation bar. This can be solved by adding the parameter hdr=1 to the URL of your normal calendar.


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