« FAQ »

1. How do I publish a calendar on the internet?
2. How do I customize calendar header?
3. How to disallow anonymous users from creating calendars?
4. How to assign calendar administrators?
5. How to enable/disable document upload?
6. Can I enter events using the command line?
7. Is it possible to batch create multiple calendars?
8. Are there plans to add RDBMS support?
9. Can I synchronize events with my Palm Pilot?
10. Can I link a document to an event?
11. How do I add icons to my calendar?
12. The script is working, but no icons were pulled up, why?
13. How do I broadcast an event to all calendars?
14. I get a 'not a valid word' error when creating a calendar. What is wrong?
15. How to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in my calendar?
16. How do I embed a small month calendar in a html page?
17. Is there a way to reject events from a corporate calendar?
18. How do I tell if webcal is running under mod_perl?
19. Can one subscribe a calendar to receive email reminders?
20. What are "Virtual Calendar Groups" for?


Q1. How do I publish a calendar on the internet?

By default, webCalendar requires authentication when accessing a calendar. This means a user has to login to view a calendar. To bypass the authentication check, append anonymous=1 to the cgi query string. This option installs the browser with a special anonymous identity which enables the user to view the relevent calendar. Both public and private calendars can be published this way. For example, the following URL publish the calendar for classroom class10.

http://webcal.ma.utexas.edu/webcal/wcal?w=class10&anonymous=1&listview=1

http://webcal.ma.utexas.edu/webcal/wcal?w=class10&anonymous=1

The special anonymous user cannot edit any calendars.

There are a dozen or so cgi options that can be used to customize the look of your calendar.

Q2. How do I customize calendar header?

To customize the default calendar header for a site, define the variable headerCode in site configuration file webcalConfig.pm. The header code must be valid html code. The following special tags may be used.
<logo> Replaced by the default calendar logo
<version> Replaced by webcal's version number
<calendar_selector> Replaced by the calendar selection menu or entry
<calendar_title> Replaced by calendar's descriptive name or owner's name or calendar name
<category_filter> Replaced by category filter menu
<logout> Replaced by the logout button

To customize header for an individual calendar, go to the option screen and enter the header/footer html code in the corresponding textarea and enter 4 in the entry box about the header code textarea. Here is an example

<table width="100%"><tr>
    <td><img src="/i/galaxy.gif" width=203 height=80 border=0></td>
    <td><calendar_title></td>
    <td><logout></td>
 </tr>
</table>
and here is the resulting header.

The same procedure is also valid for customizing calendar footer.

Q3. How to disallow anonymous users from creating calendars?

In webcalConfig.pm, set the variable 'create' to 0. If calendar creation is disabled, only calendar administrators can create new calendars from within his admin screen. It is a good idea to create and assign an admin calendar first before disabling anonymous calendar creation.
Q4. How to assign calendar administrators?

In webcalConfig.pm, the variable theAdministrator hold a list of comma separated calendar names, those users are calendar administrators. To assign calendar administrator, simply insert the calendar name into this list.
Q5. How to enable/disable document upload?

In webcalConfig.pm, modify the following variables

      'allowImageUpload'    => 0,
      'maximumImageFileSize'=> 100000,              
      'reviewImageUpload'   => 1,
      'ImageUploadReviewer' => 'a/b,c/d', 

as needed. If reviewImageUpload is set to 1, user uploads will be held till approved by upload reviewers. ImageUploadReviewer hold a list of upload reviewers.
Q6. Can I enter events using the command line?

The distribution contains a file webcal_cmd.pl that can be used to add/get events from the command line. You need to install this file somewhere in your command search path.
Q7. Is it possible to batch create multiple calendars?

Yes if you're running webcal on a Unix server. There is a perl script wcaladd in the distribution. You need to edit the first 2 variables (the owner of your webserver) before using it.

wcaladd is a script that create a calendar on the command line. You can use it, together with a shell script to batch create calendars. For example, the following script create 100 calendars, test100 through test199.

 
   i=100; 
   while [ $i -lt 200 ] ; 
   do 
    ./wcaladd -u test$i -p pass$i -email test$i\@a.com \
       -spool /var/www/webcal/spool
    i=`expr $i + 1`
   done
Q8. Are there plans to add RDBMS support?

No. Some features in webcal are hard, if not impossible, to translate to database queries. RDBMS support requires major overhull of the current code.
Q9. Can I synchronize events with my Palm Pilot?

You cannot.
Q10. Can I link a document to an event?

Yes. You can either upload the document to your webserver, or privide a URI for your document. Please note that document uploading is controlled by a site configuration variable and maybe disabled by your system administrator.

The URL field on the event editor takes multiple entries separated by spaces. For a uploaded document, you can use ^o^/document_name or its full URL to link to it. For other document accessible on the internet, you have to specify its full URL to link to it.

One of the following icons is used to link to your document. It will be displayed near the event title. Click on the icon will open your document in a separate browser window.

Q11. How do I add icons to my calendar?

First, you system or calendar administrator has to enable image upload at your site. To see whether document upload is enabled, go to an event editor, if you see a small Image Upload below the What label, document upload is allowed. However, a review policy is most likely enforced for image uploads. You can upload icons, but it won't show up until someone at your site approves them.

Once you've upload a set if icons, and they've been approved by your site administrator. You can use them in your events. A link Usable Images should be displayed near the event title and event detail box. Click on that will pops up a window to let you select one or more icons.

Q12. The script is working, but no icons were pulled up, why?

Check the variables
 
      'fimgdirurl'=>"...",
      'imgdirurl'=>"...",
in webcalConfig.pm, see if you can retrieve anything using a browser from the URL fimgdirurl. If not, you need to reconfigure your webserver, or copy the image directory to somewhere under your webserver's main documentation tree; and modify the two variables accordingly.

One common problem is that the image directory is under your /cgi-bin subtree, which is not allowed by some webservers.

Q13. How do I broadcast an event to all calendars?

Create a calendar and declare it as a corporate calendar in webcalConfig.pm. Event added to a corporate calendar is simultaneously inserted to all calendars.
Q14. I get a 'not a valid word' error when creating a calendar. What is wrong?

Most likely your webserver cannot write to the calendar spool directory. Make sure your webserver owns the spool directory.
Q15. How to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in my calendar?

If you want to customize your style sheet, go to the options screen and click on the Create Font Style link on the navigation bar. The CSS dialogue window will pop up. At the bottom of the CSS dialogue, there is a link that let you customize a personal style sheet.

You can define new CSS classes using the CSS dialogue. Your new CSS classes will appear in the Font menu on the event editor to let you select a CSS class for individual events.

Q16. How do I embed a small month calendar in a html page?

Use the <iframe> tag. This will only work with recent browsers, like mozilla, opera, netscape6 and IE5.

You need to pass webcal at least the following args:

   c=navigation_table&w=CALENDAR_NAME&anonymous=1&width=WIDTH&height=HEIGHT  
where CALENDAR_NAME is the name of your calendar, WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size of small month calendar. A few additional args maybe passed to webcal. They are
cellcolor=color Specify the background color for weekday name cells.
gridcolor=color Specify the grid line color.
bgcolor=color Specify the background color.
noarrow=1 Disable the two month navigation arrows.
Colors are specified by name, such as red or by url encoded #rrggbb representation, such as %23ff0000. Here %23 is the hex code for the # mark.

Here is the sample html code.

<iframe 
 src="http://path_to_webcal_cgi?c=navigation_table&w=calendar_name&anonymous=1&width=130&height=120"
 scrolling=no width=160 height=150 frameborder=0>
</iframe>
Q17. Is there a way to reject events from a corporate calendar?

Yes, there is a calendar option "Ignore corporate calendar" on the calendar options screen. Select it will prevent a corporate calendar from adding events to your calendar. For existing corporative events, you have to delete them manually. For new calendars, you can use the "erase your calendar" form on the admin screen to clear your calendar.
Q18. How do I tell if webcal is running under mod_perl?

Use the version command. While viewing your calendar, enter a URI like http://webcal.ma.utexas.edu/webcal/wcal?c=version in the location bar and hit enter. It should report back something like
OS: linux
httpd 5.006001
mod_perl 1.26
If webcal is not running under mod_perl, the server would be perl instead of httpd.

If you're running webcal 2.8.6 or later, click on the version string on the main header will issue the version inquiry automatically.

Q19. Can one subscribe a calendar to receive email reminders?

WebCalendar itself does not support mailing lists. However, you can turn a calendar into a subscription service with the help of a mailing list manager. To do so, install a mailing list manager first, and create a mailing list for the service you want to provide. Then change the email address for the calendar you want to publish to the email address of the your mailing list. Email reminders will be posted to the mailing list after the change.
Q20. What are "Virtual Calendar Groups" for?

Virtual Calendar Group is a feature added in 2.8.6i. It allows you to arrange calendars on a calendar server into different groups. Calendar names are not visible to members outside its group.

For example, suppose your company consists of three departments: sales, development and custom support. You may create three virtual groups, say sales, dev and support. You can then create three special calendars and assign them as the group administrator for each of the three groups. With this setup, you effectively delegated calendar administration to individuals in three departments.






Last updated: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 14:11:22 CDT
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