Using the Calendar

Introduction

The calendar service is actually provided by a third party called calendars.net, but it is private and password protected and hopefully relatively seamlessly integrated into the rest of the website. That said, there will be some frustrating things about the calendar that we may just have to live with.  Also, since it is free, we will probably suffer some system downtime and outages. If you get any error messages or run into any problems, just try again later.

Logging In

When you click on the "Shared Calendar" button from the menu, you will be prompted for a username and password. If you're on a private computer, you can save the password and skip this login in the future. You may have to log in even if you have logged in elsewhere in the site. Please let me know if you have lost the username and password.

Browsing

The default view for the calendar is the current month. Holidays and events are displayed on the calendar as they would be in a traditional calendar. Some events have more information that can be read by clicking on the title. Some days have more events than can be seen on the month view. Clicking on any date will switch to the day view and show all of the information for that date. The "View Calendar" button on the day view takes you back to the calendar.

Navigating around the calendar is handled by buttons at the bottom of the screen. Also on the footer menu are options to switch the display, to look at more or less of the calendar at once. You can also bring up a window to search the calendar for a certain word.

Adding Events

There are three basic event types in the calendar.  "Daily" events happen on a single day or part of a day, like a party.  "Duration" events stretch over multiple days, like a vacation. "Periodic" events happen repeatedly each week, month, or year, like trash day or a birthday.

To add a daily event, click on the date. If there are no events already on that date, you will be taken right to the event creation screen. If there are already other events on that date, you will need to click "Create" near the top of the page.

There are several choices on the event creation screen:

• Calendar Text: This is what shows up on the calendar, keep it brief.
• Start/End Time: Make choices from the menus, or leave blank for all-day events
• Draw Border: Highlights the event by drawing a box around it.
• Category: I doubt we'll need to use categories.
• Popup Text: This is the place for further details about the event (location, etc.). If you put a web address here, the event can be linked to another web page (like an evite, for example).
• Color Select: Click this button to change the color of your event, but don't try to change the text boxes manually unless you're familiar with HTML.

Duration events have all the same features, plus a few more:

• Starting/Ending Date: Use the menus to select the first and last days of the event.
• Skip Weekends: Check this box if the event spans one or more weekends, but the event only applies to the work week (like if I were traveling to St. Louis regularly for work every week).

Periodic events are very similar, but include a complex repetition scheme. If you want to try it, go ahead, but I'd advise against messing around with periodic events.

Printing

If you'd like to print out the calendar, open the calendar in a new window first. Then it should print out better.

That's it. If you have other questions, contact brian@thecaputos.org. If you're feeling adventurous, there's also detailed instructions on www.calendars.net page. Be warned, their instructions are detailed but a little daunting, and a lot of what they discuss about calendar setup can only be done by the administrator.