HowTo - Creating an event for the calendar 📆

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One of my goals for this forum is to build a cross-group calendar of what’s going on in the Scottish repair scene. It’s a real opportunity as global sites might work for search (e.g. show me events within 25 miles of Bathgate), but it’s not made for the co-operative work between groups. I really want to make life easier for organisers :slight_smile:

Therefore, here’s a howto (with pictures) for creating an event in the site calendar.

Events are part of a topic, so first you need to start a new topic. Head to the board for your group (I’ll use Repair Groups > Remake Discussion) and start a topic:

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Once in a new topic, write a sensible title, then click the Plus icon, and select Create Event (also there’s a bunch of other useful things in there!)

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This will open the Create Event window. There’s lots of options here! I’ll focus on the basics, but I can detail some of the options after.

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Hopefully all pretty self-explanatory - set the start & end time, event title (which does not have to match the topic, although it probably should), location, and description. The Location works well as a URL if you have it posted elsewhere on the web, or can be a place too.

Finally hit the Create button, and the topic you’re editing will now have a bunch of text (which we call BBCode) for the event. You can write more about the event underneath, if you wish, as part of a normal topic - and then click Create Topic as usual.

Once created you’ll see the event box at the top of the topic, and you can also find it on the calendar:

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That’s it! Get posting :smiley:

Additional options:

  • You can make events curring (e.g. a monthly repair cafe)
    • This pairs well with “delete posts on a topic after 30 days” which an admin can set up for you.
  • You can restrict an event to a specific group if you wish (e.g. AGMs)
  • By default, forum users can click Going / Interested / Not Going to signal intention. This can be useful for organisers who want a simple “guest list” or capacity planning (and don’t already have something in place). It’s very basic, but it works if you just want names-at-the-door.
    • This can be disabled if you don’t want it on your event.
    • You can also set reminders for those who picked “Going”, which sets a forum ping (just as when you get a Like or a Badge) to those users.
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:loudspeaker: Introductions!
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Good guidance. I don’t think oir open times should be added. Different for say monthly cafe events, but we are open 3 times a week every week and that would just saturate the cal with noise.

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That makes sense, I agree. However, I think its fair to write a topic about your repair shop in Repair Groups > Linlithgow Repair Shop and I can pin it to the top for you, so that people can find it. Is that useful?

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I noted the bridge of weir event has a time stamp showing London time. Can this be filtered out so we don’t see time zones. It looks like the even is in London rather than it using London as a time zone. Minor point.

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It’s a fair point. However, it’s set when creating the event:

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Moreover, you can’t leave it blank, and there doesn’t appear to be a setting to hide it, that I can find - I’ll ask upstream though. Thanks for the idea!

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