Events/meet-ups engine

[TomD]

Just wondering what the score is with this James - are you wanting to be writing something from scratch in PHP, or reckon there's some kind of software out there that you could buy and hack around with?

 

It'd need to integrate the login with UBB obviously.

[Scream]

like a calander event handler? If so i can knock that up and you could make it compatable with UBB via the cookies, well that would be one way of making it recognisable for user.

 

As most of my work is Flash based i've only done a Flash front end for this. However i'm sure it wouldn't be to hard to move over to a HTML frontend.

 

**Just noticed we have a calender at the top, lol.**

 

In which case tom could you give some more info on your idea mate?

[James]

Have been looking around for months to see if there is anything suitable which is good enough to use as a starting block and then customise / build upon it. Cant seem to find anything but I'm SURE there is something out there. I'm searched for PHP & Perl apps and NOTHING *confused*

 

I can/may write something from scratch / just bolt it onto the forums (so all the users / authentication ties up) but still have this gut feeling there may be a very good app out there which I cant buy / customize (as i did with ubb). You would have thought that an Event Scheduler type engine would be something a lot of companies would use / hence be an app out for.

 

Its getting so tight now i may have to start regardless writing my own in php. (still learning though! lol)

 

There are some 'calendar' mods at threadsdev.com and other sites but they are very basic.

 

What we need to do is something at least as good as HarderFaster's - but i'm sure i can do better even than that.

 

Also need to automate how people state their attendance to an event - or perhaps whether they are 'tentative' or have changed their minds etc.. Can also ensure that they dont put their name down for 2+ events (just to look popular etc.. - there are a lot of bullshitters! lol). We can even track all this properly and really end up one day with some kind of ClubTheWorld Loyalty card - tied in with the clubs etc.. E.g. those who keeps going to Serious @The Cross time and time again end up getting bigger (and proper) discounts/guest-lists etc...

 

Could all be quite interesting to develop.

[James]

Scream said:

like a calander event handler? If so i can knock that up and you could make it compatable with UBB via the cookies, well that would be one way of making it recognisable for user.

 

As most of my work is Flash based i've only done a Flash front end for this. However i'm sure it wouldn't be to hard to move over to a HTML frontend.

 

**Just noticed we have a calender at the top, lol.**

 

In which case tom could you give some more info on your idea mate?

 

I think the existing caledar (although not 'bad') needs to go. Its all too manual and it doesnt tie into the user base or events on the forums at all.

 

All events from forums will go - forums will be used purely for comments on an event.

 

Ideally some kind of event URN will sit with each thread about a specific event so the users can see the original event details/djs/gallery links/e-flyers/flyers/promotors ...

 

I have started on a database design (in powerdesigner) for what was going to be the foundations of the 'new ctw site' - this is never going to be completed properly but we CAN work on the specific event stuff.

 

Deffo need to sort these events out (and then the DJ profiles etc..) as they are causing confusing to me and others on the board. Posts are even getting lost. Forums should be used for feedback only - not for all the organising.

[Scream]

Ok so we want an event handler that will needed to be crossed with a calander really. Also wouldn't it be better if the user could say select what kinda music they are looking for, be it Funky, Hard House, Trance etc etc and the calander would bring up only those nights. Would limit the amount of information on the screen and make it less cluttered.

 

Now for the person to attend it can be done several ways we could hook it up with a cookie so in that cookie it remembers what events they are and what status they are in that process, maybe or yes. No point in having no as there is no need for it, lol.

 

Maybe if they click on the event and there is an info button which they click a window will appear and give more details and meet up details for people etc. Also details about the event etc.

 

Maybe the event handler would be able to display events by location as an option. For example if you started with all the dates and by using search criteria you limit the events.

 

Again to take this one step further if the site was to be truely dynamic and remember the user everytime they came back to the site. A cookie could remember this kinda information. The cookie could be edit via there profile options.

 

Just a few more ideas, but the only problem sometimes with using someone elses code is trying to understand where everything goes and does. Although it might save time in the long run.

[James]

A good example is on the HarderFaster site - everything is linked very nicely - and all centered around their message board software. The DJs, Clubs, Events, Photos, Posts - all link together.

 

No need for cookies as it will all be stored in the mySQL db.

[Scream]

good point, i just got a thing about cookies at the mo, lol.

 

With the event handler would you want it to have a more of a gui interface or just text?

[James]

Scream said:

good point, i just got a thing about cookies at the mo, lol.

 

With the event handler would you want it to have a more of a gui interface or just text?

 

just text for now mate - need to get the basic engine working properly, longer term will look at re-doing a lot of the graphics/icons etc..

 

for example the text links at the top of the forums should really be icons but its not a priority right now.

[Scream]

well that's why we are puttin a team together so we can handle this all together. That way we will work better.

 

Maybe if we had a newsletter that people said yes and no too and this was partly dynamic. For example it would be created using information from the database.

 

Like what events are on and maybe who's going. We all know that we tend to go somewhere more if a few of your mates are going. again just an idea.

[TomD]

i was really thinking about doing it in HTML because Flash is fiddly, you can't copy and paste and no offence but Flash apps do piss me off quite easily, especially when something's flying about the screen and all you want is just to download something or get at some information (a good example of a BAD online flash app is Macromedia's web site itself, i think it's their registration and download - it doesn't need to be written in Flash and it makes it so much more difficult to do something even relatively simple, like getting the URL of a download). anyway that's by the by.

 

roughly working from the way that CSCOT works at the moment, i reckon the database would have the following tables:

 

event (EventID, EventName, Date, VenueID, EventType... plus others, such as url, time, price, etc)

venue (VenueID, VenueName, Address, RegionID... plus url, etc)

genre (GenreID, GenreName)

musicpolicy (MusicPolID, EventID, GenreID)

attendance (MemberID, EventID, Status)

region (RegionID, RegionName)

 

i think that seems pretty straightforward. if anything needs clarifying please let me know. event->musicpolicy is a one-to-many relationship, as is event->attendance.

 

i think you should allow people to mark down that they will be at multiple events in one night, because you could in theory go from a member meet-up at a bar onto one of many clubs later on.

[Scream]

Also just wanted to highlight some things me and Tom talked about on msn.

 

The news ticker at the top. Well from the DB we are creating you could use XML to pull the data from the DB so that the ticker becomes automated. So for example the ticker displays events for that week.

 

We also talked about queries and that we could make a massive query for the main body of the calander but then we would run into server problems with the amount of users accessing the site.

 

Also when you go to the event section you could have like hot events, this could be done on how many people are going to the event. We've all heard people say at the last minute i didn't know it was on when people have been rantin and raving about it.