Google Calendar Events

This is a WordPress plugin, which parses Google Calendar feeds and displays the events as a calendar grid or list on a page, post or widget. Events from multiple feeds can be displayed on one grid or list. You can specify how many events to retrieve, whether to retrieve past events and how long to cache the feed for, amongst other things. Grids can have AJAX functionality, which allows you to change the month, if required.

The calendar grid markup is generated using a modified version of the PHP Calendar script (2.3) by Keith Devens. As of version 0.2, tooltips are created using the jQuery tooltip plugin, qTip.

Don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions, problems, feedback etc. Leave a comment at the bottom of the page or contact me.

Demo

Visit the demo page to see what the plugin can do.

Download

The current version is 0.7.2

You can download Google Calendar Events from the WordPress plugin directory page.

Installation

Either use the automatic installer from within your WordPress admin, or follow the below steps:

Download google-calendar-events.zip from the plugin repository
Extract the file
Copy the google-calendar-events directory to your WordPress plugins directory (probably wp-content/plugins)
Login to your WordPress admin, navigate to the Plugins section and activate Google Calendar Events
You should now see a new Google Calendar Events settings page under the Settings tab

Adding a Feed

Go to the Google Calendar Events settings page and click the Add Feed button. Here’s an explanation of the various fields:

Feed ID
This is automatically assigned, it’s just a unique identifier.
Feed Title
This can be whatever you like. Try to use something descriptive so that it will be easy to remember which feed is which (e.g. ‘Upcoming Club Events’ rather than ‘Feed 1′).
Feed URL
This is the URLto the Google Calendar feed. It should be something like this:http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/your-email@gmail.com/public/fullThe end of the URL may have /basic or /fullon the end, both should work ok.If you are using your own feed, you can find the URL by logging into Google Calendar then clicking on the calendar settings. In the Calendar Address section you should see an orange XML button, click on it to see your feed URL. Copy and paste the URL into the Feed URL field.
Retrieve events from
The time at which to start retrieving events. Select one of the options from the drop-down box, and then specify an additional offset for the start time / date you require. The offset should be given in seconds (3600 seconds = 1 hour, 86400 seconds = 1 day), and can be negative.If you are using the ‘Specific date / time’ option, enter the UNIX timestamp for the date / time into the textbox. You can generate UNIX timestamps here.Take a look at this post for a few examples of how to use this option.
Retrieve events until
The time at which to stop retrieving events.The instructions for the ‘Retrieve events from’ option (above) also apply here.
Maximum number of events to retrieve
The maximum number of events to retrieve from the calendar feed. Due to caching and timezone issues, it is a good idea to set this to a higher number than you actually want to display. 5 to 10 higher should be fine in most cases. You can specify the exact number to display in the widget options or shortcode parameters.
Date format
A PHP date format string. Leave this empty to just use the default for your blog (in Settings > General). Stick to just day / week / year formatting here, leave hours / minutes / seconds for the time format (below).
Time format
A PHP date format string. Leave this empty to just use the default for your blog (in Settings > General).
Timezone adjustment
If you are having problems with dates and times being shown incorrectly for your timezone, select your required timezone from the drop-down box.
Cache duration
This is the length of time to keep the feed cached, in seconds (43200 seconds = 12 hours). You might want to reduce this value if your calendar updates very often but avoid setting it really low or page load times and calls to Google’s servers will be increased. If you want to update the feed cache ‘right now’ to check any events you have added to your Google Calendar, set this to 0, then refresh any page with the calendar on it. You should then set this back to a higher number.
Show multiple day events on each day?
If checked, events that span multiple days will be shown on each day that they span. If unchecked, multi-day events will only be shown on their first day.

Display options

To control the information that is displayed for each event in the grid tooltip or list, you can use either the simple display options, or the event display builder. The event display builder is much more flexible than the simple display options.

The simple display options are described below. There is a separate, in-depth guide to the event display builder.

Simple Display Options

Display start time / date?
Select how to display the start time and date for events from the drop-down box. You can also enter some text to be displayed before the start time / date in the textbox
Display end time / date?
Same applies here.
Separator text / characters
If you have chosen to display the time and date for either of the above two settings, you can specify the text / characters to separate the time and date here (include spaces).
Display location?
If checked, the location of events will be displayed (if a location was set when the event was created). You can also enter some text to be displayed before the location in the textbox.
Display description?
Same as the location, but you can also specify a maximum word count for the description text. This can prevent the tooltips / lists becoming very long if your events have lengthy descriptions.
Display link to event?
If checked, a link will be displayed for each event, which links to the Google Calendar page for that event. You can also specify whether these links will open in a new window, and the link text to be displayed.

When you’re done, click the Add Feed button. You will be redirected back to the main plugin settings page and you should see your feed listed in the current feeds section.

Please note that Google Calendar feeds that you add should have public sharing enabled and have the ‘Share only my free/busy information (Hide details)’ checkbox unchecked (These settings are under ‘Share this Calendar’ in the Settings of your Google Calendar admin).

Event Display Builder Guide

The event display builder requires quite a lot of documentation, so has a page to itself! Please take a look at the event display builder guide.

Editing / Deleting Feeds

On the main plugin settings page, you should see Edit and Delete links for each feed you have added.

The Edit Feed screen is very similar to the Add Feed screen so should be fairly self explanatory by now.

On the Delete Feed screen, check that the feed displayed is the one you wish to delete, then click the Delete Feed button. Make sure that you remove or adjust any widgets or shortcodes etc. that used the feed you have just deleted or you may get errors.

Adding a Widget

You need to have added a feed before you can add a widget, see above for how to do that if you’re not sure. Also, your theme must be widget enabled. If it isn’t, try using one of the other methods explained below.

Once you have added a feed, go to the Widgets page of your WordPress admin (under Appearance) and do the following:

Drag the Google Calendar Events widget from the Available Widgets box into one of the widget areas on the right of the screen.
Click on the arrow on the right of the widget, you should see some options.
Enter the feeds IDs of the feeds you want to display in this widget as a comma separated list (e.g. 1, 2, 4). If you want to display all the feeds you have added, leave this blank.
Choose how to display the events from the drop-down-box.
Enter the number of events that you want to display in this widget (you can’t display more than the number you specified in the ‘Maximum number of events to display’ option in the feed settings). Enter 0 to display all events that were retrieved.
Choose whether you want events to be displayed in ascending or descending order. This only applies to lists.
If you want to display a title on the top of the tooltip / each list item, tick the checkbox and enter your desired title text in the text field (can be empty).
Click the Save button.

Adding to a Post or Page

To add a calendar grid or list to a post of page, you can use the following shortcode:

[google-calendar-events]

It takes up to four different parameters:

id – The IDs of the feeds you want to display as a comma separated list (all feeds will be displayed if this is omitted).
type – Should be one of the following (defaults to gridif parameter is omitted):
- list – Events displayed in a list
- list-grouped – Events displayed in a list, grouped by date
- grid – Events displayed in a calendar grid for the current month
- ajax – Events displayed in a calendar grid, with the ability to change months via AJAX
title – Title text to be displayed on the top of the tooltip / list items (no title is shown if parameter is omitted).
max – The maximum number of events to display (again, you can’t display more than the number you specified in the ‘Maximum number of events to display’ option in the feed settings). All events retrieved will be displayed if set to 0, or if this parameter is omitted.
order – The order of events. This only applies to lists. Should be asc or desc (defaults to asc if this parameter is omitted).

So, for example, to display 10 events from feeds 1 and 3 in a AJAX enabled calendar grid with the tooltip title ‘Events on’, use the following:

[google-calendar-events id="1, 3" type="ajax" title="Events on" max="10"]

You can also use the do_shortcode() function to add a grid or list anywhere in a theme / template, like this:

<?php echo do_shortcode( '[google-calendar-events id="1, 3" type="ajax" title="Events on" max="10"]' ); ?>

General Options

These are the options on the main plugin screen.

Custom stylesheet URL
If you want to make changes to the default CSS styles, create a new stylesheet on your server (not in the google-calendar-events directory) and enter its URL into this textbox. The default stylesheet will be overwritten each time the plugin updates, so beware of editing it directly, you will lose your changes.
Add JavaScript to footer?
If the AJAX functionality, or the tooltips don’t appear to work for your site, try ticking this checbox.
Loading text
Enter the text to display when the calendar is loading during an AJAX request.
Error message
Enter an error message to display to non-admin users if events cannot be displayed for any reason. Logged-in admin users will see different error messages indicating the cause of the error.
Optimise event retrieval?
If enabled, the plugin will use an experimental parameter of the Google Data API, called fields. This feature can improve performance significantly as it allows the plugin to request only the information it requires. This means that there is less feed data to transfer and process. It is highly recommended that you leave this option enabled, however, as this is an experimental feature, Google could potentially remove or change it at any time.
Use old styles?
In version 0.7, some changes were made to the default CSS stylesheet. Enabling this option will add another stylesheet that includes much of the stuff that was removed / changed. You should consider updating your custom stylesheet so that you don’t need this enabled. This option will be removed in a future version.

Notes for Google Apps Calendar Users

If you are using a feed from a Google Apps Calendar and are having issues getting things up and running, please take a look at the notes for Google Apps Calendar Users.

AJAX grids

A few things to remember about AJAX grids. This applies to both widgets and full page grids.

To have the ability to change month on a grid, you must use the AJAX versions of the grids. See the above sections for how to do this.
To change the month, click on the arrows that appear on either side of the grid title.
The arrows will only appear if there are more events to show in that direction. For example, if the grid is showing July and there are no events in August or beyond then the next month arrow will not show.
Each time you click on one of the arrows, the information is requested from the server, so will take a small amount of time to appear (generally a couple of seconds).

Frequently Asked Questions

For answers to commonly asked questions, please visit the FAQ page.

If the FAQ don’t help, please ask in the comments below, or send me an email.

Things to Note

The calendar grid uses the WordPress ‘Week starts on’ setting to determine on which day the grid will start. You can change this in Settings > General.
Only a very basic CSS stylesheet is included. The intention is that you will adjust the stylesheet to fit your theme.
Styles and JavaScript are added by wp_head() or wp_footer() (if the relevant option is enabled) so ensure that you theme uses these functions or you will need to add the CSS and JavaScript files manually.
The plugin is still very much under development so there may be rough edges. I would appreciate any feedback, including bug reports and requests for additional features. Leave a comment below or contact me. Thanks!

To Do

Things I hope to implement / improve at some point:

Allow event information to be displayed within calendar grid cells (not just in the tooltip)
Different groupings for the grouped list (week, month, year etc)
Better handling of feeds that contain only free / busy information
Only load JavaScript when needed on the page
Allow a month other than “this” month to be displayed initially for calendar grids (first month that has events?)
Convert feeds to a custom post type

Any other suggestions?

Donations

Several people have asked about making a donation to the continued development and support of the plugin, so I’ve finally got around to sorting it out! Any donations will go towards website hosting costs and stuff like that.

Donations are much appreciated, but please do not feel in any way obligated to donate! I develop and support the plugin because I enjoy doing so, not for any financial gain.

3,253 Responses

Jordan Iversen
February 28, 2012 at 10:36 pm

Hi there Ross!

Thanks a lot for this plugin, it has a lot of great features. Did you ever find a way to show the event title on the grid squares? I have a need for this asap if there is a way to do so. I still wish to have the tooltip enabled and need to be able to to back and forth between months.

I know you are able to pull this info to display on the list view, so I would imagine there is a way to do so for the grid view.

Let me know, thanks!

-Jordan
Reply
1. Ross
  February 29, 2012 at 11:50 pm
  
  Hi Jordan,
  
  The short answer is no, unfortunately.
  
  It’s not impossible, or event hugely complicated, but there’s lots of potential issues / questions (What information to display (just the title? allow customisation?). What if the information is too long to fit in a grid cell? What if there are 20 events on one day? Etc, etc, etc) that I need to look into to ensure it works well, and I just haven’t had the time to do that yet.
  
  It’s definitely on my list, but it’s certainly not imminent, I’m afraid.
  
  Sorry to disappoint!
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Dennis D
March 1, 2012 at 1:07 pm

Thanks for a great plugin!

I’m have trouble making a max width for the “list” view. The grid/ajax works fine, but the list does not stay within the borders:
http://dinosaurs.dk/discgolf/wp/

Any tips?
Reply
1. Dennis D
  March 1, 2012 at 2:45 pm
  
  nevermind, I used a widget on page plugin to fix it.
  Reply
  1. Ross
    March 1, 2012 at 10:44 pm
    
    Hi Dennis,
    
    I’m glad you found a solution.
    
    The issue you describe was probably due to HTML <pre> tags in your page, surrounding the shortcode. If you edit the page with the HTML (not Visual) editor, and remove the <pre> tags from either side of the shortcode, the text should wrap correctly.
    
    Ross.
    Reply
    1. Queenie
      April 4, 2012 at 11:45 am
      
      Had the same issue, this fixed the problem idd.
      Awesome plugin, thank you!!
      Reply
Khamis Hammoudeh
March 2, 2012 at 12:55 am

Hi there Ross,

Thanks for your work on this plug-in. I’m really glad to have multiple Google calendars pulling in across my site. I would like to be able to include a month heading to group together events occurring in the same month.

Any hope of having this role out soon?

Thanks,
Khamis
Reply
1. Ross
  March 4, 2012 at 1:21 pm
  
  Hi Khamis,
  
  I’m quite busy with other things currently, so it probably won’t be soon, I’m afraid.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Al
March 2, 2012 at 1:06 am

Hello Ross

Thanks for using the php calendar to create an awesome plug-in. I love the less is more approach.

One problem, this is on a site that only has events during September/October each year. I think I can make this happen with a simple code change, but what file is specifying the month?

Thanks,

Al
Reply
1. Ross
  March 4, 2012 at 1:27 pm
  
  Hi Al,
  
  The get_grid function on line 195 of google-calendar-events/inc/gce-parser.php does most of the work of creating the calendar grid. One of its parameters is the month to display.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Laura Y.
March 2, 2012 at 9:04 pm

I’m interested to know how widget 1 works. I’m assuming when you click on an arrow an Ajax request is sent to the server. Out of curiosity, what does the server return? Does it return data in xml format that it parsed by the client using JavaScript?

Laura
Reply
1. Ross
  March 4, 2012 at 1:31 pm
  
  Hi Laura,
  
  It returns HTML. The existing calendar in the page is simply replaced with the returned HTML.
  
  So, it’s not strictly “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML“, as no XML is involved.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Bill
March 7, 2012 at 8:35 pm

Hi Ross, I’m getting:

1 or more of your feeds could not be displayed. The following errors occurred:

Feed 1: Some data was retrieved, but could not be parsed successfully. Please ensure your feed URL is correct.

The feed being: http://calendar.leftcoastgrassfed.com
Page I’m testing it on: http://www.leftcoastgrassfed.com/calendar-test/

Works via the Google iframe on this page: http://www.leftcoastgrassfed.com/about/farmers-market-calendar/

Any clue as to why?
Reply
1. Ross
  March 7, 2012 at 9:09 pm
  
  Bill,
  
  http://calendar.leftcoastgrassfed.com isn’t a valid feed URL. It should look something like this:
```
https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/pv5r2t9158grpp4gqpa58jptf9%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic
```
  or this:
```
https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/email-address@domain.com/public/basic
```
  To find your feed URL, go to Google Calendar and look for your calendar under “My calendars” on the left of the page. Click the little arrow thing on the calendar, then click “Calendar settings”. Then, click the orange XML button next to “Calendar Address”.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Hank Fairman
March 8, 2012 at 2:54 pm

Hey Ross,

I’m getting a four-hour difference in posted time to actual calendar time. I’ve looked for a “Set time zone” in the plugin/widget but can’t find one.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
-Hank
Reply
1. Ross
  March 8, 2012 at 7:36 pm
  
  Hi Hank,
  
  Is your WordPress timezone (Settings > General) set correctly?
  
  There is also a “Timezone adjustment” option in the plugin feed settings. Is this set correctly?
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Ann Williams
March 8, 2012 at 4:54 pm

I am getting the following message:
“1 or more of your feeds could not be displayed. The following errors occurred:

Feed 2: Access to this feed was denied (403). Please ensure you have public sharing enabled for your calendar.”

Can you please help me.
Thank you,
Ann
Reply
1. Ross
  March 8, 2012 at 7:38 pm
  
  Hi Ann,
  
  In the sharing settings for your calendar in Google Calendar, do you have the “Make this calendar public?” option enabled, and the “Share only by free/busy information” option disabled?
  
  Ross.
  Reply
  1. Ann Williams
    March 10, 2012 at 2:44 pm
    
    Yes I have the “Make this calendar public?” option enabled, and the “Share only by free/busy information” option disabled?
    Reply
    1. Ross
      March 10, 2012 at 2:46 pm
      
      Ann,
      
      Could you let me know the feed URL you’re trying to use, so I can do a little testing?
      
      Ross.
      Reply
      1. Ann Williams
        March 10, 2012 at 3:14 pm
        
        http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/ctctennis%40fuse.net/public/
        
        I used it all last year. We are a seasonal club, so it was just recently that I tried to update the calendar and ….
        
        Thanks so much for your help
        Ann
      2. Ross
        March 10, 2012 at 3:22 pm
        
        Ann,
        
        The feed still doesn’t have public access enabled, I’m afraid. If you visit the URL in your browser, you’ll see the following message:
        
        Sorry, this calendar does not have public access enabled. If you are the calendar owner, you can make this calendar public on the calendar sharing settings page
        
        Are you using Google Apps, or just “ordinary” Google Calendar?
        
        If you’re using Google Apps, try the following:
        
        Log in to Google Apps as an admin
        
        Go to the main domain dashboard, then click Settings
        
        In the Calendar settings, under Sharing options, make sure both options are set to “Share all information…”
        
        Ross
    2. Ann Williams
      March 10, 2012 at 3:43 pm
      
      I am using ordinary Google Calendar. I just changes the url – no idea what happened to the one I was using – the calendar now appears but I can only see the current month.
      
      It used to have arrows to show past and future months. If I set it to begin with now, the arrows go away. If I set it to the beginning of time, they come back. Any way to set it from now on?
      
      FYI – you are amazing
      Reply
      1. Ross
        March 10, 2012 at 4:21 pm
        
        Ann,
        
        It looks to be working ok to me. I can see both the previous and next month arrows.
        
        To retrieve events from today onwards, you’d use the following settings:
        
        Retrieve events from: 00:00 today
        Retrieve events until: The end of time
        
        Ross.
      2. Ann Williams
        March 10, 2012 at 4:43 pm
        
        Thanks for your help. I tried the 00:00 today and the arrows disappeared. I’m just concerned that it takes longer and longer to load when it is looking so far back.
        
        Thanks
        Ann
      3. Ross
        March 10, 2012 at 4:49 pm
        
        Ann,
        
        If you set “Retrieve events from” to “00:00 today”, the previous month arrow should disappear, but not the next month arrow (assuming you have “Retrieve events until” set to “The end of time”).
        
        Ross.
      4. Ann Williams
        March 10, 2012 at 5:29 pm
        
        I do have events set as you suggest, but the next month arrow disappears too.
        
        Sorry
        Ann
      5. Ross
        March 10, 2012 at 5:35 pm
        
        Ann,
        
        That’s odd. Could you let me know the feed URL you’re using (the one that works in the plugin)?
        
        Ross.
      6. Ann Williams
        March 10, 2012 at 7:24 pm
        
        https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/cincinnatitennisclub%40gmail.com/public/basic
        
        I currently have it set to the beginning of time.
      7. Ross
        March 10, 2012 at 10:26 pm
        
        Ann,
        
        With the settings I described previously, your feed seems to work ok in the plugin for me. It displays the next month arrow, but not the previous month arrow. I’m struggling to think of any reason why it wouldn’t work in the same way for you.
        
        You’re definitely using the latest version of the plugin (0.7.2)?
        
        Ross.
      8. Ann Williams
        March 12, 2012 at 10:07 pm
        
        Ross,
        I am definitely using the latest version.
        Does the time stamp matter – if so could that be the problem? What should it be?
        
        Thank you so much,
        Ann
      9. Ross
        March 12, 2012 at 10:10 pm
        
        Ann,
        
        By timestamp, do you mean the offset fields (the text-boxes next to the “Retrieve events from / until” drop-downs)?
        
        If so, in your case, these should both be set to 0.
        
        Ross.
      10. Ann Williams
        March 12, 2012 at 10:42 pm
        
        Ross,
        Setting time stamp to 0 fixed my problem.
        I can’t thank you enough for your unparallelled support
        Ann
      11. Ross
        March 13, 2012 at 6:35 pm
        
        Ann,
        
        Great! I’m glad we got to the bottom of it!
        
        Ross.
Marsha
March 8, 2012 at 6:59 pm

Thanks for the great calendar. Absolutely love the simple layout.

I have created a new stylesheet and have tried uploading it to several different places on my site to override the default and I still can not get it to work. Any suggestions on where in the directory to store?

Also, is it possible to change the font type in the month header?

Thank you in advance.
Reply
1. Ross
  March 8, 2012 at 9:29 pm
  
  Marsha,
  
  You can store it wherever you like, as long as it’s accessible via the web. Perhaps the simplest place might be the web root (probably called public_html, www or htdocs). Once you’ve saved the file somewhere, you’ll need to enter its URL into the “Custom stylesheet URL” field in the plugin settings. If you save it in the web root, the URL will be something like this:
```
http://your-domain.com/custom-stylsheet.css
```
  Yes, you can adjust the styling of the month header with something like the following CSS:
```
.gce-page-grid .gce-calendar .gce-month-title,
.gce-widget-grid .gce-calendar .gce-month-title {
	/* your CSS here */
}
```
  Ross.
  Reply
Leon
March 13, 2012 at 12:38 pm

Thanks it works awesome.
I’m creating a site in Dutch and I started editing the .POT file with poedit.
But I can’t seem to find how to change the names of months and days.
And with it the letters in the upper section of the calendar. M till S.
I hope you can help me.

Gratitude
Reply
1. Ross
  March 13, 2012 at 6:39 pm
  
  Hi Leon,
  
  All date stuff will be automatically translated if you install a Dutch language file for WordPress itself. There’s some more information on how to do this here.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
  1. Leon
    March 14, 2012 at 9:08 pm
    
    Thanks it worked almost perfectly.
    When a tooltip appears it has some things like Starts and Ends.
    I changed that into Dutch but I can’t seem to change “Events on” Certain date.
    Your help would be most satifying.
    
    Gratitude
    Reply
    1. Ross
      March 14, 2012 at 9:13 pm
      
      Leon,
      
      The “Starts” and “Ends” text can be customised in the feed settings, under “Display Options”. If you’re using the simple display options, just alter the relevant options, or if you’re using the event display builder, you can edit the event display builder text field.
      
      Ross.
      Reply
Matt
March 14, 2012 at 2:58 am

Hi there, first off, GREAT plugin! I was wondering if there is anyway to actually show the events on the calendar rather than just changing the font color of the date instead of showing them only in a tooltip. Basically just so that it looks a little more like the Google Calendar interface?
Reply
1. Ross
  March 14, 2012 at 9:10 pm
  
  Hi Matt,
  
  No, not currently, I’m afraid. It’s something I have on my to-do list though.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
marco
March 15, 2012 at 6:17 pm

Hi , i added events today between dates that are already present on the grouped list but they are not showing up when the page is refreshed ?
Reply
1. Ross
  March 15, 2012 at 6:23 pm
  
  Hi Marco,
  
  The feed data is cached for a length of time specified by the “Cache duration” option in the feed settings. Once the cache has expired, your events should appear. You can manually clear the cache at any time by clicking the “Refresh” link (next to the “Edit” and “Delete” links).
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Thavaz
March 16, 2012 at 1:51 pm

Hi there Ross

I hope that you are well.
In regard to link: http://www.parasakthi.co.za/aalayum-events/
Really enjoy using this plugin, however after waking up this morning I found my Calenders gone and my widgets reporting errors of this nature:

1 or more of your feeds could not be displayed. The following errors occurred:

Feed 1: There are no HTTP transports available which can complete the requested request. Please ensure your feed URL is correct.

Do you perhaps know what I could be doing incorrectly?

Regards
Reply
1. Ross
  March 17, 2012 at 10:02 am
  
  Hi Thavaz,
  
  WordPress tries a few different methods of making remote requests. If none of them are available / working on your server, the plugin can’t retrieve the data from Google’s servers that it requires, and you’ll get the error message you describe.
  
  Perhaps try installing the Core Control plugin. Once installed, go to Tools > Core Control, and enable “HTTP Access Module 1.0″. Then click, “External HTTP Access”. Under “Manage Transports” you should be able to see which transports are available. Try disabling / enabling them in turn to see if that makes any difference.
  
  Ross
  Reply
gnoric
March 16, 2012 at 5:59 pm

Hi,
First of all, great plugin. Thx alot (mate ).
I would like to hide the widget completely if no events can be displayed, for whatever reason.
I’m ok with php and css, so if you can give me some pointers I might figure it out myself. It shouldn’t be 2 hard, but it would be nice to know where to start. Help is highly appreceated.
Thx again, sabu
Reply
1. Ross
  March 18, 2012 at 7:21 pm
  
  Hello,
  
  This is easier said than done, I’m afraid. At the point when the plugin retrieves / processes the events, it’s already too late in WordPress’ execution to prevent the widget from displaying completely. It could probably be done client side with some JavaScript, but it’d be a bit messy.
  
  I can see how this would be useful though. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do to the code to make this feasible for a future release.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
  1. gnoric
    March 19, 2012 at 7:15 am
    
    Thx 4 ur fast reply,
    I was thinking more along the lines of having a css included only when nothing is displayed with a height, margin, visibility, … u know the tricks..
    but you are right, if it is already sent, there would have to be client side js fixes.
    I think the only other way (without js, and major syntax) is calling the RSS feed in the header already, and then (out of lazyness and to reduce changes) again from the widget if the widget is actually being loaded.
    Unfortunately I dont have the time to look into that, but maybe I will on the weekend. So please just tell me if this is doable, without major syntax changes or client side scripting, and I see what I can do.
    Thx, Eric
    Reply
    1. gnoric
      March 20, 2012 at 9:26 pm
      
      Hi again,
      I took a look at it, but didn’t have the appropriate time (or skill) to get it done.
      Please, if possible, drop me a mail, whenever (if ever) you will integrate this. I’m not in a rush, just wouldn’t want to miss the fix.
      
      On a different note: Why are you bothering with some of these unrelated noob questions? I don’t think people should abuse U as a css teacher!
      People: GOOGLE > READ > TEST > SANDBOX > GOOGLE AGAIN… if U still don’t get it, then ask (where it is appropriate)
      Reply
Elaine
March 17, 2012 at 12:32 pm

Hi Ross,

I was a bit haste in sending my previous email to you; figured out what the problem was–I had multiple calendars and I had to just combine them all into one!

Thanks for the great plugin; now need to figure out how to customize the style setting; will play around with it!

Thanks!

Elaine
Reply
Elaine
March 17, 2012 at 4:10 pm

HI Ross,

When I display the calendar on a page as a grid; when it hovers over an event and shows the box of details–how do I customize how the info in the box looks w/the CSS? My main issue is that the “More details” link is currently the same colour as the bgcolor of the box and you don’t notice there is a link unless you hover over it and it switches to another colour.

Do I have to use the Event Display Builder to customize it? b/c I see that it’s pulling certain styling away from the builder. I’m using the default css sheet for the most part, and I can’t see where I have to go to change this setting.

Thanks so much!
Reply
1. Ross
  March 18, 2012 at 7:05 pm
  
  Elaine,
  
  The event display builder only controls what information is displayed, it doesn’t control the styling. The styling is defined by the default plugin CSS stylesheet, and your theme’s CSS stylesheet.
  
  To customise the styling further, you can either edit one of those stylesheets (but bear in mind that changes to them will be overwritten during updates), or create a new stylesheet, upload it to your server, and enter its URL into the “Custom stylesheet URL” field in the plugin options.
  
  To change the link colour, you’d use something like this:
```
.gce-event-info a {
	color: #f00;
}
```
  Ross.
  Reply
Robert
March 18, 2012 at 1:19 pm

I’m trying to show a map for the event location, but it isn’t happening!

[event-title]
[maps-link newwindow="true"]Click for map…[location][/maps-link]
[if-location]Location: [location][/if-location]
[link newwindow="true"]More details…[/link]

I just get a link that says:
http://maps.google.com/?q=

The “Where” field in Google Calendar says “BECK THEATRE, Hayes” and Google’s link nails it perfectly.

Have I missed something I have to do?

Great plugin BTW, I was using Stout Google Calendar, but this is a great improvement over that!

)
RG
Reply
1. Ross
  March 18, 2012 at 7:11 pm
  
  Hi Robert,
  
  That’s odd, the [maps-link] shortcode seems to be working ok for me. Could you let me know the feed URL you’re using, so I can test further?
  
  Ross.
  Reply
CS
March 19, 2012 at 3:47 am

Hi Ross,

How would I handel a calendar with events where the timezone varies? (e.g. the use case being for someone who travels and gives talks)

Ideally I’d like the website to display the times in the timezone of where the event is happening, (not adjusted).

The problem is 1) if I set the TZ on the event to the local time of the event locale, then the website’s time is wrong, 2) if I set TZ to the website’s local time, then anyone subscribed to the calendar will get the wrong time.

Any ideas?

Ps. Thx for the great plug-in!
Reply
1. Ross
  March 19, 2012 at 7:20 pm
  
  Hi CS,
  
  This isn’t really possible, I’m afraid. As far as I can tell, the Google Calendar API shows all events as being in the same timezone, regardless of the timezone you’ve set for each event.
  
  Google has recently made a new version of the API available, so when I get chance to update the plugin to use the new version, I’ll investigate whether or multiple timezone stuff is possible / feasible.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
  1. CS
    March 20, 2012 at 6:07 am
    
    Great, thanks Ross!
    
    You know, it looks like they return the TZ here (assuming I’ve got the right API?):
    https://developers.google.com/google-apps/calendar/v3/reference/events#resource
    Reply
    1. Ross
      March 20, 2012 at 7:54 pm
      
      CS,
      
      That’s the new API (v3). The plugin is still using v2 at the moment, as I haven’t had chance to update it yet (it’s not a straightforward swap, unfortunately!).
      
      But yeah, you’re right, it looks like the new API should handle multiple timezones properly.
      
      Ross.
      Reply
Ryan Drewniak
March 19, 2012 at 4:30 pm

I love the interface of the plugin. It’s very well laid out. This is quite possibly one of the best laid out and constructed WordPress plugin that I’ve ever used. Keep up the good work, man!
Reply
Benji
March 19, 2012 at 7:53 pm

Hi Ross,
thanks for this great plugin. I have one difficulty with it. When I display the calendar in the list-mode the description-part is not shown correctly. the text is only broken in the line breaks I did in google, so the text is only shown in a few single lines. Is there any possibility to have line-breaks in the text, that the complete text is shown on my page?
Thank you in advance.
Benji
Reply
1. Ross
  March 19, 2012 at 9:16 pm
  
  Hi Benji,
  
  The plugin should preserve line-breaks by default. Or are you using HTML (<br /> tags)?
  
  Could you perhaps provide a link to your site so I can see exactly what you mean?
  
  Ross.
  Reply
  1. Benji
    March 20, 2012 at 10:41 am
    
    http://banjeman.cwsurf.de/wordpress/?page_id=179
    
    It did not linebreak from the beginning. I just put the description in google without changing something there.
    
    This ist the calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/b/0/embed?src=gkt49n00if8gfui77tqbjo5ka4@group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Berlin
    
    Hope you can see me problem, even it is german.^^
    Reply
    1. Ross
      March 20, 2012 at 8:15 pm
      
      Benji,
      
      Ah, I see what you mean.
      
      This is because the [google-calendar-events] shortcode on your page is enclosed in HTML <pre> tags. This prevents the text from wrapping as normal.
      
      If you edit your page with the HTML (not Visual) editor and remove the <pre> tag from before the shortcode, and the </pre> tag from after it, the text should display correctly.
      
      Ross.
      Reply
      1. Benji
        March 21, 2012 at 8:30 am
        
        Ok, now I feel really stupid But thank you very much. This Plugin is really great
Will
March 19, 2012 at 11:19 pm

Not sure if my question went through of not, but I’ve been trying to get the 2 different feeds to have two different BG colors of the calendar grid.

I’ve tried:

.gce-page-grid .gce-calendar .gce-has-events .gce-feed-2 { /* Table cells with events */
background: #0f2045;
color:#FFFFFF;
cursor:pointer;
}

and

.gce-feed-2 .gce-multiple { /* Feed 2 Color */
background: #0f2045;
color:#FFFFFF;
cursor:pointer;
}

And the color for feed 2 does not change from the default BG color. What am I missing? Thanks!
Reply
1. Ross
  March 20, 2012 at 7:50 pm
  
  Hi Will,
  
  I answered your original question here.
  
  The CSS rules you’ve posted above won’t work, as the first looks for elements with a .gce-feed-2 class that are children of elements with a .gce-has-events class, which won’t ever occur. The second is not specific enough, and will be overridden by the default stylesheet.
  
  I think the examples I posted in my reply to your first question should do the trick though. Let me know if you have any further problems / questions.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
  1. Will
    March 20, 2012 at 8:06 pm
    
    Duh, my fault man. I don’t how I missed that one…
    Reply
    1. gnoric
      March 20, 2012 at 9:28 pm
      
      just like u missed “know”
      Reply
      1. Will
        March 20, 2012 at 11:33 pm
        
        lol
Eric
March 21, 2012 at 2:48 pm

Greetings! Your plugin is GREAT!

I’ve noticed that multi-day events often will show as running one extra day. For example, if I do a Wednesday thru Friday event, it shows Saturday as the end day.

Is there a fix for this?
Reply
1. Ross
  March 21, 2012 at 10:05 pm
  
  Hi Eric,
  
  This is because Google defines all-day events as starting and ending at 00:00, so the end date will always appear to be a day off.
  
  If you’re using the event display builder feature, you can use the offset parameter of the date and time shortcodes to work around this. You’d use it as follows:
```
[end-date offset="-1"]
```
  That would adjust the date by -1 second, so that it appears to end at 23:59:59 on the “correct” day.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Laura Y.
March 22, 2012 at 3:16 pm

Hi,

What is the difference between your Page List widget and Widget 3?

Thanks,
Laura Y.
Reply
1. Ross
  March 22, 2012 at 5:32 pm
  
  Laura,
  
  The page list isn’t a widget. It’s generated using the [google-calendar-events] shortcode, which allows you to display events directly in your page / post content.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
Miquel
March 24, 2012 at 2:02 am

You can add the “event title” in these styles, including:

‘gce-today gce-today-has-events “event-title”‘ ??

‘gce-day-past’ . $event_title;

‘gce-day-future’ . $event_title;

to apply styles to each date field.

Thanks
Reply
1. Ross
  March 24, 2012 at 12:55 pm
  
  Hi Miquel,
  
  I’m not quite sure what you’re asking / proposing here, I’m afraid. Could you perhaps explain further?
  
  Ross.
  Reply
  1. Miquel
    March 24, 2012 at 11:06 pm
    
    Hi Ross.
    
    In my calendar I create an all day event, this event I can name it “available” or “reserved,” I want to add titles to handle styles in the days, for example if the event title is “available” show of the day, green background, and if it is “reserved” with another background color.
    
    so I want to integrate the title of the event in the calendar styles.
    Reply
    1. Ross
      March 28, 2012 at 10:06 pm
      
      Miquel,
      
      I see what you mean.
      
      A possible workaround for this would be to add the “reserved” events to one calendar, and the “available” events to another. You could then add both feeds to the plugin, and use the .gce-feed-1 and .gce-feed-2 CSS classes to style appropriately. Of course, this may not be feasible for your use case.
      
      Ross.
      Reply
Keith
March 27, 2012 at 12:05 am

Hi Ross,

Thank you for all your efforts to create and manage such a great calendar widget… awesome!

ISSUE: Some of my users/viewers are not able to see the “Tool Tip” (Event Summary Pop Up) when they put their cursor over a day (with an event scheduled) in the calendar view (www.tkf.org/calendar). I have ensured each of these users/viewers have updated Flash etc. Any thoughts on why this is?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Keith
Reply
1. Ross
  March 28, 2012 at 10:30 pm
  
  Hi Keith,
  
  This appears to be an Internet Explorer 8 (or lower) specific issue with the “bxSlider” script that your theme adds to the page. If I remove the script from the source of your page, the tooltips work fine.
  
  Do you know if your theme is actually using the bxSlider script? The main slider on your homepage is powered by Nivo Slider, not bxSlider, so I’m not sure if the offending script is actually being used at all. If it isn’t, the simplest fix would be to remove it.
  
  Ross.
  Reply
  1. Keith
    March 29, 2012 at 9:39 pm
    
    Hi Ross,
    
    Thanks for your reply and suggestions.
    
    >Do you know if your theme is actually using the bxSlider script?
    
    How would I determine this?
    
    If I find it, should I simply delete it?
    
    Thanks again : )
    
    Keith
    Reply
    1. Ross
      March 31, 2012 at 8:38 pm
      
      Hi Keith,
      
      Try adding the following to your theme’s functions.php file:
      
      add_action( 'wp_print_scripts', 'gce_remove_bxslider' ); function gce_remove_bxslider() { wp_dequeue_script( 'jquery.bxSlider.js' ); }
      
      It’s probably best to add it on the next line after the opening <?php tag. Take a backup first, just in case anything goes wrong.
      
      That should prevent the bxSlider script from loading. If nothing on your site stops working, then it’s not using it.
      
      Let me know if you have any problems.
      
      Ross.
      Reply
      1. Keith
        April 1, 2012 at 12:52 am
        
        Thanks Ross!
        
        This seems to have worked : )
        
        I greatly appreciate your help. Keep up the great work!
        
        p.s. You are indirectly helping a great cause http://tkf.org/calendar/
        
        Keith