Webcalendar Web Hosting

Webcalendar Web Hosting

WebCalendar is a PHP-based calendar application which can be easily configured as a single user calendar, a multi-user calendar for groups of users as well as an events calendar that is viewable by visitors.

The following system pre-requisites need to be met: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2, Interbase, MS SQL Server, or ODBC. The software is marked for its versatility in a variety of applications including:

• A schedule management system for a single person.
• A schedule management system for a group of people, allowing one or more assistants to manage the calendar of another user
• An events schedule that anyone can view and allowing visitors to submit new events
• A calendar server that can be viewed with iCalendar-compliant calendar applications like Mozilla Sunbird, Apple iCal or GNOME Evolution or RSS-enabled applications like Firefox, Thunderbird, RSSOwl, FeedDemon, or BlogExpress.

The application is OSI approved and is available under the GNU General Public License. Its key features include:

• Multi-user support
• Group support
• View day-at-glance
• View month-at-glance
• View week-at-glance
• View year-at-glance
• View another user’s calendar
• View multiple users’ calendars at the same time
• View one or more users’ calendar via layers on top of your own calendar
• Public calendar (that requires no login) where anonymous users submit events that are approved by an administrator
• Add/Edit/Delete users
• Add/Edit/Delete events/to-dos
• Repeating events
• Custom event fields
• Search interface for calendar entries
• User-configurable preferences for colors, 12/24 time format, Week start on Sun or Mon, default work hours
• Online help
• Checks for scheduling conflicts
• Support for multiple timezones
• Users can accept or reject events added by another user to their calendar
• Email reminders
• Email notifications for new events
• Support, at least partially, for more than 40 different languages:

-Afrikaans
-Albanian
-Arabic
-Basque
-Bulgarian
-Catalan
-繁體ä¸æ–‡(Big5)
-简体ä¸æ–‡(GB2312)
-Croatian
-Czech
-Danish
-Deutsche (German)
-Elven (JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”) Requires a special font.
-English
-Español (Spanish)
-Estonian
-Français (French)
-Galician
-Greek
-Hebrew
-Hollands (Dutch)
-Holo (Taiwanese)
-Hungarian
-Icelandic
-Italiano (Italian)
-Japanese (EUCJP, SJIS)
-Korean
-Lithuanian
-Norsk (Norwegian)
-Polish
-Portuguese
-Portuguese/Brazil
-Romanian
-Русско (Russian)
-Serbian
-Slovak
-Slovenian
-Suomalainen (Finnish)
-Svensk (Swedish)
-Turkish
-Welsh

• Exporting to and importing from:

-Palm Pilot
-iCalendar
-vCalendar
-hCalendar (import only, requires PHP5)

• Authentication using:

-web-based
-HTTP authentication
-LDAP
-NIS
-IMAP
-support for external application authentication ( Postnuke,Joomla )

• Activity log that tracks:

-event creation
-event updates
-event acceptance
-event rejection
-email notifications
-email reminders

• Synchronization and Syndication:

-Two-way authenticated iCalendar (ics) sync
-Anonymous iCalendar (ics) publishing
-RSS 2.0 feed
The application’s system requirements are mentioned below:

• PHP 4.1 – PHP 5: some features specific version: two-way iCalendar sync: PHP 4.3+; hCalendar importing: PHP 5+.

• Database: MySQL, Oracle 8+, PostgreSQL, Interbase, MS SQL Server, SQLLite (PHP5), IBM DB2, ODBC. For the database that is chosen, users need to make sue that its drivers are built into PHP. For example, to use MySQL, PHP must be compiled with MySQL support (which is the default setting when installing PHP).
• CSS-enabled browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari.
• JavaScript-enabled browser.
• If not using HTTP-based authentication, then browser cookies are required.
• PHP should be compiled with –enable-track-vars on some systems. For using gradient background images, PHP needs to be compiled with the GD library. PHP can either be run as a CGI an Apache module. Better performance is expected with PHP setup as a module. Additionally, this application can use a form/cookie-based authentication or traditional HTTP authentication. For traditional HTTP authentication, PHP must be built as an Apache module. In case email reminders need to be used, PHP needs to be built as a CGI for it run the send_reminders.php script. It is highly recommended to build a module-based PHP for the web server and then a second PHP build to create the CGI version. The installation process is a breeze and fairly straightforward. WebCalendar includes an installation script that guides the user through the installation process. It does not have any built-in support for adding holidays to the calendars. However, this can be done importing one of the many iCalendar holiday files that are freely available; such as iCalShare. The appearance of the WebCalendar can also be customized to match the corresponding website’s needs. The event-specific fields can be customized in order to add extra fields to the calendar events. A few examples may include adding a URL, a contact email address or even a pull-down menu containing predefined attributes. This feature is found in the includes/site_extras.php field.

If Webcalendar needs to be used as an event calendar, the user will need to enable “Public Access” in the System Settings with the following steps:

• Login to WebCalendar as an administrator (the default username is ‘admin’ and password ‘admin’).
• Click on the “Admin” link at the bottom of any page.
• Click on the “System Settings” button.
• Click on the “Public Access” tab.
• Select “Yes” for “Allow public access”.

Only events that are created with the “Public User” as an event participant will show up in the event calendar for users who have not logged in. If events are not showing up on the public calendar, make sure the events have the “Public User” as a participant and the event has been approved.