From practical experience, recurring events should not be implemented any differently than normal events. I would just permit some easy way to insert multiple events at create time, for exemple ' every week ; next 3' would create 4 events with only a difference in the eventdate. Once you've inserted the multiple recurring events, each of them should be an independant event

It should NOT be 1 event with some specific property of beeing 'recurrent' 

Some will argue : 'hey, but for a meeting everyday at 9am for one year, will you create 365 records ?". Answer is yes. This kind of use is rare - (never happen in real cases I've seen) - there are other tools for that

In real life, there are not so many recurring events, but you need to change them individualy. For exemple, there will be 5 dance shows on march 1st, 8, 15, 22, 29 at 21pm, except on 22nd at 8:30pm, and on the 21th there is a party after the show, etc you see the picture : you need to update events one by one once they 've been inserted. 'recurring' events are usually not exactly recurring, and not exactly the same.

Of course you could add a 'RelatedEvents' key in the events table,  that would permit group delete or update 

Note that if my suggestion to use NewsArticle as a grounding for a calendar were adopted, NewsArticles would also benefit from the option to insert multiple 'articles' with same content. I know one case where newsarticles is used for data sheets with very similar contents with minor changes, and it would be cool to say 'I want to insert 10 identical datasheets and then update them 1 by 1.

 Benoit Sarton

I agree completely (with regards to recurring events).  I've had to change a recurring event to a series of one-time events because we needed to cancel one of the meetings because school was out during that week or whatever.

Tim

So if I create a recurring event each wednesday for a team meeting (with no end date), how would you represent this in the database? Or do you make them always put in a end date. What about moving a recurring event, would you have to change each instance?

Meant to say I would be happy to share.

Sorry Scott, I realized I never answered your question.

After playing with them all and actually having the Houston groups AVCalendar on some production sites I'm giving the nod to Davids Intellisoft Calendar.

But hey, thats today and tomorrow is another day. David seems to have the time now but that can change in a heart beat.

Scott, I see Simple Calendar is on your roadmap for 2006. As you know this issue has been at critical mass for me for a long time and I need something that works. From the interest I have seen, the community is also looking for a working, actively developed calendar module. Forgive me for trying to pin you down but can you give us a time frame? I think if the community gets behind a single calendar module we all would benifit. The core module is not the answer as it will never be enhanced and or patched at the pace required for commercial environment. As much as I like the Intellisoft Calendar I'm always a bit leary of the "free" stuff as there is no real acountablility (if source is available thats not as big a deal).

I'm happy to support any effort to get a good calendar module and as a community I think we should pick 1 and get it going. The fragmented approach we have right now is just not working.

Like I said I have written some pretty powerful stored procedures to handle recurring events.

They create a single event, and then have a separate table for event times.

If a single instance of an event is changed, then a new event is created.

If you want to delete or change all instances of an event that is doable as well.

Interesting thread

- calendar aggregation is really a must, the killer app would be the possibility to aggregate calendars from differents dnn portals

- the problem with the concept of the 'Simple series' is that a calendar is a commitment for a long future. I mean if you set a Simple gallery and some day you client want to change, no problem (note that my client is very satisfied with simple gallery and wont change). If you place a shout module and have to change that to a chat in the future, no problem. But a calendar i would not want to start with something that would not have power in stock in case the clients would become more demanding, and clients DO become more demanding. So ok for a concept of 'Simple calendar' if scalable to a more powerfull app in the future.

- http://www.k5n.us/ looks cool, i'll probably install that on a linux box and have a look

Benoit

Today was my last contracting day, which means in means after the honeymoon (finishing Feb 5th), I am back to full time development. Two modules I really want to kick a goal with in the early months are Simple Calendar & Estate Agent. I am forming a group of testers for estate agent to feed requirements and do the testing. I'm sure I could count on you guys for testing Simple Calendar?

To give you a time frame, Feb 6th onwards see's full time development on Simple Calendar and Estate Agent, given 4-6 weeks development (a few releases in there), you should see a stable version mid-march. I know I have said this before, (end of 2005), but I'm finally back to full time which makes a huge difference because it gets my full focus.

I apologise for the last few months, the contract I took on full time took a lot more out of me then I could have guessed, the good news is that I have the funds (as a backup) to fund development for the rest of the year.

On a site note, I took a look at this calendar today, it looked ok (and an interesting concept):-

http://www.myhomepoint.com/

http://www.myhomepoint.com/app/security/login.aspx?fn=doe&mn=john&pwd=pwd (demo)

OK Scott, I'm hanging my hat on you for a calendar!

If you need anything along the way let me know.