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Frequently Asked Questions: Web Design Techniques & Tricks

  1. Can I link to specific dates, categories, and/or events on the GCC Calendar web site?

    Some of this was announced in the newsgroup in January 2000, shortly after GCC's Calendar of Events web site was designed and published at http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/calendar/. But certain options have been developed more recently.

    The calendar program provides controls to allow users to choose one or more categories of information to display, and whether to display detailed information for a single date, or to display a series of given dates with more abbreviated information in the style of a wall calendar. For example, a user may view a calendar of this month's employee training events by specifying the first and last date of this month on the calendar web site controls, selecting the "Employees" category, and clicking the "REOPEN" button.

    However, the author who maintains the Training and Employee Development web site cannot count on users to understand how to work those controls on their first visit to the calendar web site. These steps might be too much bother for them. In this case, a simple link to the default display of the calendar web site is not helpful enough.

    What follows are methods of targeting specific areas of information on the calendar with custom URLs. These URL formats save users the step of adjusting the calendar's settings in order to view the target information:

    Specifying categories and current date ranges

    URLs which specify current time frames spare the author the task of updating the links as time passes. Most of these links are based on using a script with the base URL of "http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/calendar/custom.cfm?" with URL parameters (words and symbols which specify additional information) added to the end of the URL according to the following directions.

    URL parameters for current date ranges (automatically adjusting to the date) are as follows:

    • The dates of this month: thismonth=yes
    • The dates of next month: nextmonth=yes
    • The dates of this week: thisweek=yes
    • Today: today=yes

    URL parameters for categories on the GCC Calendar, one of which must be included:

    • Students/Academic: type=2
    • Arts: type=3
    • Athletics: type=4
    • Community: type=5
    • Employees: type=6
    • More than one specific category: type=2,3,4,5,6
    • All categories: type=all

    The above combinations must appear after the base URL, separated from each other by an ampersand ("&"). Here are examples:

    Specifying static date ranges

    If you open the calendar site and click on the numeral of a specific date, you'll see a long URL in the location bar at the top of the browser window for that particular date and whichever categories have already been selected. Events on the calendar "expire" after one month; outdated links of this sort would automatically break eventually, or as more time passes, pertain to a different year. However, if such a link is meant to be temporary anyway, it will work for that time. The following parameters would be added to the base URL http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/calendar/index.cfm?, which (other than the question mark at the end) is the default address of the calendar. The URL parameters are not as streamlined as those used with the "custom.cfm" script:

    • Month of the beginning of the date range: frommonth=MMM
    • Month of the end of the date range: tomonth=MMM
    • Day of the beginning of the date range: fromday=N
    • Day of the end of the date range: today=N
    • Each category included: typeN=yes

    In the above URL parameters, MMM represents the three-letter abbreviation for the month. N represents numerals used as dates and in the type parameter. Multiple types require a repetition of the type parameter, e.g. type2=yes, type3=yes, etc. Here are examples:

    Specifying a single event

    In looking for a temporary URL to a specific event that has been entered on the calendar, you might be tempted to click on the event name on the grid display of the calendar in order to obtain the long URL in the location bar which singles out that event for the time being. However, you should not copy that URL to create a link to the event. Its parameters might change while the event is still active on the calendar, and your link to it might wind up prematurely broken.

    To create a link to a specific event (as you might in order to link it to an e-mail announcement about the event), use the following URL structure which once again uses the base URL of "http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/calendar/custom.cfm?":

    http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/calendar/custom.cfm?date=YYYYMMDD&event=Event_Name

    YYYYMMDD represents the numerals of the date's year, two-digit month, and two-digit day. Event_Name represents the title of the event as it appears in the condensed calendar display (not the title which appears in the larger detailed display, which may be different). In the name of the event, replace spaces and punctuation with the underscore ("_"). For example:

    http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/calendar/custom.cfm?date=20010704&event=Observance_of_Independence_Day
    The event title may also be shortened with characters deleted from the beginning or end, and "_" replacing any characters deleted in the middle. The event parameter need only provide enough text to avoid confusion with another existing event, as with:

    http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/calendar/custom.cfm?date=20010704&event=Observ_Indep

    The above examples will "break" one month after July 4, 2001, but not long afterward "2001" may be substituted with "2002" in the URL and the same event title will probably show up again. Note that the URL will change once it is accessed; the location will automatically forward to the calendar's home address and the URL parameters will then change to the static format.

Return to:
Contents of Frequently Asked Questions about Web Development

http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/webdev/digest/faq8.htm
Last revised: Tuesday April 03 2001
Edited by: Bobby Sample. See Legal Disclaimer.