Creating a Calendar using Codeigniter - Tutorial 3

Creating a Calendar Template

By creating a calendar template you have 100% control over the design of your calendar. Using the string method, each component of your calendar will be placed within a pair of pseudo-variables as shown here:

$prefs['template'] = '

        {table_open}<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">{/table_open}

        {heading_row_start}<tr>{/heading_row_start}

        {heading_previous_cell}<th><a href="{previous_url}">&lt;&lt;</a></th>{/heading_previous_cell}
        {heading_title_cell}<th colspan="{colspan}">{heading}</th>{/heading_title_cell}
        {heading_next_cell}<th><a href="{next_url}">&gt;&gt;</a></th>{/heading_next_cell}

        {heading_row_end}</tr>{/heading_row_end}

        {week_row_start}<tr>{/week_row_start}
        {week_day_cell}<td>{week_day}</td>{/week_day_cell}
        {week_row_end}</tr>{/week_row_end}

        {cal_row_start}<tr>{/cal_row_start}
        {cal_cell_start}<td>{/cal_cell_start}
        {cal_cell_start_today}<td>{/cal_cell_start_today}
        {cal_cell_start_other}<td class="other-month">{/cal_cell_start_other}

        {cal_cell_content}<a href="{content}">{day}</a>{/cal_cell_content}
        {cal_cell_content_today}<div class="highlight"><a href="{content}">{day}</a></div>{/cal_cell_content_today}

        {cal_cell_no_content}{day}{/cal_cell_no_content}
        {cal_cell_no_content_today}<div class="highlight">{day}</div>{/cal_cell_no_content_today}

        {cal_cell_blank}&nbsp;{/cal_cell_blank}

        {cal_cell_other}{day}{/cal_cel_other}

        {cal_cell_end}</td>{/cal_cell_end}
        {cal_cell_end_today}</td>{/cal_cell_end_today}
        {cal_cell_end_other}</td>{/cal_cell_end_other}
        {cal_row_end}</tr>{/cal_row_end}

        {table_close}</table>{/table_close}
';

$this->load->library('calendar', $prefs);


echo $this->calendar->generate();

Creating a Calendar using Codeigniter - Tutorial 2

Setting Display Preferences

There are seven preferences you can set to control various aspects of the calendar. Preferences are set by passing an array of preferences in the second parameter of the loading function. Here is an example:

$prefs = array(

        'start_day'    => 'saturday',

        'month_type'   => 'long',

        'day_type'     => 'short'

);

$this->load->library('calendar', $prefs);

echo $this->calendar->generate();

The above code would start the calendar on saturday, use the “long” month heading, and the “short” day names.

Showing Next/Previous Month Links

To allow your calendar to dynamically increment/decrement via the next/previous links requires that you set up your calendar code similar to this example:

$prefs = array(

        'show_next_prev'  => TRUE,

        'next_prev_url'   => 'http://example.com/index.php/calendar/show/'

);

$this->load->library('calendar', $prefs);

echo $this->calendar->generate($this->uri->segment(3), $this->uri->segment(4));

Creating a Calendar using Codeigniter - Tutorial 1

Initializing the Class

Like most other classes in CodeIgniter, the Calendar class is initialized in your controller using the $this->load->library function:

$this->load->library('calendar');
Once loaded, the Calendar object will be available using:


$this->calendar


Displaying a Calendar

Here is a very simple example showing how you can display a calendar:

$this->load->library('calendar');
echo $this->calendar->generate();
The above code will generate a calendar for the current month/year based on your server time. To show a calendar for a specific month and year you will pass this information to the calendar generating function:

$this->load->library('calendar');
echo $this->calendar->generate(2016, 3);

The above code will generate a calendar showing the month of march in 2016. The first parameter specifies the year, the second parameter specifies the month.


Passing Data to your Calendar Cells

To add data to your calendar cells involves creating an associative array in which the keys correspond to the days you wish to populate and the array value contains the data. The array is passed to the third parameter of the calendar generating function. Consider this example:

$this->load->library('calendar');

$data = array(
        3  => 'http://example.com/news/article/2016/03/03/',
        7  => 'http://example.com/news/article/2016/03/07/',
        13 => 'http://example.com/news/article/2016/03/13/',
        26 => 'http://example.com/news/article/2016/03/26/'
);

echo $this->calendar->generate(2016, 3, $data);

Using the above example, day numbers 3, 7, 13, and 26 will become links pointing to the URLs you’ve provided.