[Plugin: RSEvents! – Event Calendar] RSEvent calendar | Getting it running

RSEvents is promoted as

“the ideal WordPress plugin for everyone organizing events starting from individuals that invite close people to join a party to music bands organizing concerts or companies organizing meetings.”

Their site promotes it as a free plugin and offers free support. Some plugins offer free versions that allow users to get a feel for their plugin and then offer premium versions that offer additional features. However, my suspicion is this plugin is intentionally crippled in the hopes that out of frustration users will subscribe for premium support at which point (hopefully) a fully working version of the plugin is issued. Personally I would recomend users simply look for an alternative plugin.

For your own sake please don’t install this plugin. I found simply embedding a google calendar or using another plug-in like My Calendar is a much simpler and less time consuming solution.

However, seeing as I already went through all the trouble of debugging this plugin I figured I would share the step by step process so that you could benefit from my work and I might smite the developer for wasting my time by giving a comprehensive guide on how to install it for free.(What is held hostage in hopes that you will give them money.)

The Skinny | Installation:

I completed this installation locally with a fresh install of the latest WordPress (3.0.3) and RSEvents version 1.0.0

If you try to install this plugin through the Dashboard » plugins » add new » Search=RSEvents You will get the error “The plugin does not have a valid header.” when you attempt to activate it. This is because the actual plugin files are zipped inside the rsevents-events-calendar zip.

To resolve this either:
download the plugin manually… unzip and then upload rsevents.zip via: /wp-admin/plugin-install.php?tab=upload

If you have already tried to install the plugin via wp-admin then you need to use ftp to move /wp-content/plugins/rsevents-events-calendar/rsevents.zip to the /plugins/ and then unzip it. Then activate it via the plugins tab of the dashboard /wp-admin/plugins.php?plugin_status=inactive

This will add the RSEvents tab to your WordPress installation and should allow you to create events. However, you will not be able to display events without installing a couple more plugins. The plugins are behind a registration wall the only purpose I can see is to get you to yield your user data. I created a disposable log-in to save you this trouble.

Usename: Generic
Pword: changeme

Enjoy it while it lasts and share yours here: http://www.bugmenot.com/view/rsplugins.com

Login and download a widget from here: http://www.rsplugins.com/resources/free-downloads/files?folder=rsevents/widgets
and a design from here:
http://www.rsplugins.com/resources/free-downloads/files?folder=rsevents/designs

In WP Admin go here: /wp-admin/update.php?action=upload-plugin and upload and activate your widget plugin.

If you have made it this far the plug-in should be installed.(a two click process with any other plug-in)

In the New Event section the “Add New Location” link is missing… so you will need to add a location before you can create an event.

Go to the location tab of the RSEvents! panel via the dashboard:
Screenie:<img src=”https://img.skitch.com/20101226-gbbimm4ax6mkx9jy258nm3h5yn.jpg&#8221; alt=”Locations ‹ calendar test — WordPress” />
and add a new location.

If you want your catagory to be anything besides event you will want to create that in the category panel.

Now you are ready to create your first event!
Wow! This really is “the ideal WordPress plugin for everyone”

Dashboard » RSEvents! » Events “Add/Edit”
Fill out all the required fields.

To display your events… go to the widgets panel and add the widget you downloaded to the appropriate widget area(Did I mention you have to have a widget enabled theme for this plug-in to work? Well neither did they.)

You should now see a calendar, upcoming event list or category widget according to which plugin you installed.

Immediatly you should notice that the event link is broken and only reloads the current page. Haven’t figured out how to fix that yet.

The layout for the upcoming events widget can be edited using the following shortcodes {which they call placeholders}:
{EventName}
{EventIcon}
{EventHostMenu}
{EventGuestMenu}
{EventHost}
{EventStartDate}
{EventEndDate}
{LocationName}
{LocationAddress}
{LocationCity}
{LocationState}
{locationUrl}
{EventPhone}
{EventEmail}
{EventURL}
{EventOwner}
{EventStartInfo}
{EventDescription}
{EventFiles}
{youtubeURL}
{mp3URL}
{flashURL}
{meeboCode}
{googleMap}
{EventPhotos}
{EventEndInfo}

However, as you will see from this screenshot most of these do not work: https://skitch.com/shalzers/rgw92/calendar-test-just-another-wordpress-site

If you have followed along this far I hope you will take a moment to communicate to the developer that you have no intentions to pay for support for a crippled plugin.

If you are the developer, I would love to hear your response. After perusing both RSplugins.com and WordPresses forums I anticipate you will issue your standard boilerplate response, “I tried to replicate this on our test servers, but this worked fine.”

Thanks for completely waisting my time.