Ditto as event listing manager

Hi, my question: "Is it viable to use Ditto to list events?"

I intend to sortBy a TV with a custom date in order to publish dates that exist in the future.

The reason I choose Ditto over Calx, Kalender or Event Calendar is purely for the listing format. I don’t want to use the grid calendar format but rather a news-listing format.

Has anyone else used Ditto in this way?

Yes, that’s perfectly viable. I’ve done things like concert agendas with only TVs + Ditto and it works like a charm.
Each event is stored in a separate doc, in one folder. I’ve just added TVs for city, club, "more infos URL", date, comments, flyer (jpg) etc. and use two Ditto calls for all: one for past dates, one for future dates. Plus one custom tpl for the listing itself, which is just a chunk with HTML + placeholders.

Here’s more infos/tips:
http://ditto.modxcms.com/files/snippet-ditto-php.html
http://ditto.modxcms.com/tutorials/basic_filtering.html
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,16273.0/topicseen.html

Ah that’s great news.
Thanks for your help ganeshXL!

I’ll get to reading

Hello lokust,

did you get the event listing to work. I´ve been looking exactly for the same function as you. Just don´t know how to start with it.

If possible could you write a short step-by-step how you did it.

Kenneth

I am using Ditto for events with a TV called event_date and PHx to filter the items that have no event date. This is very basic and allows for me to have events and news in a single ditto call.

If you are looking for a more detailed step-by-step, I will write a page for the WIki if you want.

All the best,

Jay

Please do. This sounds like something very useful.

I agree, please write a short HOWTO so I can get started.


Kenneth

Hi Kenneth,

Here is what I did:

1. Create the Template Variable where the event date will be entered

Create a template variable called eg. eventDate

Input type: Date
Widget: Unixtime

Assign this TV to the template you will use for your event items.

-----------------------------------------

2. Create the Ditto call

This is the Ditto call that I use:

[[Ditto? &parents=`2` &display=`10` &summarize=`100` &removeChunk=`Comments` &tpl=`ditto_blog` &paginate=`1` &extenders=`summary,dateFilter` &paginateAlwaysShowLinks=`0` &tagData=`documentTags` &sortBy=`eventDate` &dateSource=`eventDate` &id=`archive` &dateFormat=`%d %B %Y`]]

Note: &sortBy=`eventDate` &dateSource=`eventDate`

-----------------------------------------

3. Create your event items

And assign a date in the eventDate TV. Ditto will be able to sort your events past/present/future.


See also this tutorial from Mark Kaplan (Ditto’s creator): http://ditto.modxcms.com/tutorials/sort-by-a-date-tv.html


Hope that helps