How To Implement Event Calendar In Rails App

Event calendar is a way to show multiple, overlapping events across calendar days and rows. This is an interface to add events, edit events, & destroy event. In Rails there is a gem/plugin “event_calendar” to implement it just like Google calendar.

The following steps demonstrate the implementation of event_calendar in both Rails 2.3.x and Rails3.x environment.

Contents

Step#1 –

Installing the gem/plugin

In rails 2.3.x

Install the required plugin from below path

script/plugin install git://github.com/elevation/event_calendar.git

Generate the necessary static file and example

script/generate event_calendar

In rails 3.x

Install the required gems

gem 'event-calendar', :require => 'event_calendar'

Run “bundle install”

You can also use as a Plugin, to install plugin

rails plugin install git://github.com/elevation/event_calendar.git

Generate the necessary static file for the event calendar

rails generate event_calendar

Step#2

Include the necessary style sheet & java-script into your layout/view

<%= stylesheet_link_tag "dialog","fullcalendar","jquery-ui","style" %>
<%= javascript_include_tag "jrails1/fullcalendar.js","jrails1/jquery-
ui.js","jrails1/gcal.js","jrails1/jrails.js","jrails1/jquery.validate.js"%>

Step#3

Create a migration file to add necessary columns as follows

class CreateEvents < ActiveRecord::Migration
def self.up
create_table :events do |t|
t.string :name
t.datetime :start_at
t.datetime :end_at
t.timestamps
end
end
def self.down
drop_table :events
end
end

Step#4

Add the necessary paths to the “config/routes” file

In Rails 2.3.x

map.calendar '/calendar/:year/:month', :controller => 'calendar', :action => 'index',
 
:requirements => {:year => /d{4}/, :month => /d{1,2}/}, :year => nil, :month => nil

In Rails3.x

match '/calendar(/:year(/:month))' => 'calendar#index', :as => :calendar, :constraints => {:year => /d{4}/, :month => /d{1,2}/}

Step#5

Change the Event model to add the calendar as follows

class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
has_event_calendar
end

Step#6

Modify the Calendar controller as follows

class CalendarController < ApplicationController
def index
@month = (params[:month] || Time.zone.now.month).to_i
@year = (params[:year] || Time.zone.now.year).to_i
@shown_month = Date.civil(@year, @month)
@event_strips = Event.event_strips_for_month(@shown_month)
end
end

Step#7

You can also override the events method in helpers/calendar_helper.rb

module CalendarHelper
def month_link(month_date)
link_to(I18n.localize(month_date, :format => "%B"), {:month => month_date.month, :year => month_date.year})
end
# custom options for this calendar
def event_calendar_options
{
:year => @year,
:month => @month,
:event_strips => @event_strips,
:month_name_text => I18n.localize(@shown_month, :format => "%B %Y"),
:previous_month_text => "<< " + month_link(@shown_month.prev_month),
:next_month_text => month_link(@shown_month.next_month) + " >>"
}
end
def event_calendar
calendar event_calendar_options do |args|
event = args[:event]
%(<a href="/events/#{event.id}" title="#{h(event.name)}">#{h(event.name)}</a>)
end
end
end