A few pre-sales questions

[Dan]

Hello Modern Tribe,

Your plugin seems to be exactly what I’m looking for, but I have a few unique requirements that I want to make sure are possible before purchasing.

The site I’m working on includes a main calendar section (which is basically your plugin out-of-the-box functionality).

In addition, I have a number of custom content types. One content type includes published instances of 50 separate branches of the organization.

I’m assuming that your plugin is a standard (although modified) WordPress Custom Post Type.

Here’s what I need to make sure your plugin can do:

1. Custom Taxonomies
I want to tie a custom taxonomy (or two) to your Event custom post type so I can flag various queries using either WP Query or your built in “tribe_get_events” query.

2. Custom Queries
Is there anything that would prevent me from flagging events limited to a custom taxonomy category and surfacing those events on one of the 50 branches mentioned earlier?

I would also like to include events alongside standard posts using a customized loop (or query). I know how to do this with custom post types, just want to make sure there’s nothing that would prevent me from doing this.

3. Google Maps
I’m gathering that your map view can’t be placed on each of the Custom Post Type that includes the 50 separate branches that I mentioned earlier. Is there anything that would prevent me from using a third party map plugin (like Map Marker Pro or Leaflet) and having events from The Events Calendar surface on that map? Can I use a custom designed google map via a google api key with your event calendar?

4. Publishing directly to social
Since publishing to social media (mainly Facebook) isn’t included out of the box, can I use publicize or something similar to publish events to social? Does The Events Calendar use WP standard Featured Images?

5. Event Payments via Authorize.net
I would like to eventually include ticket purchases made via Authorize.net. Is Woo commerce the best way to accomplish this? Are there any plans to include Authorize.net payments directly from The Events Calendar?

Sorry for all the questions. It is Friday after all. 😉

Dan

[George]

Hi Dan,

I’ll address your items in order and hope it gives you enough information to base a decision on from there:

1. Custom Taxonomies
2. Custom Queries

Yes – The word “custom” in both cases means everything, though. Yes, “events” from The Events Calendar are just custom post types, so you can write as much custom code as you’d like to add more taxonomies or custom queries or anything of that sort. However, we do not support any custom code and cannot help write any custom code. I don’t know if that influences your decision, I just want to be up-front with the expectations so as not to disappoint further down the line with upwards of $89 out of your pocket! (Although if you spent that money and were disappointed we’d happily give you a refund.)

I would also like to include events alongside standard posts using a customized loop (or query).

Yes – There is an option to include Events in the main “blog” loop of your site. If that’s not exactly what you want or you want to add more loop integrations, then yes, as mentioned above you could write as much custom code as you’d like.

3. Google Maps

Is there anything that would prevent me from using a third party map plugin (like Map Marker Pro or Leaflet) and having events from The Events Calendar surface on that map? Can I use a custom designed google map via a google api key with your event calendar?

Maybe – Okay, so The Events Calendar’s map display and Events Calendar PRO’s “Map View” are based on somewhat-standard Google Maps API calls, just using the address information from “Venues” within Events Calendar. So if you query for events, then grab its associated venue, then grab that address data, you can do whatever you’d like with it – including, yes, using that address info to generate other kinds of maps. Again, as underscored above: yes, you can write custom code. You can make any features and integrations you want on your site. But they are not officially supported, and if the plugin isn’t built for it, it might take some creative thinking to make it happen.

But if you want to use Venue address data in other maps, yes, you can hide or outright remove existing Maps displays from The Events Calendar and wholly replace them with your own custom-built solution using the same Venue address data.

4. Publishing directly to social

can I use publicize or something similar to publish events to social? Does The Events Calendar use WP standard Featured Images?

Yes, as far as using a plugin to publish the event on social media (as long as that social plugin itself supports custom post types and you set it up to do so, correctly) and Yes to featured images.

5. Event Payments via Authorize.net

I would like to eventually include ticket purchases made via Authorize.net. Is Woo commerce the best way to accomplish this? Are there any plans to include Authorize.net payments directly from The Events Calendar?

Maybe – Picking the right ecommerce platform for your site is unfortunately a preference that you’re by far the best able to determine; I do not know if WooCommerce is best for you. But, with that being said, it’s the most popular by far and our WooCommerce Tickets add-on is itself also the most popular of our ticketing add-ons by far. So, it’s very stable, has lots of add-ons and stuff itself, and is well documented. As for using Authorize.net with it, this is a payment gateway and so it’s not something we’re involved with at all and neither is the WooCommerce Tickets add-on. Payment gateways and everything at checkout is all handled by WooCommerce itself – think of our WooCommerce Tickets add-on as just getting the tickets into the cart and making sure that they are “purchasable” items.

So, if you’d like, there are add-ons for WooCommerce itself, not for The Events Calendar, that add payment gateways to WooCommerce like Authorize.net, or Amazon payments, or Dwolla, or any other sort of payment processor. Our tickets add-on should work fine with any of them, since our tickets themselves are just normal WooCommerce “products” and as long as those are supported by the payment gateway, it should work fine with the tickets. Many people use obscure payment gateways with our Tickets add-ons without issue.

So, in other words: WooCommerce is super popular, stable, secure, and well-documented, so it may very well be the best solution for you indeed. Next, no, The Events Calendar will not build support for Authorize.net, or PayPal, or Stripe, or Dwolla, or any payment gateway itself, because that is WooCommerce’s job. But, yes you can use any of these payment gateways in WooCommerce and thus they will work with tickets.

I hope this all helps, cheers!
George

[Daniel]

Hi George,

You’re absolutely awesome! Thank you so much for not only answering my questions but also the depth of your answers.

As it turns out, over the weekend I did what I should’ve done in the first place – installed the free version, read more of your documentation and looked over the code. That, combined with what you wrote above, provided a lot of clarity. I bought the Pro version (will probably add a couple add-ons too).

The plugin code is super clean. The templates and overrides process are clear and seem very flexible. I also appreciate that you’ve listed all the hooks and functions on your site. I’ll stay away from any that are deprecated.;)

As I’m developing this, I may have some questions about what each hook/function does, but other than that, I completely understand that MT is not here to support my custom code. Of course, I’ll move my questions over to the support forums.

Thanks again! What you wrote helped me reach the tipping point!

Dan

[George]

Hey Daniel,

I’m flattered you’re thanking me, when you’re the one worthy of thanks here! Thank you for: buying our plugin, complimenting our code, complimenting my support response here, and for commenting about your awareness of our custom code limitations and stuff.

You rock, and should shoot us an email at [email protected] with a link back to this thread if you ever want to buy something in the future – we’d love to hook you up with a little discount action 😉 Even if it’s just for when you want to renew the Pro license you just purchased!

Thanks Daniel, see you around the forums.

Cheers,
George

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