customize output of recurring events: list title/desc once, all dates under that

[Earl]

I have a recurring event. In ‘list’ view, it shows up as individual events. So, if it repeats 4 times, it shows up each of those 4 times, giving the impression that they are 4 separate events (albeit with the same title). I want to output it like this instead: List the event title and description 1 time, and then list all of the dates of the event all together under that. Can this be done? How???

[Barry]

That’s a neat idea; let me see if there are any existing solutions for this.

[Barry]

Hi Earl – thanks for your patience!

So this is a bit of a hack but it’s the best I’ve been able to come up with so far. The first thing is that you would need to add a little code – your theme’s functions.php file is a fairly good place for this, but if in doubt follow the instructions that relate to your specific theme:

http://pastebin.com/DX9aS6EK

Next you would need to amend your customized list.php template (which should be within the your-theme/events directory):

http://pastebin.com/Kehu2Vcn

Put both of these together and for a given recurring event it should display the initial event, then dates for subsequent events will be listed underneath the start/end dates.

Of course you might want to change the way that information is presented, if so feel free to play around with the code!

And if anyone has any neater ways to achieve this, please do feel free to reply with details 🙂

I hope that helps.

[Barry]

Hi Earl, just checking in to see if you were happy with the above approach or if you need further guidance on this one?

[Bill]

That’s a good idea, but there’s another, more fundamental problem with the recurring events– it forces WordPress to come up with duplicate slugs. For instance, if I have an event with a slug of “pizza-party”, but we want to have another one next month, then WordPress gives the next one the slug of “pizza-party-2,” or something.

For most people that wouldn’t be too troubling, but I’m also trying to make sure I stay on top of things in Google Webmaster Tools. And if I’m going to have this same event bi-weekly for a year, that’s a lot of duplicate content for Google, which looks spammy. I could always redirect the followup ones with a 301 redirect if I really had to, but I’d prefer to not do that 60 times or so.

SO, simply put: would it be a good idea to have just the one slug, and if so, how could that be done?

[Barry]

I can’t really offer any comment on whether or not it is a good idea to use a single slug. Just about anything is possible however if you have the time and skill to put into the customization – unfortunately we can’t offer that kind of support here on the forum.

That said, if you do come up with a solution that meets your requirements it would be great to hear what you have come up with – I’m sure it could be helpful for others here, too 🙂

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Author]

Posts