How to create ECP event feed (like blog post feed) on static home page

[Scott]

Hi, I have a client who will be putting on a series of concerts, which I’ll be creating individual ECP events for. I would like to have a feed of 3-5 upcoming concerts in the main body of the site’s static home page.

I’d like each event in the feed to have the name/date/venue as well as a copy excerpt and if possible, video embed (either placed into the individual event or as Featured Image if possible). This will save me from having to duplicate each event as a post to achieve the same result.

Is there a shortcode that exists to do this? I searched the Support Forum and found mostly queries relating to RSS feeds.

Thanks!

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Scott and welcome back!

Thank you for reaching out to us.
I would love to help you with this topic.

As a first troubleshooting step, could you please provide us with your complete system information in a private reply using the instructions found in the following link?

https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/sharing-sys-info/

Secondly, out of curiosity, if you have the latest version of our plugins in place, have you tried using the Include events in main blog loop checkbox under Events -> Settings -> General ?

Best regards,

Geoff B.

[Scott]

This reply is private.

[Geoff B.]

Good afternoon Scott,

Thank you for your answer and for the system info.

Before we continue, I am noticing that you are still using PHP 5.3.x on your server. You might want to consider upgrading this to at least 5.4.x + ( WordPress actually recommends 5.6.x +), as I have seen some pretty odd behaviours stemming from PHP 5.3.x

You are right, what that checkbox does is to include events not in a static home page, but it includes events in the blog loop which would have been a great starting point. My bad.

What you are looking to do is certainly feasible. The closest thing we have to that right now would be to use our advanced list widget or one of our PRO shortcodes: https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/pro-widget-shortcodes/

That being said, you will most likely need to customize these. You might want to read our Themer’s guide to get a sense of how that works.
This should allow you to add or remove information in the list widget until it’s just right for you.

Just to set expectations, as you might know, the scope of our support is mostly to get our customers started on the right track and to help them in case of issues. We unfortunately do not provide complete support for customization.

Let me know if that helps.

Have a great day!

Geoff B.

[Scott]

Hi, thanks for getting back to me.

In the past, I’ve set up a blog feed into the static home page (but had to duplicate the ECP event content in a blog post to do that), since the theme I’m using has that functionality built in. I wonder if it would work with the ECP events also.

I’ll take a look at the Pro shortcodes to see if any of them will do the trick, and also see if the customization route is within my limited CSS skill set.

Anyway, knowing what version of PHP I’m using is above my pay grade, so to speak. The host for this site is GoDaddy, and I would assume that their updates include this?

[Scott]

OK, I found out how to upgrade PHP to version 5.4 but the dialog box that came up has me concerned, since I’ve never done this before. Is this common?

Thanks.

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Scott,

Thank you for your answer.

In the past, I’ve set up a blog feed into the static home page (but had to duplicate the ECP event content in a blog post to do that), since the theme I’m using has that functionality built in. I wonder if it would work with the ECP events also.

That’s a great question which does bring us back to the previous Include events in main blog loop checkbox.
It all depends how you integrate the blog feed in a static home page.

If you do so by calling the normal WordPress blog post loop, using the above checkbox will integrate events intertwined with normal blog posts. This means that you would not need to create a duplicate “normal” post for each event.

If you want to test that, you could temporarily check that checkbox and set your home page to Latest Posts (instead of a static home page). Provided that you have created at least one event, this should work.

Based on what you have already told me about your theme, it looks like it is not using the default WordPress blog post loop to display the blog feed.

Could you please send me a copy of your WordPress theme / child theme in a .zip file link (via Dropbox or Google Drive) so that I can run some tests on my end ?

If we (or the theme author) could tweak that, it would be the simplest solution.

OK, I found out how to upgrade PHP to version 5.4 but the dialog box that came up has me concerned, since I’ve never done this before. Is this common?

I totally understand why this message can be scary. Yes this message is pretty standard.
Basically it’s a huge disclaimer for liability purposes.

Whenever I have to do something like that, I like to research if it is possible to revert back to the previous version if anything goes south (probably a question for GoDaddy support) and I make a backup of the database + the wp-content folder + the wp-config.php file (just to be extra sure).

The disclaimer is there because sometimes it doesn’t go smoothly. But in my experience it’s pretty rare and the payoff is certainly worth it.

Let me know how that goes.

Best regards,
Geoff B.

[Scott]

Hi, unfortunately changing the home page to a post instead of a static page is not an option… so it looks like I’ll need to go the route of duplicating the ECP events as posts to accomplish what I want to do.

On another note, since I updated to the latest version of ECP, I am getting some weird text showing above and below the calendar grid (“Calendar Month Navigation”) at http://www.rowaytoncurrents.com/?post_type=tribe_events. How do I get rid of this?

Thanks again.

[Geoff B.]

Dear Scott,

I believe I might have miscommunicated what I was trying to say. My apologies.

I do believe there is a solution to your situation. My suggestion of temporarily switching back to latest posts was simply to demonstrate that the checkbox could be helpful AND work with your theme. A proof of concept if you will.

As I offered, if you don’t mind, I would love to take a look at a copy of your WordPress theme (in a private reply). Who knows? Maybe there is an easy fix there to allow you to have a static home page that contains a blog feed with both posts and events.

On another note, since I updated to the latest version of ECP, I am getting some weird text showing above and below the calendar grid (“Calendar Month Navigation”) at http://www.rowaytoncurrents.com/?post_type=tribe_events. How do I get rid of this?

The fastest method to do that would be to add the following CSS rule to your WordPress theme

.tribe-events-month #tribe-events-header h3 {display:none !important;}

Best regards,

Geoff B.

[Scott]

This reply is private.

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Scott,

Thank you for your reply and the files.
I am glad the snippet worked for you.

I took a look at your theme. As I suspected, it does not follow the standard post loop, which is why the events do not get added even while switching the home page to “Latest posts”

That being said I am pretty sure it could be done. Here are a couple of articles on this topic:

• http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/160814/adding-custom-post-type-to-loop
• http://inspirationalpixels.com/snippets/add-post-type-to-main-loop

Just to set expectations, as you might know, the scope of our support is mostly to get our customers started on the right track and to help them in case of issues. We unfortunately do not provide complete support for customization.

So from here, this leaves you with the following options:

1. Continue your duplicate posts
2. Contact your theme author to see what they recommend for adding custom post types in the loop
3. Hire one of our recommended customizers to do the customization for you.

I wish I had a better answer for you, but for now it’s the best one I have.

Best regards,

Geoff B.

[Support Droid]

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If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
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