The Events Calendar vs. GeoDirectory

[Mike M.]

Hi All – I recently purchased GeoDirectory, however, I am realizing that there are many limitations with the functionality.

My goal is to create a local directory of events/specials at restaurants and bars. Checking filters on or near the map would refresh the map pins and corresponding listings, based on the filters selected (using “AND” functionality instead of “OR” for the results).

It is also important for the user to filter events by ‘event categories’ (happy hour, live music, etc.) as well as ‘venue categories’ (bar, restaurant, pet-friendly, free wifi, etc.).

Lastly, it is important to be able to manage multiple locations for both back-end admins and front-end users.

I look forward to hearing if The Events Calendar is right for my goals.

Best regards,
Mike

[Cliff]

Hi Mike. Thanks for your interest in our plugins!

I’d suggest checking out our Demo Site to see Filter Bar‘s functionality (sorting by one or multiple categories and other criteria).

PRO has many features, such as Additional/Custom Fields which Filter Bar can utilize too.

Our Community Events plugin allows your site’s users to submit/edit/manage their own events, which will then show up on the main calendar once approved/published.

If you’re interested in such a “bulk purchase”, we have discounted Bundle Pricing.

Last but not least, we have a pretty great Refund Policy so you can buy one or many of our add-ons and thoroughly test them.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

[Mike M.]

Hi Cliff – Thanks for the response. Is it possible to demo the PRO version so I can see the “Map View” in action?

Also, please elaborate on how I can manage multiple locations with your software

Thanks,
Mike

[Cliff]

 

Mike, we don’t have any Trials, just our liberal refund policy.

Could you please elaborate on what you have in mind when you refer to managing multiple locations?

It might be helpful for you to install our free/core The Events Calendar plugin and click around a bit. FYI: all location data is stored in what is called a “Venue” in our plugins.

[Mike M.]

Specifically, I’d like users to be able to filter by location (City, State, etc.). Ideally, they would be able to search a location radius (“X miles from…”) however, that is not critical at the moment.

I would be more excited to move forward, however, I really need to see how the map view works before installing. Also, the demo seems to be buggy with the UI and the mobile version renders incorrectly as well.

Thanks,
MIke

[Cliff]

Your “ideal” is possible if you have both Filter Bar and PRO.

The Demo Site’s map view is at http://wpshindig.com/events/map/

[Mike Messeroff]

Hi Cliff – I have been using another provider for a few weeks now, but am disappointed that their embedded calendars have zero SEO benefit for my site. Two questions for you:
-Are all calendars from your software crawlable from an SEO standpoint?
-With the filter bar, do all categories use “AND” or “OR” when selecting multiple filters? Also, can I create multiple categories (such as food specials, drink specials) and sub-categories (such as “burgers” “pizza”).

Thanks,
Mike

[Cliff]

Hi again, Mike.

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I wouldn’t want to call our calendars “embeddable” and mislead you because I’m uncertain what exactly you’re wanting there.

But our calendar views (Month, Day, Week, Map, etc) and Single Event views are SEO-friendly and even have JSON-LD markup to give crawlers extra goodness. You can see the different views at our Demo Site.

So, yes, all our views are “crawlable”.

===

You can see Filter Bar in action at our Demo Site. Yes, it can work with Event Categories and Event Sub-Categories.

Here’s an example preview of Filter Bar’s settings screen: https://cl.ly/1F0N19021w2g

And here’s an example of how a Sub-Category gets displayed in Filter Bar’s dropdown list (“Beerfests” is indented): https://cl.ly/3j2z0W2f0014

===

Again, as a reminder, we have a pretty great Refund Policy so you can buy one or many of our add-ons and thoroughly test them.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

[Mike Messeroff]

Thanks for this info Cliff. I suppose the last question goes back to filters. Is it possible to have filters use an “AND” operator when used together? For example, if I check two of the checkboxes, only results displayed will be relevant to both filters (i.e. “Happy Hour” and “Pet Friendly”).

Using the “OR” operator makes the filters lose their value, as the user can no longer drill down a huge list of events to find exactly what they are looking for.

[Cliff]

Hi Mike. Here’s a code snippet to do just that:

https://gist.github.com/cliffordp/eb2753491526b079ba69882f4be4fafc

Please note that we do not always provide customization support, per our Scope of Support / Terms, but I thought this one was a good idea and interesting.

[Mike Messeroff]

What a great response! Instead of just saying that the software doesn’t function like that, you’ve made it work and I really appreciate that (especially as this was a critical feature for my needs). Do I just put this code in the CSS after I install the software?

[Mike Messeroff]

Sorry for the multiple emails Cliff, but I noticed that the demo site does not render correctly on mobile. When clicking ‘Show Filters’ there is overlapping and the design looks off. I’m hoping this is not the normal mobile optimized version, however, I’d like to confirm as mobile is critical to what I am trying to accomplish with TEC. Here’s a screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9nwjl011m3gjqvj/Photo%20Jul%2006%2C%2011%2028%2031%20PM.png?dl=0

Thanks!

[Cliff]

Mike, welcome to WordPress customizing!

Best practice for adding custom code (like to implement a PHP snippet to modify The Events Calendar) is to create a functionality plugin, unless it’s something specific to your theme, in which case best practice is to make sure you’re using a child theme, then add the customization to your child theme’s functions.php file.

Regarding your screenshot, thanks for reporting that, but I think it’s an issue with the theme in-use at that site. I’ll pass that along, but no, that’s not typical.

Once you get things setup, you could report issues like that to us (one issue per support forum thread, please) and provide an immediate fix and/or log it as a bug to resolve in a future plugin update.

I hope this information helps!

[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]

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