Flexical

Flexical is a PHP/MySQL web calendar, available under the GPL. There have been serious improvements since it was forked from phpEventCalendar, and someday may have its own icalendar import/export functions. In lieu of that at present, events may be exported to Google Calendar, which can export to icalendar files. The only reason development continues is because online portal calendars (like Google Calendar) don't provide the sort of display one needs to print out monthly event calendars.

Downloads

Some distribution archives can be found at the web site where Flexical is in production use. The newest updates can be obtained via the gitweb interface at git.christfor.us. The main branch probably won't work, but the stable branch ought to. The in_use branch is used at the production site linked above (and below). Sorry, documentation is parse. Check the help directory for more complete information.

Demo

To see it in action, visit the production site. There's also a virgin demo install you can play with. Though it's not nearly as customized, you can log in as a privileged user and play with it.

Version Numbers

Major

When the author thinks that FlexiCal has advanced in a thoroughly significant way, this number will be incremented and the Minor number and Tick reset to zero.

Minor

When an upgrade requires a database change, this number will be incremented and the tick reset to zero.

Tick

For less significant (though possibly still important) changes, this number will be incremented.

Features

• Calendar tab, showing the classic landscape month calendar, weekdays ordered Sunday through Saturday, with a basic interface for selecting a different month and year, or navigating to the next, previous, and current (present-day) month. This may be displayed using a legacy HTML table or the CSS-based "display: table" property. Internet Explorer can only handle the former, but does display the calendar correctly when legacy tables are used. (I don't use Internet Explorer as a rule, so please let me know if later versions work differently.)
• Event List tab, showing a tabular listing of events that fall within a specified date and a number of time units (days, weeks, months, years) later. It also allows navigation to the next or previous time span, or to the current date as a starting point. Events within dates are listed chronologically.
• Event view tab, displaying a single event, and listing other events that occur on the same date.
• A standard way to create other tabs or "actions" that may not be displayed as web pages. Several examples are included, which are used by the author to generate LaTeX code based on the calendar or a snippet of HTML that can be incorporated into another web page to list events in the coming week.
• Categorization of events. The display of event and category names can be tweaked with CSS, so that an event's category may be recognized at a glance. There is an interface for administrators to configure this through the web. Categories can be selected (or not) for the display of their events, and some categories can be designated as "hidden," so that casual users won't ever see them. Whole categories can be deleted with all their events at once, and their names can be changed by an administrator.
• Instead of offering repeating events, which are more computationally expensive, we have the ability to copy events in a sophisticated way, repeating copies by day, week, month-by-day, month-by-date, and year. Of course, single copies are also possible.
• Events can be associated with each other as "related" events. This allows an event to repeat in some pattern when the copy function is used, while retaining an association between the copies, so that they can all be manipulated in one batch. It also allows different events to be manually related to each other, so that they may be treated as a group. This allows a more generalized approach to the implementation of repeating events in other calendars. For example, repeating events must fall within the pattern of repetition, but our related events can either fall within a pattern (via the event copy capability mentioned above), or deviate from that pattern. Each event remains independently editable, so that its title, description, times, and even category may deviate from the events to which it is related. As a convenience, related events allow navigation from one event directly to the next or previous occurrences.
• A filter function allows the user to find particular events in the specified time frame that match certain criteria. Filtered lists of events can be modified or associated in one batch.
• User levels that distinguish between unauthenicated viewers, privileged viewers, event editors, and administrators. Popup windows are avoided when possible, and links are provided with displayed events, for privileged users, so that the effort required to create, modify, or delete events is minimal.
• Administrators are able to backup and restore the calendar database through the web.
• As of version 2.0.1 (the real version 2), all calendar configuration variables can be set by administrators through the web. Old configurations are saved and can be reused or discarded as desired.
• The new database-centered configuration system now allows for a super easy installation and setup procedure. The only technical requirements are that the installer must upload the distribution archive to the web server, and obtain the required database connection information (database server, name, and login credentials). The calendar will automatically set itself up when first loaded, asking for all the required information.
• A translatable (English only for now) online help system describes the configuration and use of the calendar system.
• As of version 2.1.0, we're using jQuery for context menus and some date selection. (In time, all date selection will be possible by a drop-down calendar.) In addition, you can now type text into the blank spaces in Calendar View! The text will print, but is not saved in any way. On a related note, Calendar View is now generated exclusively as an HTML table, without using any "display: table*" divs. Accordingly, it can no longer be toggled between the two formats, and there is no default configuration to choose.