Veggies Diary system has been in constant (but intermittent) development since December 2004 and has since become the source for several interrelated diaries, allowing events to appear on several listings with customised formatting.

Options to view the Calendar

  • Original Animal Rights Calendar
    Shows all events, but includes only one listing of weekly events, which are automatically rolled forward, and monthly events rolled forward manually.
  • Sumac/Veggies Diary
    Events at Sumac or the wider Nottm campaign community.

    – includes option for events held at the Sumac Centre

    – and events specifically involving Veggies.

  • Vegan Outreach Diary
    Events by vegan campaigners all over UK.
  • Current Month – 30 days of events
    A faster default page for the AR Calendar, with an option to output all events.
    no longer needed
  • Agenda View of all dates on Sumac/Veggies Diary or the AR Calendar
    Headers are linked to extended details

    To Do – Pop-up to show brief details when mouse rollsover.
    To Do – A QuckList version showing Day/Date, EventHeader and EventView Link all on single line, suitable to cut&paste into an email message, forum or newswire.
  • EventView
    Extended details for individual event. Includes direction finder linked to map of venue.
    For Sumac events travel info, map & other details are automatically added.
  • PrintView
    Event details suitable to print off as a poster (even better with scaled printing from Firefox print preview). Layout is also suitable to cut & paste into email messages etc.
  • Regular Events
    Manually compiled listing of regular & ongoing AR campaigns. (The other listings only show one occurrence of regular events). There is also a listing of Regular Events at Sumac
  • GroupList – alphabetical by group (for AR Calendar).
  • Announcements Email List
    Riseup email group for announcements. Also SumacNews List
  • NewDetails
    Identifies events added or updated on AR Calendar in last month.
  • Sumac Agenda listing – for pasting into NewsList email.
  • AR text-only list – suitable for pasting into email message.
  • To Do

  • CalendarView – On standard calendar grid layout, eg:GreenNet
  • PosterView. Diary listing printable as flier see this pdf example.
  • PlanningList – Quick List, but with all occurrences of weekly/monthly events.
  • Search for any group or keyword.
  • Most references to events or groups can be found by use of the Search Box on Veggies Home Page

  • Email-A-Friend button
    and option to receive a reminder by email before a selected event
  • Embedded code to embed listing of selected events onto external websites, such as AnimalRights UK

  • EventComments – a planning tool for groups and individuals to add their own travel plans, local contact info etc into a national event (eg Facebook!)
  • Venue & organising group database – details of contributing groups and venue info to be automatically linked into diary listings

Note that the system’s mysql database & php programming has also been used to produce one-off web pages for non-calendar information indexed here


Work in progress

Experienced PHP programmers are invited to send advice on the tasks marked * to arc@veggies.org.uk.

  1. Import remaining events from old ARCalendar for May – December
  2. set up email addresses to be spam-filtered
  3. link graphics to their original source
  4. List from today’s date, allowing ongoing events, eg all-month
  5. Fix ‘list from’ date to use ‘current_date’ function
  6. Program link to additional page or pop-up for extended event info.
  7. Circulate subscribers to request comments on work so far
  8. Refine contact details
  9. Program end date for events running for more than 1 day
  10. Start-to-End dates in header on PrintView for month-long events
  11. Fix monthly link menu
  12. Design format for unconfirmed events
  13. Link headers to PrintView page
  14. Link external event links, and show address, in PrintView
  15. Include EventRepetition details for regular events
  16. Repeat details for Annual events on PrintView header
  17. Fix WebAddress link to accept ‘www’ as well as ‘http’
  18. Regular events header only, linked to full details on PrintView
  19. Move to final location: www.veggies.org.uk/arc.php
  20. Optimise code for faster loading
  21. Feedback form, for user feedback on layout, listing preferences and gliches.
  22. Redesign ‘add-a-date’ form
  23. Program data input from ‘add-a-date’ form
  24. Flag events added or amended since last ArcNews calendar
  25. ‘Next 30-days’ default listing, with options for ‘FullList’ and ‘QuickList’
  26. * Roll forward repeated events – done for weekly & annual events,
    date function needed for monthly events

  27. Advise subscribers to update bookmarks
  28. Edit, Print & ‘Email to a friend’ buttons on PrintView (eg:Covance)
  29. Add facility to ‘comment on this event’
  30. Confirmation email to submitting user and to organising group
  31. * Set up user registration for input directly to calendar
  32. * Learn about Null / Not Null data types
  33. * Find out about default settings, eg for ImageSize & Location
  34. Listing option for multiple inclusion of regular events
  35. Program the print options (listed in section above)
  36. Convert Local Group Meetings section to interactive format.
  37. Convert Regular Events section to interactive format.
  38. Program map links from post-code
  39. * Set up open access to php code
  40. * Find out how to create ‘a href’ links from email and www addresses in text fields
  41. * Find plug-in calendar to click and insert required dates
  42. Transfer subscribers mailing list to php/mySQL, with option for ‘all announcements’, ‘selected announcement’ or by-weekly digest
  43. Automate dispatch of subscriber announcements
  44. Set up hit counter & check old one. Check GreenNet stats for visits to old calendar.
  45. SecureGiving facility for donations to running costs.
  46. Refine data format to facilitate interchange with other campaign calendars.
    Compilers of other calendars – please get in touch

  47. Log browser and operating system info for alternative browser coding.
  48. * Reprogram as necessary to fix features that do not work with other browsers from Firefox, eg Explorer, Chrome, Opera.
  49. Learn to do all the above, then start all over to set up Animal Contacts Directory as a dynamic website database, in time for the Spring 2005 publication date of the next 5000 entry, 200 page directory!!
  50. Link & import contact details from Animal Contacts Directory, when available.

Documentation of database structure