17 Nov 2003
Extended Upcoming.org RSS Feeds
At long last I finally have a moment free to release the source code for the Gothamist Event Calendar (using Upcoming.org RSS feeds) I programmed. I’m really too busy to try to provide technical support for people if they try to use it, so hopefully I put enough comments in the code.
When Jake originally asked me about coding a category-sortable calendar for them, he wanted access to content that wasn’t in the “My Events” Feed (like venue map links and full event descriptions). So, Andy and I put our heads together and developed the “My Events Full” feed (Just replace the user ID in the URL with your own).
Here’s a sample event item from the “My Events Full” Feed. The additional elements are in bold.
<title>The View from Abroad: The Journalistic Perspective</title>
<description>Nov 17: The View from Abroad: The Journalistic Perspective at Museum of Television and Radio</description>
<guid>http://upcoming.org/event/1780/</guid>
<dc:creator>gothamist</dc:creator>
<comments>http://upcoming.org/event/1780/#comments</comments>
<dc:date>2003-11-17T18:30:00-08:00</dc:date>
<category>Education</category>
<upcoming:venuename>Museum of Television and Radio</upcoming:venuename>
<upcoming:venuelink>http://upcoming.org/event/1780/</upcoming:venuelink>
<upcoming:venuemap><![CDATA[ http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?address=25 West 52nd Street between 5th and 6th Avenue&city=New York City&state=New York ]]gt;</upcoming:venuemap>
<upcoming:description>[CDATA[ A panel of foreign journalists from various media outfits such as Al Jazeera, The BBC, allAfrica.com, and The Times of India, to name only a few, gather to discuss international views of America, the war in Iraq, and how the latter has impacted the former. Tickets, 10$/ 8$ for students, can be purchased in person Tuesday through Sunday, 12-6pm at the Museum of Television and Radio, or by phone Monday though Friday at (212) 621-6600.]]></upcoming:description>
<upcoming:starttime>18:30:00</upcoming:starttime>
<upcoming:endtime>20:00:00</upcoming:endtime>
</item>
Because Andy hasn’t added any timezone information to Upcoming.org, the starting times for events are rendered as local time in the <dc:date> element (and events with no start time are listed as 12:00:00), potentially confusing to standard date/time conversion libraries. So, we added the <upcoming:starttime> and <upcoming:endtime> elements.
Note: the <upcoming:venuelink> element is currently just pointing to the event feed url, which is an acceptable alternative until Andy gets it fixed.
Jake and I have some additional ideas about what we’d like to see implemented on upcoming.org (like event URL, price, and image fields), so I’ll post an update when/if they’re added.
Good for you, man!
Silus Grok | 18 Nov 2003