Dynamic Automagical Events and Other Cool Tools

We have many cool tools that help us reach our members.  Today we rolled out the next part of our dynamic automagical event system.  The event feeder that can now be found on the front page of our blog and website dynamically updates to inform users when our next event is and how far off it is.

As you may have noticed we have a leaderboard advertisement on our blog and site's main pages. When an event with an attached advertisement is coming up, that leaderboard features the advertisement. If the upcoming event doesn't have an advertisement, then the standard Join ACM ad is shown and a simple text ad is displayed beneath it.  Everything updates automatically as time passes without us continually updating the site.

What else comes with it?

Upcoming  Events Feeder

The main page of our site also features an upcoming events feeder. The next upcoming event and a description of the event is automatically pulled into the front page where users can easily find it.  Our events page has a listing of the next 6 upcoming events.

The upcoming events feeder component can very easily be setup to show as many events as desired.  Events that have links to more info are automatically hyperlinked

Events Calendar

We also have an events calendar.  The fully interactive and navigable calendar maps out events in and easy to read display.  Users can hover over an event for a little popup with more information or click on the event for the full details.  The event calendar lets our members look as far into the future as they want to see what we have planned for them.

How does it work?

The event system  parses an XML file that lists the details about all of our upcoming events.  Like almost all XML files, this event XML is human readable and easy to update by anyone.

Each event node in the XML gets turned into an Event object that gets inserted into a Calendar object that organizes events into a complex hash table.  Events can also be defined using CFML or cfscript and added into the calendar manually.  The calendar is then able to sort events by date and provide feeds that can be rendered by a coldfusion template in a number of ways.

All the magic happens in the background and the site webmaster doesn't need to do anything.

Do you have any other cool tools?

Yes, we have an automated minutes poster too.  We simply upload our minutes into a directory on our site.  Then our site automagically detects the minutes in the folder and then lists them on the site.  Simple as that.  Cuts down on a lot of time preparing websites. 

We also have an automated gallery for the highschool programming contest website.  Simply drop images into folders.  The images are then automatically sorted into albums, displayed as thumbnails on the website, and made available for navigation. 

And of course we have this awesome blog template made by Jesse Bethke! 

What else are you planning?

We are also working on a member newsletter management system.  It will allow organizations to manage their member subscription lists.  One of the best features it will have will be the ability to pick upcoming events out of the calendar and send those event reminders to the subscribed members.

How do I get this for my organization?

Contact acm@usd.edu and ask if the ACM Webteam would be interested in helping your organization setup a site for you.  Our decision to assist your organization is completely up to the ACM officers.