Setting Up and Maintaining a Calendar

• Unlike many calendars on the net your MTSU Calendar actually looks like a calendar rather than a list of events. In addition there is no web page maintenance; all entries are made through a form and will automatically show up on your calendar. The MTSU Calendar is dynamically generated and already looks for key dates throughout the year, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc... At the top of your calender you will find two buttons, one for the previous month and one for the Next month; making it easy to scroll through the months of the year. Another nice feature of the calendar is its hyperlink ablities. If you know a little HTML you can make the entries on your calendar link to another web page.

  In this document, you will find information and instructions to guide you through how to set up and use your calendar. Please select from the following list.

  • What do I need to use my calendar?
  • How to setup my Calendar?
  • What if I forgot my password, or I want to delete my existing calendar, and re-start all over?
  • How to view my Calendar on the web?
  • How to modify my Calendar?
  • How to change change colors and images on my calendar (how to customize the Calendar)?
  • Who can use/access my Calendar?
  • What if I don't like some default images?
  • About the "calsetup" program

  • What do I need to use my calendar? (Back to Top)
  • 1. A Frank account.
    2. A cookie-enabled web browser, i.e. Internet Explorer or Netscape
  • • How to setup my Calendar? (Back to Top)
    • 1. Log onto Frank
      2. Type in the following at the frank$ prompt:
      calsetup
      If you have not set up a calendar before, you will be asked for a confirmation (to create your Calendar) and password. Otherwise, you will be given options of deleting your existing calendar, or resetting the password. Please follow the instructions, and look for messages regarding problems that might occur during the setup process. If you find any problem, or need help setting up your calendar, please feel free to contact us. To see what this calsetup program will do to complete the setup process, click here.
      
    • What if I forgot my password, or I want to delete my existing calendar, and re-start all over? (Back to Top)
    • 1. Log onto Frank
      2. Type in the following at the frank$ prompt:
      3. 
         calsetup
         If your Calendar has already been setup, you will be given options of deleting your existing Calendar or resetting your password. Please follow the instruction to reset your password.
         
         
    • How to view my Calendar on the web? (Back to Top)
    • 
      To view your calendar on the web, just go to: http://www.mtsu.edu/cgi-bin/cal/calendar?username=YOUR_USERNAME , where the YOUR_USERNAME is the username you use to log onto frank, or the same as YOUR_USERNAME in YOUR_USERNAME@mtsu.edu .
      
    • How to modify my Calendar? (Back to Top)
    • 
      After the setup process, you are now ready to use your calendar. To enter an event to your calendar you must go to the "Calendar Administration" page. Click on the [Administration] button appearing on your calendar program, or directly type in the following address: http://www.mtsu.edu/cgi-bin/cal/caladmincookie . You will then be prompted for your username and password. The username is your Frank username, but the password is the one that you have entered when you setup your calendar, or reset your password. (If you forgot your password, click here to see how to reset the password.)
      The Administration form is easy to use. Just choose an appropriate date and time, type in an event, choose font formats, and click the [Add] button. The [Update] button allows you to change the setting on an event. Use the [Previous] and [Next] buttons to scroll through your events by date and time. You can make an event a link to another web page by just typing in the address of the page to which you want to link (e.g. www.mtsu.edu) in a textbox labeled "Link To". At any point pressing the [Delete] button will delete that event from the calendar. Click on the [View Calendar] button to get back to your calendar.
    • • How to change colors and images on my calendar (how to customize the Calendar)? (Back to Top)
      • 
        There is a [Customize] button both in Calendar and in Calendar Administration page that takes you to the Calendar Customization page. You may also type in the following URL to get to the Calendar customization page. http://www.mtsu.edu/cgi-bin/cal/calcustomizecookie
        To change the setting on your calendar, simply select new colors or images from the drop down lists on the customization page, and click "Update". Your new setting is immediately shown at the bottom of the page. You may change the setting as often as you want. The "Reset" button is to reset all the settings back to the last update you made. The "Default" button is to reset all the settings back to the default settings when you created your calendar.
      • • Who can view/modify my Calendar? (Back to Top)
        • 
          Currently, the Calendar program is setup so that anybody can view your Calendar (no password required) if that person know your frank username (of course, your username can be found in your MTSU email address). Anyway, to make any modification on your calendar, the password entered when the Calendar was created is required.
          
          
        • What if I don't like some default images? (Back to Top)
        • 
          Before you try this, make sure that you have an FTP program (and know how to use it), and knowledge on some basic unix commands such as commands to change directory (cd) and to change permission on a file/directory (chmod).
          When you run the calsetup program to create your Calendar, the program copies all default image files into your ~frank_username/public_html/calendar/images/ sub-directory. These images are to be used as background of the calendar page, background on particular day (e.g. Christmas, Thanksgiving), or as links (e.g. links to previous or next month). The following is a list of all the default image filenames, and what they are used for. (Image filenames are CaSe-SeNsItIvE.)
          
          christmas.gif - background for the Christmas day.
          thanksgiving.gif - background for the Thanks Giving day.
          newyear.gif - background for the New Year day.
          groundhog.gif - background for the Ground Hog day.
          valentine.gif - background for the Valentine day.
          stpatrick.gif - background for the St. Patrick day.
          easter.gif - background for the Easter day.
          mother.gif - background for the Mother day.
          flag.gif - background for the Flag day
          independence.gif - background for the Independence day
          veteran.gif - background for the Veteran day
          father.gif - background for Father day
          halloween.gif - background for Halloween
          calendar_bg.gif - background for the calendar program
          calendar_nxt.gif - link to next month
          calendar_prv.gif - link to previous month

          You may replace any of the above image files with the ones you like. Let's assume that you have an image file called "mynewimage.jpg" on your computer, and you want it to be an image background on the Christmas day in your calendar in stead of the default image originally provided. Simply change image filename frome "mynewimage.jpg" to "christmas.jpg", and use an FTP program to transfer that file over to the directory mentioned above. You may need to check the permission on the image file to make sure that it is world readable.
          

        • About the "calsetup" Program

          ( Back to Top)

          Three main tasks of this program is to
          • setup the calendar
          • delete the calendar
          • reset the password

          You must log onto Frank to be able to run this program. When the program is run, it will check if the currently logged-in user (use unix command 'whoami' to check for username) already has a calendar setup. If so, it will provide options of resetting the password or deleting the existing calendar. Otherwise, with user's confirmation, it will create a Calendar for that particular user following these steps.

          • Gets password (to be used only with the Calendar program) from user
          • Inserts a new record for the user in the database. Failure in this step causes the Calendar not to be created for the particular, and should be reported to us to correct the problem(s).
          • Creates calendar/images directory in user's public_html directory and sets the permission on the directory so the world can read the directory and files inside that directory. If there already exists the calendar/images directory, everything in that direcrory will be moved to calendar/images.old. Failure in this step may cause the calendar to look differently.

          This calendar would be a really nice addition to any web site, especailly departmental sites and Academic Course sties. We hope you enjoy your calendar.

          Feel free to send us any questions or comments.