Extras: Embedded Calendars and Videos

These options allow site administrators to include content which is hosted elsewhere. At present the possibilities are limited to a Google calendar and a YouTube video, but others could be added if these prove useful.

The Google Calendar

The google calendar may be a supplement to, or substitute for, the current Site Builder options for showing details of events and regular group meetings. Weekly and monthly timetables can be integrated and shown in more accurate detail — provided that the data is entered correctly and kept up to date. It supports the concept of "continuing" events, making it fairly easy to record the exact pattern of group meetings, whether weekly, fortnightly, or monthly. It has useful extra features, like an automatic link to a google map when the location of an event is entered.

To use these options, it is necessary to register a google account and make the calendar for your U3A there. Once ready it must be made public so that it is universally accessible, so avoid entering information which should be confined to your own members. Incorporating it in a Site Builder site is fairly straightforward: our software needs only enough data to "pull down" the calendar information from google and and show it in a separate "frame" on the selected web page.

Initially the default display parameters will be used, so the only details to be entered are the calendar identifier (normally the google mail address of the calendar owner) and the page where it is to appear. Adding, changing and deleting are available via the "Embedding/calendar" item in the administrator's menu — to keep the interface simple only one calendar per site is permitted.

YouTube Videos

The principle is similar: site administrators with a google account can upload videos to YouTube, and enter the details via a Site Builder option. The information required is the unique video identifier and its width and height — which can be found by clicking the "share" button for the relevant video on YouTube itself. The option on the "Admin" menu is used only to place a video on the Home page, where it will be shown instead of a picture. Videos on other pages can be placed using an option on the normal 'page edit' data entry form. You may include as many videos as you wish, but only one per page.