New Calendar for Website Update

Currently, Maplewood Online and its sister sites are undergoing some new developments to make using the website easier. At this time, we are working on improving the features of the online calendar. We have already made steps to improve it by making it so that words will no longer be broken into two, forming a cleaner look. If you have any suggestions as to how to further improve upon the calendar, please tell us here!

https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/calendar

I hate forced choice drop down menus. They really do not cover all events, including major recurring events held in town. For example:

The Categories is too restrictive. There are major events in town, such as 4th of July, Celebration, Memorial Day Parade, and the recent Mandala project that don't fit any of the categories listed in the drop down menu. The new "meet ups" category helps as a default (thanks Jamie). However, all events posted to the calendar are in effect some form of meet-up. It was a lot easier to add events when there was no categories field.

The location field is still difficult to use. It took several tries to get "Maplewood, NJ, USA" to populate the text box. Typing in the location doesn't help as a workaround because one still has to select the drop down menu selection.

'Address" can be a problem when one is trying to enter a parade in the calendar. In this case, a single point of assembly works for marchers but not for viewers. Starting and ending point would be more accurate. Some events do not have a single postal address. The Halloween Parade for example is held throughout the Village and has no single point of assembly. What postal address does one enter for an event to be held at Memorial Park, Maplecrest Park, or the Gazebo? What does one do when entering events that have multiple locations/venues, such as the way First Night was originally structured before it moved to the High School or the way restaurant week is handled now?

Start and/or end time is not always easy to estimate. The Duck Race for example begins a set period of time after the Memorial Day Ceremony. The Memorial Day Ceremony does not have a specific end time since its start time depends on the length of the parade and other factors. These events are sponsored by different organizations and serve very different purposes and audiences. Listing them together as a single event is not an option.

While I understand the advantage of structure and forced data fields, I would love to see an other option where one can enter text that may not be in keeping with the sets of criteria envisioned by the form designer.

Thanks for your comments Joan. We'll try to figure out the category issue and see if there's a better way to autofill the town. It's tricky when there's not a specific address - it can't be mapped. You can just list a street address without a specific #.

It would be hard to have vague start times also. Are there any other calendar you use now that allow this capabilities?

Memorial Day and Fourth of July are special cases. You can just put Maplewood, NJ in the address field - then list specifics under details.

If you look at the current calendar - you'll see that location - start date - etc are pretty exact.
https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/calendar/

If there are specific categories you wish to follow you can edit them here:
https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/calendar/categories

The main focus right now is layout - calendar view is helpful - but not great on mobile. Please let me know what calendars you guys like online. Preferably a calendar that has a lot of entries. A lot of the calendar scripts I've found look great when there are few entries - but when there's a lot it doesn't work as well.

https://www.maplewoodlibrary.org/events/2017-02-08

Click on calendar date and see a listing of events for that date: Event name, place, time, narrative description. Much easier to see what is on offer.

Negative: Calendar is date driven.

Possible fix: Add search box for event you want to attend if you do not know when it is being held.