NEWBIE ISSUES: J1.5.23 , latest Event Booking.....

I'm on Joomla 1.5.23, and just purchased "Event Booking" and installed the 1.5 version. It's more or less working I think, I've got it taking registrations for an event, but there are a number of issues I'm concerned about..... (In order of priority!) The first 4 are pressing for me, hopefully there's some hacks someone could point me towards to get me going as my event if only a few weeks away!.


(1) €0 EVENT PRICE DISPLAY as "FREE": I've set no price for the event online, I don't plan to charge online (YET) but we WILL charge @ the door! - however Event Booking advertises it as "FREE", can I remove the "FREE" from the listing ? In the absence of a way to do it, a point to how to hack it would be very much appreciated...

(2) Register "INDIVIDUAL". In our case, it's not so much of registering an "individual", as a Boat (with one skipper and several crew).... Since each member of a group registration didnt work for us (see above), I've set the event to only allow individual registrations, and captured the number of crew on the "individual" registration. Is there any way of renaming this to something else rather than "individual" on a per-event basis ?

(3) compatibility with "JR Passphrase" ?
I have "JR Passphrase" running on our site. It's a SPAM protection mechanism that re-directs any new registrations to a special "Passphrase" page (see below). This normally only appears when people register for the first time, however it is appearing when users click on the "Register" buttons on an event booking event on the front end - even if they are already logged in. I realise this may be a 50% a "JR Passphrase" issue, but I'm hoping you might have some insight into why it thinks that this event booking link needs to be redirected ? I tried disabling JRPassphrase & the problem goes away, but I got SPAM registrations within a couple of hours and am worried about leaving it turned off. I may try Joomlaxis "Admin Approval" component instead as a workaround, but it would be great to get it working with JR Passphrase.

(4) Any way of hiding the "VIEW LIST" feature, as it tells everybody in the public domain who is attending the event ? Some of our registrants will probably not want their name listed openly on the internet, so I'd prefer to restrict this to administrators - or to registered/logged on users, or perhaps for non-registered display a custom field from the registration information instead (in our case we would display the boat/yacht name that the person has registered.... That way other local sailors would recognise & know the yacht names without the names being listed).

(5) I can't seem to edit the Short Description or Description fields on the EVENT. The fields are there, but I cant click my mouse in them. I've tried both browsers that I use, IE9 and Google Chrome 13 (both latest).
Is there anything I need to set elsewhere that will enable me to edit these ?

(6) Custom Fields: Fields Mapping gives no option to map to no field ? The drop-down list has no "N/A" or "blank" entry. As a result, when I go to the registration "Male" comes up in the name fields.(using FIELD_GENDER as the default).

(7) GROUP Registration. - All fields have to be filled out for all group members ? I've an event where Boat's attend with several crew. We need to capture full details of the boat skipper (name, email address, phone etc.), name of their boat etc., but only Name & email address of the crew. However, all the fields appear on each registration. Is there any way to capture some fields for the registration as a whole (or only against the primary group member), and other for all group members ? You can see the screenshot below trying to capture the same boat name etc. for each group member.

( Duplicate Registration : I've set configuration to "Prevent Duplicate Regsitration", yet it allows me to register multiple times ? Whats used to detect duplicates ? Name, email address ? I used the exact same details each time.

Apologies Tuan, I've posted this as a support ticket instead..... Aidan.

Hi

(1) €0 EVENT PRICE DISPLAY as "FREE": I've set no price for the event online, I don't plan to charge online (YET) but we WILL charge @ the door! - however Event Booking advertises it as "FREE", can I remove the "FREE" from the listing ? In the absence of a way to do it, a point to how to hack it would be very much appreciated...

=> Go to Event Booking -> Configuration, looks at Show price for free event, set it to No . After that, it will be removed !

(2) Register "INDIVIDUAL". In our case, it's not so much of registering an "individual", as a Boat (with one skipper and several crew).... Since each member of a group registration didnt work for us (see above), I've set the event to only allow individual registrations, and captured the number of crew on the "individual" registration. Is there any way of renaming this to something else rather than "individual" on a per-event basis ?

=> It is simple. Go to Event Booking -> Translation, find the text and change it to what you want .

(3) compatibility with "JR Passphrase" ?
I have "JR Passphrase" running on our site. It's a SPAM protection mechanism that re-directs any new registrations to a special "Passphrase" page (see below). This normally only appears when people register for the first time, however it is appearing when users click on the "Register" buttons on an event booking event on the front end - even if they are already logged in. I realise this may be a 50% a "JR Passphrase" issue, but I'm hoping you might have some insight into why it thinks that this event booking link needs to be redirected ? I tried disabling JRPassphrase & the problem goes away, but I got SPAM registrations within a couple of hours and am worried about leaving it turned off. I may try Joomlaxis "Admin Approval" component instead as a workaround, but it would be great to get it working with JR Passphrase.

=> I have no idea how this extension works, so I am not sure. However, if you want to avoid spammer, just use captcha feature in Event Booking. Go to Event Booking -> Configuration, looks at Enable captcha protection, set it to Botd Free and Paid events . After that, registration forms will be protected by capcha, so you want' get spam registration any more. If you want "JR Passphrase" to ignore Event Booking, maybe you will need to contact the developer of that extension to ask them how to do that.

4) Any way of hiding the "VIEW LIST" feature, as it tells everybody in the public domain who is attending the event ? Some of our registrants will probably not want their name listed openly on the internet, so I'd prefer to restrict this to administrators - or to registered/logged on users, or perhaps for non-registered display a custom field from the registration information instead (in our case we would display the boat/yacht name that the person has registered.... That way other local sailors would recognise & know the yacht names without the names being listed).

=> Go to Event Booking -> Configration, looks at "Themes" tab, find the config option Show List Of Registrants and set it to No .

(5) I can't seem to edit the Short Description or Description fields on the EVENT. The fields are there, but I cant click my mouse in them. I've tried both browsers that I use, IE9 and Google Chrome 13 (both latest).
Is there anything I need to set elsewhere that will enable me to edit these ?

=> It is a bug in Joomla (on Google Chrome only). To solve this, there are two solutions :

1. Go to Extensions -> Plugins manager, find the "System-Mootools upgrade" plugin and publish it .

2. Use Firefox or IE to edit these messages .

6) Custom Fields: Fields Mapping gives no option to map to no field ? The drop-down list has no "N/A" or "blank" entry. As a result, when I go to the registration "Male" comes up in the name fields.(using FIELD_GENDER as the default).

=> Maybe it is a bug ! I will check it during the weekend and let you know ! For now, please disable Fields Mapping by going to Events Booking -> Configuration, set Integration config option to No integration

(7) GROUP Registration. - All fields have to be filled out for all group members ? I've an event where Boat's attend with several crew. We need to capture full details of the boat skipper (name, email address, phone etc.), name of their boat etc., but only Name & email address of the crew. However, all the fields appear on each registration. Is there any way to capture some fields for the registration as a whole (or only against the primary group member), and other for all group members ? You can see the screenshot below trying to capture the same boat name etc. for each group member.

=> It is Configurable. Please change the settings in two places :

1. Go to Event Booking -> Configuration, looks at Group Member Fields tab and hide the fields you don't want for group members. Changes this setting will only affect new events.

2. For events which you created before, you need to edit the event to change setting. On edit event screen, looks at Groups Members Fields tab and hide the fields you dont' want.

( Duplicate Registration : I've set configuration to "Prevent Duplicate Regsitration", yet it allows me to register multiple times ? Whats used to detect duplicates ? Name, email address ? I used the exact same details each time

=> Right now, we only check based on user_id . So basically, this setting only affect if users logged in. The same users (who logged in) cannot register for an event two times. In the next release, I will check it based on emails, too !

Hope my explanation is clear to you !

Regards,

Tuan

Tuan,

Apologies for late reply, I didnt get back to this until now. Thanks for some great responses ! I'm embarassed that I missed some of the configuration options, thanks for your patience in pointing them out. This is working pretty well for me now and we are taking live registrations.... although if you do find the time, there are probably some outstanding questions of some sort on items (6),(7).
Items (2), (4) are really just wish list items...

best regards & thanks,
Aidan.


(1) €0 EVENT PRICE DISPLAY as "FREE":

=> Go to Event Booking -> Configuration, looks at Show price for free event, set it to No . After that, it will be removed !

Briliant !

(2) ) Register "INDIVIDUAL" -- change to "Register BOAT"

=> It is simple. Go to Event Booking -> Translation, find the text and change it to what you want .

Many thanks, this will work for me for this first event, though I can forsee issues with multiple different events - sometimes we register "Boats" (many people), sometimes "individuals" etc. on a per-event basis.

(3) compatibility with "JR Passphrase" ?
OK, will check this with JRPassphrase developer.
The SPAM registration I'm concerned about really is Joomla registration - I want to limit registrations to real people with an interest in our association. JR Passphrase is brilliant for this, I'm currently using an Admin Approval extension instead (Spambots can still register, but cant do anything without our approval) ...maybe we will try a Captcha mechanism instead.

(4) Any way of hiding the "VIEW LIST" feature?

=> Go to Event Booking -> Configration, looks at "Themes" tab, find the config option Show List Of Registrants and set it to No .

Brilliant again !. Although, guess what ... users have told me "it's great to be able to see who's registered already", so I've left it there!. I'd still prefer to be able to specify a field (or field(s)) which display here instead of the firstname+lastname if you ever get time to consider this as a new feature.

(5) I can't seem to edit the Short Description or Description fields on the EVENT.

=> It is a bug in Joomla (on Google Chrome only). To solve this, there are two solutions :

I can confirm the issue exists (for me at least) in IE9 as well as the latest google chrome. However... it does work for me in Firefox ! .. many thanks !

(6) Custom Fields: Fields Mapping gives no option to map to no field ?

=> Maybe it is a bug ! I will check it during the weekend and let you know ! For now, please disable Fields Mapping by going to Events Booking -> Configuration, set Integration config option to No integration

OK, did this and it's a good workaround, thanks !

(7) GROUP Registration. - All fields have to be filled out for all group members ?

1. Go to Event Booking -> Configuration, looks at Group Member Fields tab and hide the fields you don't want for group members. Changes this setting will only affect new events.
2. For events which you created before, you need to edit the event to change setting. On edit event screen, looks at Groups Members Fields tab and hide the fields you dont' want.

Yes, I had noticed these "Group Member Fields" tabs, but they only seem to include some fields - the fields I am concerned about are Custom fields, and they don't appear in the list of fields in either of these places. Does it work for custom fields ?

(8)Duplicate Registration :

=> Right now, we only check based on user_id . So basically, this setting only affect if users logged in. The same users (who logged in) cannot register for an event two times. In the next release, I will check it based on emails, too !

OK, now worries. Minor issue !

I'm curious if you ever got a response from JRpassphrase as I am having the same exact issue? Please let me know. Thanks!

Hi there,

I don't recall if I got a response from JRPassphrase I'm afraid. I don't even recall if I pursued it further - I'm currently redirecting registrations to Jomsocial and using the Joomla 1.7 Admin approval feature to double-check emails (I check the IP address /email address as users register). Since I started using jomsocial for registration spam registrations seem to have reduced, although I was thinking about introducing a captcha mechanism, which I think might be as effective as JRPassphrase for general public registrations.

If you want a really restricted process, JR Passphrase is good though (you can send the passphrase only to certain groups of people etc.). However, I have had good support from Roger (the JRPassphrase huy) in the past ... he made a new release with Jomsocial support for us in a day or two after we hit problems with Jomsocial when we started using it first. If you'd like to keep using it, try him and see what he comes up with.

best regards,
Aidan.

Aidan -

Issue is caused by the EventBooking component redirecting back to the default index.php on Checkout by using the "Register" view. This is causing JRPassphrase to present it's logon box since it looks for the "Register" action from native Joomla.

A workaround is to add a custom line of code in the \plugins\system\jrpassphrase.php file.
Add it as Line#44, copy and paste below:

if (preg_match('/com_eventbooking/',$_SERVER)) {Return ;} //Exit if sourced from EventBooking Module

Essentially what it does is look for the request coming from the EventBooking Module, and then ignores it. If you ever upgrade JRPassphrase though, you will need to re-add this band-aid.

Regards,

Barry