Known Bugs

WorshipCal is designed to let the various people who submit data to do so independently, in one, centralized location, and then that data is available and up to date for anyone with a web browser and will the know. Once installed, no one needs play with HTML or web pages, as the calendar takes care of its own database and generates up-to-date pages each time the web page is accessed.

A later benefit has been that as the database grows it becomes a useful tool for research and archive data. There is an administrator's version of WorshipCal that allows the user to edit the "uneditable" categories, as well as generate reports based on search strings or categories. The administrator's version is part of this package.

LICENSING

Installation should be as simple as untarring the file and editing the setup file to reflect the local situation and preferences. It should not be difficult to change the file names and locations to suit your needs/desires. Please do change the name of the database file in the setup file and any others to make it your own. (Note that the log names run with with wide-open permissions - that should probably be changed.) Also, keep minimum permissions for the calendar.setup file, since it contains all the filenames, passwords, etc.

You should be able to easily change the look of the month names and year digits since they are simple graphics. You may use one of the few available on the WorshipCal home page, or create your own.

A basic knowledge of setting up a perl script on a web server is presumed (but you shouldn't have to know PERL well). If you need help with the basics of using such an account, please consult one of the many help files on the internet which offer basic shell tutorials. If you find basic flaws or bugs with the installation or running of WorshipCal, please do report them to me.

Certainly you are free to adapt and modify the PERL code. I would love to see your changes and improvements, perhaps even for inclusion in this script. If you have suggestions, please feel free to email me with them. Code snippets are even better.

Using the administrator's version allows you to edit all categories, as well as the ability to add HTML within those categories. It also offers the possibility of some rudimentary reporting.

CHANGELOG

0.97 Added these docs and packaged for distribution by making the tarball, substituting dummy variables, and so on. Been running without bugs for me for 48 days.

0.96 Added the "Instructions/Hints" due to users not figuring out what I had presumed were basic navigational tools

0.95 Added the administrator's version to the script (removing some code irrelevant to such a person's needs and adding both the ability to edit the "uneditable" portions and to do some simple report generation - based on searching for a substring and according to position. THIS NEEDS MORE WORK.

0.94 Moved the calendar creation parts of the script into subroutines and moved the position lists and arrays into the *.setup file to simplify site customization. Should be simple now to change "Ushers" to "Greeters" or to add "Organists". Includes the ability to add both editable and uneditable categories.

0.93 Added ability for a user to click on a date and volunteer.

0.92 Added email notification when items were updated

0.91 Moved many variables to the *.setup file for portability

0.90 Added rudimentary logging of basic access and bad password guesses. Posted to web site and began using it for my church's worship schedule.

0.80 Interface changes, color changes.

0.70 Removed a bunch of old code, cleaned up the HTML, fiddled with interface changes.

0.60 The first version to go online, mostly for private testing.

KNOWN BUGS

WISH LIST

• I'd like to port this to PHP and MySQL. Perhaps as soon as somebody needs better filtering, more robust or specific searching abilities, or wants something added to the program, I'll take that opportunity to switch over and improve the program. (Added October 2001).
• Better and more versatile/flexible reporting in the admin script
• Change the system calls from backtick operators to native perl calls, for both security and portability (OS's and platforms).
• More robust filtering or allowable use of HTML tags. Currently user submissions simply have all <'s replaced with ('s.

WorshipCal Home Page <bitlink.ca/WorshipCal/>
worshipcal@bitlink.ca