Filter views

Filter views provide a way to pre-filter calendar views, promotion spud content, and event feeds based on a combination of custom field values or owning calendars.

Topic links

• When to use filter views
• How filter views differ from filter control spuds
• How to create filter views
• How do subscriptions work with filter views?
• How to use filter views in your website

When to use filter views

Use a filter view when you want to:

• Publish subsets of events on different pages of your website.
• Provide links to pre-filtered views of the events.
• Display subsets of the events in calendar views and promotion spuds.
• Provide pre-filtered event feeds (with the exception of email subscriptions -- see the next bullet below).

Don't use filter views when you want to:

• Provide a filter view for a published calendar that allows site visitors to subscribe to a weekly (digest) email. Subscriptions don't honor filtered views, so digest emails always include the full, unfiltered list of events. (See Calendar subscriptions.)

  Note In this scenario, you should create a new calendar that applies your desired filter view, and then publish that calendar instead.

How filter views differ from filter control spuds

Filter views are a way to create pre-defined calendar views, promotion spud content, and event feeds based on specific filter values.

In this example, using the fictional Trumba Library website, we applied a filter view to pre-define the filters that are selected when the page is first launched.

In this example, site visitors see all the events at the Central Library branch when they first open the page, but can deselect filters to limit the number of events displayed, or select a different branch to see the events offered there.

Note If you wish, you can hide the filters, so that site visitors only see the events matching the filter view you set up, and aren't able to modify their view.

Filter spuds are control spuds that you include in published views to enable site visitors to filter the events displayed by selecting specific filter values.

Here, for example, using the same fictional calendar, a site visitor wants to view only classes and book groups, intended for adults and seniors, at the Central Library and Magnolia branches:

Tips

• If a filter view and its accompanying filter control spud both filter by the same fields, the filter control spud applies the filter view field values by default, in which case those field values appear as pre-selected (e.g. with their check box checked) in the filter control spud. You can control whether or not to make the other field values available so that site visitors can display the other events.

  With this approach, for example, you can hide ongoing events from the initial view of the calendar in order to not overwhelm the one-time events, while still allowing site visitors to view the ongoing events as they wish. (See Filter ongoing events.)

• For any publication, filter views allow a maximum of three filters, while filter control spuds allow a maximum of five custom field filters. These limits are inclusive; that is, the total number of filters you can apply using both filter views and filter control spuds for any one publication is five.

  For example, suppose you set up one or more filter control spuds to filter by event type, audience, and delivery format. If you also want to set up a filter view, you can reuse the three filters you already assigned, plus you can assign a maximum of two additional ones, such as for specific presenters and locations.

  Note The five-filter limit applies to the number of fields by which you filter, not the specific filter values.

How to create filter views

Filter views are defined within a publication.

To create a filter view

1. Before you create a filter view, you must create at least one custom field or have your content organized into multiple calendars. (See Create custom event fields.)
2. You must also add events to your published calendar that match the filter criteria.

   If you're using custom fields, for example, you must have events on your calendar that use the specific combination of fields and field values that you want to apply in the filter view.

   Important Trumba has to be able to detect that the fields and field values are being used by an event for them to be available as a possible filter view.

3. In the editing environment, select the calendar to make it active. (It appears with a check mark next to it.)

   The calendar must also be published. (See Publish calendars.)

4. Enable filter views:
   1. Click Publish Settings to open the Publishing Control Panel.
   2. On the Publish Settings tab, click Edit Publish Settings.
   3. On the Edit Publish Settings page, in the Publish Settings section, for Enable filter views, select Yes, and then click OK.

      At the top of the Publishing Control Panel, a Filter View dropdown menu appears.

5. From the Filter View menu, select [create new view].

   

6. On the New Filter View page, type a descriptive name for the view.

   Each filter view must have a unique name within a publication. Use a descriptive name, such as SeniorAudience, to make it easy to distinguish one filter from another.

   Use a name with no spaces because spaces in filter view names have to be replaced with "%20" when you embed the spud code or provide a link to your pre-filtered calendar views or events feeds. See How to use filter views in your website.

   Tip If you change a filter view name when you're already using the view on your website, you have to re-embed the filter view spud code and/or update the filter view URL. Learn more about using filter views on your website.

7. For Filters, select the custom fields or calendars on which you want to filter.

   You must select at least one filter and you can select up to three. For example, a community website might create a filter view that shows only events that are targeted at seniors and that take place in two particular neighborhoods.

8. For each filter you selected in the previous step, select the specific field values you want.

   For example, if you're creating a filter view to show events for Seniors that take place downtown, the field value for the Audience filter will be Seniors. The field value for the Neighborhood filter will be Downtown.

9. For Show filters in search info panel, typically, you leave No selected.

   Important If you set up a filter view without an accompanying filter spud, don't include it in the search info panel. Without a filter spud, the filter view field has no label, so the value(s) you select for the field appear in the Search info panel without any label. In this case, set Show filters in search info panel to No, such as in this example:
   
   

   The Search Info Panel is the shaded area at the top of the main calendar (in the following image) that shows currently applied filters. In most cases, you'll want to show only filters that visitors apply dynamically using a filter control spud. If you select Yes, the Search Info Panel appears by default in the filtered view, listing which filters you've applied:

   

10. For Include all values in filter spuds, select No to hide the other values from the filter view, which is the typical approach.

    Note You'd only select Yes if you intend to embed filter control spuds alongside the main filter view calendar, and you want visitors to have other filtering options. For example, suppose you create a filter view aimed at a senior audience. If you select Yes and include an Audience filter control spud beside the main calendar, visitors can display events aimed at toddlers and teenagers as well as seniors.

11. Click OK.

How do subscriptions work with filter views?

Visitors can subscribe to iCal, RSS, and Atom feeds that reflect the filter views set on the calendar. Note that email subscriptions, however, are not available for filter views.

What are calendar subscriptions?

I'd like more information about calendar feeds

With each published calendar that includes a Calendar List or Filter control spud, site visitors can also subscribe to iCal, RSS, and Atom feeds that reflect their selected filter criteria. For more information, go to Filter Spuds.

Sample calendar highlighting the filters set and the Subscribe link

Clicking the Subscribe link above the calendar opens a page that provides the available subscription options, such as shown in the screenshot from the fictional Trumba Library below. For more information, go to Calendar Subscriptions.

Sample Subscribe page showing the available options

On the Subscribe page, site visitors can subscribe either to a feed that includes all of the calendar events, or a feed that reflects the filters they've currently selected on the calendar. In the example above, you can see the filters set for Event Type and Audience.

The Weekly Email option, also shown on the Subscribe page above, sends all of the events on the calendar, not just those shown on the filter view.

Important If it's critical that site visitors don't have access to certain events, Trumba calendar publishers should not create a filter view that hides those events. The events still exist on the calendar, and site visitors could see them either by using the Weekly Email option above, or by selecting Subscribe to all calendar events for one of the feeds. In this case, it's better to create and publish a separate calendar for those events. For more information, go to Help for selecting publishing settings.

How to use filter views in your website

Each filter view includes its own set of spuds and feeds pre-filtered to deliver a subset of your event content.

There are three ways you can provide pre-filtered content to calendar visitors:

• Embed pre-filtered spuds
• Provide links to pre-filtered calendar views
• Provide links to pre-filtered event feeds

Tip In each case, use a name with no spaces because spaces in filter view names have to be replaced with "%20" when you embed the spud code or provide a link to your pre-filtered calendar views or events feeds.

Embed pre-filtered spuds that include the url argument and filterview parameter

If you plan to display and promote subsets of events on separate webpages on your site, you can embed spud code that is configured to display a filter view.

To copy spud code configured for a filter view:

1. In the Publishing Control Panel, first select the filter view.

   

   Selecting an existing filter view from the Filter View list.

   With the filter view selected, all of the spud code automatically reflects the view by including the appropriate arguments and parameters.

2. To copy the main spud code, click the Calendar Spuds tab.

   To copy spud code for a control or promotion spud, click the Control Spuds or Promotion Spuds tab.

   The script for each pre-filtered spud includes a url argument with the filterview parameter as illustrated below.

   <script type="text/javascript">
   $Trumba.addSpud({
   webName: "calendarwebname",
   spudType : "main" ,
   url : { filterview : "SeniorsDowntown" } });
   </script>

   Script for the main calendar spud pre-filtered by the SeniorsDowntown filter view.

I'd like to know more about customizing spud code.

Provide links to pre-filtered calendar views

If you want to provide access to multiple filter views from a single webpage, you can create filter view URLs that link visitors to pre-filtered content.

To link to a filter view:

1. Type the URL for the webpage where the unfiltered calendar is embedded.
2. At the end of the URL, include a question mark and the filterview parameter in the trumbaEmbed argument.

   For example, the URL might look something like this:

   https://yourwebsite/events.html?trumbaEmbed=filterview%3DSeniorsDowntown

   SeniorsDowntown is the filter view name. %3D is the URL-encoded value for the equal sign.

   In the filter view URL, every common character that follows trumbaEmbed= must be URL-encoded. Common characters include the ampersand, equal sign, space character, and so on. In the example, the equal sign after filterview is replaced by the URL-encoded character %3D.

   Note Occasionally, another service storing a URL for display may convert URL-encoded characters to their common equivalents. If this happens, everything following the common character is ignored and the filter view won't display.

   I'd like more information about URL-encoding with URL parameters.

Tip You can find a filter view's URL (and the link to the filter view that is hosted on the Trumba website) on the Hosted View tab. In the Publishing Control Panel, with a filter view selected, click Hosted View.

Provide links to pre-filtered event feeds

If you think visitors will want access to pre-filtered feeds of your event content, you can provide RSS, XML, iCal, and CSV feed links that include the filterview parameter.

For example, this RSS feed URL uses parameters to specify a start date, a time span in months, and a filter view.

SeniorsDowntown is the filter view name.

I'd like to know more about calendar subscriptions and customizing calendar feeds.