EE4 Archives | Event Espresso

How to Show a Ticket with a Price of Zero as Free

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014

In this post we’ll learn how to show tickets that have a cost of zero as free. Lets begin by taking a look at the screenshot below:

ticket-selector-zero-pricing

We can see that we have a free ticket that has a pricing of zero (shown as 0.00). Do you host events that have free tickets? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to show the price as “free” instead of “0.00.”

You can enable this on your own site with a filter.

function convert_zero_to_free( $amount, $return_raw ) {
    // we don't want to mess with requests for unformated values because those may get used in calculations
    if ( ! $return_raw ) {
        $amount = $amount == 0 ?  __( 'free', 'event_espresso' ) : $amount;
    }
    return $amount;
}
add_filter( 'FHEE__EEH_Template__format_currency__amount', 'convert_zero_to_free', 10, 2 );

There are a couple ways to add the filter above to your site. The first is to add the code to your theme’s functions.php file. However, this edit may be lost if you update your theme and it removes and replaces the functions.php file. A safer method is to create a custom plugin.

Once this filter is in place, go to any events on your site that has a free ticket and you’ll see that the pricing has been transformed from 0.00 to free:

ticket-selector-free-pricing

Posted in | Comments Off on How to Show a Ticket with a Price of Zero as Free

How to Add Questions to Event Espresso Question Groups

Thursday, March 27th, 2014

Today we will take a look at adding questions to question groups in Event Espresso. Lets begin by taking a look at the Registration Form screen for Event Espresso.

Login to your WordPress admin. Then locate Event Espresso in the admin menus and click on Registration Form. Below is a screenshot of part of the screen:

event-espresso-registration-form-screen

The Questions tab is shown by default when you click through to the Registration Form from the WordPress admin menus. A question in Event Espresso can be thought of as the a specific piece of information that you are requesting from an attendee/registrant. If we look at the screenshot above, we see two examples of questions: First Name and Last Name.

A Question Group allows you to bundle or cluster a set of questions together. Event Espresso comes with two default Question Groups:

Personal Information
Address Information

What kind of information would you expect to see in the personal information question group? For this question group, Event Espresso asks for contact information such as first name, last name, and email. For the address information question group, Event Espresso asks for information that is related to the address of the attendee/registrant such as street address and even phone number. Now that we have a basic understanding of what questions and question groups are, lets take a look at creating a new question group and associating questions with it.

Note: certain questions cannot be deleted as these are system questions. These are the questions that Event Espresso needs to create registrations correctly.

From the Registration Form screen, click on Question Groups. Then click on the button at the top of the page that says Add New Question Group. You’ll then arrive at the Question Group editor and you can begin entering information about your new question group. Go ahead and enter a title or name for your question group. You can enter a group identifier or allow Event Espresso to create one for you (occurs after saving). The remaining fields are optional. When you are finished editing your question group, click on the save and close button. This will take you to your Questions Groups page.

Now click on the tab for Questions and then click on the button that says Add New Question. You’ll then arrive at the Questions editor and you can begin entering information about your new question. Once you are finished, click on the save and close button. Then repeat these steps for additional questions.

After you have created all of your new questions, we’ll need to link them to your new question group. Return to the Question Groups screen and click on your question group. You’ll now see your question group along with available questions towards the middle right of the screen. In the screenshot below, we have some sample questions that we want to link with our question group called survey:

event-espresso-question-group-example

To link a question to a question group, place a checkmark next to those questions. You can also adjust the order that the questions will appear in by dragging and dropping them. Once you are happy with your changes, be sure to click on save and close. This will return you to your Questions Groups screen.

Your question groups can also be sorted by using drag and drop. Keep in mind that this updated order for these questions and question groups will be used throughout Event Espresso including the WordPress admin and on the front end of your website.

Posted in | Comments Off on How to Add Questions to Event Espresso Question Groups

How to Setup No-Cache/Exclusion Rules for Event Espresso

Tuesday, March 25th, 2014

Caching plugins have become a popular way to increase the load speed of WordPress sites. While they work well for static content such as pages and blog posts, they can interfere with registrations in Event Espresso. The content from Event Espresso changes with each ticket you sell and the event information needs to be updated and correct for the next person registering. In this article, we’ll learn how to create exclusion rules or no-cache rules for Event Espresso content.

We will first need to locate the pages that we want to add to the no-cache list.

Begin by logging into your WordPress admin. Then locate Event Espresso in the admin menus and click on General Settings. Once on this page, click on Critical Pages tab. The Critical Pages are pages that Event Espresso needs to run correctly and they will all need to be added to the no-cache list.

All pages shown should have Page Status OK and Shortcode OK as shown in the screenshot below:

event-espresso-critical-pages-status-ok-shortcode-ok

The next step is to get the slugs of each of these pages. This can be done by hovering over the View link for each page. On a default install of Event Espresso 4, the slugs will be:

/events/
/registration-checkout/
/transactions/
/thank-you/
/registration-cancelled/

Make note of your slugs — especially if you have customized them on your site.

Now to go the settings for your caching plugin and clear the cache once. Then locate the area to enter the no-cache/exclusion rules. This varies from caching plugin to caching plugin so we have listed steps for some of the popular caching plugins.

Setup no-cache/exclusion rules for W3 Total Cache

Login to your WordPress admin. Then locate Performance in the WordPress admin menus and click on Page Cache. Scroll down the page and find the area for Never cache the following pages:

w3-total-cache-event-espresso-critical-pages

Add your slugs for your critical pages in Event Espresso and save changes. Then clear the cache (if your plugin doesn’t on its own).

Setup no-cache/exclusion rules for WP Super Cache

Login to your WordPress admin. Then locate Settings in the WordPress admin menus and click on WP Super Cache. Click on the Advanced tab and scroll down the page and find the area for Add strings here (not a filename) that forces a page not to be cached:

wp-super-cache-event-espresso-critical-pages

Add your slugs for your critical pages in Event Espresso and save changes. Then clear the cache (if your plugin doesn’t on its own).

Setup no-cache/exclusion for Quick Cache

Login to your WordPress admin. Then locate Quick Cache in the WordPress admin menus and click on it. Scroll down the page and find the area for URI Exclusion Patterns. Add your slugs for your critical pages in Event Espresso and save changes. Then clear the cache (if your plugin doesn’t on its own).

Note: URI Exclusion Patterns is currently an option in the pro version of Quick Cache.

Additional Notes

From time to time, some caching files become damaged and will not clear even after clicking to clear the cache. If this happens, you can manually clear the cache by logging into your WordPress root with an SFTP or FTP client such as FileZilla or CyberDuck. Then browse to wp-content and remove any cache-related files. Then return to your WordPress admin and clear the cache one more time.

Some managed WordPress hosts such as WP Engine have an internal caching system. You’ll need to reach out to your web host directly to request that no-cache rules be setup for your critical pages in Event Espresso.

Posted in | Comments Off on How to Setup No-Cache/Exclusion Rules for Event Espresso

Messages System: Message Templates

Tuesday, March 4th, 2014

Message Templates are the blueprint for what the message will look like when its assembled. This is a very powerful component to the messages system because it allows for more granular control of the “looks” of outgoing messages.

The important thing to remember about message templates, is that there is a message template for each messenger, message type, and context combination. So for example, there is a template for the email messenger, registration approved message type, and Event Admin recipient (context).

Each message template will have fields that are defined by the messenger primarily but also supplemented by the message type if there are any additional fields required by the message type. For instance, all email templates will have to, from, subject and main content fields.

Note
You will see other fields like [event_list], [attendee_list] etc in the message templates. These are special fields related to messages shortcodes.

When you activate Event Espresso, the message system comes with default global templates out of the box that will help you get started right away with your events without having to do any editing. However you are able to edit any of these templates.

Difference between Global and Event specific templates
One more powerful feature with the new messages system is that by default, global templates will apply to every trigger happening with an event. So that means, for example, when a registration is approved (the trigger), all the global templates using the Registration Approved message type get sent. However, the messages system also allows Event Authors to create a custom template for that message type to be used only for that event. If this is done, then when the Registration Approved message type is triggered the message template for that event is used instead of the global message template. This allows you to differentiate different automatic messages for different events.

Posted in | Comments Off on Messages System: Message Templates

Messages System: Messengers

Tuesday, March 4th, 2014

Messengers describe the vehicle that delivers the messages. The most common delivery vehicle pretty much all of us are familiar with is email. As of this writing, email is the first and currently only messenger used by the messages system. Which is why we intentionally built the messages system so it would act more like a framework for being able to rapidly add different kinds of messengers and message types for Event Espresso.

Posted in | Comments Off on Messages System: Messengers

Messages System: Message Types

Tuesday, March 4th, 2014

Message Types describe the kind of message that is being sent and describe what the content of the message will be about. In Event Espresso there are currently (as of the time of writing this document) 8 different message types. Three for payment related messages (payment received, payment reminder, payment declined), and five registration related messages (registration approved, not approved registration, registration pending, registration declined, registration cancelled). Message types are attached to triggers[1]

Triggers simply refer to the places where a message might be “triggered” to be sent. Examples are: when a payment is made, when a registration is approved, when a registration is cancelled. Notice the word when, that is indicative that triggers are very much event based. ?

Posted in | Comments Off on Messages System: Message Types

Messages System: Shortcodes

Tuesday, March 4th, 2014

Message shortcodes are special snippets of text that allow for precisely controlling how dynamic content will display in the message template. If you are familiar with how WordPress shortcodes work then using these shortcodes should be fairly straightforward. Shortcodes such as [EVENT_NAME], [REGISTRANT_FNAME], [EVENT_AUTHOR_FORMATTED_EMAIL] all provide an easy way to indicate where dynamic content will be inserted when messages are sent.

There are also special shortcodes that we call list-type shortcodes. These are shortcodes such as [ATTENDEE_LIST], [EVENT_LIST], and [QUESTION_LIST][1]. These shortcodes are special because when you use it, you are indicating that this is where you want a list of items to be displayed in your template. When the message generator[2] gets to this shortcode, it will signal it to look for a corresponding field in the template to know how to parse each item in the list. So when you see a field in a message template that is labelled with [event_list] then you know that when the [EVENT_LIST] shortcode is parsed, the generator will look in the [event_list] field to know how to parse each event item.

This shortcode is only found with Event Espresso 4 Regular (not decaf version). ?
This is slang for the code that handles putting messages together using the templates and the data from the trigger point. ?

Posted in | Comments Off on Messages System: Shortcodes

EE4 Custom Post Types

Thursday, February 27th, 2014

Any requests to get_posts of type ‘espresso_events’ or ‘espresso_venues’ automatically have an attached EE_Event or EE_Venue object, which contains extra info (like extra Event metadata, or Venue location data), and also has functions for easily getting related data.

Eg, the EE_Event object has functions like is_active() (determines if the event is considered “Active” or not, taking into account the event’s status, whether all the datetimes for the event have passed, and other factors), tickets() (which retrieves all the non-archived tickets for that event), datetimes_ordered() (which retrieves all the datetimes for the event, ordered by time), etc. (See core/db_classes/EE_Event.class.php).

“Event CPT” data includes normal post data including:

Title
Description
Tags
Categories
Featured Image
Commenting
Excerpt
Custom Fields
Slug
Author

This data can be queried and displayed in themes along with other post data.

Posted in | Comments Off on EE4 Custom Post Types

EE4 Theme Templates and Tags

Wednesday, February 19th, 2014

Wondering how to customize templates in Event Espresso 4? Well, let’s put on our developer hats and get started!

Before we get started. Please note that since Event Espresso 4 is based on WordPress 3.8.1 core coding standards, you need to understand that there may be some significant code changes involved to create fancy designs and/or template customizations. You will need a firm background in HTML, PHP, and WordPress before trying to make customizations to any part of your website.

If you don’t feel like getting your hands dirty. We offer a very small set of customization options, such as removing or adding filters, moving files, creating database backups, etc., with purchase of support token(s). The support token does NOT allow for customization of the resultant templates, but it does provide a base for you to do further customizations. However, your theme must support child theming. If it does not support child theming, then the support token will cover creating the custom templates for your theme, but YOU will be responsible for ensuring you don’t get overwritten on the theme updates. That being said, it might be time to start searching for a new theme or take great CARE when updating.

Each EE4 CPT has a corresponding view helper file in the /core/helpers/ folder that should get automatically loaded anytime one of our CPTs is part of the incoming request (ie: if the current WP_Query object has one of our CPTs in the list of post_types for that request). The only two view helpers currently are:

EEH_Event_View.helper.php
EEH_Venue_View.helper.php

Each file contains a series of WP Template Tags (functions that can be used to add content) that can be used in the templates. You can copy your existing theme’s archive.php template and name it archive-espresso_events.php. Then you can use any of the template tags from the list below.

Here’s a list of each helper’s template tags:

EEH_Event_View

espresso_event_reg_button()
(returns the “Register Now” button if event is active, an inactive button like status banner if the event is not active or a “Read More” button if so desired)
espresso_event_status_banner()
(returns a banner showing the event status if it is sold out, expired, or inactive)
espresso_event_status()
(returns the event status if it is sold out, expired, or inactive)
espresso_event_categories()
(returns the terms associated with an event)
espresso_event_tickets_available()
(returns the ticket types available for purchase for an event)
espresso_event_date_obj()
(returns the primary date object for an event)
espresso_event_date()
(returns the primary date for an event)
espresso_list_of_event_dates()
(returns a unordered list of dates for an event)
espresso_event_end_date()
(returns the last date for an event)
espresso_event_date_range()
(returns the first and last dates for an event (if different))
espresso_event_date_as_calendar_page()
(returns the primary date for an event, stylized to appear as the page of a calendar)
espresso_event_link_url()
(the link to the event’s single page)
espresso_event_phone()
(the event’s phone #)
espresso_edit_event_link()
(returns a link to edit an event)

These tags are for displaying the Your Organization Settings info:

espresso_organization_name()
espresso_organization_address()
espresso_organization_email()
espresso_organization_logo_url()
espresso_organization_facebook()
espresso_organization_twitter()
espresso_organization_linkedin()
espresso_organization_pinterest()
espresso_organization_google()
espresso_organization_instagram()

EEH_Venue_View

espresso_event_venues()
(returns all venues related to an event)
espresso_venue_name()
espresso_venue_link()
espresso_venue_description()
espresso_venue_excerpt()
espresso_venue_categories()
(returns the terms associated with a venue)
espresso_venue_address()
(returns a formatted block of html for displaying a venue’s address)
espresso_venue_has_address()
(returns TRUE or FALSE if a Venue has address information)
espresso_venue_gmap()
(returns a google map for the venue address)
espresso_venue_phone()
espresso_venue_website()
espresso_edit_venue_link()

Posted in | Comments Off on EE4 Theme Templates and Tags

Event Espresso 4 Changelog

Tuesday, February 11th, 2014

Download Event Espresso now from your Account page.

April 18, 2014

Event Espresso 4.2.2.reg

Bugfixes:

Question tables columns truncating data.

April 18, 2014

Event Espresso 4.2.1.reg

Bugfixes:

Update script triggering inadvertently on new installations.
Event editor alert box popping up unnecessarily.
Broken Quick Links to Help Tabs in the WordPress admin.
Incorrect dates in the event editor and front-end display when using the WordPress d/m/y date format settings.
Tag taxonomies and terms links not working.

Enhancement(s):

Invoice to use Locate Template to allow for easy overriding of invoice template files.

Apr 15, 2014

Event Espresso 4.2.reg

Bugfixes:

Fix Template Settings Event List display descriptions settings to correctly change the way the event list is displayed.
Make downgrading to ee3 safe.
Fix Upcoming event Widget hiding the date leaves the dash.
Fix no report data in Event Espresso > Transactions > Reports.
Fix paging on list tables not retaining filters/search terms in request.
Fix Admin Manual Registration Inconsistencies.
Fix Venue website does not appear on venue page.
Fix marking a registration as declined shows an error if the declined message is not activated.
Fix labeling of information on registration details page.
Fix Event list template to have unique event title ID’s.
Fix bug with QGQ_order not working properly on order receipt page.
Fix Data Conversions with periods, because periods can’t go into URLs.
Fix running query on models too early.
Fix venue map display in event list.
Fix filtering Check-in list by event reloads to registrations overview filtered by chosen event.
Fix a Registration Checkout page that is a child of another page will cause the Edit Registration Details link on the Order Confirmation page to fail.
Fix messages filter are not working.
Fix Primary Registrant does not automatically receive the Registration Details email for an Approved registration.
Fix Ticket Selector shortcode error.
Fix States and Provinces that are added through the Front End Registration Form cannot be deleted through the Countries tab in the WordPress admin.
Fix extra get_header tag in some templates.
Fix Timezone Issues with Admin Payments.
Fix being unable to remove questions from system question groups.

Features/Enhancements:

Support for Calendar Add-on (see below)
Drag and Drop ordering of tickets in the event editor.
Order Questions by Question Group (no longer ordering questions by question order).
Option to turn OFF the Ticket Selector in the Event Details page for events without tickets/registrations.
Mijireh Gateway, see the Payment Settings in side EE 4.2).
Event Datetime Name.
Event Datetime Description.
Event Datetime Name messages shortcode.
Event Datetime Description messages shortcode.
Add datetime titles and descriptions to the order confirmation.
Front-end “Maintenance Mode”.
Add “Register Now or “View Details” button in the event list when the Ticket Selector is turned off.
Hook/Filter to Set No-cost events as “Free”.
Add filter so email messenger css file can be swapped out by developers for another css file.
Add hook in Admin panel after each ticket row description.
Add hook in Admin panel after each ticket create and update model.
Add hook in Front-end after each ticket date on a single event.
Make Single Page Check Out (SPCO) button text filterable.
Models make acceptance of empty strings more consistent.
Simplified EE_System Constructor and Hookpoints to external module/add-on/plugin development.
EEH_Template::locate_template() to accept full paths as well as relatives paths (from plugin root)
Filter for adding caffeinated modules to EE_Config $modules_to_register array.
Make Single Page Check Out (SPCO) button text filterable.

Calendar 3.0.reg

Initial Release

April 9, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.12.reg

Bugfixes:

Fix fatal error when ticket selector shortcode is used.
Fix manual payments admin-ajax.php from loading in the wrong location when WordPress has been moved to subdirectory.

April 2, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.11.reg

Bugfixes:

Fix Alternate Registration URL feature

Potential Conflict Resolutions:

Remove espresso_ajax_notices from query where themes are doing_it_wrong()
Change how single event filters are declared, added, and removed to prevent conflicts with the WP SEO plugin’s social meta tag feature

March 26, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.10.reg

Bugfixes:

Fix blank event page when using a translation
Fix upcoming dates and times display so they can be translated
Fix [ESPRESSO_EVENTS] shortcode pagination
Fix Email Editor not displaying when switching templates
Remove Venue Categories shortcodes from venue category list table
Fix the duplicating of the excerpt so it doesn’t display twice in the event list when using the ESPRESSO_EVENTS shortcode
Fix missing left bracket on shortcode for Google+ in Messages Template footer
Fix no dates displayed within the Order Confirmation Receipt

Potential Conflict Resolutions:

Prevent possible conflict where espresso notices get output outside the main WP loop
Change hook priorities and remove newlines within code blocks to prevent conflicts with some (*cough Themeforest cough*) themes

Enhancements:

Make sure event author short codes are valid for the “from” field in the message templates

March 14, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.9.1.reg

Bugfixes:

Expiry dates on registration payment page showing zeros in date dropdowns

March 11, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.9.reg

Bugfixes:

Prevent EE content from being added to non EE posts in recent posts widget.
Fix Automatic updates when EE us updated via bulk updater (stops deactivating EE issue).
Remove Event Espresso menu from admin bar for non-admins
Make datetimes i18n ready on the frontend.
Fix Venue Display option for Event list view
Fix NextGen Plugin Conflict – only admin can create galleries.
Stop FireFox prefetching pages during checkout

Enhancements:

Add description to order in AIM transaction.

Feb 28, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.8.reg

Bugfixes:

Fix issue with paid and free registrations not working.

Feb 27, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.7.reg

Bugfixes:

Fix fatal error when bulk deleting trashed registrations
Fix datepicker from only displaying 20 year date range
Fix issue where onsite gateways were storing CC data in sessions
Fix AIM and Paypal Pro bugs from line item names that were too large
Fix dropdown question values not being displayed

Feb 26, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.6.reg

Bugfixes:

Fix event CPT filters not removing from wp_query after use, theme conflict.
Remove remove_all_filter(‘mce_external_plugins’)
Fix missing ticket selection in checkout when selected tickets are $0
Fix some not so translatable strings
Fix missing EE icon on front end when logged in

Feb 20, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.5.reg

Bugfixes:

Fix Error if ESPRESSO_EVENTS shortcode uses multiple params for sorting
Fix success messages not showing correctly for reordering question groups (drag and drop)
Fix conflict between the registration page and the WP HTTPS plugins “force SSL in administration” feature

Features/Enhancements:

On new installs of EE4 the QST_display_text is now a TEXT field and max character count for QST_admin_label, QSG_name and QSO_value increased to 255 from 100

Feb 18, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.4.reg

Bugfixes:

Language files not loading from the /uploads/ directory.
Shortcode parameters
Single venue shortcodes
Ticket selector not displaying on nested WordPress pages.

Features/Enhancements:

WordPress and PHP version notifications.

Feb 14, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.3.reg

Bugfixes:

fix is_on_sale() on non-object in EE_Event bug in tickets metabox
fix base_type() on non-object in EE_Taxes bug in tickets metabox
removed warning when making a new question group
fix issue where gateways in uploads directory weren’t getting loaded
fix issue “edit_attendee_link” wasn’t appearing in in message previews
fix error when previewing message with archived ticket
fix [ESPRESSO_EVENTS] shortcode issue where it wasn’t displaying events
upon activation, EE checks the WP version is above 3.6, otherwise doesn’t activate

Features/Enhancements:

restructure messages shortcode parsing so based on registrations not attendee objects (translation, more accurate shortcode parsing)
NEW messages shortcodes: [RECIPIENT_EDIT_REGISTRATION_LINK], [FRONTEND_EDIT_REG_LINK]. Both these shortcodes parse to a link that brings up the page for editing existing registrations on the front end. So you can add this to your message templates, so registrants can edit their registration details AFTER they’ve registered.

Feb 13, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.2.reg

Bugfixes:

the_excerpt() related fixes
fix “EEM_Contact” error
fix Ticket selector shortcode on regular page not showing quantity selector
fix fatal error when trying to download invoice (PHP5.2 related)
fix for clicking dismiss on UXIP notice not sticking
fix tickets missing when returning to edit registration details
fix for EE4 Venue map failing if country ommitted

Features/Enhancements:

events set to private work the same as WordPress private posts/pages (i.e. remain private)
fix namespace issues with Authorize.net gateway due to other plugins using similar libraries
registration form field entries autofill onto payment fields where possible

Feb 12, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.1.reg

Bugfixes:

fixes with session_start()
remove commented out HTML in payment options template. This created problems for some themes running the_content() through filters.
fix General Settings -> Template Settings options not sticking on save.
some auto-update tweaks
Fix Registration form HTTPS issue for users with HTTPS plugins in use.
Fix for no update message on saving of Questions and Question Groups in certain conditions.
Fix incorrect links/routing for shortcode docs on Support admin page.
Fix for uploaded feature image not showing after upload (on event and venue cpt pages)
Fix for EE_Module_Request_Router fatal error
Fix for illegal offset warning that happens in certain cases with third-party plugins/themes.

Features/Enhancements:

Messages system: if user first name or last name isn’t filled out for event author, we’ll use the Organization name (instead of leaving it to WordPress to add WordPress)
Add Event Espresso admin bar menu items to admin bar on frontend of site too.
Add better support for dark themes.
Messages System: Add new email shortcodes for email group: [ESPRESSO_ADMIN_EMAIL], [ESPRESSO_ADMIN_FORMATTED_EMAIL], [CO_FORMATTED_EMAIL]

Feb 10, 2014

Event Espresso 4.1.0.reg

First release.

Posted in | Comments Off on Event Espresso 4 Changelog