The basic idea behind RSVPMaker is that every event is a post — an event post, rather than a blog post — meaning you use all the same authoring and editing tools, but event posts have a date and time associated with them.
When you add a new event post, you will be prompted to enter the date and time up front, along some basic details like whether you want to collect RSVPs (registrations). You can also use RSVPMaker to announce events for which no registration is required.
Once an event post is loaded into the editor, you can change the date and time using a calendar widget that appears in the sidebar (assuming you’re using the Gutenberg editor introduced with WordPress 5.0). To change other parameters, including pricing for an events you charge for, navigate to the RSVP / Event Options screen associated with each post.
Link to the RSVP Event Options screen
You will see several submenu options under RSVP / Event Options, which will take you to the screens for customizing confirmation and reminder messages and for customizing the registration form.
In RSVPMaker, your confirmation message is also modeled at as a WordPress post that you can edit as you would any other content. Reminder messages work much the same way, except that they have a specific interval relative to your event date / time associated with them. The reminder message headline becomes the subject line of the email message, and the body copy becomes the content of the email message.
The RSVPMaker form is modeled as a series of custom content blocks that specify the data you want to gather from each person who registers (details).
The RSVP Form editor
When you are editing a form, a confirmation message, or a reminder message, you will see a navigation option in the black admin menu at the top of the screen that allows you to navigate back to editing or viewing the parent event post. First, make sure you save your work.
Multi-Date Events and Event Templates
RSVPMaker allows you to create a single event that stretches across multiple dates — so one registration (if you’re taking registrations) for an event that lasts all weekend.
The more common requirement is to support events that recur on a weekly or monthly schedule, with many of the details repeated each time. For example, the local Chamber of Commerce holds a breakfast meeting on the first Wednesday of the month at a standard location, and the phone number to call with questions is always the same. We need to be able to account for occasions when the schedule or meeting place changes, and we want to be able to add details about a specific month’s event.
For that, use an Event Template. The template defines the standard meeting schedule and the details that should be included in every event listing by default. From an Event Template, you can create a series of events along the projected schedule (all those first Wednesdays in my example). Each of these events will include the content and the settings specified in the template, including details like event pricing.
Each individual event can then be edited individually, for example to add the names of a guest speaker. If the Event Template changes, perhaps because your standard meeting place has changed, you can update any previously published future events with the new details. (More about Events and Event Templates).
Many event parameters can also be changed on the RSVPMaker Settings screen on the WordPress dashboard. For example, you can specify whether the feature for collecting RSVPs should be on or off by default. A link from the settings screen allows you to create a standard RSVP form to be used if a custom one has not been defined.
The settings screen is also where you would enter the required credentials for the PayPal or Stripe payment services or the MailChimp email broadcast service.
One of the keys to using RSVPMaker effectively is taking advantage of event templates. Like the rest of RSVPMaker, the templates feature has been updated for the new Gutenberg editor.
Templates allow you to create one or many events that follow a regular schedule and that share some basic details like meeting location and who to contact with questions.
Like a cookie cutter, a template lets you create many events that will start out the same — until you decorate them.
Think of it like the relationship between the cookie and the cookie cutter, where you can stamp out one or many cookies that start out the same, but you still have the option of decorating them all differently, with details specific to a particular event date.
On the other hand, if you’ve created many placeholder events based on your template and you change the template (say, because your meeting location has changed) — you can update those related events. You can update them all, or update them selectively (if you don’t want to overwrite information you’ve added for a specific event date).
The whole idea behind RSVPMaker is to allow you to take advantage of the familiar WordPress user interface for content creation and editing, while adding the event dates and registration form options that allow you to display even posts on a calendar and/or chronological listing of events, collect RSVPs (or registrations) and charge for events when appropriate.
New Event
The latest versions of the software have gotten away from trying to cram all the options onto one screen — which I hope is an improvement — but it means you need to understand the relationships between the different screens available to you.
These include:
The Settings screen for RSVPMaker, which is where you can set defaults for most event options, plus settings related to email notifications, email broadcasts (Mailchimp integration) and payment processing (integration with PayPal and Stripe).
The Event Setup screen, displayed whenever you choose Add New for RSVP Events — prompts you to specify the date and time, plus some other key settings (RSVPs on or off?) before filling in the event description details. The Event Setup screen is shown above.
The event template variation of that same screen, used to define events that occur on some regular schedule (such as every Friday or first and second Monday) along with the defaults for events in that series (RSVPs on? etc.).
The WordPress editor — works the same as for any other post, but with a few RSVPMaker-specific controls in the sidebar and more available through the “admin bar” (the black bar that appears at the top of the screen when you are logged in as an author or editor).
The confirmation and reminder messages, which you also work with in the WordPress editor. Look for the admin bar menu items that allow you to navigate back to the parent event post.
The RSVP Form, where each registration field is modeled as a special block in Gutenberg. You can add or modify fields, including text entry, textarea, select, and radio button fields, and the optional guest data block.
Some of these options may not appear if you are not using Gutenberg, the new editor introduced with WordPress 5.
Here’s a visual tour:
Draft event
When you save your options on the Event Setup screen, RSVPMaker creates a draft post with the headline, event date, and other basic options set. You can now add whatever body copy you want your event post to have.
RSVP / Event Options link (and submenu)
More event options are presented on a separate RSVP / Event Options screen. When you are viewing a post in the editor or on the website (when logged in), you will see RSVP / Event Options as a link on the admin bar with several submenu items.
Edit Event link (and submenu)
When you are on the options screen, you will see Edit Event as a link on the admin bar with several submenu items related to customizing confirmation / reminder messages or customizing the form.
Default documents show link to RSVPMaker Settings.
You can set the default documents for Confirmation Message and RSVP Form from the RSVPMaker Settings screen. New events you post will use these default documents unless you create custom ones for your event.
You can also create templates for specific types of events, with a Confirmation Message and RSVP Form that may be different from your overall default but will be copied to all events based on the template. (More about event templates below).
Recommendations: Customize the confirmation message to include details people will need to know to attend your event, such as directions to the venue and a number to call with questions.
Change the RSVP Form if the default options don’t make sense for your event (for example, when registering attendees at a webinar, the guest fields probably aren’t necessary) and to gather additional information, such as the name of the person who referred the attendee to your organization.
Custom documents show a link back to the Parent Event.
When you create a custom Confirmation Message or custom RSVP Form for a specific event (or template), you will see options to allow you to navigate back to the parent event (in either viewing or editing mode) on the admin bar.
Customizing registration form fields.
When you edit the form, each form field is represented as a content block with properties including Label, Required, and Include on Guest Form displayed in the sidebar on the right hand side of the editor. (More about the form editor).
Link to create a template rather than an individual event.
To create a template instead of an individual event, look for the New Template link on the Event Setup screen. You can also go to the Event Templates screen and click Add New at the top of that page.
Setting a schedule, rather than individual dates, for a template
On the template version of the screen, you set a schedule rather than specifying a specific date. Unless you merely choose to say that the schedule “Varies” (meaning you’ll specify the date each time), the schedule will be something like “Every Friday” or “First Monday” or “Second and Fourth Tuesday.”
Create / update link displayed after saving a template.
After you enter your template content and save it, you will be prompted to “create / update events” based on the template. The template itself isn’t meant to appear publicly on your website and won’t be included on the calendar.
Think of the cookie versus the cookie cutter. The template is a cookie cutter, which you can use to stamp out many cookies and then decorate them individually. But you don’t eat the cookie cutter.
Templates typically include “boilerplate” details that are the same for all your events, or almost all of them.
Checkboxes to add multiple events based on a template.
The create / update routine allows you to create one or more events based on your template. Both the body copy for the event and the associated settings (RSVPs on/off, confirmation message, etc.) will be copied.
You can create many events according to your schedule and then add details to them as each event date draws closer. For example, you may publish a whole series of events for a club or professional organization, then add the names of speakers when you want to promote a specific event.
Updating previously created events, based on a template.
When you update your template, you have the option of updating all the events based on the template. An example would be if your standard meeting location changes, or you now want people to call a different number if they have questions.
RSVPMaker tries to warn you if any of those events have been modified independently. For example, perhaps we’ve added speaker or activity details to the April 12 event shown above. We might want to uncheck that one and make any modifications to it manually.
Viewing your events on the calendar.
If all goes well, the result is an interactive calendar that allows you to promote and organize your events more effectively.
If you install RSVPMaker version 6.0+ and are running WordPress 5.0 or later, you will have the option of activating a new RSVP registration form that you can customize using Gutenberg, the new WordPress visual editor. One of the reasons I like Gutenberg is that it makes it easier to define visual components for content creation that happen to lend themselves well to many of my projects.
The new form builder makes it much easier to customize what fields are included, what the labels on those fields are, and the order in which they are presented, both for the person filling out the form and any guests included in their party.
As before, the default form asks for:
First Name, Last Name, and Email
A single phone number, with a drop down list for specifying whether it is a mobile, home, or work number
A section for adding the names of guests
A note field where the person registering can add a comment
You can delete any of these fields and add others. You can determine which fields are required and which ones should also show up in the guest section (if you’ve included the guest section).
Here’s an example of the default form for Online Presenters Toastmasters, a public speaking and professional development club that meets online and focuses on the skills you need to present online. There’s no guest section (that’s more appropriate for offline events like luncheons) but we gather some other information about our guests.
Online Presenters RSVP form
The only field that is absolutely required is email. You can change the label on that one, but a validated email address is required or the form submission will not be processed. Previously, first and last name were also mandatory — and they are still required by default — but you can now specify that they are not required, or not include one or both of those fields on your form. I’ve had people ask for the option of creating simpler forms where they may ask for just the first name or just a nickname, or just an email address and nothing else. Again, that might be appropriate for certain informal online events or for attracting a privacy-conscious crowd.
To see the available form components, type rsvpfield in the block chooser popup or enter /rsvpfield as a slash command on a blank line.
RSVPMaker form builder blocks
Like all content blocks, these form builder blocks have options specific to their content type. Typically, those options will be displayed in the sidebar on the right hand side of the page (if you don’t see it, click the gear symbol and select the Block tab).
Text field options:
Label
Required (yes/no)
Include on guest form (yes/no)
Textarea options:
Label
Required (yes/no)
Include on guest form (yes/no)
Radio Buttons / Select (Drop-Down Field)
Label
Include on guest form (yes/no)
Choices, separated by a comma
Mailchimp Checkbox
Label (defaults to “Add me to your email list”)
Checked by default (yes/no)
Guests
Limit (if any) to the number of guests per party
You can embed other form fields in this section if there is information to be gathered about the guests only. Example: An event for parents and children, where “Grade Level” is an additional field for the children on the guest list.
The Guests widget, with an additional field embedded for a question to be asked about guests, which will not appear on the main form.
By themselves, these blocks are not functional if included outside of one of the special documents created specifically define a form. They are not intended for use within the body of an event post or any other document. I have some ideas about providing a wrapper that would allow you to embed them in other contexts, but for now if you are looking at a document with a headline other than “RSVP Form” you don’t want to be including these blocks.
Overall, I think this is a huge improvement over the system of shortcodes and the primitive form builder provided in earlier versions.
Form upgrade prompt (excuse the typo)
The new form will be used by default on new installs of RSVPMaker on WordPress 5 or greater. Existing RSVPMaker users will see a prompt to upgrade your form on the dashboard. Clicking the Upgrade link will install a new default RSVP Form:Default document, which you can then customize. This default will also be applied to any future events you have on your calendar. Sorry, any customizations you made previously will not be preserved, but I think you’ll find you can re-create them fairly quickly.
A Note on Navigation
Your RSVP form, confirmation message, and any reminder messages you’ve defined are stored as special RSVPMaker documents that aren’t meant to show up on the website. The default RSVP Form and confirmation message can be accessed from the Settings page for RSVPMaker. When you’re viewing one of these default documents, you will see a link at the top of the page to help you navigate back to RSVPMaker Settings.
The default form.
You can use the same default form for all your events, or you can customize the form for specific events. If you create a custom form (or confirmation message), you will see navigation at the top of the screen to allow you to get back to editing the “Parent Event” or visiting the associated screens for setting options and confirmation messages.
This presentation is built around the frustrations and payoffs of updating RSVPMaker and the WordPress for Toastmasters extension to RSVPMaker, as well as starting to create new functionality around Gutenberg, such as the My Marginalia plugin I created to help a client with the “show notes” she posts with recorded videos. Download PPT.
Whether you’re creating a plugin for the repository of a hack for your own website, Gutenberg may be able to help you make it better.
(For anyone not grokking the terminology, Gutenberg refers to the new editor that comes standard with WordPress 5+ and the more JavaScript-centric programming model that comes with it).
Here’s something I found confusing at first. Does this look like legal JavaScript to you?
JSX example from Create Guten Block
In fact, this is NOT legal JavaScript in the sense of being code that your browser would understand. This is the JSX template language, which originated as part of the React JavaScript framework created by Facebook. The idea is to allow you to specify a user interface in an HTML-like syntax that can also include functional components such as <RichText> to specify that an editable rich text field should be displayed at that spot within your application. For example, this is equivalent to instantiating a JavaScript class that will render the RichText component:
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<RichText
tagName="p"
className="marginaliaNote"
value={attributes.content}
onChange={(content)=>setAttributes({content})}
/>
As part of the development process, we run this source code through a “compilation” step. You don’t compile your JavaScript down to a binary executable, but you feed it through a series of preprocessing steps that translate it into code that is intended to be understandable by all modern browsers and also optimizes / minifies it to download and run faster.
In the process, code like <div>my content here</div> turns into something like:
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wp.element.createElement("div","my content here")
Using the Create Guten Block utility, you can create the skeleton of an application and then begin customizing it to meet your needs. You define your editor user interface within the block of code for the “edit” function and the code to be saved to the post in the “save” function.
You can use JSX in both the edit and save functions. Specifically, you use it within the return clause, after you have applied whatever processing might be required to decide what should be output in the editor.
The saved content that will be recorded to the WordPress database looks like this:
Source code for an image, as saved by the Gutenberg editor.
In most cases, what you are saving is legal HTML code wrapped in comments that define instructions to the editor for how this content should be displayed the next time it is edited. Within the opening HTML content, you will often see variables expressed in JSON format within the {curly brackets}.
Gutenberg blocks can also be used like shortcodes, in which case those JSON-encoded attributes will be passed to a PHP function that uses server-side logic to determine what should be output to the user. On the other hand, one reason for adopting Gutenberg is that it allows less server side processing, particularly when your goal is simply to format content in a custom way. You can do that with your save function and regular HTML/CSS.
Demo Code
Here’s simple example showing Gutenberg edit and save functions, plus an “inspector” component for the sidebar.
All this does is create a block in the editor and a save mechanism on the front end, with a custom headline and a line of text you can change using the sidebar component.
save:function(props){// format for storage / retrieval
const{attributes,setAttributes,className}=props;
return(
<div className={props.className}>
<h3>My custom block(editor)</h3>
<p>{attributes.message}</p>
</div>
);
},
});
We can give it formatting that will be applied both in the editor and on the front end with a style.scss file like this:
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.wp-block-wcmia-demo{
border:medium solid red;
padding:5px;
}
Practical examples:
A custom format you define for product descriptions, executive bios, recipes or other content employed frequently in the context of your specific uses for WordPress. For example, I created a Floating Callout plugin for a callout / sidebar format used as an accent within a post or page. I had essentially been doing the same thing for years with snippets of custom HTML / CSS — but the plugin makes it easier.
A block of content that will exhibit custom behavior when viewed on your site, in combination with either front end JavaScript or server-side processing in PHP (more on that below).
Fussy Code
One important thing to understand is that the “save” function doesn’t merely save content to the HTML content of the post, as it will be stored in the WordPress database. When you retrieve the content, Gutenberg expects it to be organized the same way. If not, you will see an error.
Here’s an example that popped up while I was writing this post.
The unexpected or invalid code warning.
This apparently happened because I was having trouble with the display of my JavaScript code examples, which I recorded here using the Gutenberg component for displaying code. Ironically, Gutenberg seemed to be confused by the JSX examples. All the < symbols in HTML or component tags were being displayed as entity codes (<).
To get the code to display properly, I had to do a search-and-replace in Windows Notepad. That worked in terms of front-end display, except that Gutenberg would no longer allow me to edit those blocks as blocks in the editor.
Wrapping a Block Around Other Blocks
When you define Edit and Save functions using the InnerBlocks component, you can define a block that wraps around other content blocks (paragraphs, images, etc.). The code below is from My Marginalia, which applies special fomatting to the wrapped content. The Floating Callout plugin I mentioned does the same thing.
There’s also a “Limited Time” block in RSVPMaker that uses an InnerBlocks component in combination with server-side rendering to suppress the display of content that is past its expiration date.
It took me months of research to figure out how to do essentially the same thing in Gutenberg because those PHP-generated notifications aren’t shown on the editor screen when Gutenberg is active. The following code is based on a tip from a collaborator on Github and my own study of internal WordPress code to figure out how it detects such events (the example I found was related to saving the content of metaboxes on post save).
Blocks versus Shortcodes
Here are some shortcode examples, one where the output is based on the attributes added to the shortcode and another that wraps around a piece of content (the [caption] shortcode used in the Classic Editor to format image captions and allow them to be treated as a unit with the accompanying image).
The PHP code to process your shortcode can then be something like this:
Although I like many aspects of Gutenberg, I wasn’t prepared to refactor every bit of PHP into JavaScript. In particularly, I had a lot of functionality built into metaboxes displayed beneath the classic editor, and metaboxes are discouraged in the Gutenberg framework. Mine included some JQuery interactivity that seemed to clash with the Gutenberg code.
The coping mechanism I devised for RSVPMaker was to make a few basic options like setting the date and turning RSVP registrations on or off available within the sidebar to the editor. The more elaborate functionality like setting event pricing and customizing the registration form moved to a separate screen.
Here’s how you can do that, in pseudocode simplified from the actual code used in RSVPMaker.
This shows hooking into the action for display of the admin bar, getting access to the $wp_admin_bar object, and calling add_node methods that add our custom menu and submenu.
We register a custom admin page and define a function for displaying it. If the user clicks through from the admin bar (while viewing a post on the website or in the editor), that link will have the post id added to the URL query.
If the post ID is set, we display a form with options specific to that post (an RSVPMaker event in this case). Otherwise, we retrieve a list of posts and give the user a form they can fill out to display the options for the post they are interested in.
Check back on Sunday or Monday for updates to this post.
Wednesday March 20, 2019 7:00 PM EDT to 8:00 PM EDT
Having not done this in a while (and not since Gutenberg / WordPress 5.0 shook things up), I will be offering an informal webinar with plenty of opportunities for you to ask questions.
In part, I’m doing this to cover some gaps in the documentation (anyone volunteers to help me update the documentation?) by carving out video clips after the fact and building separate blog posts around them.
We’ll cover:
How to set up basic event announcements
How to set RSVP / registration options, including site-wide defaults and templates for events
How to use event templates to define recurring events (and then how to generate individual events and update previously created events when the template changes)
How to use the integrations with PayPal and Stripe to collect money
How to use the integration with MailChimp
Anything else you want to talk about
The webinar / video conference details will be displayed after you register and also sent to you by email.
One of the differences between “traditional” WordPress plugin development and creating software that works with the new Gutenberg editor is the scarcity of adequate, understandable documentation.
I speak as a WordPress developer who is largely self-taught, by which I mean I’ve learned by reading books, tutorials and the official WordPress documentation for developers. For virtually anything I wanted to learn how to do, there has almost always been a reasonably clear function definition if not a tutorial or a StackOverflow question and answer that was in the ballpark. Over the years, I have become reasonably proficient in PHP and MySQL and WordPress utility functions, actions and filters. Within those bounds, I like to think I’ve occasionally had an original idea or two.
The Gutenberg framework is in a much different place, in terms of documentation and code examples. There are some good tutorials out there on how to create Gutenberg blocks (units of content that can have their own editor properties). Thank God for create-guten-block, which makes many aspects of setting up your development environment easier if you’re just learning.
There is a Gutenberg Handbook, but a lot of it seems to be written for people who already understand React (the Facebook open source framework from Facebook that Gutenberg is based on). I can do a few things with JQuery but until recently didn’t realize how behind-the-times I was, at least from the viewpoint of enthusiasts for “modern JavaScript.” Telling me that the WordPress state management system is similar to Redux (yet another JavaScript framework often used with React) doesn’t help me.
If I wanted to display a custom notification to be displayed anywhere else on the administrator’s dashboard, there would be dozens of tutorials that would tell me exactly how to do that with a few lines of PHP. But those PHP-generated notifications aren’t displayed on the editor screen when Gutenberg is active. Aside from any technological reasons for this, it’s part of an intentional decluttering of the editor screens.
That means if you want to display a notification on the Gutenberg-powered editor screen, you have to do it with Gutenberg APIs. It has taken me literally months to figure out how to do that. All my Googling for answers came to naught. Finally, I came across a discussion on on the Github issues discussion board for Gutenberg where someone else was asking approximately the same question.
In response, one developer gave a pretty detailed example of how to generate a notification (thank you, Daniel Bachhuber). The only missing piece was some way of making the notification display in response to an event, like a post being saved. Mr. Bachhuber told me I would have to do more research because he didn’t know that, either.
In my use case, certain posts of the type rsvpmaker are used as templates for specific events. The RSVPMaker plugin needs to display a notice prompting the user who has updated a template to click through to another screen if they want to create or update events based on that template. This feature has essentially been broken in RSVPMaker when used in combination with Gutenberg.
To get the rest of the way to an answer, I had to go spelunking through other people’s source code. The routine shown below is loosely based on code Gutenberg uses internally to save metabox content on post save. I wrapped the code modeled on that example around my createNotification command, and finally I had something that worked.
In this example, the url for the admin page where generate event posts based on a template is localized under the rsvpmaker_json variable. On the PHP side, we test that the post is of type rsvpmaker before outputting that variable. In the JavaScript code, we test that the url is set to something other than an empty string.
We then subscribe to Gutenberg events. Every time a triggering event in the editor happens, the subscribe function fires.
We use functions like wp.data.select( ‘core/editor’ ).isSavingPost() to determine what sort of event that is. This checks whether the post is in the process of being saved (and verifies that it’s not an autosave). If yes, then the notice is displayed.
Updated: Originally, I had an issue with the same notification being added repeatedly if the user made additional changes and updating the post again. After attending Zac Gordon’s talk at WordCamp Miami, I realized I could explore the currently registered notifications from the console using
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wp.data.select('core/editor').getNotices()
Console detective work.
I saw that my notices were being assigned a random id. Once I added id:’rsvptemplateupdate’ to the createNotice command, the problem with notifications being added repeatedly went away. Apparently, I just had to give the notifications system a clue of how to check whether it had already been added.
I’m still getting all this figured out.
Custom notification -when the user saves an RSVPMaker template, we prompt them to create or update events based on that template.
