Group Calendar is in semi-retirement until I evaluate the new 4.0 beta.

Intro

We are officially replacing GEM with GroupCalendar. If you continue to use GEM, only GEM stragglers will be able to see your events, and vice-versa.

Mellonea is not in the habit of requiring UI mods, because there are numerous reasons why one of our members might not want to install a given mod. However, the Council has come to a consensus regarding Group Calendar, moving it into the "More-or-less Required" category.

What does "More-or-less Required" mean? It means that while we won't force you to use this mod, if you decline to do so, you might miss out on a scheduled event, and that is your choice, not our fault :o). Big Important Events™ will likely be announced in the Guild MotD or on the forums, but we are hoping to rely on GroupCalendar for most of our scheduling needs.

This mod uses the hidden guild data channel, as well as a piece of configuration text in our guild description, to automatically share calendar events without taking up one of your precious numbered channel slots. GroupCalendar is the natural replacement for the no-longer-maintained GEM - Guild Event Manager. One thing to note: moving to the guild data channel means that unguilded alts will not be able to access the calendar.

Usage

Anyone can post any RP event, or any "looking for group" event; good examples include putting together parties for the Paladin and Warlock mount quests.

Any official guild raids will be scheduled by Sthris, our Director of Special Ops.

If you are a crafter, GroupCalendar can also remind you when your cooldowns are up.

Download

GroupCalendar 3.3.1

Setup

By default, GroupCalendar will replace the day/night button of your minimap, so that it looks like this clock:



If you hover over it, you will see your offset from server time:



Click on that minimap button to bring up the calendar display:



Click on the setup tab, and make sure that Automatic is selected. Your setup should look like this:



Note that it might have a timer where mine says "data channel connected", as it synchronizes. If you need more help, check out this manual, Google it, or ask me in-game.

(Note: If the configuration changes significantly in future versions, I'll update the screenshots.)

Outlook for WoW. >.>


Looks neat! Guess I'll download it when I get home.

It's nifty. It even tracks your crafting skill cooldowns for transmutes and Mooncloth and the like.




EDIT:

It gives an option on events to say "I'm not coming."

Is it normal for people to check this off when you're not going? Or is it only worth noting if you are coming?

I'm not sure what the protocol is. If there's an RP event for which you are a major supporting character, or if you're one of two generally-assumed-to-be-their tanks for a raid, then you might want to explicitly remind people you can't make it.

The calendar will also automatically add your raid instance resets to the calendar, once you visit a raid instance. I think it has a number of other capabilities I have yet to discover.

I downloaded this last night and I love it. It's loads more intuitive than GEM ever was. Huzzah!

Oh, incidentally, to people with officery-type powers: DO NOT remove the stuff in square brackets in the guild-information box, labeled "GroupCalendar config". It's what makes the automatic configuration go.

I'll have to look into this.

Though I give mega-kudos for the "more-or-less required" bit -- I tend to dislike mods.

Being required to use a mod tends to set my ears back mulishly.

Being tempted to use a mod makes me try it out.

And I'm aware of how silly that is, but it doesn't change a thing.

No shame Whiska! I'm the same way! I use mods when and if I feel like it for the most part. This one rocks though!

Last I checked, Kearney is notoriously anti-mod, so this is a big endorsement :o).

I just want to reiterate the "more-or-less required" point, since this was a subject of some deliberation in our last council meeting. We know there are some of you who understandably don't enjoy dealing with mysteriously buggy and out-of-date mods. We think this mod is good enough to be extremely useful to the guild; if you don't use the mod, it might be ever so slightly harder to find out about events, particularly any runs with specific class requirements being coordinated by Sthris.

Nothing in the calendar is secret to people not using GroupCalendar :oP, so just ask around if you're worried about missing something, and you can't or won't install GroupCalendar. I'm sure the most important events will get posted elsewhere.

I am also working on getting a web exporter for GroupCalendar working on my database machine; I'll start testing that sometime this week. An example is set up for another guild here; note that the web calendar is read only, and for event sign-up you'd need to use the mod in-game.

I did end up giving in and using a window mod -- As main healer, I need all the people in the group to be the same size -- self included.

I can't tell you how many times I've died because I didn't "see" myself getting hit -- I just concentrated on the line of same-sized bars and kept them out of the yellow.

Logically, that's dumb, but in a panic situation with the adrenaline flowing...same size makes a huge difference in what will catch my eye.

And I challenge anyone to use the massmail mod and not feel as though you've seen <insert god or goddess of your choice>.

Been there Whiska. I used to run Emergency Monitor just to get warnings when I was on there. =P

I'm glad I'm not the only one with that particular blind spot! *grins*

Yep. This has been the bane of my existence as well. I use Perl Unit Frames now to try and keep everything even - and a HuD so my life is in the centre of the screen.

I manage to notice when I'm about to die almost half the time now!

(Thankfully Artigen usually notices when I don't, and stops tanking a moment to heal me.... )

For the sake of clarity - does this mean we are NOT using GEM anymore for guild things?

/bump edited for clarity regarding GEM. It was in there, but vague and buried in the last sentence of the third paragraph.

Heh. Okay, I was blind. Thanks, Kjall! You're de best!

What's the proper way to set up this Mod...

... if you're in multiple guilds?

... if you have both alliance and horde characters?


Thanks in advance!

It is configured on a per-character basis, and you will not be able to access the calendar with an unguilded character (Horde or no). I'm working on a web accessible version of the calendar, but in general, you need to log into a guilded character to see the latest version.

This is the trade-off that's made by using the guild data channel; it's more efficient and more secure, but it means an allied guild or an unguilded character can't access the calendar, even though the player has access through their guilded character.

Using the default guild channel's causing me problems, because lots of guilds now use Group Calendar. Mellonea's the only one I'm a member of that uses Automatic / Guild Data Channel.
Mellonea's my primary guild, so I have it set to Automatic, but it's frustrating sometimes to not be able to see the other calendars.

Was there a problem before, allowing allied guild members to see our GEM calendar? I'm curious why they're not allowed into the GC calendar.

No, it's not really a problem of other people accessing the channel; it's more a problem of not wanting to more-or-less require everyone to use up a numbered channel for a mod. In addition, data passing is more efficient over the data channel, because the function calls are geared towards sending data with a unique key as opposed to sending arbitrary strings intended for text display.

I think I misunderstood your question originally, thinking you had an unguilded character who wanted to monitor the Mellonea channel... it sounds now like you want your guilded character to monitor other channels.

To be perfectly honest, this is a weakness of the mod's configuration, if it can't use automatic for one's guild and still allow the viewing of calendars on numeric data channels. I would suggest giving this feedback to the mod's developers, since it's certainly possible to have it monitor more than one channel.

Oh good Lord yes. It's prolly the only mod I have on my HAVE TO HAVE IT!!ELEVENTYONE list. I do so much juggling of goods and rum between Saro and Orlis it's ridiculous. I don't have a bank character cause like....that's silly.

I have confirmed that you can't have both a numbered data channel and the guild data channel active at the same time, even if you disable automatic mode. You'll have to take up accessing multiple calendars with the mod's authors.

/bump

Updated from 3.2.3 to 3.3.1. Dumped the Mellonea Edition.

/bump

Totally irrelevant now that WoW has a built-in calendar.