Hi All

I'm pulling my hair out trying to find a satisfactory calendar
solution for a clients site. Obviously this changes all the time and
is to be used for schedules for classes, events, etc. Requirements
include extra space preferably on top for repeating events so they
don't have to be put in each date in the calendar and possibly
announcements. They also want to display more then one month at a
time, example April, May, and possibly June, but not the whole year.

Dreamweaver used to have a calendar extension, but I don't think this
is the answer, because I think the most I can hope for on the clients
side is work in either MS excel or word. Possibly openOffice if it
would help. My first idea was to use an excel spreadsheet template
that comes with all the months, each month on a different sheet,
highlight the sheets for the months I want to print and print to my
ace in the hole, "flashpaper." I love the swf files it generates since
they are extremely flexible about what size container you put them in,
it just auto adjusts. So generate one file named correctly and upload
and the calendar is updated.

See an example at:

http://thenewearthmetaphysicalcenter.com/calender.html

The file generated is very fully featured, but the icons are small and
not necessarily understood by the mainstream public. Examples, print,
fit width, fit height, open a new page at full size, zooming, and
ability to drag with hand when zoomed. I thought about, or actually it
was suggested somewhere that I label these features just above it. The
problem is the calendar is already pushed down a bit to the point of
starting to look odd for the menu above to drop down, but not be over
the flash file, since that causes a whole new set of issues. The
client's problem with the existing one is there is only one cell in
each day and not enough room to put all the content plus the client
asked why can't we bring that out closer to the edges.

So I'm experimenting with different templates that have multiple cells
for each day and are longer as length is not an issue. Closer to the
edges is a margin issue though. Unfortunately non of the templates I
have found at the MS office site have exactly the look we're after. So
now I set out to modify these and by selecting all the sheets
modifications are supposed to be for all sheets. This is my nightmare
changing these templates. I work on a mac with vmfusion for win xp.
Flash paper only works on xp, so I'm forced to print from excel on the
windows side, which is probably correct since that's what the client
will modify the xls file with. NeoOffice is pretty compatible and to
my notion more friendly especially when changing colors, it's much
easier to repeat the same color then excel is. iWorks Numbers does
exactly what I need better then any of them, but I haven't figured out
how to edit multiple sheets simultaneously there if it's even
possible. Plus when it comes to printing non of the programs do it the
same when it comes to trying to put in zero margins or close to it.
They actually seem quite determined that no printer can actually do
this and fight back with a vengeance.

Bottom line this is a nightmare and please please let there be an
easier solution to this whole thing!



Dave


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