How To Edit Your Site

The Events Calendar plugin is powerful and contributes to the user experience of your website, but only if it’s handled very carefully.

Some tedious, but important, items to note:

• The featured image will only show up on your main Events page (https://[dept].uncg.edu/events/), and the actual event page needs to have the event details and image(s) added manually.
  • Tip: I like to create two columns: one with details about the event, and one with an image (if one is available.)
    Bonus tip: Save the columns, wrapper, or highest-level design block from your event detail page as an un-synced, reusable “pattern” to make future event creation easier. This is really helpful if you spend time on the layout and design and think it’ll be useful in general for your future events.
• The events do need to have a featured image and excerpt in order populate the main Events page nicely. It’s best to use a landscape-oriented image (16:9 ratio is ideal).
  • Tip: Sometimes I’ll crop the event flyer as a cheat, if that’s the best option quickly available.
• Images containing text (such as flyers/posters): if you don’t already have the text readily available to post in the event details page (required for ADA compliance).
  • Tip: I recommend asking Copilot to provide you with the text from the image to save some time, and then just copy + paste, then make some light edits as needed.
• Venue management (https://[dept].uncg.edu/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=tribe_venue) in the Events Calendar plugin is a real hassle. Try not to create duplicate venues if you can.
  • Tip: You can re-use the same buildings without having to create a whole new “venue” each time there’s an event in a different room of a previously created building. You can add the Room Number separately for each event.
    -For instance, I set up the MHRA Building as a venue, and now I separately add the room number within individual event pages, in the Room Number field (custom field added within the Event Calendar Settings).
• The same is true if you set up “Organizers” – it can become very messy, very fast. Try to only set up frequently used organizers, such as your department and other closely related organizers. You can always put extra information in the event pages as text, rather than creating new organizers in the plugin database.
  • For example, an event that is a collaboration between many departments can have the main department chosen as the event’s organizer, but the event details can include a paragraph along the lines of “Sponsored by the Biology Department, the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department, and the College of Arts & Sciences.”
• ***ATTENTION*** This is very important for ADA compliance, SEO rankings, and annual website audits.
  To prevent immediately generating a page with a broken link, you have to go back after creating a new venue/organizer and manually edit the URL. Otherwise the plugin generates a link that’s always a 404: https://[dept].uncg.edu/venue/ or https://[dept].uncg.edu/organizer/ 
  There should always be something specific (called a “slug”) after /venue/ or /organizer/ in order for the links to work.
  • To add a slug (correct and customize the URL):
    1. Edit the venue or organizer. In the editor view, below the venue/organizer name is a preview of its URL (“Permalink”).
    2. Click the “Edit” button and add a short, descriptive word or phrase-with-dashes. This becomes the end section of the organizer or venue’s link.
    (example 1) (example 2)
    3. Save your changes.
    4. Check your event page to make sure all links lead somewhere useful.
    5. Correct any futher “Page not found” errors that you find.
    
    Broken links are very costly in terms of website quality, user experience, and overall maintenance. Thank you for doing all you can to help keep them under control!