Final Theme Updates for 2014: Better Events Management

In this post I would like to talk about the final round of theme updates of this year, mostly oriented towards the Events module that was available in most of our themes (except Royal Chateau and Palazio).

When we first introduced the Events module (custom post type), we were hoping that it will evolve with time into something practical and very useful. The user could set a start/end date for an event, and it would show up on the website with this start/end dates, simple as that.

With time we have noticed that even though few customers were using this feature, the requirements for improvements were very different: recurring events, past events, all-year events, multiple venues, multiple dates, free/paid events, different time formats, different languages, etc.

So a decision was made: drop this built-in feature from our themes and replace it with something better. So we have decided to update all of our themes with built-in support for a very popular Events Management plugin, and that is the Events Calendar Plugin by Modern Tribe.

Before / After Comparison

Let’s compare the difference between what we had before and what can be achieved with the plugin.

Here’s a screen-shot of how events looked like in our Ambassador Theme:

And this is what the Events List looks like now:

Here’s a screen-shot of how the inner page of an event looked like, indistinguishable from a standard post:

And this is what it looks like thanks to the plugin:

Calendar of Upcoming Events

Another feature of the plugin is that a visitor can look at events in a List or Calendar format. Above we have a screen-shot of the list format, and here is how the calendar looks like.

Which Theme Versions Support The Plugin

The themes have been updated on 14th of December 2014, so if you have download and installed the theme later than this date, then you should be able to start using the The Events Calendar Plugin.

Here are the versions of the themes in which support for this plugin has been introduced:

• Ambassador – since version 1.1.15
• Belafonte – since version 1.0.7
• Castello – since version 1.0.15
• Fortuna – since version 1.0.2
• Leonardo – since version 1.0.9
• Metropolis – since version 1.0.18
• Victoria – since version 1.0.7

How to Check The Current Version of the Theme

If you don’t know what version of the theme you are using, follow these easy steps:

1. Go to Dashboard > HermesThemes > Theme Options.

2. Look in the header of our Theme Options panel. You will see your current version, as well as a link to the Change-log file.

In Conclusion

One of our priorities for 2015 is to add support for more third-party plugins that are often used by our customers. So if you had some issues with one plugin or another, feel free to leave a comment below, and I will add it to the list.