We’re currently going through some outstanding issues that got set aside whilst pushing out changes related to tax price calculations and Multiple Bookings features in Pro. We have a pretty big list, so it’ll be spread across a few updates, but meanwhile you’ll also see some cool additions as well!

This update is a first step, and contains three pretty cool improvements:

Google Maps is responsive-capable

Maps was always responsive actually, you just needed to add some minor CSS rules to use percentages instead of fixed-pixel width and height dimensions.  We say ‘responsive-capable’ because it still isn’t responsive by default, because we haven’t changed the default formats for events and locations yet (that will follow). However, all you need to do now to make a map respnsive is use percentages in your placeholders or shortcodes, for exampls:

[locations_map width=”100%” height=”300px”] or #_LOCATIONMAP{100%,300px}

These two will create a global locations map or single location map which stretches as wide as possible. If you resize your browser window (or view it in a mobile), the map will be resized accordingly. You can also assign these dimensions in your Settings > Formatting > Maps area, which now contain default values in the event you don’t supply dimensions (currently 400px by 300px).

Better Taxonomy Filtering

We’ve standardized how you can search for both event tags and categories. Previously, you could only search by category IDs as well as negative IDs, yet with tags you could search with tag names or IDs, but no negatives. That was inconsistent, so we’ve now made both work the same way, with all the benefits.

You can now search by ID, names, use negatives and a mixture of all three! For example:

[events_list category=”featured,1,2,-3,-hidden”]

Will search events with categories featured and ids 1 and 2, but will not include events containing the hidden or id 3 categories. Nice!

Automatic Custom Taxonomy Detection

Along with the above, we’ve also gone one step further to make things consistent. Whilst adding taxonomies to events and locations is really easy in WordPress, thanks to the custom taxonomy and post type systems, one drawback was that they didn’t incorporate into our shortcodes and other searching PHP functions. Well, that is now sorted too!

Any taxonomy associated with an Event or Location can now be searched for in your shortcode, for example:

[events_list custom_category_name=”featured,1,2,-3,-hidden”]

We’ve written a tutorial on using custom taxonomies for Events and Locations, check it out for more info!

5.4.2 Changelog

• improved the handling of orphaned events and locations, they now show information and can be deleted front-end
• fixed deleting of drafts on front-end,
• fixed display/deleting of trashed events and locations on front-end
• changed status of trashed events and locations to -1 (old trashed events may still show up front-end)
• added escaping to search input field in front-end events admin,
• front-end events admin search form now works in all event statuses
• added draft/pending/publish as possible values to event/location status search attribute,
• took out unnecessary update of post_name in EM_Event::set_status()
• fixed untranslated dates when showing post meta
• updated German and Russian translations
• changed recurrence form to say ‘each event SPANS x days’ instead of LASTS
• changed SQL statement to use of EM_Event::set_status() in EM_Event::save()
• location shortcode and functions can now search status by text name (trash/pending/publish/draft)
• fixed em_bookings_get_tickets filter being applied in wrong function instead of em_bookings_get_available_tickets
• fixed email subjects showing escaped entities
• fixed events with members only tickets showing bookings closed to guests
• added option to show member-only tickets to guests
• modified booking form and tickets list templates to achieve the above two changes
• fixed invalid username characters such as + in emails causing registration errors
• fixed tickets admin JS where deleting default ticket prevents new ticket being added without page reload
• added #_BOOKINGSUMMARY placeholder
• added registration email templates to settings page
• added location and description format options to ical settings,
• added description of event to ical feed,
• merged single event ical template ical-event.php (now deprecated) with main ical.php feed
• fixed is_past conditional not considering if current events are set to be past events,
• added is_current conditional placeholder
• improved excerpt handling by balancing html tags when more tag is used
• added word limiting options to #_EVENTEXCERPT and #_LOCATIONEXCERPT,
• added formatting filters to excerpt (applicable when not using word limiting)
• improved/refined search form AJAX to include state/region/town lists if country is defined as well as omitting null values
• added month formatting option in settings page for calendars
• moved em_events_get_sql filter above/before count function executes sql
• added #_BOOKINGDATE #_BOOKINGTIME and #_BOOKINGDATETIME placeholders
• improved EM_Category object – now can be created with slug or name
• improved taxonomy search arguments, now capable of automatically searching any taxonomy registered with events or locations
• updated POT file and German language
• added EM_Walker_Category class and hierarchical category checkboxes in event admin MS Global subsites
• modified JS (minor) – checks EM.ui_css is set before loading jQuery UI CSS
• improved Google Maps – now capable of being responsive via placeholders, shortcode and settings page
• added excel ‘hack’ to support UTF-8 characters