WP Events Dashboard widget could be improved for multi-days events

[imath]

When a WordCamp is a multi-days event, only using a starting date is problematic :

• It doesn't inform about the WordCamp's length
• The first day of a WordCamp might be a Contributor Day (It's actually the case that generated this ticket)
• There is some inconsistency with the schedule on central.wordcamp.org (which displays a range of days).

I've opened a ticket about it on Meta Trac concerning the needed edits (include end_date into the JSON response) for api.wordpress.org/events (​4637).

Attached to this ticket you'll find the patch I suggest in order to use, just like the WordCamp Central site does, a range of days in case of multi-days WordCamps.

[casiepa]

@imath, I think this will fail if the WordCamp is 31-Aug until 1-Sep (so different month). An extra check is probably needed if the month is different.

[imath]

@casiepa thanks a lot for your feedback and « bien vu 😉 », I’ll update the patch so that it does:

• September 13-14
• September 30 - October 1

[iandunn]

Here's what the current formatting looks like:

...and here's what it looks like w/ the patch:

For meetup events, I think it's important to keep the day of the week, since that's much more important in that context.

It's not as important for WordCamps, though, since they're much further in the future and people have more time to plan ahead.

It looks like the patch already takes that into consideration, but I just wanted to state it explicitly, since ​that's something that was done intentionally when the widget was built.

Using different formats for different events would be visually inconsistent, though, and that might look odd. I'm not sure what a good solution to is, though. Maybe it's not that big of a deal?

[imath]

To take in account @casiepa 's feedback (the case when a WordCamp is on 2 months) I've just added 47798.2.patch Here's how it looks:

[Hareesh Pillai]

Consistent formatting

[Hareesh Pillai]

47798.3.patch has two improvements over the previous one -

1. Added a space between the dates.
2. 'August' is changed to 'Aug' - to be consistent with the existing format.

[_DorsVenabili]

+1 to this request :)

[melchoyce]

Super minor, can we be sure to use an en dash instead of a hyphen between date values? ​https://practicaltypography.com/hyphens-and-dashes.html

[melchoyce]

One other comment — the “18 h 00 min” in @imath's last screenshot is confusing, IMO. Is that 18 hours until the event? Or the event itself is 18 hours long? Why is that information important?

[imath]

Thanks a lot for your feedback @melchoyce : I haven't touch to how Meetups are displayed, the "18 h 30 min" is the meeting hour in French way of displaying a meeting time.

It depends on the date/hour settings of WordPress. I guess it must be something like "6:30 pm" for en_US. For instance on this new screenshot below, I've used an en dash and changed my WordPress settings to use another way to display hours.

47798.4.patch is using an en dash instead of an hyphen when WordCamps are more than one day long.

I've read @hareesh-pillai feedback about using a "short month" format for WordCamps. I think it's important to be consistent with how it is displayed on central.wordcamp.org. That's why I'm using a "full month" format.

[imath]

Using – at both places

[melchoyce]

Ahh okay, thanks for the info! That makes sense.

[mapk]

Taking a look at the screenshots from @imath, the latest one looks great! The time makes sense, and I'm all for keeping the full month name as well. Using an en-dash between the days is also correct usage. This looks good!

[karmatosed]

As this has design feedback, for now removing the keyword.

[desrosj]

This is looking good!

I don't think that the end_date being included in the API response is necessarily a blocker for this to be committed, but ideally the changes for that would land ASAP so proper testing can happen during the beta and RC periods.

I asked for an update over on the meta ticket just to make sure those changes are still realistic for 5.3.

The only change 47798.diff​ contains is a PHPCS fix.

[francina]

I removed the needs-testing keyword because the patch can not be tested until the Meta ticket is solved.

[davidbaumwald]

With 5.3 Beta 1 in just a few hours and given the meta API change required for this feature, this is being moved for early consideration in 5.4.

[dd32]

Just noting that the API has been updated to include the end_date field.

[audrasjb]

47798.diff works fine on my side with the API changes

[audrasjb]

The last patch works fine on my side.

I'm only wondering about the translators context comments. Not a big deal but I believe we usually use something like:

$response_body['events'][ $key ]['formatted_date'] = sprintf(
	/* Translators: %1$s: starting month. %2$d: starting day. %2$d: ending day. %4$d: year */
	__( '%1$s %2$d–%3$d, %4$d' ),
	$month_start,
	date_i18n( __( 'j' ), $timestamp ),
	date_i18n( __( 'j' ), $end_timestamp ),
	date_i18n( __( 'Y' ), $timestamp )
);

Instead of:

/* Translators: %1$s is for the month, %2$d is for the starting day, %2$d is for the ending day, %4$d is for the year */
$response_body['events'][ $key ]['formatted_date'] = sprintf(
	__( '%1$s %2$d–%3$d, %4$d' ),
	$month_start,
	date_i18n( __( 'j' ), $timestamp ),
	date_i18n( __( 'j' ), $end_timestamp ),
	date_i18n( __( 'Y' ), $timestamp )
);

[audrasjb]

thanks @SergeyBiryukov, 47798.2.diff looks perfect to me.

[SergeyBiryukov]

In: 47798.2.diff​:

• Adjust translator comments for consistency with the rest of core.
• Add translator comments and context for F, j, Y strings, for consistency with post_submit_meta_box()​ and a few other places. I'm not 100% sure these should be translatable, but I guess it wouldn't hurt.
• Call wp_maybe_decline_date() on the resulting date to make sure it's properly declined in locales that require it. Normally, this would happen automatically in date_i18n(), but here we're constructing the date string from several pieces, so need to call the function separately.

@audrasjb: Thanks for the review :)

[SergeyBiryukov]

In 47098:

Date/Time: In wp_maybe_decline_date(), add support for a range of days, e.g. February 21–23.

A potential use case is displaying multi-day events in the WordPress Events and News dashboard widget.

See #47798, #48934.

[SergeyBiryukov]

47798.2.diff​ should be good to go.

[SergeyBiryukov]

In 47124:

Dashboard: Improve the appearance of "WordPress Events and News" dashboard widget for multi-day events.

If an upcoming event spans over several days, this information is now properly reflected in the widget.

Props imath, casiepa, iandunn, hareesh-pillai, melchoyce, mapk, desrosj, audrasjb, SergeyBiryukov.
Fixes #47798.

[iandunn]

I'm working on porting format_event_data_time() to JavaScript for #51130. 47798.4.2.patch​ added the $start_month and start_end variables to determine if the date crosses a month boundary.

Do those strings need to be internationalized? They're only used for comparison, not displayed. It doesn't seem like they do, but I want to double check before removing it.

@imath, @SergeyBiryukov

[audrasjb]

As soon as they are not displayed and not passed to any hook, I think it's clear those strings don't need to be internationalized.