Order topics by date and time of the event

Support
1

Hey Discourse gurus!

We are considering to make some changes to our instance. We have one category just for events, and right now this category lists topics just like it always would: by topic activity. If someone posts, the thread gets bumped to the top.

Is there a way to make topics order themselves in a different way? It would be great if event topics in a certain category could be ordered by date & time of the actual event.

1 Like
2

I’d assume this would have to be done via a plugin seeing the “complexity” of our naming pattern… haha

At the moment we have the following naming pattern:

3

As @carmalonso surmised, this is definitely plugin territory (i.e. Enterprise territory as far as hosted customers are concerned).

Aren’t there a couple web apps out there that can do event planning considerably better than Discourse? A basic integration (post event details & link to event page) with something like Meetups, Eventbrite or even Facebook Events would be an interesting project I think.

4

The problem with sites such as Meetups and Eventbrite is that they’re aimed at events that occur at a physical location - the events category we have on the Infinite Flight forum is for gathering players on the MMO (totally virtual).

I have looked into Facebook events in the past, and whilst a wide variety of our users use it, events can’t be pulled down via the API unless the user is logged in (the posts in the Events category on our Discourse instance are available for users that don’t login in-app - using Facebook would mean that users would have to auth with Facebook for events to be listed…).

Thanks for the insight though!

5

Hmmm yeah I see how those platforms aren’t the best fit for you here. Perhaps the most appropriate way to implement this event planner would be in-game?

1 Like
6

With the current features, here’s how I have done it. .

  • Set up single topic as the Calendar wherever it makes sense in your community
  • Post event topics in Event Category with event name/date/location in title; details in body of post; link back to Calendar to show other events, if desired.
  • Manually add links to event topics in Calendar post in order January to December for each calendar year.
  • For ticketing, link out from the event post to ticketing platform like EventBrite.
  • Let the event topics just be ordered as normal (by last updated).

Linking event topics in the Calendar post is the part that could use some automation. Also doesn’t solve the Christmas event topic posted in July problem, but it’s workable. You can also ask attendees to RSVP by liking the event topic or reply by email with +1.

I have seen other requests for ordered topics (e.g., for documentation). Maybe add some general feature that deals with this issue? If sorted by alpha you could use date format YYYY-MM-DD or some other sortable numbering at the start of the topic.

3 Likes
7

I don’t have time to look into it now, but category list pages do have “created_at” in the JSON

Currently that information is only exposed if the “replies” number is clicked on. .

But it seems if the information is available it should be possible to use it somehow for ordering the topic by creation date.

1 Like