Has Calendar Tool blown a gasket for anyone else?

Need help Plugins
1

Hi Bubblers,

Like about 2000 of you, I am a big fan of Calendar Tool. I use it extensively in my app and until last week, had not had a single complaint. But it suddenly went haywire around 5PM last Friday. Bubble support confirmed yesterday that Calendar Tool is the source of some very extreme (ie page times out completely on preview) performance issues that I appear unable to get rid of.

While the performance issues do disappear when when I

  • uninstall the plugin (this alone does not work)
  • delete the plugin elements from the page

the problem reappears when i reinstall the plugin after a complete refresh and cache clear. I even erased all the elements that used the plugin and it still doesnā€™t make a difference.

Bubbleā€™s position is that I need to deal with the developer to eliminate the possibility that a bug in the plugin. Given that Calendar Tool is a free app, I donā€™t think it reasonable to expect that developer Brown Fox will be up for investing any time in doing that. So I find myself in limbo and uncertain if it is safe continue to use Calendar Tool.

Question 1.
Has anyone one else experienced this issue? Or any other serious flaw with this plugin?

Question 2
Has anyone encountered any negative interactions between Calendar Tool and

  • Mishavā€™s Toolbox - List of Dates element
  • Keith Campbellā€™s ListShifter

Question 3
Can any saavy scripters out there seen anything in the Calendar Tool code that would raise any concerns - the code is visible on the plugin page although it does not appear to be forkable.

Question 4
Can anyone recommend an alternative to Calendar Tool for creating lists of times.

@mishav - I tried using fractions of days in your list of dates element but it didnā€™t work. Is there a way to make it work?
@keith - you have tons of hidden features in your apps - is list of dates one tucked away in
@gf_wolfer - see you have what looks like a nifty new date tool in beta - will it be able to create a list of times? - may be up for joining your beta team if you are stuck for ginea pigs.

Thanks,

Kevin

2

Hey @kevin.hunt, yes both Calendar Grid Pro and Parallels have Actions for creating a list of dates.

They both work similarly.

In CG Pro, one of the Util actions (might be called ā€œDate List from Rangeā€?) splits a range up into individual dates (by some duration).

In Parallels, the Action ā€œSpilt/Construct Rangeā€ can take a range and split it up into individual date ranges, start dates and/or end dates, again by any duration.

Take a look at the Split/Construct Range action in Parallels and read its docs in the interface. It looks complicated, but itā€™s conceptually simple and very powerful!

3

@gf_wolfer has a great plugin for this. The TopCal plugin. Check out some of the capabilities Here

Iā€™ve been pairing it up with a fullcalendar plugin in working on here. Check it out

Jaredgibb.bubbleapps.io/calendar

4

Canā€™t say for sure about the first 3 questions as I am not familiar with the plugin but I would guess that some other plugin code it causing this or an empty variable is somehow got passed into the field.

As mentioned above (thanks @jared.gibb !), the TopCal plugin is Live and in full production mode. There is a List of Dates function as well as a Calendar similar to what you are used to.

If you are looking for something cheap for now, you can copy out this calendar from the Top Shelf Elements app which just uses Mishavā€™s Toolbox plugin:

From that link you can also check out and test the TopCal plugin which is on pages with ā€˜topcalā€™ in the name

1 Like
5

Hi Jared,
Thanks for the response and congrats on the slick demonstration using FullCalendar.
I am curious. Which version of Full Calendar are you using. The Bubble version or the one built by Sean Hoots that now appears to be supported by Zeroqode.
Cheers,
Kevin

6

Hi Geoff,
Good to hear that it is out of Beta. I will check it out for sure.
Jaredā€™s implementation with Full Calendar tells me that it is exactly what I have been looking for.
My little set back with Calendar Tool getting corrupted, may be a blessing in disguise!
Cheers
Kevin

7

I sort of expected that at least one of your plugins had this!
My impression is that separately and as a set, your plugins are like swiss army knives for Bubble. The only problem is that they are not quite as intuitive. Keep those videos coming because I think that there must be a ton of people like me that are only scratching the surface of what one can do with your tools.
Cheers
Kevin

1 Like
8

@kevin.hunt if youā€™re looking for a headless (no ui) solution maybe our plugin would work for creating a list of dates? Recurring date scheduler Plugin | Bubble

Hereā€™s some docs Notion ā€“ The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

if you think itā€™ll solve your problem i can give your app access

9

Thanks a lot. Itā€™s something Iā€™ve been working on in the background. The plug-in for the calendar is actually my own, itā€™s something Iā€™m working on. I wanted to have something that had my own specifications for exactly what I needed.

If we donā€™t get a solid cheap calendar on the market place soon Iā€™m going to put mine up there for three bucks

The calendar ties in nice with geoffs plugin

10

Hi @keith , @jared.gibb , @Kayami , @gf_wolfer @mishav ,

Miracles Happen!!!

Thanks for all your responses. I wanted to give you an update because as plugin developers, I think you may find it interesting.

Some time after posting this query, the page suddenly and miraculously started working without any intervention from me both on the copy that had been used to do testing and the original that has had nothing changed with regards to plugins.

I had heard from my shaman that this sort of self healing is typical of code in general and feature that is particularly strong in javascript, but I was surprised to see my pageā€™s recovery be so rapid and complete all the same.

My conclusion is that Calendar Tool, feeling the burning heat of competition from the great plugins that you all were able to point me towards, suddenly found the energy to recompile itself. If any of you have any other suggestions of what might have happened, I am all ears?

While I am thankful to not have to rework things, in many ways I do not entirely resent having been forced to discover what alternatives lie out there, as the hold the potential to will help me to take my app to the next level.

@Keith - I got Parallels to generate the list exactly how I needed it to replace Calendar Tool and was about to do that when I discovered that miraculous disappearance of the performance issues that had plagued the page since Friday.

@gf_wolfer - I have checked out your plugin and am impressed. I am not clear if it can do everything that I need it to do (will write to your separately on these) - but if it does, it provides a far more simple and elegant way of doing the things I need than what I have currently spun. I see its key advantage being that when i bring people on board to do further development and maintain the app, it will be much easier for them to decipher the existing code and to develop new functionality with. I am also intrigued by your claims of it offering better performance - if time permits I will try to do some bench marking to see how relevant that is to my particular case and will share these with you if you are interested.

@Kayami - If I have some time to do a bake off for this functionality, I will definitely include you.

Note to @romanmg - Based on my review, TopCal and Parallels are definitely worth exploring!

11

Great to hear you got things sorted. Feel free to DM me about the specifics it may/may not do - always good to see some more use cases.

Performance is always relative to other options and to what UX of the app you are optimizing it for. Especially with a booking app you usually need to decide if want to optimize speed for the schedule setter or the bookers.
Overall for an ā€˜on pageā€™ sorting of availability with pattern features and dynamically creating time slots I would say itā€™s the top but always interested to see other setups.

Thanks for the recommendation :metal:

12

You should definitely consider putting it up on the Market Place!! Not sure $3 is the right plice to put it up for. One reference point is the one by Skillum priced at $40. It is absolutely abysmal!