In Practice

However, Admidio can do much more than just manage membership data: It is also possible to set up online registration for courses or other events with the help of the software. The easiest way to do this is to use Admidio's appointment management. For each appointment, you can determine whether members are allowed to register for them. This provides an easy way to create a registration system, because the appointments do not have to be one-off events, they can include courses and other regular activities.

You need to login as an administrator to create an appointment. In Events, you will find the Create Events button, which you use to access the input mask for a new entry. Here you first need to enter the usual data (e.g., date, location and description). The interesting Visibility & Registration is in the third pane down. Here you first need to specify which group is allowed to see the event. The group All (also Visitors) is the default selection, which you can define using the existing roles within the system.

Below this, you'll find the Highlight date option, which makes the entry in the list stand out. This can be used for an annual general meeting or compulsory courses, for example. Under that, you can activate the Enable registration to this appointment option as required. The software then shows the Participate button in addition to the information in the list. Members can then register for the event using this button. Admidio initially shows the registration dialogue when Participate is clicked for interested parties who are not yet registered in the online system.

The Show participants button allows administrators to take a look at all currently available applications at any time (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Participants and visitors can register directly for an appointment in Admidio.

Integration

Admidio can be accessed as a separate page or integrated into an existing website. You have a couple of options for the latter: If you want to use all of Admidio's functions, it makes sense to integrate it inconspicuously via a link and thus to use an inline frame (iframe). Alternatively, you can integrate specific areas into an existing website. Admidio provides some direct links for this purpose, which you can integrate very easily into existing HTML or PHP pages.

You need to understand the structure of Admidio when deciding between these two methods. The software is based on modules and plugins. Modules are all components that provide functionality in the default installation. Plugins, as in other systems, provide additional functions, which you can activate in just a few steps. You need to take a couple of additional steps to integrate such plugins into other websites.

For example, you would use the list of events for registering in a course. This is a module because it represents a basic function. You can integrate this within an external page in the form of an iframe. An example call for the Events module is shown in the first line of Listing 1. You can show the complete list of appointments if the space provided is big enough, and you can customize the display by attaching a corresponding parameter to the HTML call [2].

Use an event's ID as the parameter to integrate a single event in a website. The easiest way to find this is to access the events as an administrator and then open the desired event in the detail view. In the URL, you will see the dat_id parameter, which indicates the corresponding ID. Add this value to the call (Listing 1, line 2). However, the Events headline displayed here doesn't really fit that well with a single appointment. So, if necessary, you can specify another headline using the headline parameter (line 3).

Integrating modules doesn't really create major problems either with a static website or with content management systems (CMS). The cooperation with WordPress is particularly simple – at least when it comes to integrating the plain appointment calendar in one of the sidebars, for example. A special plugin for this is available in the official WordPress plugin directory [3]. It displays a list of the upcoming events with just a few clicks. The advantage is that the display appears in the exact design of the theme used. A detailed manual within Admidio's online documentation describes the integration into Joomla.

Plugins

The procedure is a bit more complex with plugins. They are a bit different with Admidio than you might be used to with WordPress or Joomla. There are small function definitions, which you first need to copy manually into the adm_plugins directory. Then, you place a reference to it in the desired place on the Admidio website.

First, you integrate the common.php file at the start of a PHP site on an external website (Listing 2). You can also rename a simple HTML page from <Page>.html to <Page>.php. Make sure that the path to the Admidio folder corresponds exactly to the environment on the server concerned.

You integrate access to the actual plugins (Listing 3) at the exact point in the source code where you want to see the plugin output – usually a special area referred to as widgets. You should thoroughly test the construct to make sure incorrect output or formatting doesn't destroy the layout.

Integrating additional modules or plugins into an existing website is accomplished in the same way. However, this approach only makes sense for individual cases in which the user needs to input something directly, such as when making appointments. However, if you need several components, you should consider integrating the whole Admidio interface in the website.