Announcements + Calendar (demo)
Two skeleton versions of putting calendar events straight into the class announcements, side by side, plus a week view that works with either, so we can pick one to build out.
Why
With Slack, a post like [Thu]: Live Reviews in the class channel landed on the class calendar by itself (how that worked). Announcements now live on the course site (chat migration), and that link didn’t come with them. These demos bring it back. Each one reuses the calendar endpoints the backend already has, so none of them needs backend changes.
The two versions
Switch between them with the tabs. Both versions can set the same things: any date, the type (Event, Daily plan, Due, Check-in, Graded), the priority (Urgent, High, Normal, Low), the class periods (1–5), and details. The only difference is how you enter them.
| How the teacher adds an event | Best for | |
|---|---|---|
| V1: Add-to-calendar button | Write the announcement, click Add to calendar, pick the date, type, priority and periods, then Send | One-off events such as a quiz, a deadline or a guest speaker |
| V2: Quick syntax | Type [Mon]: Title or [10/9]: Title lines, the same format as Slack. Asterisks set the priority (* = High, ** = Urgent), and tags set anything else: #due, #low, #P4 for period 4. Detected events appear as chips you can switch off. On Send, only your own words are posted and the events show as cards |
Posting a whole week’s plan at once |
In both versions, an announcement that carries an event shows a card with its priority, type, class periods and details, plus a View on OCS calendar button. Teachers also get Remove from calendar.
Periods. Every event says which class periods it’s for. It defaults from the class: CSSE is period 1, CSA and CSH are period 2, and CSP is periods 3 and 4.
Week view is a toggle in the announcements header that works with either version. It pins this school week above the feed, including holidays from the school calendar. Click an event in it to jump to the announcement that created it.
The toolbar has demo toggles:
- Class switches between CSA, CSH, CSP and CSSE.
- Period shows the page as a student in one period sees it: other periods’ events are hidden in Week view and dimmed in the feed.
- View as switches between the teacher view and the student view.
Preview (the default) uses a sample week stored in your browser, so nothing reaches the class or the real calendar. Reset restores the sample. Live needs a sign-in. It posts to a separate demo chat for the chosen class (for example csa-announcements-demo) and adds real events to that class’s calendar.
CSA Announcements
Class-wide announcements, now with calendar events attached.
No announcements yet
Class-wide messages will appear here.Questions for feedback
- Which version fits how you plan the week? Would a mix of V1 and V2 work?
- Should Week view be on by default, or something students turn on?
- Should students be able to post in announcements, or should it be teacher-only, with questions going to week chat?
- Do events need a time of day? Right now they’re all-day, because that’s what the calendar backend stores.
- Should deleting an announcement also remove its event?
Known limits of the skeleton
- Only the UI enforces teacher-only. The backend doesn’t check roles on the calendar or chat endpoints yet.
- Events are all-day. Priority is stored as a
[P0]–[P3]title prefix, which is how the calendar page reads it. Periods go in the backend’s existingclassPeriodfield (for exampleP3,P4). - The link between an announcement and its event is a hidden text marker inside the message. It works with today’s chat backend without schema changes.