The [[BMLT_TABLE]] Shortcode – The Basic Meeting List Toolbox

INTRODUCTION

The [[bmlt_table]] shortcode is otherwise known as “The Fast Table Display.” It was first introduced in Satellite release Version 3.2.4.

This shortcode is designed to provide a fast, lightweight, interactive interface to the meeting list.

Instead of an interactive map or text search, a weekday-sorted list of meetings is displayed in a tabular format. The site visitor clicks on a weekday tab, and the list of meetings that gather on that weekday is displayed below the weekday tabs. If the meetings have not already been fetched from the server, then they are fetched before they are displayed (and are then cached for fast display later).

The displayed meeting list can be sorted by time, town, meeting name or address. The sort is specified by clicking on the table header corresponding to the chosen column.

This shortcode is specified by choosing a parameter list, much the same way as the [[bmlt_simple]] shortcode is specified. However, it uses a more restricted set of query parameters. This allows tremendous control over the dataset displayed by this shortcode.

This shortcode is very much affected by the settings for the Satellite. It takes its display theme, time format, Root Server and week start day from the settings.

It is possible to have multiple displays; each themed separately, on a single page. This is the only themed shortcode that will allow this. Other themed shortcodes will use a theme specified by the first instance on a page.

The styling for this shortcode has been specifically designed to afford responsive design techniques. The default themes do demonstrate this behavior (observe the display using a mobile phone to see this in action). Despite the table display, the elements used in the implementation are all block-level elements.

Here are the pages that implement examples of this shortcode:

Example (Suffolk Area Service Meetings)

[[bmlt_table(services=1001)]]