MA Booking Joomla Component

MA Booking is a custom Joomla component (com_mabooking) for venue and room booking. It provides:

• an administrator dashboard with monthly calendar and booking summary
• a booking manager for creating and editing reservations
• a venue and room management screen
• a public-facing booking calendar with a request form
• an embeddable widget layout for external or internal use
• an optional public .ics feed
• optional Joomla Article syncing for selected booking statuses
• a quickicon plugin for the Joomla home dashboard

The current packaged version in this repository is 0.4.6.

Repository Layout

MAbooking/
|-- com_mabooking/                 Joomla component source
|   |-- admin/                     Administrator MVC, SQL, forms, templates
|   |-- site/                      Site MVC, forms, templates, services
|   `-- com_mabooking.xml          Joomla manifest
|-- plg_quickicon_mabooking/       Quickicon plugin source
|   |-- language/en-GB/
|   |-- services/
|   |-- src/Extension/
|   `-- mabooking.xml
|-- com_mabooking.zip              Component-only build
|-- plg_quickicon_mabooking.zip    Plugin-only build
|-- pkg_mabooking.xml              Package manifest
|-- pkg_mabooking.zip              Full package build (component + plugin)
`-- compress_zip.md                ZIP packaging reference for Windows

What The System Does

This component manages bookings for venues and their spaces. A venue is a top-level location such as Grand Ballroom or Town Hall. Each venue contains one or more bookable spaces such as Section 1, Room 4, or Main Hall.

Bookings store:

• event title
• booking date
• start and end time
• venue and room/space
• client name, phone, and email
• attendee count
• status: pending, confirmed, or cancelled
• source: admin or site
• notes
• optional linked Joomla article ID

The site form creates records as pending by default. Administrators can later review and change the status.

Main Features

1. Admin dashboard

The admin dashboard is the default component screen:

• monthly booking calendar with venue-color markers
• click-on-day popover showing booking summaries
• click-on-day shortcut to create a booking for that date
• totals for all bookings by status
• tabbed view: Master Calendar, Bookings, Upcoming Events, Past Events
• quick navigation by month

Main files:

• com_mabooking/admin/src/Model/DashboardModel.php
• com_mabooking/admin/tmpl/dashboard/default.php

2. Booking management

Admins can:

• list all bookings
• search by event, client, venue, room, phone, or email
• filter by booking status
• create and edit bookings manually

The booking form includes publishing state, booking source, and linked article ID.

Main files:

• com_mabooking/admin/src/Model/BookingsModel.php
• com_mabooking/admin/src/Model/BookingModel.php
• com_mabooking/admin/forms/booking.xml
• com_mabooking/admin/tmpl/bookings/default.php
• com_mabooking/admin/tmpl/booking/edit.php

3. Venue management

Admins can create, edit, and delete venues and their linked rooms from a single screen. The booking form only shows rooms that belong to the selected venue.

Main files:

• com_mabooking/admin/src/Model/VenuesModel.php
• com_mabooking/admin/src/Controller/VenuesController.php
• com_mabooking/admin/tmpl/venues/default.php

4. Public booking calendar

The site side exposes a calendar view with:

• monthly calendar navigation
• per-day booking visibility with venue-color markers
• booking request form grouped into date/time, venue, client, and notes sections

The public form posts to task=booking.submit.

Main files:

• com_mabooking/site/src/Controller/BookingController.php
• com_mabooking/site/src/Model/CalendarModel.php
• com_mabooking/site/forms/booking.xml
• com_mabooking/site/tmpl/calendar/default.php

5. Widget layout

The component exposes a lightweight widget layout:

• route: index.php?option=com_mabooking&view=calendar&layout=widget&tmpl=component
• designed for iframe embedding or menu-item use
• shows a clean calendar with venue-color markers

The admin Widgets screen gives ready-to-copy:

• direct widget URL
• iframe embed code
• Joomla internal route
• public ICS URL

Main files:

• com_mabooking/admin/src/View/Widgets/HtmlView.php
• com_mabooking/admin/tmpl/widgets/default.php
• com_mabooking/site/tmpl/calendar/widget.php

6. Public ICS feed

The component can expose an internet calendar feed:

• route: index.php?option=com_mabooking&task=calendar.ics
• disabled by default
• can be limited to confirmed bookings only
• excludes cancelled bookings
• includes venue, room, notes, summary, location, and event times

Main files:

• com_mabooking/site/src/Controller/CalendarController.php
• com_mabooking/site/src/Model/CalendarModel.php
• com_mabooking/admin/config.xml

7. Optional Joomla Article sync

When enabled in component options, bookings can create or update Joomla Articles.

Behavior:

• sync can be restricted to selected statuses
• target article category is configurable
• article publish state is configurable
• if a booking status no longer qualifies for sync, the linked article is unpublished
• synced articles keep their body content after creation

Main files:

• com_mabooking/site/src/Helper/ArticleHelper.php
• com_mabooking/admin/src/Model/BookingModel.php
• com_mabooking/admin/config.xml

8. Quickicon plugin

plg_quickicon_mabooking adds a shortcut tile to the Joomla Administrator home dashboard pointing to the MA Booking component.

Main files:

• plg_quickicon_mabooking/src/Extension/Mabooking.php
• plg_quickicon_mabooking/services/provider.php
• plg_quickicon_mabooking/mabooking.xml

Data Model

The installer creates three tables.

#__mabooking_venues

Key fields: id, title, alias, description, ordering, state

#__mabooking_spaces

Key fields: id, venue_id, title, alias, capacity_min, capacity_max, size_label, details, ordering, state

#__mabooking_bookings

Key fields: event_title, booking_date, start_time, end_time, venue_id, space_id, client_name, client_phone, client_email, attendees, status, source, article_id, notes, state

Seeded Venue Data

The install SQL seeds example venues and spaces immediately after installation:

• Grand Ballroom — Section 1, Section 2, Section 3
• Exhibition Hall — Exhibition Hall
• Bougainvillea Room — Room 1 to Room 6
• Town Hall — Main Hall, Level 1

Source: com_mabooking/admin/sql/install.mysql.utf8.sql

Validation And Booking Safety

Both site and admin booking saves enforce:

• valid time format: HH:MM or HH:MM:SS
• end time must be later than start time
• selected room must belong to the selected venue
• no overlapping booking in the same venue/space/date unless the conflicting booking is cancelled

To reduce race conditions, the save logic acquires a MySQL named lock keyed by venue ID, space ID, and booking date before insert or update.

Component Options

Configured via Components -> MA Booking -> Options.

Articles

• enable_article_sync
• article_sync_statuses
• article_category_id
• article_state

ICS

• enable_public_ics
• public_ics_confirmed_only

Install And Use

Recommended: install the full package

1. Go to Joomla Administrator.
2. Open System -> Install -> Extensions.
3. Upload pkg_mabooking.zip.
4. Joomla installs the component and the quickicon plugin in one step.
5. Open Components -> MA Booking.

Component only

Upload com_mabooking.zip if you do not need the quickicon plugin.

Basic setup after install

1. Review seeded venues and spaces, or add your own via Components -> MA Booking -> Venues.
2. Open Options to enable article sync and/or the public ICS feed.
3. Open Widgets to copy the iframe embed code or widget URL.
4. Create a Joomla menu item pointing to the calendar view for a public navigation entry.

Upgrade Notes

The manifest includes Joomla update schema support:

• 0.2.0.sql
• 0.4.3.sql
• 0.4.4.sql
• 0.4.6.sql

Current manifest version: 0.4.6

Missing Table Repair in 0.4.6

Version 0.4.6 addresses an installation/update failure where administrator submenu pages could show:

1146 Table '<database>.#__mabooking_bookings' doesn't exist

This can happen when Joomla has an existing com_mabooking extension record and treats the upload as an upgrade, but the component tables are missing because a prior install did not run the install SQL, was interrupted, or the tables were manually removed. In that state, the admin dashboard, bookings, venues, and widgets views query #__mabooking_bookings, #__mabooking_venues, or #__mabooking_spaces before the tables exist.

The 0.4.6 package adds two repair paths:

• root-level script.php, registered through <scriptfile>script.php</scriptfile>, creates the MA Booking tables during install, update, and discover install
• admin/sql/updates/mysql/0.4.6.sql creates the same tables with CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS during Joomla schema updates

After installing pkg_mabooking.zip version 0.4.6, the following tables should exist with the site database prefix:

• #__mabooking_bookings
• #__mabooking_spaces
• #__mabooking_venues

If the error persists after installing 0.4.6, verify that the uploaded package is the rebuilt pkg_mabooking.zip, then check whether the Joomla database user has CREATE TABLE permission.

Uninstall Behavior

Uninstall intentionally preserves booking data. The uninstall SQL does not drop tables.

Preserved tables: #__mabooking_bookings, #__mabooking_spaces, #__mabooking_venues

Joomla Architecture Summary

• admin/src/ — administrator controllers, models, views, table classes
• site/src/ — public controllers, models, views
• forms/*.xml — Joomla form field definitions
• tmpl/ — rendered layouts
• services/provider.php — wires component services into Joomla DI container
• com_mabooking.xml — declares install, update, languages, files, admin menu

Admin submenu entries:

• Dashboard
• Bookings
• Venues
• Widgets

Important Implementation Notes

• UI styling is embedded directly inside each view template.
• All admin templates include a footer credit: © Developed by NQMN.
• The public booking form stores requests as pending.
• Cancelled bookings are excluded from the public calendar and ICS feed.
• ICS entries are generated dynamically, not stored as files.
• Article sync uses Joomla content tables and stores the linked content ID back into the booking record.

Packaging Notes

ZIP files in this repository are created using the .NET ZipArchive API to ensure forward-slash entry names and no wrapping folder, both required for Joomla installation on Linux servers. See compress_zip.md for details.

Relevant Entry Points

• Manifest: com_mabooking/com_mabooking.xml
• Admin bootstrap: com_mabooking/admin/mabooking.php
• Site bootstrap: com_mabooking/site/mabooking.php
• Public calendar: index.php?option=com_mabooking&view=calendar
• Public widget: index.php?option=com_mabooking&view=calendar&layout=widget&tmpl=component
• Public ICS feed: index.php?option=com_mabooking&task=calendar.ics

Notes For Future Development

• email notifications on booking submission or status change
• recurring bookings
• frontend filtering by venue or room
• stronger permission rules per booking action
• richer ICS timezone handling
• automated tests