Web Calendar

January 7, 2005 6:13 AM

Filter: Basic Web Design - I am looking for a free calendar app that I can add to our redesigned site so that clients can see up coming events and public appearances. I would like it to be within our site (not link to an external page) and be simple for me (or just a couple of us) to update.
I am having trouble finding the wheat for the chaff in the Google search.
Thanks!
posted by whybesubtle to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I like HotScripts when I'm looking for a web app. It is helpful because it contains user ratings so you can ignore the poor stuff. Figure out what capabilities your web host has (PHP, ASP, or CGI) and then look under the appropriate script catagories. Searching ALL CATEGORIES for calendar should turn up plenty of wheat.

There are other sites similar to Hotscripts like the CGI Resource Index. Do a Find Similar search on Google's Advanced Search Page to find more (if you need more).

Sorry I don't have a specific recommendation.
posted by spock at 7:12 AM on January 7, 2005

Here is a fairly simple calendar my family uses to keep up to date. Might work for you. It's PHP.
posted by selfnoise at 7:21 AM on January 7, 2005

you can add a downloadable calendar in iCalendar format. lots of programs support this. outlook can use them, for example. mozilla sunbird allows you to throw an iCal file on a website and update it via FTP pretty easily.

the app is version 0.2 right now and is missing some functions, but pretty stable. won't remember your FTP settings so the file publish feature needs to be set via ftp://name:[e-mail]/path/to/iCalFileName.ics (unless you want to have to punch in the name/password manually every time you make a change).

i am using sunbird to keep one calendar file available for me wherever i go. it lives on my server, and changes made are updated immediately to the online version, which makes it easy for me to update it without any massive complicated trickery or code-hacking.

php iCalendar will take this iCal file and display it in a browser. version 1.1 can be found from sourceforge here.

iCalendar is an open file format, and anything from mozilla or sourceforge.net are free as always. have fun.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:28 AM on January 7, 2005

I typically like using blogs for this task, with a filter set up to only show items where $date > $today. Then the user just sets the date of the post as the date of the event.

I find that online, people would much rather have a list of upcoming events instead of the traditional calendar. The table-based calendar is familiar, but it compresses the content too much on the screen to be readable. Something like...

Weekday, date - Event Name
Event description

... is much more readable to me.
posted by revgeorge at 9:07 AM on January 7, 2005

I was going to recommend verti-cal for this, but it is not free ($25). It has a nice events listing view that gets right down to business. When I was using that calendar, I set the default view to future events, on the same line of thought as revgeorge.
posted by cairnish at 11:27 AM on January 7, 2005

I just ran across this CSS for the <dl> element that could also be useful to you if you wanted to avoid the normal 7 column table calendar format. And yes, you can use multiple <dd>s for one <dt> according to the article.
posted by revgeorge at 12:43 PM on January 7, 2005

I've set up PHP Event Calendar several times. It's easy to install & you can customise the appearance quite a bit, using includes & CSS. I edited an earlier version so that the pop-up window where you enter events had additional info, such as how to make something bold or add a link. Our completely technically-inept church secretary was able to update events with minimal training.
posted by belladonna at 9:02 PM on January 7, 2005