An event calendar is a perfect way to offer a centralized place for people interested in a topic area to find out about events related to it. It also bridges an online community to physical meetings and interaction.

The event calendar extensions available to Joomla users are simple yet well-implemented. The Events Calendar (JEvents) extension allows great flexibility in display and categorization. JCalPro  provides more control over repeating events and scheduling.

If you don’t want to host the event calendar on your Web site, the Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar) is a free service that will host an event calendar for you. You can use the Joomla Wrapper module to include it in your Web site. The Google Calendar even includes automatic event reminders that can notify (either through email or mobile phone messages) people who subscribed to the calendar.

Events Calendar (JEvents) Extension
The Events Calendar extension (also known as JEvents) provides easy management for shared events. Not only does the extension allow an essentially unlimited number of events, but it also provides complete event repetition settings (daily, monthly, and yearly). Events can be filed and sorted by user-definable categories.

The complete Events Calendar (JEvents) package consists of a number of components, modules, and plug-ins, including the following:

❑       Events Calendar component — The main component for calendar display

❑       Administrator component — The administrative component for system configuration

❑       Events Calendar visual calendar module — A small, quick-display calendar for places such as the front page of a Joomla site

❑       Latest/Upcoming list module — Lists the latest upcoming events that are entered into the event database

❑       Events Legend module — Displays the legend for symbols displayed in the event calendar

❑       Search plug-in — Provides search capabilities for the events in the calendar

❑       Event Report plug-in  — Provides for automatic linking to event reports or photo galleries of the event once it has been completed

Before any events can be added, you must create a category by using the Add Category screen in the Administrator interface of the JEvents component. After you save the category, be sure to publish it because categories are unpublished by default. After you have created a category, you can begin inserting events.

The entry of an event is performed from the front end of the JEvents interface. A new event creation allows a subject line, a category selection, and a complete description. Optional fields include location, contact information, and any extra comment information that should be provided for the event. Text included in any of these fields is searched by the Search component, so be sure that you enter important keywords so that users can find events related to their interests.

If you return to the configuration screen in the Administrator interface, enables you to have complete control over event presentation, access, and editing permissions. It also allows the editing of the CSS that is used for display of the events. This CSS may be modified to more appropriately match your currently selected site template.

You can download JEvents at:     joomlacode.org/gf/projects/jevents

Install the component through the Extension Manager as you would install any other component. To add the JEvents calendar to the front end of the site, create a menu item that connects to the component.

JCalPro
One of the most attractive event calendars is the JCalPro extension. It can display in a number of different styles that can match the look-and-feel of your Joomla site. All display is CSS-based for easy Web master modification. Event additions use the Joomla editor for complete rich text capabilities. The security is integrated with Joomla security to allow specified permissions for private event categories and managed event creation. Modules are available for a mini-calendar and latest events.

JCalPro includes the following features:

❑       Daily, weekly, monthly, and by-category calendar views

❑       Integration with Joomla categories, including the display permissions system

❑       A rendered calendar that is W3C valid XHTML- and CSS-compliant

❑       Content that is integrated with standard Joomla site search features

❑       The use of  a Joomla WYSIWYG editor to allow event definitions to be included as rich text

❑       The capability to schedule events by minutes

❑       The capability to import of Extcalendar event and category data

❑       Latest Events module for current events display

❑       Multilingual support through the Joomla language system

❑       Administrator notification of newly added events

❑       Support of recurring, all day, and multi-day events

❑       Email support for user notification of events

You can download JCalPro at:    http://dev.anything-digital.com

Install the component through the Extension Manager as you would install any other component. To add the JEvents calendar to the front end of the site, create a menu item that connects to the component.