Event Calendars

Event Calenders are a great way to let people know what is going on with your business and the dates that activities are going to take place. When choosing an event calender you have many options available depending on which Content Management System that you plan on using it with. Today I'll be looking at the Event Calenders for Joomla, as always I will begin my search using Google and see where it takes me.

Google Calendar

Using a Google Calendar a nice choice for those new to events calendars and has many options. It allows you to organize your schedule and keep track of life's important events all in one place. Below are some reasons to use an event calendar.
Share your schedule

• Get your calendar on the go
• Never forget another event
• Send invitations and track RSVPs
• Sync with your desktop applications
• Work offline
• Is Free

You can embed the calendar on your personal website by copying the embed code and placing it into your own HTML. Google calendar also allows you to change the colors, and size of your calendar to what ever you feel best suits you. Firefox seems to have some issues with the Java Script but you can make it work with a little head scratching. You can also link to your calendar if that works best for you.

JEvents

JEvents for Joomla is a lot more complicated but is a very powerful tool for Joomla users and developers. You can download JEvents 1.5.3 and it offers a ton for themes that you can choose from to fit your needs. The Calender itself is pretty self explanatory once you have it installed it allows you to post your schedule for your business or your own personal needs. There are a lot of resourse out there on the internet to help you get started using JEvents but I find them extremely difficult to understand and get it installed.

To add an event all you have to do is go to the day and click on the date and add event. You can then select the category for the event and enter a description of the event. JEvent has a very nice editor that allows you to customize it in many ways, very nice. You can set reminder that will email you on what ever time frame you establish.

JCalPro

JCal Pro is a W3C-validated, multi-language events calendar component with a gorgeous, CSS-based front-end display. Feature highlights include, native Joomla! permission for event creation/management and event viewing, multiple calendars including private or public calendars, WYSIWYG event descriptions, administrative theme installation and management, back-end event management, an integrated search plug-in, feature-rich mini-calendar and latest events modules, RSS feeds and SEF URL support.

JCalPro is a very attractive calendar and is supported my Joomla and to me was the easiest of all to understand. If you want to add an event there is a icon in the top left of the calendar that says add event, how easy is that to understand. Add the necessary information using the WYSIWYG editor and save it. It also allows you to send emails to yourself or other reminding them of the event that is coming up. You can configure it to be private or public, its your choice.

My Pick

JCalPro all the way. It's simple and very attractive and even more impressive it was easy to install and use and that made me happy