I’ve tried a handful of Event Calendars for WordPress and am really liking my latest find.
Being the geek that I am about visual things I tend to be drawn to a plugin or tool that looks good (on the user side of things, I’m much less picky if it’s just in the dashboard) and then I’ll dig in a little deeper to see how user friendly it is. Which is what drew me to the EventON calendar plugin, the design was uber appealing and I loved the options for customizing. I felt this way about the CalPress plugin but it seems to load slower than this calendar plugin which is why I started looking for another option.
Before you start looking at which calendar plugin you want to use for WordPress, I would start by writing out what features you need. I’d create a ‘must-have’ list and a ‘wishlist’ for features and then start looking at your options. There are a handful of good free plugins available in the WordPress plugin repository, but I would test them out on a development url before installing it on the site you intend to use it on.
This is my ‘must-have’ list of requirements for a calendar plugin:
- Visually appealing
- Event registration (with a link for a webinar or a PayPal option for paid classes)
- Multiple views: Full calendar, day view, week view, etc.
- Widget options
- Customization (colors, etc.), featured image
- Easy to use
- Good documentation & support
Here’s my ‘wishlist’ of functions for a calendar plugin:
- Eventbrite integration (so far everything I do is online, so I don’t really need this… yet)
- Map integration
- Social sharing built in (I have social sharing on posts & pages so I’m not too worried about this)
I can tell already that I’m probably going to get a couple more of the ‘addons’ for this plugin, which might seem like it’s getting a little pricey but I can tell you from having attempted some plugin development myself (having someone else develop something I wanted) that a LOT of work goes into creating and maintaining plugins, so I’m quite happy to pay for quality, which this is.
What I’ll be using this calendar plugin for:
- Upcoming classes
- Webinars
- Hangouts
- Podcasts (that just came to me… maybe the public accountability will do me some good!)
And speaking of public accountability… I’ll have my calendar up on this site by Aug. 1st, which is a whole 2 days from now. Time to get busy, right?
Onto the video! Let me know what you think of the plugin. I’d love to hear what some of your favorite calendar plugins are as well.
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