In the past, I covered Sugar Events Calendar, which is a lightweight calendar management system.…
Another one from Pippin Williamson, Sugar Events Calendar Lite allows you to easily set up events using a custom post type then display them anywhere on your site in an AJAX-enabled calendar view. No thrills, no frills, just events.
What’s It Do?
Sugar Events Calendar sets up a custom post type on your WordPress install which allows you to enter in individual events. For each event, you can give it a title, add whatever description or media you want to, and specify the event start and end time. Then you can display the event in calendar form anywhere on your site using a shortcode. The calendar is AJAX enabled, meaning users can scroll through different months or specify the month they want to look at from a drop-down. Each event link clicks through to a page which includes the title, date, time and description of the event. Pretty simple stuff.
How’s It Work?
When you install and activate the plugin you will see a new section in your admin panel labeled “Events.” Click Events -> Add Event to add your first date.
The edit event screen is very similar to the WordPress post editor. Enter the title of your event at the top and a description below it. The description can be long or short and can include any media attachments you would use in a WordPress post. Below the description, there is a custom meta box where you can indicate the time and date of your event. You can select your date using the date picker, then just enter in the start time and end time in the included text fields. If featured images are enabled on your site, you can also add a featured image in the right sidebar.
The meta box for event details
When you are finished adding the details of your event click the “Publish” button. Then just repeat for every event you want to add.
By default, the plugin generates an archive page with a list of all of your upcoming events at http://yoursite.com/events. Visit that URL to see the list, which is laid out in descending order, according to date with titles and descriptions for each in a sort of blog form. Sugar Events Calendar also comes with a calendar view which can be embedded in any post or page using the shortcode:
[[[sc_events_calendar]]
If you visit the page with this shortcode you will see an AJAX calendar showing the current month. Users can navigate through the months, or select which month they want to view from a drop-down. For each event that you added, there will be a link on the day that the event occurs with the title of the event.
Fairly basic calendar output with a shortcode
Clicking this link will direct users to the post for that event, which includes title, time, description and featured image. That’s basically it for setting it up.
If you want to customize the style of your calendar, you can use the CSS classes added to it. For instance, if you want to change the padding and font size of the buttons on the calendar (next, previous, go):
.sc_calendar_submit {
padding: 5px;
font-size: .5em;
}
The calendar uses a fairly basic HTML structure, so just inspect the element or dig through the plugin’s code to find out which classes to edit.
Costs, Caveats, Etc.
Sugar Events Calendar Lite is free, but there is also a pro version available with recurring events, categories, and a few more features. If you are a developer, the code is hosted on GitHub. If you are having trouble with the plugin, the best place to go is the support forums.
