CalendarCore — Event Calendar, Recurring Events & RSVP

=== CalendarCore — Event Calendar, Recurring Events & RSVP === Contributors: xodesignworks Tags: events, event calendar, calendar, recurring events, rsvp Requires at least: 6.4 Tested up to: 7.1 Requires PHP: 8.0 Stable tag: 1.0.0 License: GPLv2 or later License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Recurring events, RSVP, .ics import and export, timezone-aware times. Free, fast, no jQuery, no bloat.

== Description ==

The features other event calendars keep behind a paid tier are free here, and the plugin stays out of your site's way while it does them.

Publish an event in under a minute, drop a block on any page, and get a month, week, day and list view that switch without a reload — on mobile too. Recurring events, an "Add to calendar" .ics export, .ics import from any other calendar, RSVP with a live attendee counter and times shown in each visitor's own timezone are all included, with nothing held back for an upsell.

= What you get, free =

• Recurring events, properly. Daily, weekly with the weekdays you choose, monthly by date or by weekday position ("third Tuesday", "last Friday"), yearly. Custom intervals, skipped dates, an end date or a number of repeats.
• Four views. Month grid, week, day and event list, switching without a page reload — and still working with JavaScript switched off.
• RSVP without payment. Attendee form, capacity limit, live counter, duplicate protection, honeypot and rate limiting. No spam, no captcha for your visitors to solve.
• Add to calendar. One-click .ics download, Google Calendar and Outlook links, and a subscribable feed of all your events.
• Import from any calendar. Upload an .ics file or paste a feed URL: Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Meetup or another WordPress site. Repeat rules and skipped dates survive the trip instead of arriving as hundreds of copies, and re-importing updates what it created before.
• Times that make sense to everyone. Dates are stored in UTC and shown in the visitor's own timezone, formatted in your site's language. Perfect for webinars and online classes. Switch it off in one click.
• Venues and organizers. Real taxonomies, so visitors can filter events by place or host, and every venue gets its own page.
• Two Gutenberg blocks. Event calendar and Event list, rendered on the server so they keep working in block themes and after any editor update.
• Dark mode and your colours. The calendar inherits your theme palette from theme.json; no CSS fight, no "why is my calendar blue".

= Built for Core Web Vitals =

Most event plugins are slow for two reasons: they create wide custom database tables, and they pre-generate years of repeating dates. This one does neither.

• 7 KB of CSS and JavaScript, gzipped, loaded only on pages that actually show a calendar.
• Zero jQuery, zero date libraries. Native date and time fields, Intl.DateTimeFormat for timezones.
• Events are a normal custom post type in postmeta. The plugin adds exactly one narrow table with three data columns (event, start, end) for repeating dates.
• Repeating dates are generated 12 months ahead at most, and a cron job keeps that window filled in batches — so saving an event never stalls and the calendar page never crawls.
• Measured on a stress install with 500 events and 5,782 stored dates: the month view renders in about 0.13 s cold and needs zero database queries once warm.
• Page-cache friendly (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed): the only live fragment is the RSVP counter, which the browser fetches after the cached HTML is served.

= Perfect for =

Workshops, classes and webinars. Meetups and user groups. Venues, clubs and community centres. Studios running weekly recurring sessions. Concerts, conferences and markets. Churches, schools and nonprofits. Sports fixtures and gym timetables.

= How it compares =

Recurring events              free here          typical event calendar: paid tier
RSVP                          free here          typical event calendar: paid add-on
.ics export and import        free here          typical event calendar: paid add-on
Timezone-aware display        free here          typical event calendar: varies
Custom database tables        one narrow table   typical event calendar: several wide tables
Repeat dates generated ahead  12 months          typical event calendar: up to 60 months
jQuery required               no                 typical event calendar: usually yes

= Blocks, shortcodes and page builders =

Blocks: Event calendar, Event list — both with venue and organizer filters, a view picker and per-page limits in the sidebar.

Shortcodes for classic themes:

• [xodw_cc_calendar view="month"] — full calendar with navigation
• [xodw_cc_events limit="5"] — upcoming events list, ideal for a sidebar or footer
• [xodw_cc_rsvp event="123"] — RSVP form on its own
• [xodw_cc_add_to_calendar event="123"] — the add-to-calendar buttons

An optional thin Elementor widget is included and appears automatically when Elementor is active.

= Privacy first =

No external services, no tracking, no phoning home, no fonts or scripts loaded from a CDN. Everything runs on your server. The Google Calendar and Outlook buttons are plain links — nothing is sent anywhere until a visitor clicks one.

= For developers =

Namespaced XODW\CalendarCore\, procedural helpers prefixed xodw_cc_, hooks named xodw_cc_{module}_{action}, and a modular loader you can switch off per feature.

• Reading events uses the core REST endpoint wp/v2/xodw_cc_event; the plugin only adds what core cannot do (xodw-cc/v1/view, /occurrences, /rsvp).
• Filters: xodw_cc_recurring_dates, xodw_cc_recurring_horizon, xodw_cc_view_query_args, xodw_cc_render_view, xodw_cc_ics_export, xodw_cc_rsvp_form, xodw_cc_occurrence_data, xodw_cc_components.
• Actions: xodw_cc_recurring_generated, xodw_cc_rsvp_created, xodw_cc_ics_imported, xodw_cc_meta_normalized, xodw_cc_cache_flushed.
• One query wrapper for every view, with a transient cache invalidated by a single option bump.

Ticket sales, Google Calendar synchronisation and reminders are available in a paid edition at xodesignworks.com. Nothing above depends on it.

== Installation ==

1. In your admin, go to Plugins → Add New, search for CalendarCore and click Install now, then Activate. (Or upload the ZIP under Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.)
2. Go to Events → Add Event, type a title, pick a date and time, publish.
3. Add the Event calendar block to any page — or paste [xodw_cc_calendar] in a classic editor.
4. Optional: Events → Settings to choose which views are available, the accent colour, the timezone behaviour and the RSVP defaults.

That's it. No wizard, no account, no API key.

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= Are recurring events really free? =

Yes, all of them: daily, weekly with selected weekdays, monthly by date or by weekday position, yearly, custom intervals, skipped dates, and an end date or a number of repeats. This is the feature most calendar plugins charge for.

= Will it slow down my site? =

The stylesheet and script total 7 KB gzipped and load only on pages that show a calendar. Nothing is enqueued on your other pages. Event queries are cached, and the calendar reads from one narrow, indexed table.

= Does it create custom database tables? =

One, and it has three data columns: event_id, start_datetime, end_datetime. Titles, descriptions, venues, organizers and recurrence rules all live in the standard WordPress tables, so your database stays a WordPress database — and your backups, migrations and search plugins keep working.

= How far ahead are repeating dates generated? =

Twelve months, by default and by maximum. A twice-daily cron job extends the window as time passes, 200 events per run, so nothing ever times out.

= Can I import events from another calendar? =

Yes. Under Events → Import, upload an .ics file or paste a feed URL, preview what would happen, then import. Titles, descriptions, times, timezones, all-day flags, repeat rules, skipped dates, venues and organizers all come across. Every imported event remembers its UID, so re-importing updates those events instead of duplicating them.

= Which timezone do visitors see? =

Dates are stored in UTC and rendered in your site's timezone. If a visitor's timezone differs, the browser rewrites the times to their local zone — in your site's language — and says which zone is shown. You can turn this off in the settings.

= Does it work with block themes and full site editing? =

Yes. Both blocks render server-side, so they work in block themes, classic themes, template parts and patterns alike.

= Does it work with Elementor, Divi or other page builders? =

Yes — use the shortcode in any builder's text or shortcode widget. Elementor also gets a native widget automatically.

= Can visitors register for an event? =

Yes. Enable RSVP on the event, set a capacity if you want one, and visitors confirm attendance with the number of guests. Duplicate registrations are blocked, submissions are rate limited, and registrations can be held for approval. RSVP records are stored as WordPress comments of a private type, so exporting or erasing personal data works with the tools you already have.

= Does it sell tickets? =

Not in this plugin: there is no payment processing here. Ticket sales are part of the paid edition.

= Does it work with caching plugins? =

Yes, with no extra configuration. The RSVP counter is the only dynamic part and is fetched by the browser from an uncacheable endpoint after the cached page loads.

= Is it translation ready? =

Yes. All strings use the calendarcore text domain, so translations from translate.wordpress.org load automatically. Dates and weekday names follow your site language and your WordPress date format.

= Does it send any data to external servers? =

No. No tracking, no analytics, no remote fonts or scripts, no licence check in this edition.

== Screenshots ==

1. Month view, inheriting the theme's colours and typography.
2. The event editor: native date and time fields, recurrence rules, no jQuery datepicker.
3. Single event with add-to-calendar buttons and the RSVP form.
4. Event list view with venues and organizers.
5. Month view on mobile — events collapse into dots, tap a day for details.
6. Import screen: an .ics file or a feed URL, with a preview run.
7. Settings, grouped by module, with everything switchable.

== Changelog ==

= 1.0.0 =

• First public release.
• Events custom post type with venue and organizer taxonomies.
• Recurring events: daily, weekly, monthly (by date or weekday position), yearly, with intervals, skipped dates, an end date and a repeat count.
• Month, week, day and list views with no-reload navigation and a no-JavaScript fallback.
• Timezone-aware display via Intl.DateTimeFormat.
• .ics export per occurrence, calendar feed, Google Calendar and Outlook links.
• .ics import from a file or a URL, with UID matching and recurrence rules.
• RSVP with capacity, live counter, duplicate protection, honeypot and rate limiting.
• Gutenberg blocks Event calendar and Event list, four shortcodes, optional Elementor widget.
• Dark mode and theme.json colour inheritance.
• REST namespace xodw-cc/v1 plus computed fields on the core wp/v2/xodw_cc_event endpoint.

== Upgrade Notice ==

= 1.0.0 = First public release.