Finding the Right Online Calendar
You likely realized very early on in your search for a new online calendar that there are a lot of them.
The following highlights a few areas that make Helios unique in comparison to the other calendars you've met, or will meet,
in your search.
For a detailed list of features please visit the Helios Calendar features overview.
While there are many PHP event scripts (more about event scripts vs event software here) Helios Calendar has established itself a unique position in the world of online calendars. The fact that it utilizes open source server technologies makes it very affordable for the budget conscious, while it's feature richness and quality development compets with, and most often beats, far more expensive event publishing systems.
A grid calendar layout works well for personal calendars because most people have a very small number of events each day (meetings, appointments, etc) and they are generally concerned with the near future, the coming week or through the end of the current month.
Event publishers (that's you) often have either many events each day, or events that spread over a large period of time. With a grid layout this means that many events are "shoehorned" into a very small space or that there are many blank days that users must navigate through to find events. With Helios Calendar's list it allows you to publish many events in an easy to navigate format, or list your events together on the same page for a very large time window.
This flexibility makes it easier for your calendar users to find the events they are interested in.
Standards compliance is important for two reasons:
For a detailed list of features please visit the Helios Calendar features overview.
PHP and MySQL Calendar
Helios Calendar is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database. This allows you to use Helios on the wide variety of server configurations that PHP and MySQL are available, not limiting you to a single operating system. Not only are there dozens of high quality, very affordable hosts that provide PHP and MySQL hosting, but it is also very cost effective for businesses and organizations who choose to maintain their own hosting environment.While there are many PHP event scripts (more about event scripts vs event software here) Helios Calendar has established itself a unique position in the world of online calendars. The fact that it utilizes open source server technologies makes it very affordable for the budget conscious, while it's feature richness and quality development compets with, and most often beats, far more expensive event publishing systems.
Break Out of the Grid
One of the first things you'll notice about Helios Calendar is that it doesn't follow a traditional grid, or "wall calendar", layout.A grid calendar layout works well for personal calendars because most people have a very small number of events each day (meetings, appointments, etc) and they are generally concerned with the near future, the coming week or through the end of the current month.
Event publishers (that's you) often have either many events each day, or events that spread over a large period of time. With a grid layout this means that many events are "shoehorned" into a very small space or that there are many blank days that users must navigate through to find events. With Helios Calendar's list it allows you to publish many events in an easy to navigate format, or list your events together on the same page for a very large time window.
This flexibility makes it easier for your calendar users to find the events they are interested in.
Standards Compliance
Helios Calendar supports XHTML 1.0, XHTML-MP 1.2, CSS 2.0, RSS 2.0, iCalendar 1.0 & 2.0 and Live Clipboard 0.92. While you don't, necessarily, need to know what all of the preceding gibberish means, you should know why it's important.Standards compliance is important for two reasons:
- Should you decide to customize Helios (with a template, or by modifying it's source code) your developer/designer will be able to begin working with Helios quickly and institute your customizations easily, saving you time and money.
- Helios Calendar's close adherence to standards compliance means that your calendar users will have the same quality online calendar experience each time they use it, regardless of their web browser or platform preferences.
As seen on...
