OK but lacking

I am a mobile DJ and I want to put a calendar on my website to show customers when I am already booked (so they don’t waste their time requesting quotes for dates I am not going to be available).

This plugin appeared to be able to do what I wanted, but fell short in some ways — granted, I am probably being very picky and trying to stretch this plugin beyond its intended use, so take that with a grain of salt when reading this review. For most average uses, this plugin is probably a great solution.

The monthly grid view looks OK on a full-size PC, but when you squish the width of the browser down to mobile device size, the “responsive” mode changes event names to just a dot/bullet, which doesn’t really tell users much unless they click through (which I’d like to avoid).

The list view is the only other view offered. It’s similar to Google Calendar’s agenda view, but takes up a lot of vertical space. I’m sure this can be altered via CSS, but I just don’t have the time to bother with it.

I also thought it was a bit slow when loading from one month to the next. Most of my clients are looking for dates roughly a year or so into the future, so I’d prefer to give them a faster way to jump ahead to future months.

I was almost willing to overlook the above issues anyway, but the final test was when I tried to put the calendar shortcode into a “faq” page, where the calendar was in its own FAQ item and my contact form would be in a separate FAQ item. The items are collapsible (thanks to another plugin) so users can choose to open or close the calendar at will. However, both list and grid mode failed to display properly in this manner. Most notably, the buttons to move between months were missing.

So, plugin deleted and I’m off to find another solution.