From Dead Code to Company: The FullCalendar JavaScript Lib Turns 10 | Hacker News Reader

From Dead Code to Company: The FullCalendar JavaScript Lib Turns 10

fullcalendar.io

172 pointsadmanrs26 comments

I've been using FullCalendar in production since 2014. It's very good. I maintain a clone of patio11's appointmentreminder.org for the Austrian market [3]. My customers, doctors, use an FC-based web calendar I provide them with to manage their appointments. Their receptionists literally use the calendar, and thus FC, all day. I get calls if it's down for 5 minutes. They totally depend on it.

I have two open source extensions for FC. One is a plugin for better right-click handling [1]. The other adds multiple columns [2]. It's like the new scheduler functionality, mentioned in the post, which didn't yet exist when I started.

Thank you Adam!

1: https://github.com/mherrmann/fullcalendar-rightclick

2: https://github.com/mherrmann/fullcalendar-columns

3: https://www.terminerinnerung.org

I absolutely love the way the docs page is setup: https://fullcalendar.io/docs

Nice design and useful section links.

That makes me really happy because it felt like somewhat of a design risk at the time.

This is a brilliant way of doing it.

It makes perfect sense to me. I love the graphics that illustrate what the docs relate to. I don't need to do a lot of prior reading to grasp the lexicon being used.

You've nailed the icon design, that's really hard to do right.

I've never used FullCalendar, however that is an excellent docs layout. Immediately obvious. Very well done.

This library was a key part of the product for a software company I co-founded a few years ago. I found full calendar to be the best of the alternatives for a full featured, affordable calendaring system that was open source and was stable enough to build a company on. (We looked at alternatives like Google calendar but I was nervous about lack of control should Google have decided to take the calendar API a different way.)

This history lesson was illuminating and appreciated.

Never used fullcalendar before, but I am really enjoying reading all the love letters in the comments here. It must feel great for the author to read these.

Not only have you built something that supports a couple of livelihoods, you've also enabled a lot of other people to succeed too. Cheers!

I remember making a calendar ... What week-nr does the first day of the year have? ... If that one was easy, now tell me the formula for when certain holidays occur.

I just built a table, calculated for the next 100 years, times specified locally. No formula, just lookups.

"I’ve really been working on FullCalendar for TEN years!? What have I been doing all this time? Just endlessly switching build systems? (Make -> Grunt -> Gulp -> Webpack -> Rollup)" (for those who read the comments before reading the article the author is ironic) but as someone who followed the same path I'm asking myself how many hours have been lost worldwide because of javascript build systems

Great work Adam! Thanks for the great library. I enjoyed the blog post, it's cool to hear the history, and how the project got to where it is. The application I maintain at my job depends on Full Calendar, it has been a pleasure to work with. Highly recommend, & I would use it again if the need ever arises!

Could OP (or anyone else who feels qualified, I guess) give me their opinion on a perpetual license as opposed to an annual license?

I have been considering building some licensed software and I had it in my head to offer an annual license to get at that recurring revenue, but...since it's client-only software (e.g. a game engine) that doesn't need to be making any API calls to my servers, I'm wondering if maybe that doesn't make any sense. I don't know...I've never made licensed software before and so I've never really thought about this. I guess I worry with a perpetual license that I'll run out of customers after enough people have got their hands on it. Maybe that's crazy, I don't know.

Also I would have no idea how to price a license...how did you arrive at your prices?

As long as you provide continued support for a product and iterate on it there is nothing wrong with charging a monthly fee. Perpetual licensing could make sense in the early stages of your company as a means of raising money but I think the subscription model is better for maintaining a predictable monthly income.

Most of my competitors (who provide client-side-only libs) were doing perpetual licensing, so I followed suit. However, there IS a recurring aspect: the customer gets email support and version upgrades for only a year. Then they must renew. It's opt-in, but I nudge them with email reminders.

I've seen a number of client-side-only products that ARE subscription (like Sencha), but they seem more general-purpose, like a framework. Something developers at a company would use everyday for everything. FullCalendar felt like more of a plug-n-play widget, not as pervasive.

Maybe your product is somewhere in between. It's pretty arbitrary nonetheless.

just started using them recently for a rails project I've been working on. I cannot recommend this project enough, saved me hundreds of hours.

if you want a crash course in implementing it in a rails app, look no further then these 2 AWESOME drifting ruby episodes:

https://www.driftingruby.com/episodes/fullcalendar-events-an...

https://www.driftingruby.com/episodes/recurring-events-with-...

That's really great to hear! FYI, there's been a lot of updates to FC's API since those posts, including removing jQuery.

Also, recurring events are built-in https://fullcalendar.io/docs/recurring-events A backend is no longer necessary for expanding the instances.

We've been using Full Calendar as part of our startup, and really really appreciate all the work Adam has put in. We honestly couldn't build some features if FC wasn't around - so thanks!

Congrats on a great product. I developed an SAAS calendar service - https://www.chronoflocalendar.com - which alas has not proved very successful, thus far. So is heartening to hear that it is possible to make a living out of calendar software. There is hope for me yet!

I would fix your site design first. It's really hard to read your content. (the background is really busy and has contrast issues with the text) This is low hanging fruit though, but someplace to start.

How about a Premium feature list on the pricing page?

I remember using FullCalendar when it was a jQuery plugin about 8-9 years ago, it was slick and it worked very well.

Thank you for doing this.

I love FullCalender! I've been using it for the past 4 years and have made a few scheduling apps with it.

I've used fullcalendar in several projects. Thank you so much for this :)

FullCalendar is excellent- it's a part of Study Swami. Thank you, Adam, and congratulations!

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