Initialization

To use dhtmlxCalendar in your application, you need to take the following simple steps:

Download the dhtmlxCalendar package and unpack it into a folder of your project
Include source files
Initialize Calendar with the object constructor
Select initial date (optional)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>How to Start with dhtmlxCalendar</title>         
        <script type="text/javascript" src="../../codebase/calendar.js"></script>
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../codebase/calendar.css">
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="calendar_container"></div>
        <script>            // creating dhtmlxCalendar 
            var calendar = new dhx.Calendar("calendar_container");
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

Include source files

Create an HTML file and place full paths to JS and CSS files of dhtmlxCalendar into the header of the created file. The Calendar component can be used standalone or as a part of the Suite library.

If you use dhtmlxCalendar standalone, you need to include 2 files:

calendar.js
calendar.css

<link type="text/css" href="../codebase/calendar.css">
<script src="../codebase/calendar.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

If you use dhtmlxCalendar as a part of the Suite package, you need to include JS/CSS files of the dhtmlxSuite library:

suite.js
suite.css

<link type="text/css" href="../codebase/suite.css">
<script src="../codebase/suite.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Initialize Calendar

You can initialize Calendar in a container or in a popup.

Initialization in a container

In this case you initialize Calendar with the dhx.Calendar object constructor. The constructor takes two parameters:

the HTML container for Calendar,

<div id="calendar_container"></div>

an object with configuration properties (see the full list below). If this argument is not passed to the constructor, the settings will be default.

calendar.html

// creating dhtmlxCalendar
var calendar = new dhx.Calendar("calendar_container",{
   // config options
});

Initialization in a popup

This variant pressupposes that you create a popup first and then attach a calendar into it, thus creating a date picker.

create an input to enter a date into and give it the id "date-input":

<input type="text" id="date-input" style="width: 200px;" readonly/>

use corresponding object constructors to create a calendar and a popup objects. Note that in this case null is used instead of container for Calendar:

var calendar = new dhx.Calendar(null, {dateFormat: "%d/%m/%y"});
var popup = new dhx.Popup();

attach the calendar to the popup using the attach method of Popup:

popup.attach(calendar);

use the show method of Popup inside a click handler to define that a popup with calendar will open on click in the "date-input" input:

var dateInput = document.getElementById("date-input");
dateInput.addEventListener("click", function() {
    popup.show(dateInput);
});

define the logic of closing the popup with calendar using the hide method of Popup. For example, on selecting a new date in the calendar:

calendar.events.on("change", function() {
    dateInput.value = calendar.getValue();
    popup.hide();
});

Configuration properties

There is a list of properties that you can specify in the Calendar configuration object (the second parameter of the constructor function):

css - (string) adds style classes for the component
date - (Date) defines the date that will be opened when the calendar is created, differs from the selected date (set by value)
dateFormat - (string) defines the format of dates in the calendar, "%d/%m/%y" by default
disabledDates - (function) allows disabling some date intervals, day labels are dimmed
mark - (function) adds a CSS class to specific days
mode - (string) specifies the mode of displaying a calendar: "calendar" (default), "month", "year"
range - (boolean) enables/disables the possibility to select a rang of dates on the calendar
thisMonthOnly - (boolean) hides dates of the previous/next months relative to the currently displayed one
timeFormat - (number) defines the time format of a timepicker: 12-hour or 24-hour (12 or 24 (default), correspondingly)
timePicker - (boolean) adds a timepicker into a calendar, false by default
value - (Date|Date[]|string|string[]) selects a day in a calendar (adds a round blue marker)
weekNumbers - (boolean) defines whether to show the numbers of weeks, false by default
weekStart - (string) sets the starting day of the week: "monday" or "sunday" (default)
width - (string) sets the width of the calendar, "250px" by default

The detailed information on configuration options can be found in the Configuration article.

Select initial date (optional)

You can specify what date should be selected in the calendar both before and after initialization of the component:

via the value configuration option:

calendar.html

var calendar = new dhx.Calendar("calendar_container", {
    value: new Date(2019,1,10)
});

with the help of the setValue method:

calendar.html

var calendar = new dhx.Calendar("calendar_container", {
    // configuration options
});
calendar.setValue(new Date(2019,1,10));