Shortcode & block

Calendar ·4 min read ·Updated August 2026
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you want the exact shortcode syntax, the block equivalent, and the URLs the calendar navigates with.

The calendar ships as both a shortcode and a Gutenberg block. The block is dynamic: its markup is produced by the same server-side renderer the shortcode uses, so the two can never drift apart, and a calendar always reflects your events as they are today rather than as they were when the page was saved.

The shortcode

[venuera_calendar view="month" category="" show_past="no" max_events="12"]

Every attribute is optional; the values above are the defaults. Some working examples:

  • [venuera_calendar] – the month grid, current month, all categories.
  • [venuera_calendar view="list" max_events="5"] – the next five events, for a sidebar.
  • [venuera_calendar view="week" category="concerts,club-nights"] – this week, two categories only.
  • [venuera_calendar show_past="yes"] – an archive calendar including finished dates.
  • [venuera_calendar max_events="2"] – a tidy month grid: two events per day, the rest behind “+N more”.

The block

Search the inserter for Venuera Calendar. The inspector carries the same four options, with two conveniences the shortcode cannot offer:

  • Categories are a real multi-select built from your event categories, so there are no slugs to type or misspell. Categories with no published events are still listed, so you can build a page ahead of announcing its programme.
  • A live preview renders in the editor exactly as it will on the front end.

Behind the scenes the block stores the category as the same comma-separated slug string the shortcode uses, so switching between the two is lossless.

Every state has a URL

Moving through the calendar is plain links, not JavaScript. The previous, next and Today controls, the view switch, the category dropdown and the past-events toggle all navigate by adding query variables to the current page:

  • ?vcm=YYYY-MM – the month on show.
  • ?vcm_date=YYYY-MM-DD – the anchor date for the week view.
  • ?vcm_view=month|week|list – the active view.
  • ?vcm_cat=slug – the chosen category. Present but empty means the visitor picked All.
  • ?vcm_past=1 – include past events.

That has three practical consequences: a visitor can bookmark or share “March, concerts only”, the browser back button behaves, and the calendar renders in full for a crawler or a text browser before a single script has run. The front-end script only adds what genuinely needs it – the hover card and the “+N more” toggle.

Multiple calendars: the query variables apply to the page, so keep one interactive calendar per page. A second calendar on the same page is fine as a fixed “coming up” list, but both will respond to the same navigation.

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