Calendar Generator

Calendars are a world of hurt for many reasons. The modern calendar (Gregorian) wasn't even conceived until the 1500's (1582). Prior to that, there was the Julian Calendar. By the time the Gregorian was introduced to fix the compounding errors of the Julian, the calendar was out of phase with the seasons. When the Gregorian calendar was introduced, 10 calendar days were *omitted*. In America, 1752, the month of September was shortened by 11 days! Also, it took 300 years for the Gregorian calendar to be "universally" accepted/adopted (last country adopted it in 1927). Prior to the Gregorian calendar, Leap Years were every four years, no matter what. To correct the drift out of phase with the seasons, the Gregorian calendar has a leap year every four years *except* when the year is evenly divisible by 100 (century). And there is even an exception to that: if the century is even divisible by 400, then it IS a leap year. The year 2000 was a leap year, but 1900, 1800 and 1700 were not.

If Motion/FCPX could use JavaScript, I could adapt the many (many, many) calendars I've written over the past 20+ years.

With all of that in mind (and there is more, believe me!) I developed a calendar generator back in 2011 (never "officially" released). It seems to still work... LOL. You can download it here:

http://sight-creations.com/free_stuff/sc_calendar.zip

A few explanations:

1) this was made over 6 years ago [compatible with every version of FCPX!!]

2) I made it for myself and it's a little "over dressed" in its default presentation

// uses "3D" drop shadow and larger numbers than "fit" within the data grid -- all this stuff is customizable.

3) most of the parameters (and there are a lot of them, even by today's standards) are fairly self-explanatory, except:

4) at the very bottom of the parameter list is a Date Time parameter. This is used *solely* to determine the first day of the month and only matters if you select Show 1st Day (this will place the first day of the month, example: Thu for March 2018 at the top left of the calendar) Use this to assist you in setting up the calendar for any given month in history (or the future). Usually you will turn the Show 1st Day off again once you've set the calendar.

5) the default calendar is full screen... so... yuck. [It can be scaled, positioned and rotated (see "Cal Position, Cal Rotation, Cal Scale parameters near the bottom of the parameter list]

6) the calendar label (the text of month year) is *text*. You must type in the month and year (or whatever you want really); this is not parameter determined. You have "unlimited" range if you want -- even B.C. ( 😀 ) [No such thing!]

7) this calendar does not highlight Sundays. (I have another one, but it no longer works in FCPX - only Motion).

How this calendar works:

it's just a string of numbers that follow the formatting of rows and seven columns. You can use Days Adjust to change the length of the month (the minimum number of days is 22 but it will also depend on the First day — the minimum starting on a sunday is 28). This is set up like this because the smallest calendar is a February starting on Sunday. The smallest calendar is also only 4 rows and I've made rows adjustable (calendars can have 4, 5 or 6 rows depending...). (You can adjust the height of the calendar slightly with scaling - it will look a little stretched, but generally looks more acceptable if you keep calendar sizes somewhat consistent.)

There is a section where you can highlight a range of days (set Hilite Color, then Start and End; use Location to move the range of days over the days of the month (e.g., you're running a sale over several days, highlighting an event, etc.).

Take a little time to get to know the parameters. Once you find the settings you like - save it as a Compound Clip to use as a starting point for other projects. (You won't want to start from scratch every time). Just about everything you can think of is available to completely customize its appearance.

Turn on Show 1st Day, set the Date month and year to display day of week for day 1. Adjust number of days with Days Adjust to display the correct # of days; Use Trim To to set the number of rows. [Day Number > Animation controls is a divider]. Set Hilite Color. Start and End can be used to set the range, or set A range and use Location to (animate) move the range over the month of days. The next Scale parameter will scale the Hilited days.

There are parameters to adjust the position of the day numbers and the calendar label. Everything can be colored to taste. There's even an option to Emboss the numbers (works best with lighter colors and bolder fonts). The calendar label can be edited on screen or in the Text Inspector. (Be careful when working on screen because it is possible to drag the label off the calendar [and position it anywhere you like - for example, in the "empty space of the calendar 😉].

Hope you find this serviceable. I'm sorry I could not make this more "animatable" or automated over time. Without a programmable back end, it's just not possible (people who know how to program FxPlug could probably do it). There are many parameters you can animate in this generator, and you might be able to do a considerable amount of animation, but, the calendar labels are Text and each calendar will need to have a different "title text" applied, and that is not animatable. (If you have Motion, it would not be all that difficult to create a January to December switchable label with a slider and a Numbers generator can be animated to count years.)

Don't know off hand about one pre-made. I'd suggest you sign up at FCP.co and go look in the section of free templates. I'd also post in the Motion forum there asking if anyone knows of one, or has built one already. You'll be surprised, someone may just create one for the challenge.