Android Custom Calendar View Library – Setup and Integration

Adding a custom calendar view to your Android app improves usability and provides a rich user interface for displaying dates, events, and scheduling. Android doesn’t ship a powerful built-in calendar UI, so developers rely on custom calendar view libraries that offer more flexibility, appearance control, and advanced features.

This guide covers how to integrate, customize, and use a custom calendar view library in Android with real examples.

Why Use a Custom Calendar View in Android?

A custom calendar view library lets you:

• Show month, week, or date grids
• Customize how days are rendered
• Manage single, multiple, or range date selection
• Highlight or disable specific dates
• Hook into date selection events
• Provide horizontal or vertical calendar layouts

These features are essential when building apps such as booking, task planners, fitness trackers, or appointments.

Popular Android Calendar Libraries

There are several libraries you can use depending on your project needs:

Calendar by kizitonwose

• Highly customizable and flexible
• Supports month, week, and year modes
• Single, multiple, or range date selection
• Horizontal or vertical scrolling
• Custom day view with your own layout
• Ability to disable dates and set boundaries

This library uses RecyclerView under the hood so you can design day cells however you want.

Material-Calendar-View

• Material Design-inspired calendar view
• Built-in pickers: single date, multiple dates, and range picker
• Events icons and color customization
• Header and navigation support
• Easy to set min/max/disabled dates

This library is ideal when you want a ready-to-use Material design calendar with date selection and simple customization.

Simple CustomCalendarView

For lighter needs, CustomCalendarView provides:

• Monthly calendar grid
• Next/previous navigation
• Ability to adjust colors, day text, and title styles
• Custom fonts
• Show/hide overflow days from other months

Despite being simpler, it’s useful for apps that don’t require extreme flexibility.

Adding a Custom Calendar Library – Setup

Let’s integrate a common Android calendar library using Gradle.

Step 1 — Add MavenCentral and JitPack Repositories

In your settings.gradle or project build.gradle:

dependencyResolutionManagement {
    repositories {
        google()
        mavenCentral()
        maven { url "https://jitpack.io" }
    }
}

Step 2 — Add the Calendar Library Dependency

For the calendar library (e.g., kizitonwose Calendar):

dependencies {
    implementation "com.kizitonwose.calendar:view:latest-version"
}

Use the latest version available from the library’s releases page.

Adding Calendar View in XML

Include the calendar in your layout like a regular view:

<com.kizitonwose.calendarview.CalendarView
    android:id="@+id/calendarView"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:cv_orientation="vertical"/>

You can also specify optional attributes such as:

• cv_dayViewResource — layout resource for each day cell
• cv_monthHeaderResource — layout for month header
• cv_scrollMode — paging or continuous scroll

Customizing Day Views

Create a custom day layout (e.g., calendar_day_layout.xml):

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/calendarDayText"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:textSize="16sp"/>

Bind this layout to your calendar view:

calendarView.dayBinder = object : DayBinder<DayViewContainer> {
    override fun create(view: View) = DayViewContainer(view)
    override fun bind(container: DayViewContainer, day: CalendarDay) {
        container.textView.text = "${day.date.dayOfMonth}"
    }
}

This delegate approach gives full control over how each day is rendered.

Handling Date Selection and Listeners

To react to user selections:

calendarView.setOnDateClickListener { date ->
    Toast.makeText(context, "Selected: $date", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show()
}

You can programmatically scroll to specific dates or months:

calendarView.scrollToMonth(yearMonth)

These utilities help build interactive calendars with custom behavior.

Customizing Appearance and Behavior

You can:

• Show or hide weekends
• Change day colors for specific events
• Add event indicators
• Disable future/past dates
• Use custom fonts, backgrounds, and styles

Most libraries provide XML attributes and programmatic setters for these customization options.

Best Practices (Senior Android Insights)

From real production experience:

✔ Always use RecyclerView-based calendar libraries for performance on large datasets
✔ Customize day layout ng for consistent theming across your app
✔ Handle locale settings (first day of week, date formats) for global users
✔ Combine calendar UI with backend event APIs for dynamic event highlighting
✔ Test with different screen sizes and orientations

These practices make your calendar UI scalable, accessible, and maintainable.

Common Issues and Solutions

Calendar not showing correct days
➡ Verify date range setup and first day of the week settings.

Performance lag with large datasets
➡ Use libraries that support RecyclerView under the hood.

Event markers not updating
➡ Notify calendar of changes and refresh specific days programmatically.

Summary

A custom calendar view library dramatically improves the date management UI in your Android apps. Whether you need a simple Material calendar (Material-Calendar-View), a powerful and customizable grid (kizitonwose Calendar), or lighter solutions (CustomCalendarView), adopting a library saves development time and ensures a polished UX.