# Android Week View: A dated but functional calendar widget for Java Android apps

> Android Week View is a Java library that renders week and day calendars with custom styling and infinite horizontal scrolling. It works, but its last release is from 2016 and it targets older Android tooling.

**alamkanak/Android-Week-View** — GitHub describes it as Android Week View is an android library to display calendars (week view or day view) within the app. It supports custom styling.. The repository metadata lists Java as its primary language. The metadata lists the Apache-2.0 license. This article stays within the project description and details documented in the GitHub repository README.

- Repository: https://github.com/alamkanak/Android-Week-View
- Stars: 3,440 · Forks: 1,218
- Language: Java
- License: Apache-2.0
- Published: 2026-08-13 · Updated: 2026-08-18 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/alamkanak-android-week-view

## What this library actually gives you

Android Week View solves a narrow problem: drawing a scrollable calendar grid inside an Android app, showing either a week or a single day. The README positions it as a library to embed in your own layout, not a standalone app. The target user is a Java developer building an Android app that needs a calendar view with events, and who wants to control colors, text sizes, and header appearance without building the grid from scratch. The feature list is short: week view, day view, custom styling, horizontal and vertical scrolling, and infinite horizontal scrolling. There is also a live preview of custom styling in the XML preview window, which is a nice touch for designers but only works if you use the library's custom attributes directly in your layout file.

## How the event loading mechanism works

The core data flow is event loading through a listener interface. You do not push events into the view once; instead you provide a callback that returns events for a given month. The README shows a MonthLoader.MonthChangeListener with an onMonthChange(int newYear, int newMonth) method that returns a List<WeekViewEvent>. The library then pre-loads three consecutive months of events to make scrolling feel smooth. This is a pull model: the view asks for data when it needs it, which is good for memory because you do not hold a year of events in memory. But it also means your event source must be able to answer month-by-month queries. If your data is not naturally organized by month, you will have to adapt it. The README also mentions a WeekViewLoader interface as an alternative to the month-based loader, but gives no example of how to implement it, so you are on your own there.

## Getting it running: dependency and first layout

Integration is straightforward if you are using Gradle. Add compile 'com.github.alamkanak:android-week-view:1.2.6' to your dependencies, or the Maven equivalent. Then put a WeekView element in your XML layout. The README shows a full example with attributes like app:eventTextColor, app:textSize, app:hourHeight, app:noOfVisibleDays, and app:headerRowBackgroundColor. You must also set a month change listener in Java, as shown in the README, to provide events. The sample app in the repository is the best reference for a complete setup. One caveat: the dependency uses the compile configuration, which is deprecated in modern Android Gradle Plugin versions. You will likely need to change it to implementation and possibly add a repository that hosts the artifact, because it is not on Google's Maven.

## Customization: XML attributes and dynamic setters

The library offers a long list of XML attributes for styling. You can set day background colors, header colors, hour separator thickness, event text size, and even separate colors for past and future days. The README lists more than 20 attributes, including showDistinctPastFutureColor and showDistinctWeekendColor for toggling those color schemes, and showNowLine with nowLineColor and nowLineThickness for drawing a line at the current time. All attributes also have getters and setters, so you can change the style at runtime. That is a real strength: you do not need multiple layouts for different themes. However, the attribute list is long and some names are verbose, so expect to refer to the documentation often. The README does not show the full XML snippet, so you may need to check the sample app to see how attributes like firstDayOfWeek and scrollDuration are used.

## Limitations and known gaps

The most obvious limitation is that the project has not been updated since January 2016. That means no fixes for newer Android versions, no Kotlin support, and no compatibility with AndroidX out of the box. The README's to-do list explicitly says that events spanning multiple days are not shown properly, which is a significant gap for any serious calendar app. Also, the month change listener was renamed in version 1.2.4: the README warns that WeekView.MonthChangeListener must become MonthLoader.MonthChangeListener. If you find older examples online, they will not compile. Another limitation is that the library is Java-only, so Kotlin projects will need to call it from Java interop, which works but feels dated. Finally, the README does not mention any testing or benchmark, so performance on large event lists is unknown.

## Alternatives and how they differ

The main alternative is the MaterialCalendarView library, which is also open source but takes a different approach: it focuses on month and range selection, not on a time-based week grid. If you need a full week view with hour slots and event overlays, Android Week View is closer to what you want. Another alternative is to build your own custom view using RecyclerView and a custom layout, which gives you full control but requires significant effort. The key difference in approach is that Android Week View gives you a ready-made grid with event drawing and scrolling, while the alternatives either give you a different calendar paradigm or require you to implement the grid yourself. If your app needs a month calendar with selection, MaterialCalendarView is a better fit. If you need a week view with events, this library is one of the few options, but you must accept its age.

## Maintenance and license considerations

The project is licensed under Apache-2.0, which allows commercial use, modification, and redistribution, provided you keep the copyright notice. That is a permissive license, so you can fork the code and fix bugs yourself. The maintenance cost is real: there are no recent releases, no issue tracker activity visible in the provided material, and the default branch is named develop, which suggests it was never promoted to a stable master. You will likely need to build the library from source if the Maven artifact is not available for your toolchain. The changelog shows a history of bug fixes, especially around overlapping events, but the last entry is 1.2.6 from 2016. If you adopt it, plan to maintain it yourself or be prepared to switch later.

## Conclusion

Adopt Android Week View if you need a self-contained week or day calendar in a legacy Java Android app and you can live with a 2016 codebase. Do not use it for new Kotlin projects or if you require multi-day event rendering, because the README lists that as unfinished. Before committing, verify that the library compiles against your target SDK and that the XML attributes you need still work in your layout inflater. The project is Apache-2.0, so you can fork and patch it, but you inherit the maintenance burden.

## FAQ

### What is Android-Week-View?

An Android library for displaying a calendar as a week view or a day view inside an app, with styling done through XML attributes. The artifact is `com.github.alamkanak:android-week-view` at version 1.2.6, of type aar, and a sample app is linked from the README.

### How do I provide events to Android-Week-View?

Implement `MonthLoader.MonthChangeListener`, whose `onMonthChange(int newYear, int newMonth)` returns a `List<WeekViewEvent>`, and pass it to the view with `setMonthChangeListener`. The calendar pre-loads events of three consecutive months to keep scrolling lag-free, so the loader is called for months the user is not currently viewing.

### Which version of Android-Week-View is current?

1.2.6, tagged as parent-1.2.6 on 2016-01-04, with parent-1.2.5 from 2016-01-02 and parent-1.2.4 from 2015-12-12 before it. The last push to the repository was on 2024-05-30 and the default branch is develop.

### How do I style Android-Week-View?

Through XML attributes on the `com.alamkanak.weekview.WeekView` element. Thirty-two are listed, including `noOfVisibleDays`, `hourHeight`, `headerRowPadding`, `firstDayOfWeek`, `nowLineColor` and `scrollDuration`, and each also has a getter and a setter so the style can change at run time.

### Can Android-Week-View show several days at once?

Yes. `noOfVisibleDays` is an XML attribute and the README's own layout example sets it to 3. A day view calendar is listed as a feature and a `firstDayOfWeek` attribute exists, though the README does not state which value of `noOfVisibleDays` produces a single day.

## Sources

- [Official README](https://github.com/alamkanak/Android-Week-View#readme)
- [Project repository](https://github.com/alamkanak/Android-Week-View)
- [Release notes](https://github.com/alamkanak/Android-Week-View/releases)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/alamkanak-android-week-view