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Re: Datepicker questions - are they useful?

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From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Nov 6, 2015 11:50AM

Thanks, those are all helpful. Luckily these are fairly simple to implement within any web UI.

Regarding the format, mm/dd/yyy or dd/mm/yyy, I agree it is confusing at times. This can be helped using supplementary description text or a placeholder at times.

Also, this can be addressed programmatically for some sites that span multiple countries. For example, the date format string for the WhatSock date picker simply uses a callback function when a date is selected, then the developer can use whatever parsing logic and string format they wish to populate the field, or even control the values of three individual select elements such as Day, Month, and Year, so this flexibility is easily achieved.

Typically I recommend both, the ability to manually enter the desired date, and an accessible date picker, because having both will ensure the greatest value for all user types.

> If you do the datepicker don't forget to style it so I can see it (one of the examples had a visual focus indicator of
> dark grey on black seemingly)

Probably my fault, I'm blind so this can slip past me at times. The source code is easily changed however for anybody who wishes to employ different styling and content.

All the best,
Bryan