Sure, now that I figured all that out AND posted the message, I find the
"defaultDate" option to be passed to the calendar...
from the docs:
defaultDate Date(yyyy, mm - 1, dd), Number Default: null
Set the date to display on first opening if the field is blank. Specify
either an actual date via a Date object, or relative to today with a
number, or null for today.
Now, I DID check the docs before everything, but I missed this one...
maybe I need to stop coding for the night... :)
Shawn
Shawn wrote:
> I just wasted an hour trying to figure out how to simply set the date
> for a datepicker from within code. So I'm posting what I've learned
> here hoping that I might save someone that hour themselves...
>
> What I was trying to do was to simply show a default date in my text
> box. I wanted to use the datepicker's methods so that a) I would have
> the same format as the results, and b) I wouldn't need to worry about
> creating a custom format method for the default that may or may not
> create a format that would work properly with the datepicker.
>
> The sample pages do not seem to have this demonstrated (it's late, so
> maybe I just missed it).
>
> Turns out the documentation is kinda correct. Doing this DOES work:
>
> $.datepicker.setDateFor("#mytextbox", new Date());
>
> But what it doesn't do is actually SHOW the date in your text box. To
> do that you have to do this:
>
> $("#mytextbox").val(
> $.datepicker.formatDate(
> "dd M yy",
> $.datepicker.getDateFor("#mytextbox")
> )
> );
>
> (NOTE, that should be one line, I broke it down so it would render half
> decent in my mail client that auto wraps text at 80 chars...)
>
> Doing the getDateFor() method does NOT honor the date format you've set
> for the date picker. This makes sense because you're likely to be doing
> calculations on this date and getting a raw date object back is best for
> that. So you have to take the date you retrieved and then filter it
> through the formatDate() method.
>
> My thoughts are that the setDateFor() method should update the related
> textbox. I can't think of any instances where this would cause problems
> (but it's late, and I'm tired.. :)
>
> So, hopefully this rambling post will help someone else trying to do the
> same.
>
> As an aside, I'm VERY happy to see the new formatting and parsing
> options. Good work Marc!
>
> Shawn
>
