Re: checking user input of MM-DD-YYYY

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On Jan 15, 2008 2:24 PM, Andrew Ballard <aballard@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Jan 15, 2008 2:05 PM, Brady Mitchell <mydarb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > I'm having users enter dates in MM-DD-YYYY format.  is there a way
> > > to check if what they have entered is invalid (like if they enter
> > > 1-15-2008 instead of 01-15-2008) ?
> >
> > Why not use something like http://www.dynarch.com/projects/calendar/
> > to make it easier for the users? Along with being easier, the widget
> > will format the input however you like. You can even have it displayed
> > to the user in one format and post it to your form in another format.
> >
> > Of course there should also be an alternative method  for those with
> > JS turned off, but my experience with users entering dates by hand has
> > been way too painful not to use a JS calendar widget.
> >
> > Just my two cents,
> >
> > Brady
>
> As a programmer, I tend to agree. However, I've worked with enough
> people who felt that the time required to move your hand from the
> keyboard to a mouse, click on what you want, and move back to the
> keyboard to continue entering data on the form took too long to be
> productive. This can be especially true for calendar widgets when you
> have to change years. (Try a calendar widget for birthdate field or
> something where you may have to set the year back more than 20 --
> especially if the GUI designer only made buttons to scroll 1
> month/year at a time.)
>
> Thinking back, I worked at one place about 8 years ago that had a
> regular Windows based GUI for the billing system. I was surprised to
> walk into a training class and see the instructor teaching the new
> hires how to enter information in the screens without using the mouse
> at all. (She hid the mice so they didn't have a choice.)
>
> On one of the last projects I worked on, we made all of our date
> fields with the popup calendars and made several of the text fields
> readonly (because we wanted users to use the calendars so we could
> reduce entry errors). After a while, we had so many requests to make
> the fields editable again that we did just that.


allowing free-form entry and the widget is nice, especially if proper
validation
is in place no matter what.  i have the dynarch widget on  the current app
im
building and it took 3 clicks to get my birthday.
one to open the widget
one to select the month
one to select the day
i dont think thats too bad (but i did know about the month ddl you can get
by
holding the mouse down over a portion of the widget).  going back 20 years
is
only 3 clicks away as well.

-nathan

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