About MessageDateField

The messageDateField component is a combination of the dateField component and messageLayout component.

The dateField component is a standard text field for entering dates, and a calendar button that launches a secondary window with a calendar for selecting a date. By default mesageDateField populates the secondary calendar window using calendarDialog.jsp and other JavaScript libraries provided by UIX in a specific location. You may change the location of the JSP by using the Configuration API.

Use the messageDateField component to insert a dateField component with a prompt and an optional message type icon before the text field. The inline message is placed below the text field. To add a component after the calendar button, use the end named child.

Note: The calendar button is not displayed on a PDA.

A user can specify date values in one of two ways:

Enter a date value in the field.
Select a date value from a secondary window that displays a calendar.

Use the maxValue and minValue attributes to define the maximum and minimum values allowed for the date value of the component.

To set an initial date in the date field, use the value attribute. The default format for the date field is the "short" date format for the current locale. In English, this is "mm/dd/yy". You can, however, override this format by using the date clientValidater element with onSubmitValidater:


Example in UIX XML:

<onSubmitValidater>
  <date pattern="yyyy/dd/MM"/> 
</onSubmitValidater>

The date element defines a client validater for specific date formats. The element has three attributes:

dateStyle - Supported values are: full, long, medium, shortish, short. Shortish is similar to short with the exception that four digits are used by the year.
timeStyle - Supported values are: full, long, medium, short.
pattern - Enter a pattern as defined by the Java SimpleDateFormat class.

By using onSubmitValidater and the date clientValidater element, you can control the following:

The set of date format patterns that are accepted by the date field
The formatting that the date field uses to display the date values

The name attribute of messageDateField must be set for validation to work properly.

In addition to general and message attributes, you can also set these attributes to fire events:

primaryClientAction - to fire an event when the text in the text input field changes
enterClientAction - to fire an event when the user presses the Enter key

Note: Use the inlineDatePicker component to insert an inline calendar that allows users to quickly select a date value without navigating to a secondary window.