date_time_text_field_helpers

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= date_time_text_field_helpers

Apart from possibly the longest plugin name ever, these are a set of form helpers that use text fields instead of select dropdowns the standard Rails date form helpers use. Each date/time component gets its own text field which enables quicker entry using the keyboard while still using the built in Rails multi-parameter field handling.

Something I like about this plugin (coz I wanted the feature) is that it always returns the user entered values when a form is redisplayed. This means that if the user enters garbage or an invalid date (requires date validation with the validates_timeliness plugin), when form is redisplayed the values are as the user entered. This is so they can understand what they stuffed up rather than just blank or a shifted date value which you get when you enter 30th February and have a date in March returned when using date_select. The shifted date is particularly dangerous if the user just clicks save again and doesn't pay attention.

== Features

• Allows easier keyboard entry of dates but with some constraint versus the open single text field approach.

• Easily add javascript behaviours to enable auto tabbing between fields (see javascripts folder in this plugin).

• Returns user entered values if form redisplayed due to invalid date to aid user correction.

• Harnesses the power of Ruby on Rails to maximize your potential to be the person you really want to be.

== Usage

So instead of:

date_select :person, :date_of_birth

or

time_select :person, :time_of_birth

or

datetime_select :person, :date_and_time_of_birth

use:

date_text_field :person, :date_of_birth

or

time_text_field :person, :time_of_birth

or

datetime_text_field :person, :date_and_time_of_birth

== Example

The helper return the date parts as text fields i.e.

date_text_field :person, :date_of_birth, :order => [:day, :month, :year], :blank => true

returns this for a new person record

== Options

Most of the options which can be used with the standard Rails date helpers apply including :order, :default, :include_seconds and so on.

A few new options are:

:date_separator - Sets the character displayed between the date components

:time_separator - guess

:date_time_separator - the separator between the date and the time parts

:blank - acts like :include_blank option to use blank fields rather than the default current date/time if the column has no value yet.

== Resources

• javascripts/date_time_field_autotab.js copy over to your apps javascripts folder or copy/paste into application.js

== Info

Site for the plugin is just the googlecode site http://github.com/adzap/date_time_text_field_helpers/

== Test/Specs

Only Rspec specs are included and can be run standalone outside a rails app

rake spec

== Credits

• It is mostly adapted from the Rails source so props to DHH et al.
• Adam Meehan (adam.meehan at gmail.com)

== Copyright/License

Copyright (c) 2008 Adam Meehan, released under the MIT license