jQuery UI Datepicker

Overview

The jQuery UI Datepicker is a highly configurable plugin that adds datepicker functionality to your pages. You can customize the date format and language, restrict the selectable date ranges and add in buttons and other navigation options easily.

By default, the datepicker calendar opens in a small overlay onFocus and closes automatically onBlur or when a date is selected. For an inline calendar, simply attach the datepicker to a div or span.

You can use keyboard shortcuts to drive the datepicker:

  • page up/down - previous/next month
  • ctrl+page up/down - previous/next year
  • ctrl+home - current month or open when closed
  • ctrl+left/right - previous/next day
  • ctrl+up/down - previous/next week
  • enter - accept the selected date
  • ctrl+end - close and erase the date
  • escape - close the datepicker without selection

Utility functions

Localization

Datepicker provides support for localizing its content to cater for different languages and date formats. Each localization is contained within its own file with the language code appended to the name, e.g. jquery.ui.datepicker-fr.js for French. The desired localization file should be included after the main datepicker code. They add their settings to the set of available localizations and automatically apply them as defaults for all instances.

The $.datepicker.regional attribute holds an array of localizations, indexed by language code, with '' referring to the default (English). Each entry is an object with the following attributes: closeText, prevText, nextText, currentText, monthNames, monthNamesShort, dayNames, dayNamesShort, dayNamesMin, weekHeader, dateFormat, firstDay, isRTL, showMonthAfterYear, and yearSuffix.

You can restore the default localizations with:

$.datepicker.setDefaults($.datepicker.regional['']);

And can then override an individual datepicker for a specific locale:

$(selector).datepicker($.datepicker.regional['fr']);

The localization files are also available in the UI svn: http://jquery-ui.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ui/i18n/

Dependencies

  • UI Core

Example

A simple jQuery UI Datepicker.

$("#datepicker").datepicker();

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <link href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/themes/base/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
  <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5/jquery.min.js"></script>
  <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
  
  <script>
  $(document).ready(function() {
    $("#datepicker").datepicker();
  });
  </script>
</head>
<body style="font-size:62.5%;">
  
<div id="datepicker"></div>

</body>
</html>

Options

Events

Methods

Theming

The jQuery UI Datepicker plugin uses the jQuery UI CSS Framework to style its look and feel, including colors and background textures. We recommend using the ThemeRoller tool to create and download custom themes that are easy to build and maintain.

If a deeper level of customization is needed, there are widget-specific classes referenced within the jquery.ui.datepicker.css stylesheet that can be modified. These classes are highlighed in bold below.

Sample markup with jQuery UI CSS Framework classes

<div id="ui-datepicker-div" class="ui-datepicker ui-widget ui-widget-content ui-helper-clearfix ui-corner-all ui-helper-hidden-accessible">
   <div class="ui-datepicker-header ui-widget-header ui-helper-clearfix ui-corner-all">
      <a class="ui-datepicker-prev ui-corner-all">title="Prev"><span class="ui-icon ui-icon-circle-triangle-w">Prev</span></a>
      <a class="ui-datepicker-next ui-corner-all" title="Next"><span class="ui-icon ui-icon-circle-triangle-e">Next</span></a>
      <div class="ui-datepicker-title">
         <span class="ui-datepicker-month">January</span><span class="ui-datepicker-year">2009</span>
      </div>
   </div>
   <table class="ui-datepicker-calendar">
      <thead>
      <tr>
         <th class="ui-datepicker-week-end"><span title="Sunday">Su</span></th>
         ...
      </tr>
      </thead>
      <tbody><tr>
         <td class="ui-datepicker-week-end ui-datepicker-other-month "> 1 </td>
         ...
      </tr>
      </tbody>
   </table>
   <div class="ui-datepicker-buttonpane ui-widget-content">
      <button type="button" class="ui-datepicker-current ui-state-default ui-priority-secondary ui-corner-all">Today</button>
      <button type="button" class="ui-datepicker-close ui-state-default ui-priority-primary ui-corner-all">Done</button>
   </div>
</div>

Note: This is a sample of markup generated by the datepicker plugin, not markup you should use to create a datepicker. The only markup needed for that is <input type="text" /> or <div></div>.