# What are people using for date fields **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 11, 2006, 11:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-are-people-using-for-date-fields/98010 "2006-07-11T23:38:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sams)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 11:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-are-people-using-for-date-fields/98010/1 "2006-07-11T23:38:44Z")
I’m just curious about what techniques others have successfully used to capture date data on forms as an alternative to the standard date\_select. I have to admit I’ve been lazy and only used the date\_select as we have very few dates in our system now, but that is about to change. I would like something better. Any thoughts? – Thanks, Sam ---
**Author:** ![sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sams)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 1:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-are-people-using-for-date-fields/98010/2 "2006-07-12T01:02:56Z")
I’m actually on the hunt right now as well. I’ve briefly looked at the DateBox engine: [http://datebox.inimit.com/](http://datebox.inimit.com/) [http://rails-engines.org/wiki/pages/DateboxEngine](http://rails-engines.org/wiki/pages/DateboxEngine) The programming interface seems a bit awkward to me, though. For example: \<% @dateField = model.date %\> \<%= date\_box %\> Rather than something like \<%= date\_box “model”, “date”, { options } %\> It also seems to insist on outputting an integrated help box and additional date label, which I personally don’t want or need. However, the actual date picker is quite nice. Note that the SVN repository listed on the DateBox website is no longer active. I found an alternate repository here: Edge: [http://svn.rails-engines.org/datebox\_engine/trunk](http://svn.rails-engines.org/datebox_engine/trunk) 1.0.0: [http://svn.rails-engines.org/datebox\_engine/tags/rel\_1.0.0/](http://svn.rails-engines.org/datebox_engine/tags/rel_1.0.0/) -Eli ---
**Author:** ![sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sams)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-are-people-using-for-date-fields/98010/3 "2006-07-12T18:10:46Z")
Sam S. wrote: > Sam Hi Sam, I use text field and own parsing, so I can parse and display european date format DD.MM.YYYY. Bojan – Bojan M. Informatika Mihelac, Bojan M. s.p. | [www.informatikamihelac.com](http://www.informatikamihelac.com) → tools, scripts, tricks from our code lab: [http://source.mihelac.org](http://source.mihelac.org) ---
**Author:** ![sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sams)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-are-people-using-for-date-fields/98010/4 "2006-07-13T18:16:21Z")
Thanks Robert! Both popup\_calendar and date\_box use the same JS library, but I much prefer the way that popup\_calendar behaves like other form helpers and lets you set configuration options. However, it’s nice that date\_box is set up as an engine since it allows you to keep all of those extra .js, .css, and .gif files out of your main public folder. So I went ahead and converted popup\_calendar into an engine and it works great! I’ll test it for a few days and submit it… somewhere. If anyone would like me to just send them the code, let me know. -Eli ---
**Author:** ![sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sams)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 6:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-are-people-using-for-date-fields/98010/5 "2006-07-12T18:25:27Z")
I’ve used the helper that is found here: [http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/CalendarHelper](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/CalendarHelper) I had used the Dynarch calendar previously in some php applications. I had to do a little tweaking to get it how I wanted, however. (Having a displayed input with a user-friendly format and a hidden field for the mysql format, making it read-only and having a delete button, etc.) When all was said and done the code to use it was just like any other form helper: \<%= popup\_calendar ‘equipment’, ‘purchase\_date’ %\> It creates a read-only input with a calendar icon and delete icon. Behind the scenes is the actual hidden field that stores a mysql date. Also, the Dynarch calendar is open source, nice looking, and easy to use. (I did change some CSS for my use.) Here is the site: [http://www.dynarch.com/projects/calendar](http://www.dynarch.com/projects/calendar) Like I said, I did do some modifications, but it seems to work well for what I am doing. Robert ---
**Author:** ![sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@sams](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sams)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2006, 10:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/what-are-people-using-for-date-fields/98010/6 "2006-07-15T22:45:21Z")
Hey looks good any progress on that ? Eli Gordon wrote: > Thanks Robert! > > Both popup\_calendar and date\_box use the same JS library, but I much > prefer the way that popup\_calendar behaves like other form helpers and > lets you set configuration options. > > However, it’s nice that date\_box is set up as an engine since it > allows you to keep all of those extra .js, .css, and .gif files out of > your main public folder. > > So I went ahead and converted popup\_calendar into an engine and it > works great! I’ll test it for a few days and submit it… somewhere. > If anyone would like me to just send them the code, let me know. > > -Eli