jQuery Datepicker Issue: Month and Year dropdowns in Internet Explorer Have to Click Twice

Introduction

While working on a legacy code base recently, I was facing an issue with the jQuery Datepicker.

For some reason, our customer's code is stuck with jquery-ui-1.8.13.custom.min.js. And the browser mandated for the application is Internet Explorer 9 with compatibility view with Internet Explorer 8 standards.

Issue

Load up a page with a Datepicker in it, with both the year and month dropdowns enabled. Click on one of the year/month dropdown lists, it appears and disappears. Click it again and it appears correctly.

After being clueless for a few minutes, I realized some event is getting triggered right after the click event that is causing the dropdown list to collapse. Then I noticed this:

<select class="ui-datepicker-year" onclick="DP_jQuery_1378903097959.datepicker._clickMonthYear
('#dp1378903097961');" onchange="DP_jQuery_1378903097959.datepicker._selectMonthYear('#dp1378903097961', this, 'Y');">

Reason

So the problem is jQuery Datepicker is binding two methods to the onchange and onclick events of the select. When I dug more, I found this:

_clickMonthYear: function(id) {
    var target = $(id);
    var inst = this._getInst(target[0]);
    if (inst.input && inst._selectingMonthYear) {
        setTimeout(function() {
            inst.input.focus();
        }, 0);
    }
    inst._selectingMonthYear = !inst._selectingMonthYear;},

Hack

So I figured a quick hack is to get rid of the onclick method body in the plugin code itself. I could do that in the minified file (do it only if you know what you are doing!). Then a co-worker showed an even lower impact change, which is to remove the setTimeout() function body portion only – which, if doesn't break any of your existing functionality, is better.

On searching more, I found that this is an issue with that version of the plugin tracked here but I am not sure which version has the fix.

Solution

Ideally, I should override the onclick method using something like this. I am yet to try it because I have the "we-will-refactor-later" syndrome.