MS Outlook style date edit control/date picker

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• Download demo project - 109 Kb

Screen Shots

How I arrived at this solution

The project I am currently working on is data entry intensive and I have used the opportunity to perform extensive usability testing on the application we are developing.  I have learned quite a bit from the experience, although I think the user sample I have to work with is somewhat limited.

In the process of user testing I uncovered numerous issues users were having using the application.  One of the problems users were having was entering dates and times.  At first, the application used a masked edit control.  I tried various masks for various users and basically discovered that any given user is likely to enter a date any one of many possible ways.  I could have just considered this a training problem but because this application will be shipped nation-wide (USA), this was not a good option.  I tried the date time picker control only to find that this slowed down data entry significantly.

I began looking at other applications and how they allow dates/times to be entered.  I focused in on MS Outlook since it has mass appeal (or at least mass distribution and usage.)  I discovered that MS Outlook allows dates to be entered in just about any valid format.  I also found that it allows for some interesting data entry situations as well. Try entering "2 weeks from now" in a date entry control in MS Outlook, also try using "Christmas" or "2 weeks before Christmas".  To my surprise, outlook correctly calculated the date.  It also dealt with some date calculation situations like "2 weeks from now + 3 days".

I looked around on the web for a control that worked this way to no avail.  Since my date entry problem was important, I took a day to try and simulate the MS Outlook functionality.  This is the result of that effort.

My Solution

My application is a MFC app, so I decided to derive a class off of COleDateTime and re-implement the ParseDateTime function to extend its abilities.  I created a COleDateTimeEx class.  This class implements many of the capabilities of the MS Outlook control (although not all).  Once I had this implemented, I wrote a CEdit derived class (CFPSDateTimeCtrl) to utilize the COleDateTimeEx class. The CFPSDateTimeCtrl control allows the user to enter a date in an open-ended fashion and then when the control looses focus, reformats the entered date into a specific format.

What it can do

The core text parser is contained entirely in the COleDateTimeEx class.  This class can deal with all of the situations the normal COleDateTime class can parse as well as the following situations.

DATE SITUATIONS
MMDDYY or YYMMDD	Example: 091601, 010123
MMDDYYYY	Example: 09162001
"today" or "now"
"yesterday"
"day before yesterday"
"tomorrow"
"day after tomorrow"
"next week"	7 days from today
"last week"	7 days ago
"Christmas" or "xmas" or  "x-mass" or "xmass" or "x mass"	December 25 of current year (if before 12-25) or 12-25 of next year otherwise.
"Christmas eve" or "xmas eve" or "x-mas eve" or "x-mass eve" or "xmass eve" or "x mass eve"	December 24 of current year (if before 12-24) or 12-24 of next year otherwise.
* Other holidays handled: New Years, New Years Eve, 4th of July, Easter, Good Friday, Ash Wednesday, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, and Presidents day.
"last [Day of Week]"	Example: "Last Sunday" or "Last Tuesday", etc.
"next [Day of Week]"	Example: "Next Sunday" or "Next Tuesday", etc.
"[X] days ago"	Note: Also works for weeks, months and years
"[X] days from now"	Note: Also works for weeks, months and years
"[X] [Day of Week] in [Month]"	Example: "2nd Sunday in December", "1st Tuesday in January", etc.
"[X] days from [N]" or "[X days after [N]"	Example: "2 days from Christmas", "2 days from 12/01/2002". Note: Also works for weeks, months and years.
"[X] days before [N]"	Example "2 days before Christmas", "2 days before 12/01/2001". Note: Also works for weeks, months and years.
"IN [X] days"	Example: "in 12 days", "in 30 days", etc. Note: Also works for weeks, months and years.
"[X] [Day of week] Ago"	Example: "2 Sundays ago", "4 Fridays ago"
"[X] [Day of Week] From Now"	Example: "2 Sundays from now", "4 Fridays from now"
Simple date arithmetic situations.	Example: "Christmas + 2 days", "New Years + 2 days", etc. Example: "Haloween - 2 weeks", etc.
TIME SITUATIONS
"noon"	12:00 PM
"midnight"	12:00 AM
"XXX" or "XXXX"	Example: "430", "515", "1625", "0710", etc.
"X" or "XX"	Example: "6", "7", "11", etc.
"[X] O'clock"	Example: 6 o'clock Note: Also works with "oclock" and "o clock"
"[X] minutes from now" or "[X] hours from now"	Example: "2 hours from now", "15 minutes from now", etc.
"[X] minutes ago" or "[X] hours ago"	Example: "2 hours ago", "15 minutes ago", etc.
"[X] minutes until [XXX]" or "[X] minutes till [XXX]" or "[X] till [XXX]" or "[X] until [XXX]"	Example: "15 minutes until noon", 20 minutes till 6", "10 minutes til 1300"
"[X] minutes past [XXX]" or "[X] minutes after [XXX]" or "[X] after [XXX]" or "[X] past [XXX]"	Example: "15 minutes after 6", "20 minutes past noon"
"Half past [XXX]"	Example: "Half past 6"

What it can't do

The MS Outlook control allows for some complex date calculations (like "2 days from now + 2 weeks + 1 month").  My implementation does not deal with this (although some limited arithmetic is supported.)

More importantly, my class is limited to English only.  In order to support other languages it would be necessary to write a completely new parsing function.  Because this is not needed for my application, I have not attempted to do this.

This class is not fully UNICODE compliant, although I don't believe it would be very difficult to make it UNICODE compliant.  Again, because this is not needed for my application, I have not attempted to do this.

How to use

Using this code is very easy.  If you just wish to use the parser and not the edit control, you only need to use COleDateTimeEx instead of COleDateTime.  The ParseDateTime function has been re-implemented to deal with the new situations.

If you wish to use the edit control, the simplest way to do this is to 

1. Setup the dialog/form resource as normal with an edit control where you want the date edit control to be.

2. Add the IDB_DATEPICKER_BUTTON bitmap (from demo project) to your project.

3. Add a member to your dialog/view/control class of type CFPSDateTimeCtrl. 

MyDialog.h
//

// a member of type CFPSDateTimeCtrl to be attached to an edit control

CFPSDateTimeCtrl m_wndDate;
CFPSDateTimeCtrl m_wndTime;

4. In the OnInitDialog (or OnInitialUpdate or OnCreate) function call the AttachEdit member function to subclass the existing edit control.  You will also probably want to call the SetParserOption and SetDisplayFormat functions.  The default parser options attempt both date and time parsing.  The default display format is %m%/d/%Y.  

MyDialog.cpp
//

BOOL CMyDialog::OnInitDialog()
{
   ... whatever else
  m_wndDate.SetShowPickerButton(TRUE);
  m_wndDate.AttachEdit(this, IDC_DATE);
  m_wndDate.SetParserOption(VAR_DATEVALUEONLY);
  m_wndDate.SetDisplayFormat("%m/%d/%Y");

  m_wndTime.AttachEdit(this, IDC_TIME);
  m_wndTime.SetParserOption(VAR_TIMEVALUEONLY);
  m_wndTime.SetDisplayFormat("%I:%M %p");
}

That's it.

I have found it pretty easy to use and have not had any complaints from users yet.  However, the application I use this code in is currently in "late-alpha" testing.  So there may well be some problems found as time goes on.  If problems are uncovered, I will correct the code and post the changes to CodeProject as quickly as I can.

The code

The code is not heavily commented, but the comments I believe are adequate to explain the code.  Basically, there are 2 key functions in the COleDateTimeEx class which you will probably want to look at.  These are the "EvaluateInputTextDate" and "EvaluateInputTextTime" functions.  These functions contain the actual parsing algorithms for date and time situations.  WARNING: These functions are basically a hard-coded set of the situations listed above.  As I mentioned earlier and in the code I did not have time to develop a rules-based engine for parsing date text.

Notes

This code is not perfect and not suited for all situations but at least for my project it has been very well received (especially by the end users.)  I would appreciate any comments you have to make regarding my implementation or code.  Thanks.

CHANGES INTRODUCED ON 01-26-2002

Added support for the date picker drop down.  See screen shots above for how it looks.  The control used for the calendar can be used separately from this control.  I have posted an article on CP with just this control and a demo project.  See it for more details.

The date picker control works in much the same way that the MS Outlook date picker control works. 

I am aware of one problem with the date picker option.  When the user drops down the calendar control, it is possible for the user to click on certain UI elements (frame controls) and the calendar control will not automatically be hidden.  This has not been a problem in my app so I have not attempted to correct this yet.  If you have a solution to this issue, please let me know.

CHANGES INTRODUCED ON 01-16-2002

Added methods for ease-of-use in code.

Previously the special time parser always interpreted numeric input as hours based from 7AM and on.  For example, if you entered 8, the parser considered this to be 8 AM, but if you entered 6, it recognized this as 6PM.

Daebi (see threads below) suggested and provided code for allowing options to control this functionality.  I incorporated the code (with some changes to make code more uniform) to allow this to work.  You can now use the SetHourOption and SetHourThreshold functions to control how the time parser handles hour numbers.  See the code for additional details.

Some users have reported having problems entering times with AM/PM indicators.  This was caused because instead of "AM", they entered "A.M." or some other variant.  The standard parser did not understand these.  I have modified the code to check for AM, PM variants and deal with them appropriately.

CHANGES INTRODUCED ON 01-09-2002

White space handling has been improved.

Now supports generic use of the "next", "this next", "last" and "this last" prefixes.  This allows for data entry in the form of "next easter", "next christmas", "last christmas", "last 4th of july".

Support has been added for year suffix situations like "easter 2005", "halloween 2005", etc.

Methods added to CFPSDateTimeCtrl  class. 

SetDate
GetDate

Finally, support has been added for shortcuts.  There are numerous built-in shortcuts, but these can be programmatically removed or modified.  The shortcuts currently supported are listed below.

Updates