I have a simple data entry form with a date/time field.
My end users (web newbies) have found another interesting way to confound
the most clear and straightforward instruction I can devise regarding it's
(obvious?) use.
I watched an end user type an entire time into the hour component without
tabbing over to the minute.
So, I'd like to suggest a minor change to
extensions.yui.calendar.DateTimeField.html to add the maxlength="2" to the
current size="2" on the hour/min input controls.
I think it might be a simple way to give earlier feedback (I've found it
unwise to rely on instructions like "Please enter dates and times like
this..." ).
I know I could accomplish this for my own instances, perhaps with a copy of
this modified html in a spot higher in the classpath, or maybe an attribute
modifier someplace..., but then I thought what is the downside of making it
the default? Sure, it would impact a lot of code, but unless some locale
I don't know of has 3 digit minutes, I don't think in a negative way --- I
was suprised to find no other similar past discussion; perhaps there is
some obvious reason this isn't a good idea? I can't be the first one to
think of this, can I?
Cheers,
Jim
In case all that's not clear, here's what I mean in code:
MyPage.html
<span wicket:id="eventOn">MM/DD/YYYY [picker] HH MM [amPM]</span>
MyPage.java
add(new DateTimeField("eventOn"));
DateTimeField.html in wicket-datetime-1.5-RC5.1.jar
<wicket:panel xmlns:wicket="http://wicket.apache.org";>
<span style="white-space: nowrap;">
<input type="text" wicket:id="date" size="12" />
<input type="text" wicket:id="hours" size="2" *maxlength="2"* />
<span wicket:id="hoursSeparator"> :</span>
<input type="text" wicket:id="minutes" size="2" *maxlength="2"* />
<select wicket:id="amOrPmChoice"></select>
</span>
</wicket:panel>
