Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Joe Curious — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:49:41 GMT

Are you going to include this in the next Excel version?

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Sam Rad — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:35:48 GMT

Joe Curious - I don't think we would include this exact add-in if we did something ... and if we do something still remains to be seen, not sure if we know the demand for a feature like this (David Gainer would know better than I).

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

d.volans — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:38:15 GMT

your date picker is very useful!

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Charles Miles — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:50:59 GMT

Your date picker looks interesting so I was really interested in reading and learning from your code - but it seems like the vba project is password protected? Any chance that will change?

Thanks,

Charles

charles@cmiles.info

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

arun.philip — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:31:20 GMT

I like the warning text idea. It also shows you've fully thought through the various usage scenarios.

My only gripe is a minor one - the look and feel doesn't gel in with the rest of the Office 2007/Ribbon look.

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Sam Rad — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 22:53:12 GMT

d.volans - thanks!

arun.philip - thanks! I haven't touched the UI or colors since 2005, so I haven't really updated it to match with all the new fancy Office 2007 stuff.

Charles Miles - Possibly ... I'll have to dig up the source, I haven't touched it in a while, so I think its on an external HD somewhere at home. On creation, I type in a long random password and obfuscate the code. Maybe the source could be another blog entry.

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Colin Banfield — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:07:15 GMT

Sam, thanks for this useful date picker. For the next version of Excel, I'd like to see a date picker incorporated into Data Validation. A date picker would be a natural pop-up for an input cell(s) with a validation criterion of "Date."

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

date picker user — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 07:57:56 GMT

There is also a nice calender utility that navigates with keyboards too from below site of Shah.

http://in.geocities.com/shahshaileshs/

Thanks,

date picker user

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

chris h — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:30:13 GMT

date picker is great! just a minor remark:

In the date picker, if one selects the month drop down, the currently selected month (i.e. august) is highlighted. But if one changes one's mind at that point, or if you have clicked on the month drop down by error, you cant exit the drop down while keeping august selected. (datepicker apparently waits for a new input)

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Neil — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 13:14:41 GMT

I'd echo the previous comments that this looks impressive, and add that I've seen requests for datepickers so many times on Excel forums, that this should either be included in future versions, or made widely available.

Seeing the source code would also be a big help, as I've recently built something similar so that my users wouldn't have to enter dates manually into userforms.

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

AdamV — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:44:58 GMT

Two comments:

This is great!

however, a date changed by the date picker does not apear in the undo list as far as I can see, which makes it something I would not give to some users. Changing the wrong date in (say) a forecasting tool could have huge consequences, being able to use "undo" is pretty vital. If it's too hard to do this through the built in feature (which I would find odd) then an internal system to track these changes and provide a choice in the pop-up window of "revert to previous value" would be perfect.

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Rich Williams — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:35:47 GMT

Great tool - I like its ability to show "Back" and "Forward" number of days away from the current date.

This would be a handy tool for Outlook Appointments!

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Jan Karel Pieterse — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:22:36 GMT

Nifty tool.

One point of criticism: I'm not fond of advising people to put the file in XLSTART.

I would have built a real addin (.xla) as opposed to a hidden xls so you can enable it when you need it in Tools, Addins.

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Charles Miles — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 04:07:23 GMT

I hope you do show the source at some point - always educational to look at the code for useful interesting projects like yours.

I am curious why you "type in a long random password and obfuscate the code" on creation of the project - do you do that on every project? Just curious!

Thanks,

Charles

charles@cmiles.info

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Sam Rad — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 19:45:07 GMT

Colin Banfield - nice, I would imagine it in data validation as well.

date picker user - thanks for the link!

chris h - thanks! I'll have to fix that if I ever get to editing it again.

Neil - thanks!

AdamV - thanks! yeah I should add to the undo stack, I'm not sure how to off the top of my head, but I remember seeing example VBA code somewhere that did it.

Rich Williams - I'll mention it to the outlook team!

Jan Karel Pieterse - thanks! it is an XLA, so if you want to put it in a different directory and load it through the add-in manager it should work. XLSTART is just how I was doing it. Though for some reason when i goto download the XLA IE says its an XLS ... ?

Charles Miles - only some projects, I don't think there was a special reason for it back then (at least I can't remember one).

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

dbowe — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:27:46 GMT

Hi,

It's a really really well designed tool. I think the only problem is the way it's applied. I strongly agree with other reader that you should be able to apply it as a validation control. It's uses become limited when you need a date or the text 'date' in a sell above the desired cell. Is there any plan to extend the functionality to implement this. Or can you make your code open for extension by other people??

Again, brilliant control. I really like the UI. thanks

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Hanan — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 12:30:46 GMT

Hi,

It really a great tool.

I am using right to left user interface (Hebrew UI)and if I click on the toolbar button, the calender is cut on the right side of the screen so I can't pick the year from the combo box or to click of the option button.

thanks,

Hanan

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Jan Karel Pieterse — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:55:52 GMT

Sam: I have the same experience, clicking the link somehow convinces IE that it has an xls file to save, not an xla. On my site that kind of trouble does not exist because I tend to create zip files for download.

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Johan De Schutter — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:36:25 GMT

Hello,

I have a few questions.

1)How did you put the icon next to the date? Did you use vba? Is this icon a shape? Could you give a code example?

2)How did you create the date picker? Is it also a shape, or is it maybe a modified userform? Or maybe some activeX-component? Could you give a code example?

3)Could you post the source code (or parts of the source code). The icon and the date picker are very nice looking and useful features. It is really an extra to the user interface (data validation, userforms) of Excel.

thanks,

Johan zendjohan AT hotmail DOT com

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Sam Rad — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:44:47 GMT

dbowe - Yeah more detection on when to show the icon in the grid and integration with data validation stuff would be sweet. Just to note: in the scenario “above the cell”, you can still right click the cell and put the date in :-) I’ll work on sharing out the code.

Hanan - Thanks! I didn't test international scenarios at all on the control, looks like a bug :)

Jan Karel Pieterse - Strange, I'm wondering if the XLA -> XLS thing is an IE issue or a website issue. Either way putting it in a zip is probably the way to go.

Johan De Schutter -

1) What is the icon - the icon is a shape with a picture in it. On load, if I remember correctly, I dump out an image to the temp directory that is the picture of the calendar, then use it on the shape.

2) What is the date picker - It’s a VBA user form with labels, combo boxes, and images. If I remember correctly (again), I use some API’s to hide the title bar and fade in and out the user form. Each day is a label and the background of the form is an image.

3)Share the code – I’ll get on it and take a pass through my backup hard drives, sounds like multiple folks would want to take a peek at it … or even better: enhance it. I’ll work to post it here or in another blog post.

re: Sam Radakovitz on date pickers

Andy Cotgreave — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:45:54 GMT

That's a great add-in - i'd like to add to the call to see the source code: there's some really nice little touches in here that i could learn plenty from.

Thanks for posting the XLA though: it'll be enhancing my Excel experience right away!