jQuery datepicker set selected date, on the fly

Question

How can I change the selected date of jquery Date picker dynamically on the fly? I have say created a inline date picker. Then after some time, I want to reflect a different date there without recreating the datepicker from the scratch.

I tried the setDate method, but did not work, and there is not much documentation in the doc.

There is another (extended?) plugin here, but I want to use the plugin which is shipped with jquery.ui.all.js.

Answer 1

I had a lot of trouble with the setDate method as well. seems to only work in v1. What does seem to work however is using the dpSetSelected method:

    $("#dateselector").dpSetSelected(new Date(2010, 0, 26).asString());

good luck!

Answer 2

What version of jQuery-UI are you using? I've tested the following with 1.6r6, 1.7 and 1.7.1 and it works:

     //Set DatePicker to October 3, 2008
 $('#dateselector').datepicker("setDate", new Date(2008,9,03) );

Answer 3

For some reason, in some cases I couldn't make the setDate work.

A workaround I found is to simply update the value attribute of the given input. Of course the datepicker itself won't be updated but if what you just look for is to display the date, it works fine.

var date = new Date(2008,9,3);
$("#your-input").val(date.getMonth()+"/"+date.getDate()+"/"+date.getFullYear());
// Will display 9/3/2008 in your #your-input input

Answer 4

Noted that for DatePicker by Keith Wood (http://keith-wood.name/datepickRef.html) the following works - note that the setting of the default date is last:

    $('#datepicker').datepick({
        minDate: 0,
        maxDate: '+145D',
        multiSelect: 7,
        renderer: $.datepick.themeRollerRenderer,
        ***defaultDate: new Date('1 January 2008')***
    });

Answer 5

Check that the date you are trying to set it to lies within the allowed date range if the minDate or maxDate options are set.