DateComboBox Control
A date combo box control is used to display date entry fields.
Client support
Newlook Smartclient
Newlook Server
Use
A date combo combines the features of a text box control and a drop down calendar. Users can manually enter a date in the text portion or select a date from the calendar drop down.
The format of the selected date is determined by the DateFormat property while the calendar used is derived from the CalendarID property.
A date combo control is automatically generated when the Newlook recognition engine detects an entry field on a host screen containing a string that it has interpreted as a date.
TIP!
Use the DateFormat property in Connection settings, at the form level or on the control to assist the recognition engine to recognise incoming strings as dates. Be aware that setting the DateFormat property will not change the format of date strings received from the host, only new dates selected from the drop down calendar by the user. Refer to the DateFormat topic for more information.
Material skin considerations
When the material skin is enabled in your solution, date combo boxes will be rendered with material styling. The most noticeable difference is a larger, cleaner calendar. There is no change to the behavior of this control or supported properties.
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Material skin |
Classic skin |
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Common DateCombo Tasks
Inserting a DateCombo Control
- Open the relevant screen
in Designer (
)
mode. - Select Insert | DateCombo ()
from the main menu, then use your cursor to draw the graphic area on the
screen.
- Select the appropriate DateFormat to determine how selected dates will display (see next section).
- Set the Text property to initialize the control with a date, for example the current date (if required).
Setting the Date Format
Where possible, the recognition engine attempts to respect the format of dates sent through from the host. If the format of the date is evident in the date string sent through from the host, then the recognition engine will apply this formatting to any subsequent date selected from the DateCombo Box, overriding the format specified in the DateFormat property if required. An example of this would be the date string '05/22/1996'. In this case it is clear that the first two digits are the month, the second two are the day, the next four are the year and the slashes are separators .
If, however, the format cannot be clearly interpreted from the date string itself or the DateCombo is an inserted control, then the recognition engine will use the formatting provided in the DateFormat property to assist in the correct interpretation of the format. For example, if the date string sent through was '05/05/05' and the DateFormat property was set to "dd/MM/yy" then the recognition engine would interpret the first two characters as the day, the next two characters as the month and the last two characters as the year. Any subsequent date selected from the DateCombo control would be formatted according to this logic and sent back to the host in this format.
If the DateFormat on the control is blank or set to '(Default)' , then the DateFormat property specified for the Form will be used. If this is also blank or set to '(Default)' then the DateFormat setting specified in the Connection will be used.
The DateFormat property provides a drop down list of common date formats however it is also possible to specify a custom format by manually entering a format string. Refer to the DateFormat property topic for more detailed information on the available characters for specifying custom formats.
Properties
Newlook Smartclient | Newlook Server | 
Deprecated
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Obsolete
See Also
Combo box control | Textbox control
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