Option to set input format for dates (type=input.DATE)

[quadratecode]

If I am not mistaken, currently the date input format solely depends on the language preference set in the browser with no option to customize it. However, which date format a user is accustomed to probably depends mostly on the country where they reside. This leads to confusion when e.g. someone from Germany (date format: DD.MM.YYYY) has to use the US format (MM.DD.YYYY) just because they have set their browser language to English.

Is there a way to set the date format which I missed? And if not would it be possible to implement this option?

Thanks in advance!

[wang0618]

Yeah, the date input format in pywebio will use the language preference setting since it just uses the <input type="date"> as underlying implement. In most cases, it's just what we want. Now, there is no way to customize it.

As a workaround, you can use text input to get date:

import datetime
date = input('Birthday', placeholder='MM-DD-YYYY')
date = datetime.datetime.strptime(date, '%m-%d-%Y')
put_text(date)

[quadratecode]

Thank you for the swift reply! Am I correct in assuming that the workaround would also disable the calendar widget?

To your other point: I agree that in most cases, the browser language corresponds to the "correct" input format, so overall this is a minor issue. However, I think the amount of users who use English in their browser while not living in an English speaking country or who are coming from a multilingual country can be substantial depending on the targeted user base.

[wang0618]

Yes, the workaround will disable the calendar widget.

From the html date input document, it says "the displayed date is formatted based on the locale of the user's browser". So it seems the date format will not all depend on language. Also I find a date form preference setting in macOS, and when I change the setting, the date format of chrome also changes.

[quadratecode]

Ah, this is very interesting, thanks for the link. Curiosly, I tested my app with Edge, Firefox, Bromite (mobile) and Firefox Nightly (mobile) and got different input formats for each of them. This is what alerted me to the issue in the first place and why I assumed it would depend on browser language.

[quadratecode]

@wang0618 I hope you don't mind if I revive this thread and get back to you on this matter.

I have now tried to implement your approach but ran into a whole set of new problems (mostly in combination with arrow and validation) making it a convoluted solutionfor my use case. What would work, however, is three input fields per date (for day, month and year) in a single row and set the input to be type=NUMBER. Then the user could switch between input fields with tab and use the numpad for data entry. From there I could combine the numbers to a string and convert them to a date with arrow.get() while still validating the input as I did before.

If I am not mistaken, there are currently no layout options for input.group (comparable e.g. to output.put_row). Is there any other way?