In a recent discussion, someone asked if there were any more modern Date Time Pickers available to implement in their Microsoft Access database. Rightfully, as they stated, most current Date Time Pickers are very much visually stuck in the 80’s.

So I set out to tinker and see what was possible.

The Web

When most people talk about modern feel of an interface, they are most often referring/comparing it to things they have used via the web or apps on their mobiles.

With this in mind, and not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I started to explore HTML driver Date Time Pickers and wondered if there wasn’t a way to capitalize on existing tools.

The Bad News

Now, I came to find out that modern day browser have this natively built in by simply using an Input element of type Date, Time or DateTime.

<input type="date"/>

<input type="time"/>

<input type="datetime"/>

So, I thought I had my answer!

As usual, my enthusiasm was short live when, after testing and then further reading, I discovered that this didn’t work with IE! (and the web browser control is currently IE based!).

The Good News

Back to the drawing board.

So I continued to dig.  Eventually I did find some approaches that could work with the existing IE driven Web Browser Control.

Example 1

I initially developed my first proof of concept using the very well known jQuery-ui Datepicker.

Why?

It is very well known, used in millions of applications, has good documentations, has numerous themes (25 themes currently and you could create your own on top of that) meaning we can change it’s look by simply changing 1 line of code!

Download a Demo Database

Feel free to download a 100% unlocked copy by using the link provided below:

Example 2

I kept digging and eventually stumbled across a nice looking Date Time picker

What I especially like here, beyond a more modern looking utility was the fact that we can use the mouse’s scroll wheel to quickly and easily scroll through the time picker.  Less typing is always a good thing.

As shown above, this tools has 2 themes: light & dark which we can switch by simply changing a single value in the code.  Furthermore, since this is all CSS driven, you can customize it, or create new themes quite easily.

What’s also nice, as we can use it as either:

• a Date Picker
• a Time Picker
• a Date/Time Picker

so the same code, provides 3 tools!

Download a Demo Database

Feel free to download a 100% unlocked copy by using the link provided below:

The Even Better News

What is promising is that we should have a new Web Browser control shortly which should hopefully support the native date, time, datetime input elements mentioned earlier in this article, or utilize other libraries that simply do not run in iE.

So, we will be able to upgrade things even more!

Notice About Content/Downloads/Demos

Disclaimer/Notes:

Microsoft Access 2010 Runtime
Microsoft Access 2013 Runtime
Microsoft Access 2016 Runtime
Microsoft 365 Access Runtime

Useful Resources

Datepicker | jQuery UI

jQuery UI is a curated set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library. Whether you’re building highly interactive web applications or you just need to add a date picker to a form control, jQuery UI is the perfect choice.

Datepicker Widget | jQuery UI API Documentation

Description: Select a date from a popup or inline calendar

DateTimePicker

DateTimePicker Best Period Picker search DateTimePicker jQuery plugin select date and time Use this plugin to unobtrusively add a datetimepicker, datepicker or timepicker dropdown to your forms. It’s easy to customize options. Source code on GitHub or download (zip). Don’t use file…