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As a web developer, I enthusiastically welcome native date and time pickers in web browsers...but boy are they ugly! Maybe you disagree and think they look grea

by jbail 14y ago

As a web developer, I enthusiastically welcome native date and time pickers in web browsers...but boy are they ugly! Maybe you disagree and think they look great. So, let's both get what we want and I'll apply some custom styling to get the look I want on my site and you can do the same on your site. The only problem is that it doesn't appear that you can style these. You can style the input itself pretty well, but how do you style the resulting datepicker that it displays? Without the ability to style them, this will not get widespread adoption. I am all for consistency in browser inputs, but unfortunately, that isn't what designers and clients demand. That specific look and feel of the datepicker, with those blue colors, blacks and sharp corners just isn't going to cut it for a lot of people. I think we will eventually see full styling support for these datepickers. Until then, this is cool, but something I won't be able to use except maybe on a personal project. I know that if I slid this into a project, the first question I would get is, "Can we change the way it looks?" Maybe I just need to find less demanding clients.

crandles 14y ago
If its just a matter of styling, then there is a movement to make styling these sort of components as accessible as anything else on the web. Its still in spec, but you should take a look at the Shadow DOM. Not the most familiar with it, but I believe the gist of it is to allow developers to create self-contained widgets (or at least part of its usefulness). With it, you'll also be able to access/manipulate browser elements (they'll be presented with a Shadow DOM interface just like a custom widget). Think styling an HTML5 Video/Audio Player. Each browser may have their own interface, but they'll be built using components, and you'll have access to them using CSS/Javascript in your web page. With the Shadow DOM, you should be able to manipulate said datepicker. edit: styling a video tag example http://blog.romanliutikov.com/coding/discover-the-dark-side-with-shadow-dom/ http://blog.romanliutikov.com/coding/discover-the-dark-side-...
ronaldj 14y ago
I suspect you'd be able to style it using the shadow DOM.
bryanlarsen 14y ago
crandles is hell-banned, but posted what looks like a very relevant comment. [EDIT: he doesn't look hell-banned, I have no idea what is going on, since it doesn't appear to be a duplicate either] Pasting: If its just a matter of styling, then there is a movement to make styling these sort of components as accessible as anything else on the web. Its still in spec, but you should take a look at the Shadow DOM. Not the most familiar with it, but I believe the gist of it is to allow developers to create self-contained widgets (or at least part of its usefulness). With it, you'll also be able to access/manipulate browser elements (they'll be presented with a Shadow DOM interface just like a custom widget). Think styling an HTML5 Video/Audio Player. Each browser may have their own interface, but they'll be built using components, and you'll have access to them using CSS/Javascript in your web page. With the Shadow DOM, you should be able to manipulate said datepicker. edit: styling a video tag example http://blog.romanliutikov.com/coding/discover-the-dark-side-with-shadow-dom/ http://blog.romanliutikov.com/coding/discover-the-dark-side-... -----
- crandles 14y ago
  trying to figure out that myself. i mostly lurk, and have only ever commented a few times. not feeling very welcomed atm!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- pygy_ 14y ago
  Since one can't reply to [dead] posts, I'll put this here. crandles said: trying to figure out that myself. i mostly lurk, and have only ever commented a few times. not feeling very welcomed atm! --- It's probably a false positive in an algorithm. I don't think that any human would have banned you, at least not based on what's visible in your history. The only potentially problematic item is your first submission , the GMail April's fools joke that you posted on your very first day here. It's [dead]. What's surprising is the delay between the post and the ban... Send a message to info@ycombinator.com, hopefully your account will be restored.
  - 14y ago
lloeki 14y ago
> As a web developer, I enthusiastically welcome native date and time pickers in web browsers...but boy are they ugly! Agreed, the Chrome datepicker has been there for some time and is atrocious. I get a point for no styling: they can be made to feel native, e.g on iOS they're good but the Chrome ones simply are not. > Without the ability to style them, this will not get widespread adoption. I am all for consistency in browser inputs Indeed, but I see another advantage: what this will give us is UI<->data normalization, as third party pickers will have a tendency to converge towards the standard in terms of data handling so as to act properly as fallbacks to the standardized way.

by jbail 14y ago

crandles 14y ago

If its just a matter of styling, then there is a movement to make styling these sort of components as accessible as anything else on the web. Its still in spec, but you should take a look at the Shadow DOM. Not the most familiar with it, but I believe the gist of it is to allow developers to create self-contained widgets (or at least part of its usefulness). With it, you'll also be able to access/manipulate browser elements (they'll be presented with a Shadow DOM interface just like a custom widget). Think styling an HTML5 Video/Audio Player. Each browser may have their own interface, but they'll be built using components, and you'll have access to them using CSS/Javascript in your web page. With the Shadow DOM, you should be able to manipulate said datepicker. edit: styling a video tag example http://blog.romanliutikov.com/coding/discover-the-dark-side-with-shadow-dom/ http://blog.romanliutikov.com/coding/discover-the-dark-side-...

ronaldj 14y ago

I suspect you'd be able to style it using the shadow DOM.

bryanlarsen 14y ago

crandles is hell-banned, but posted what looks like a very relevant comment. [EDIT: he doesn't look hell-banned, I have no idea what is going on, since it doesn't appear to be a duplicate either] Pasting: If its just a matter of styling, then there is a movement to make styling these sort of components as accessible as anything else on the web. Its still in spec, but you should take a look at the Shadow DOM. Not the most familiar with it, but I believe the gist of it is to allow developers to create self-contained widgets (or at least part of its usefulness). With it, you'll also be able to access/manipulate browser elements (they'll be presented with a Shadow DOM interface just like a custom widget). Think styling an HTML5 Video/Audio Player. Each browser may have their own interface, but they'll be built using components, and you'll have access to them using CSS/Javascript in your web page. With the Shadow DOM, you should be able to manipulate said datepicker. edit: styling a video tag example http://blog.romanliutikov.com/coding/discover-the-dark-side-with-shadow-dom/ http://blog.romanliutikov.com/coding/discover-the-dark-side-... -----

crandles 14y ago
trying to figure out that myself. i mostly lurk, and have only ever commented a few times. not feeling very welcomed atm!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
pygy_ 14y ago
Since one can't reply to [dead] posts, I'll put this here. crandles said: trying to figure out that myself. i mostly lurk, and have only ever commented a few times. not feeling very welcomed atm! --- It's probably a false positive in an algorithm. I don't think that any human would have banned you, at least not based on what's visible in your history. The only potentially problematic item is your first submission , the GMail April's fools joke that you posted on your very first day here. It's [dead]. What's surprising is the delay between the post and the ban... Send a message to info@ycombinator.com, hopefully your account will be restored.
- 14y ago

lloeki 14y ago

> As a web developer, I enthusiastically welcome native date and time pickers in web browsers...but boy are they ugly! Agreed, the Chrome datepicker has been there for some time and is atrocious. I get a point for no styling: they can be made to feel native, e.g on iOS they're good but the Chrome ones simply are not. > Without the ability to style them, this will not get widespread adoption. I am all for consistency in browser inputs Indeed, but I see another advantage: what this will give us is UI<->data normalization, as third party pickers will have a tendency to converge towards the standard in terms of data handling so as to act properly as fallbacks to the standardized way.