This MistyRose Skin is one of the 4 cool skins that comes with Timepicker Reload package

What is Timepicker Reload?

Timepicker Reload is a unique & easiest way to pick time (hours & minutes). It enables you to get/set time information, quickly and correctly without hassle of writing same custom code every time. Users will love the unique and intuitive interface which gets their work done faster.
Features at quick glance:
At a quick glance some of its main features are:
  1. A unique interface which renders both in 12-hr clock format as well as 24-hr clock format.
  2. Allows Autopostbacks and the ability to handle TimeChanged events.
  3. Provide two great ASP.net validation controls RequiredTimeValidator and TimeRangeValidator out of box that support client as well as server side validations.
  4. Supports ASP.net 2.0
  5. Visual Studio 2005 designer support.
  6. Cross-browser support (IE and Firefox)
Download Free or Purchase or mail at support@dipeshbatheja.com for any assistance.
 

Monday, March 06, 2006

Its TimePicker baby!

Did you ever had a web application project in which you had to get time from the user. No! You are lucky buddy. Such a tiny thing and such a mess to make sure that user enter correct time entry. This is certainly not fair from developer perspective. A developer must be concentrating on other important issues and not wasting there brain cells on validating user input. And that was exactly the case in my last project. I had to get time entry from the user. Now user had no idea of the format he should enter the time in. Some tried to enter in military format, some in AM-PM style and then there were others who were a little more exploring and entered some random garbage. Not good for users and certainly not good for me as a developer.

"There must be some intuitive way, where user just always enter the correct time. Something like Date Picker which shows a small calendar when you click a button and you can quickly select the correct date. Chances of mistake minimized. User should feel happy and so do developer. Thinking...Searching...Thinking..Searching....Bingo! Alright I got a way out of this. Lets develop a custom web control that can do exactly the same. One time effort and problem defeated once in for all." This thought got me rolling. And I went ahead to develop an ASP.net web control for my use. Soon I realized that not many intuitive controls are available are available on net that can do this task so easily and there might be developers out there who would love a little help of this kind and so I decided to make it available to others for free through this blog.

So if you are just wondering what all it can offer you. Here is quick list of features I have implemented in this version:
  1. An intuitive user interface which allows user to quickly pick time.
  2. Get time from user in both the formats i.e AM-PM or Military style.
  3. "TimeChanged" event to handle the changes in time.
  4. "AutoPostBack" property that causes post back the page automatically and handle raised event like "TimeChanged".
  5. Includes an inbuilt theme as well ability to modify looks using style properties and/or CSS.
  6. Support for Visual Studio 2005 design time.
  7. Supports .Net framework 2.0 and IE5.5+.
Ok, that's seems fair enough features at one go! But I have few other things that I would like to add in it. One of which is the AJAX ability, which means instead of causing autopostback, it can asynchronously contact back to sever and perform the relevant event handling, which I think would be very useful. So go ahead , download it , use it, enjoy it, hate it or love it, but whatever you feel don't forget to mail me your feedback/comments.

posted by Dipesh Batheja @ 5:59 PM   5 comments