jcalendar date selector for post timestamp

[tellyworth]

The enclosed patch adds a nice jquery-based calendar selector control to the Post Timestamp box. It's based on Ted Serbinski's jCalendar, with minor modifications to avoid clashes with prototype:

​http://tedserbinski.com/jcalendar/index.html

Some further work is required (notably localization), but I thought I'd post it here for feedback before I spend more time on it.

Notes:

I chose jcalendar rather than Kelvin Luck's datePicker because datePicker only appears when you click on an icon. jcalendar gives a visual calendar view of the date at a glance.

The new input_dropdown() function in wp-admin/includes/template.php might be useful for other things. Perhaps it belongs elsewhere.

[ryan]

Cool. Add some WP_Scripts::localize() action and we're good.

[tellyworth]

See the revised patch. It adds l10n support, and fixes a naming inconsistency in the original.

I had to jump through hoops to pass in the localized month and day name arrays. Wound up writing a trivial json-like function to do the job - see WP_Scripts::js_encode_array().

[tellyworth]

Whoops, I left wp-admin.css out of the patch by mistake. Fixed in jcalendar-r5798-b.patch.

[ryan]

(In [5804]) jquery data selector for post timestamps. Props tellyworth. fixes #4641

[matt]

1. When you click a date it doesn't check the "edit timestamp" box anymore.
2. It barely fits in the column.
3. I don't think enough consideration was given to "is this really worth it?" As someone who uses the date selector every day, I don't feel like it really improves the experience.

[Nazgul]

Replying to matt:

2. It barely fits in the column.

Not even barely. Fri and Sat don't fit in the boxes on my screen.

I like the idea of a nice datepicker, but not in it's current form.

[ryan]

(In [5808]) Revert jcalendar date picker experiment. Save it for another day. fixes #4641

[dahamsta]

Is another day here yet? :)

I do a lot of timed postings and because of the ​Post Timestamp tabindex problem, settings dates without flipping back and forth to the mouse is a pain in the arse. A date picker would cure this, and of course be incredibly handy!

[Viper007Bond]

While the idea is great, this ticket is rather old and a lot better solutions have come along meanwhile, such as jQuery UI's datepicker() function.

See: #7665