Why No "Enter Date" Field And "Find" Button In Calendar . . .
TB's calendar feature has improved a lot over the last few versions. But it's often useful to have an "Enter Date" field and a "Find" button in a calendar so that users can do things like:
- Navigate quickly to a date which is many years before (or after!) the current date
- Find the day-of-the-week that this date fell on
- Find events occurring close to some date that is not recalled precisely (This helps locate some unrecorded transaction/event in time)
The code for such a feature is relatively simple in JavaScript, so it should not be too difficult in another language with graphics functionality. And it would make TB's calendar even more useful.
All Replies (6)
It's not exactly what you describe, but it's easy to go to different months or years quickly by hovering on the year or month in the mini-calendar in the upper left corner, and then rolling the mouse wheel up or down. It works the same way in the Today Pane, but advances a day at a time.
Yes. This is quicker than clicking the One Month(Year) Back/Forward arrows. But not as quick as the direct date entry field, which many calendars have - and which would be the quickest way of all to get to a distant calendar month in one action. Maybe you could dispense with the Find button and just <Return> the entered date. But you must leave space for an error text field so that people don't start entering illegal text as a date.
There is an old bug about the removal of the datepicker:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=530727
Another option is to show the Find Events pane from Events & Tasks/Find Events, select the time filter from the drop-down, then sort on Start or End.
I don't see why this functionality was removed in the first place. But I am not familiar with the type of coding in ThunderBird. In JavaScript (barring all the usual tests of the dd/mm/yyyy string for days and months with a single/double digit, non-integers where integers should be, validation for existence of / character, etc) it is just a small percentage increase in the calendar code.
Modified by tamjk
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Modified by tamjk
You can submit a Request For Enhancement on Bugzilla to get the attention of those who might be able to supply the reasoning behind the removal.