Adding a Pop-Up Calendar for TYPO3 Backend Fields

By: Ron Hall

There is a nice little extension for adding a pop-up calendar to all of the date and date/time fields in the TYPO3 backend. The extension adds a small icon next to each date and date/time field. An editor can simply click the icon and select a date from a pop-up calendar instead of typing a date like 6-7-2007.

The extension is named "Date2Calendar." However, there are two extensions with that same name (extension keys "date2cal" and "erotea_date2cal"). I chose to use date2cal. Why? Not because of any deep research, but because it has been updated more recently and it is what WEC (Web Empowered Church) uses in their TYPO3 starter package.

There is one adjustment I made to the defaults. One of the extension's configuration options is "start/end as datetime fields." The default is checked and transforms start/end entries into datetime fields instead of date fields. I prefer unchecked on this option. My sites only need the timed content to start or end each night at midnight (see also entry about clearing cache at midnight). Therefore, I uncheck this option so my editors do not have to worry about the time in these fields. Now, unchecking this option does not affect normal datetime fields (e.g. in blog entries). To access this option after installation, go to installed extensions in the extension manager and click on the name of the extension.

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