.NET Windows Forms in a Nutshell

Name

DateTimePicker

Synopsis

This Control class wraps the Win32 date/time selection common control. This is perhaps the least used of all the common controls—most commercial applications seem to roll their own Outlook-style date and time pickers (or use one of several third-party controls available).

First, you can set the Format of the control. This can cause considerable changes in behavior from a Long or Short date (in which case you are provided with a drop-down calendar date picker and a formatted date edit field) to a Time (in which case you lose the calendar and gain a formatted time edit field). There is also Custom, which requires you to set the CustomFormat property and use your own date-time format string. The standard formats are derived from the system locale settings.

As well as the standard Control appearance properties, you can independently set the CalendarFont, CalendarForeColor, CalendarMonthBackground, CalendarTitleBackColor, CalendarTitleForeColor, and CalendarTrailingForeColor (that’s the color of the days from last and next month that are shown on this months calendar grid). You can choose how the calendar drop-down menu is aligned (to the LeftRightAlignment.Left or Right edge of the control), by using the DropDownAlign property.

The control can display a checkbox using the ShowCheckBox property. It indicates whether a value is actually selected (Checked)—this lets you support null dates. You can also add a spin button with ShowUpDown that gives you another way ...