Adds MonthFormat and Animation options + GetSelectedDate and Validate methods

[benjamin-albert]

Hi,

This is a pull request for #16.

I've added a couple of new options:

• MonthFormat which uses $.datepicker.formatDate() and $.datepicker.parseDate() to format, parse and create the input mask. You can also use a third party library for parsing and formatting (see the new README.md).
• Animation which allows you to specify the animation to use in both opening and closing the menu, but I also included ShowAnim and HideAnim for consistency with datepciker and to allow you to have different animations for opening and closing the menu.
• Duration which allows specifying the animations speed.

I've also added some new methods:

• GetSelectedDate which return the month as a JavaScript Date object.
• Validate an alternative for GetSelectedMonthYear which validates the input and return the selected month as a JavaScript Date object.

I've also added some usability features:

• The default animation is fadeToggle and the default speed is 400ms (to match datepicker's behavior).
• Pressing escape hides the menu.
• Pressing enter selects the current month.

All events this new refer to the associated input field, it would be grate if you can add some tests for $(this)....

When I first added the new code to the new fiddle I broke a GetSelectedMonthYear unit test that tested that the return value was '2/2012' and the new code was returning '02/2012' (because I was using the MonthFormat option).

I have to admit that when I first refactored this method I thought it use to be a private method that was made public because It had all of that validate code which I thought had nothing to do with the method.

But when I first looked at the documentation I was surprised because:

• The name is misleading. There's no way someone how didn't read the docs will know that method performs visual validation.
• Except for comparing the value a with specific string the value returned is kind of useless.
• The docs say it focuses on the invalid value but I did't see anything like that in the code (perhaps we should remove this from the docs until we actually implement this).

So I added the Validate method which I believe better reflects what it does and returns a Date that you can interact with and get exactly what you want out of it without having to parse a string or use the lengthy GetSelectedMonth and GetSelectedYear methods.

I would appreciate it if you can look at my new documentation and tell me if I have any typos (my spelling isn't perfect).

[KidSysco]

Benjamin! You are a rock star! I was out of town on travel all weekend and just got back. Give me a few days to soak this up then I will probably merge it in.

Keep it coming if you got more!

THANKS!

[KidSysco]

Nice fiddle you put together! Thats great! Woot! I love your work!

[benjamin-albert]

I'm glad to hear you're excited about my work.

I've just finished implementing the rest of the features in #16 you can take a look at the 2.5 branch in my fork.

I'll open a pull request with all the details when I finish testing, writing documentation and creating a fiddle.

[KidSysco]

I really like the Date Picker formatting and parsing. That is some great work that really shows strong understanding of the jQuery UI internals. I saw you did some extra work there to ensure unit tests were not broken, that is great work too. It is a pleasure to work with you Benjamin, you are a true professional. I am going to merge this and close it out now. Then I will update the fiddle.