How to get HTML 5 input type="date" working in Firefox and/or IE 10

I find it odd that input type="date" is still not supported in Firefox after all of this time. In fact, I don't think they added in much (if any) of the HTML 5 new types on an input element. Not surprised that it is not supported in IE10. So, my question is...

How to get type="date" on an input element working without adding, yet another, .js file (namely jQueryUI DatePicker Widget) just to get a calendar/date for only IE and Firefox Browsers? Is there something out there that can be applied somewhere (CDN perhaps?) that will make this functionality work by default in Firefox and/or IE Browsers?? Trying to target IE 8+ Browsers and for Firefox, doesn't matter, newest version (28.0) will be fine.

UPDATE: Firefox 57+ supports input type=date

You can try webshims, which is available on cdn + only loads the polyfill, if it is needed.

Here is a demo with CDN: http://jsfiddle.net/trixta/BMEc9/

<!-- cdn for modernizr, if you haven't included it already -->
<script src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/webshim/1.12.4/extras/modernizr-custom.js"></script>
<!-- polyfiller file to detect and load polyfills -->
<script src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/webshim/1.12.4/polyfiller.js"></script>
<script>
  webshims.setOptions('waitReady', false);
  webshims.setOptions('forms-ext', {types: 'date'});
  webshims.polyfill('forms forms-ext');
</script>

<input type="date" />

In case the default configuration does not satisfy, there are many ways to configure it. Here you find the datepicker configurator.

Note: While there might be new bugfix releases for webshim in the future. There won't be any major releases anymore. This includes support for jQuery 3.0 or any new features.

It is in Firefox since version 51 (January 26, 2017), but it is not activated by default (yet)

To activate it:

about:config

dom.forms.datetime -> set to true

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Experimental_features

There's a simple way to get rid of this restriction by using the datePicker component provided by jQuery.

1. Include jQuery and jQuery UI libraries (I'm still using an old one)

   • src="js/jquery-1.7.2.js"
   • src="js/jquery-ui-1.7.2.js"

2. Use the following snip

   $(function() {
        $( "#id_of_the_component" ).datepicker({ dateFormat: 'yy-mm-dd'}); 
   });
   

See jQuery UI DatePicker - Change Date Format if needed.

The type="date" is not an actual specification at this point. It is a concept Google came up with and is in their whatwg specifications (not official) and is only partially supported by Chrome.

http://caniuse.com/#search=date

I would not rely on this input type at this point. It would be nice to have, but I do not foresee this one actually making it. The #1 reason is it puts too much burden on the browser to determine the best UI for a somewhat complicated input. Think about it from a responsive perspective, how would any of the vendors know what will work best with your UI say at 400 pixels, 800 pixels and 1200 pixels wide?

Here is a full example with the date formatted in YYYY-MM-DD

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.4.min.js"></script> 
<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/webshim/1.14.5/polyfiller.js"></script>
<script>
webshims.setOptions('forms-ext', {types: 'date'});
webshims.polyfill('forms forms-ext');
$.webshims.formcfg = {
en: {
    dFormat: '-',
    dateSigns: '-',
    patterns: {
        d: "yy-mm-dd"
    }
}
};
</script>
<input type="date" />