DatePicker Control in WPF

In my previous post, we have learnt about calendar control which is used to select a date through a mouse click. The DatePicker control allows the user to either typing the date or selecting it through a mouse movement. By default it shows a textbox written "Select a date" into it, and we will expand a calendar control by clicking on the right side of the control.

By using a single line i.e. <DatePicker /> a date picker control is added to the WPF window as shown in following image:

All the common properties are customizable by the programmer. Some mostly usable properties are:

• DisplayDate: used to get or set the display date. By default it is today.
• IsDropDownOpen: used to enable or disable the calendar control to be expand.
• DisplayDateStart: set the first date from the control will show the dates.
• DisplayDateEnd: set the last date till the control will show the dates.
• FirstDayOfWeek: By default it is “Monday” and can be changed by this property.
• SelectedDate: used to get of set the selected date. By default it is today. If it is not today then we can set it using <DatePicker SelectedDate="{x:Static sys:DateTime.Now}"/>.
• Blackout Dates: the same procedure can be used as in calendar control.

All these properties are used in the same way in calendar control. If one want to add a DatePicker dynamically then use the following code:

DatePicker datePicker = new DatePicker();
datePicker.Name = "datePicker";
datePicker.Width = 200;
datePicker.DisplayDateStart = new DateTime(2013, 9, 1);
datePicker.DisplayDateEnd = new DateTime(2013, 9, 30);
datePicker.FirstDayOfWeek = DayOfWeek.Sunday;
datePicker.IsTodayHighlighted = true;

Now at the last add this datePicker to the desired container where you want to place.