命令行的日期选择器

Question

How are datepickers handled in a CLI environment? Is the most common route to just treat it as a text input with custom validation? Are there custom "controls" that keep formatting and only allow you to edit the digits (think __/__/__ ). Would an interactive calendar (possibly rendered using cli-tables and arrow keys / enter ) be possible/better?

Extra Details

I'm developing a command line app using Node.js and the Vorpal and I would like some sort of datepicker interface.

Other libraries like Inquirer.js provide easy-to-use picklists, checkboxes, and input validation. They act just as they would within a GUI.

The app in question is essentially a task manager app, allowing you to edit tasks to say when you started and stopped. So the dates that are required would refer to ranges (start -> stop) and all relatively recent.

Answer 1

I've never seen a datepicker (GUI) in a CLI app before, but it's totally possible to make it with Vorpal and create a Vorpal extension for it, using these commands .

I've successfully done this type of thing once, in building less for Vorpal , which does screen redraws based on arrow key movements, etc, which would be a similar endeavor. You can check out the source here for how I do it.

But that's a bit of work.

The other idea (and maybe this can tie into the above) is to simply make a smart-validating date input.

There's a ton of Javascript date libraries like this one that can parse human date strings and standardize them. So you would just do a normal Inquirer input, and add some validation to it.

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Does that help?