How to set a specific default time for a date picker in Swift

Question

Is there any way to set a date picker to display a specific time on load? I have four date picker instances initiated from four text fields for Start Time, Finish Time, Start Date and Finish Date using the squimer/datePickerDialog subclass from GitHub that pops up in a UIAlertView.

In my app a default start time would be 7:00 AM and a default finish time would be 5:00 PM and let the user adjust around those times.

All I can see is that you can set the datePicker.defaultDate to currentDate, minimumDate or maximumDate and only once. Is it possible set the defaultDate to hardcoded strings of sTime = "07:00" and fTime = "17:00" in my calls from the ViewController?

Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: This is how I am calling the subclass from my viewController

@IBAction func setFT(sender: UITextField) {
    resignKeyboardCompletely(sender)
    DatePickerDialog().show("Pick a Finish Time", doneButtonTitle: "Done", cancelButtonTitle: "Cancel", datePickerMode: .Time) {
        (timeFinish) -> Void in
        self.dateFormatter.dateFormat = "HH:mm"
        let finTime = self.dateFormatter.stringFromDate(timeFinish)
        self.finishTime.text = finTime
    }
    defaults.setObject(finishTime.text, forKey: "finishTime")
    print(finishTime.text)
}

Note that throughout this I am also trying to maintain persistence through NSUser Defaults.

In a subclass required for four viewController text values? – user3118171 Oct 29 '15 at 06:23 — user3118171, Oct 29 '15 at 06:23

Moriya · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-29T05:41:20.177

47

Are you looking for setting the time through a string. If that''s the case you can use a date formatter like this.

let dateFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat =  "HH:mm"

let date = dateFormatter.dateFromString("17:00")

datePicker.date = date

Adding an init to the Picker class

init(time:String) {
    super.init(frame: CGRectMake(0, 0, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.size.width, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.size.height))

    setupView()
    let dateFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
    dateFormatter.dateFormat =  "HH:mm"

    if let date = dateFormatter.dateFromString("17:00") {
        datePicker.date = date
    }
}

edited Oct 29 '15 at 05:41

answered Oct 29 '15 at 04:10

Moriya

7,750
3
35
53

That is the kind of thing I have been experimenting with but I'm not quire sure how to implement it. This is how I am suscessfully calling the subclass datePickerDialog.swift. – user3118171 Oct 29 '15 at 05:13
@IBAction func setFT(sender: UITextField) { resignKeyboardCompletely(sender) DatePickerDialog().show("Pick a Finish Time", doneButtonTitle: "Done", cancelButtonTitle: "Cancel", datePickerMode: .Time) { (timeFinish) -> Void in self.dateFormatter.dateFormat = "HH:mm" let finTime = self.dateFormatter.stringFromDate(timeFinish) self.finishTime.text = finTime } defaults.setObject(finishTime.text, forKey: "finishTime") print(finishTime.text) – user3118171 Oct 29 '15 at 05:15
put this code in viewDidLoad if you want your datePicker to start at this time... I'm not sure what you are asking though. You should probably try to explain a bit further what you are attempting and what exactly you have tried that has failed – Moriya Oct 29 '15 at 05:15
Sorry. Very new to all this, including stack overflow. – user3118171 Oct 29 '15 at 05:16
Are you using a third party data picker dialog? Or did you build DatePickerDialog yourself? – Moriya Oct 29 '15 at 05:19
As I said "squimer/datePickerDialog.swift subclass from GitHub" It's pretty minimalist and I have modified it slightly. – user3118171 Oct 29 '15 at 05:27
It seems that project doesn't give any way to modify that so you would have to modify it. easiest way would probably be to add an init(time:String) or init(date:NSDate) that then sets the internal date picker up with the code in my answer. – Moriya Oct 29 '15 at 05:37
Added some code to the answer for you... I haven't tested it so you might have to work around some issues but I think the general idea should be sound. – Moriya Oct 29 '15 at 05:42

BaxiaMashia · Answer 2 · 2020-12-30T17:41:36.227

4

Swift 5

let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "HH:mm"
if let date = dateFormatter.date(from: "17:00") {
    print(date) // 2000-01-01 22:00:00 +0000
    datePicker.date = date
}

Additional note: If you've already set datePicker.minimumDate and you're using this dateFormat the date/time will default to it's earliest possible date--wasted an hour on this :|

edited Dec 30 '20 at 17:41

answered Dec 30 '20 at 16:44

BaxiaMashia

115
10

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 30 '20 at 23:37

3

with swift 4+

let dateFormatter = DateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateFormat =  "HH:mm"
let date = dateFormatter.date(from: "17:00")
datePicker.date = date

edited Dec 30 '20 at 23:37

BaxiaMashia

115
10

answered Jun 13 '20 at 14:43

sadat

4,004
2
29
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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 17 '19 at 18:07

0

I got here as it seemed setting the start date wasn't working. Turns out you need to set the initial date after setting the min and max dates.

answered Dec 17 '19 at 18:07

FlimFlam Vir

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9
15

How to set a specific default time for a date picker in Swift

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