Question

I have this script that works, but I need to change the format of the date string to look different. I’m currently getting: Tue Apr 10 2012 22:27:13 GMT-0700 (PDT)

I need the date string to look like this: April 10, 2012 10:28 PM

I also need to change the DIV background thats holding the input forn the date string when the button is clicked.

<form>

<input name="theDate" size="50">

<input type="button" value="Insert date" 
  onclick="this.form.theDate.value = new Date();">

</form>

Answer 1

Check out moment.js!

A lightweight (3.7k) javascript date library for parsing,
manipulating, and formatting dates.

Using moment.js…

var today = moment(new Date());
today.format("MMMM D, YYYY h:m A"); // outputs "April 11, 2012 12:44 AM"

You can even do it in one line 🙂

moment().format("MMMM D, YYYY h:m A"); // outputs "April 11, 2012 12:49 AM"

So for your input element…

<input type="button" value="Insert date" onclick="this.form.theDate.value = moment().format('MMMM D, YYYY h:m A');">

Also, its worth mentioning to checkout date.js. I think the two libraries complement each other.