Date field type

[1ec5]

There should be a date field type for inputting dates in ISO 8601 format. An editor could present the field using the platform’s standard date picker, with an affordance for unset or malformed values. iD could use either <input type="date"> or <input type="datetime-local">. openstreetmap/iD#8951 requests a “Today” button to go along with it.

id-tagging-schema has several fields where this field type would apply:

• Last Survey Date (survey:date)
• Population Date (population:date)
• Date Sunk (wreck:date_sunk)
• Last Checked Date (check_date)
• Start Date (start_date)
• Expected Opening Date (opening_date)

[1ec5]

OpenHistoricalMap’s fork of iD would benefit from this field type for its Start Date (start_date) and End Date (end_date) fields, which appear universally. A validator rule (OpenHistoricalMap/iD#138) has been critical for keeping the data well-formed, but users still find a plain text field to be more intimidating than a date picker, especially when working with sources like newspaper articles that say something like “last Friday”.