January is just a click away

I've been using FileMaker for many years now but I can still stumble across features that bring a smile to my face. Earlier this week I clicked into a date field that was configured to show the standard FileMaker drop-down calendar. As expected, the calendar was displayed but in the time it took to make a few nervous clicks I'd transported myself back to the year 1992.

How did this happen?

Clicking in the title section of the calendar effectively navigates one level back up the "calendar tree". I was originally looking at the 18th of October 2012 so with a single click I was able to select from any month in 2012.

Another click and I was able to select from within a range of 12 years, in this case 2009-2020

One final click and I was able to select from 12 different decades, 1990-1999 through 2100-2109.

Clicking into any of the calendar options provided drills back down into the previous display option, e.g. when viewing the monthly calendar one click will take you to the month selection options, selecting one of these options will return to the standard month view.

Most of you probably knew this, heck I might have even known it myself at some stage but it brightened up my day when I discovered it earlier this week.

Update: As I was writing this article I found that the drop-down calendar behaves differently between Mac OS and Windows. While the Mac OS doesn't provide the same "time travel" interface as Windows, it does let you switch to other months within the current year via a nifty drop-down menu or jump to the same date for the next/previous year using a convenient button next to the month name.