Mark Royko + Associates

Once in awhile, you'll work on a Drupal problem that takes forever to figure out, then find the answer hidden in plain sight. (Sitting right there. Laughing at you.) Oh look: Here's one now. I was using the date popup widget in a module form field and wanted the fancy calendar pop up, but just needed the month, day and year, not the time, etc.

Of course, I was too sophisticated and lazy to look it up, so I struggled with it for way too long. To save anyone else some time, here's how it's done: Explicitly set the date format in PHP syntax, then assign that within the element array. Couldn't. Be. Simpler. (Take a look at http://drupal.org/node/292667 It's right there in the comments in the sample code.):

  // Provide a format using regular PHP format parts (see documentation on php.net).
  // If you're using a date_select, the format will control the order of the date parts in the selector,
  // rearrange them any way you like. Parts left out of the format will not be displayed to the user.
  $format = 'Y-m-d H:i';
 
  $form['date2'] = array(
     '#type' => 'date_select',
     '#title' => 'select a date',
     '#default_value' => $date,
    '#date_format' => $format
 
 ... (etc)

Read that again: Parts left out of the format will not be displayed to the user.

So, basically, all you have to do is remember to set the format. In my case, the format would just read, 'm-d-Y'. That drops the time format field.