This might be a simple question - but I was wondering what is the best way of having the user enter a date via a form and then putting it in a date field - should I have three seperate drop down boxes for day month a year? if so what format should they be in (should the month be 01,02 or jan, feb....and what about the year 00,01,01 or 2000,2001,2002...) and then how do I put it together to go into one date field....Thank you

i'm also using three drop down menus for date and the best format which is most friendly for user is date in 01, 02 ... 31 month in Jan, Feb ... Dec and year in 2001, 2002 .... 2010 format.
Zee

I suppose it all depends if you need it in a very specific format or not.

If your database REQUIRES that the date look like: 09/02/1978, Then you should do drop downs because you can then specify the format in the selected values.

If you DONT need a specific format, I use one box where a person can hand enter a date. When the form field loses focus, I have a javascript run a check to ensure that what they entered is a valid (albeit not STRICTLY formatted) date.