>Jon,
>I'd set date format to one of DMY,YMD,MDY asking users. Anyway you could control it in lostfocus of date fields. ie :
>

>if !empty(this.value) and year(this.value)<1601
> messagebox('Wrong date')
> nodefault
>endif
>

Or you might provide your users a calendar control for more flexibility.
>Cetin

Cetin,

Thank you for your response. We actually already provide a calendar, however our application has a LOT of date fields in it - forcing the user to use a calendar on each one would not be practical.

As for setting the date format to non-short/long, I think that is an option that we will only reserve as a last resort. We prefer not to dictate a date format - plus we also prefer having a 4-digit year in the format which the other formats don't support.

We'll give the lostfocus method a try and see what happens. I hope that lostfocus gets fired before the error occurs.

Laterness,
Jon