Fixes #4621. Replace TimeField/DateField with new TimeEditor/DateEditor based on TextValidateField

[Copilot]

Summary

Replaces the legacy TimeField and DateField controls with new TimeEditor and DateEditor views built on TextValidateField using custom ITextValidateProvider implementations. This provides cleaner architecture, culture-aware formatting, 12-hour AM/PM support, and proper CWP-compliant events.

New Components

TimeTextProvider (ITextValidateProvider)

• Parses DateTimeFormatInfo.LongTimePattern to detect 12h/24h format, separators, and AM/PM positions
• Culture-aware formatting with auto-normalization to fixed-width fields (e.g. h → hh)
• Cursor navigation automatically skips separators and AM/PM designators
• AM/PM toggle via 'A'/'P' keypress for 12-hour formats
• Auto-corrects invalid time component values
• CWP-compliant OnTextChanged/TextChanged event pattern

DateTextProvider (ITextValidateProvider)

• Parses DateTimeFormatInfo.ShortDatePattern for culture-aware date formatting
• Supports day/month/year in any order with proper separator handling
• Fixed-width normalization (d → dd, M → MM, yy → yyyy)
• Auto-correction of invalid dates (e.g. Feb 30 → Feb 28)
• CWP-compliant OnTextChanged/TextChanged event pattern

TimeEditor (TextValidateField, IValue<TimeSpan>, IDesignable)

• Delegates validation/formatting to TimeTextProvider
• CWP-compliant ValueChanging/ValueChanged events with full cancellation support
• Format property accepts DateTimeFormatInfo for flexible pattern control
• Width auto-sized based on format length
• Non-nullable TimeSpan value - consistent with other value types

DateEditor (TextValidateField, IValue<DateTime>, IDesignable)

• Delegates validation/formatting to DateTextProvider
• CWP-compliant ValueChanging/ValueChanged events with full cancellation support
• Format property accepts DateTimeFormatInfo for flexible pattern control
• Width auto-sized based on format length
• Non-nullable DateTime value - consistent with TimeEditor and DatePicker

Other Changes

• DatePicker updated to use DateEditor instead of DateField
  • Fixed initialization: _dateEditor now uses the date parameter instead of DateTime.Now
  • Culture propagation: Culture setter now propagates DateTimeFormatInfo to _dateEditor.Format
  • Value propagation: Value setter now propagates to _dateEditor.Value for proper synchronization
• CWP compliance applied to OnTextChanged/TextChanged on all four providers (TimeTextProvider, DateTextProvider, NetMaskedTextProvider, TextRegexProvider) — OnTextChanged is now a virtual method for subclass override, with RaiseTextChanged handling event dispatch
• TextRegexProvider null-safety fix — _text initialized to [] instead of null! to prevent NullReferenceException in Validate() during construction
• TextValidateField null-guard in OnHasFocusChanged — prevents NullReferenceException when view gains focus before a provider is set
• UICatalog TimeAndDate scenario updated to demo both TimeEditor and DateEditor
• Removed: TimeField, DateField, and their tests

Usage

// Time editor with current culture
TimeEditor te = new () { Value = TimeSpan.FromHours (14.5) };
// en-US: " 2:30:00 PM", en-GB: "14:30:00"

// Date editor with current culture
DateEditor de = new () { Value = DateTime.Today };
// en-US: "03/09/2026", de-DE: "09.03.2026"

// Custom format
DateTimeFormatInfo fmt = (DateTimeFormatInfo)CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.DateTimeFormat.Clone ();
fmt.LongTimePattern = "HH:mm";
te.Format = fmt;

// ValueChanging allows cancellation
te.ValueChanging += (_, e) =>
{
    if (e.NewValue.Hours > 18)
    {
        e.Handled = true; // Reject times after 6 PM
    }
};

Architecture

	Old	New
TimeField	640 lines extending TextField with custom cursor/validation	TimeEditor: 185 lines + reusable 450-line provider
DateField	~500 lines extending TextField	DateEditor: ~180 lines + reusable ~400-line provider
12-hour AM/PM	Not supported	Full support via pattern detection
Culture support	Separator only, hardcoded format	Full DateTimeFormatInfo pattern support
Events	Basic	CWP-compliant with cancellation
Base class	TextField (custom cursor hacks)	TextValidateField (native provider pattern)
Value types	DateField used DateTime?	Both use non-nullable values (TimeSpan, DateTime)
DatePicker integration	Manual initialization, no propagation	Automatic propagation of Value and Culture/Format to embedded editor

Test Plan

• 30 TimeEditor/TimeTextProvider tests (cursor, format, 12h/24h, events, cultures)
• 40 DateEditor/DateTextProvider tests (cursor, format, events, cultures, auto-correction)
• 10 DatePicker tests including 3 new tests for initialization and Culture/Value propagation
• All TextValidateField regex provider tests pass (fixed pre-existing null bug)
• AllViews tests pass for TextValidateField (fixed pre-existing null-guard issue)
• UnitTests and UnitTestsParallelizable pass
• Verified on Windows, macOS, Ubuntu

Pull Request checklist:

• I've named my PR in the form of "Fixes #issue. Terse description."
• My code follows the style guidelines of Terminal.Gui - if you use Visual Studio, hit CTRL-K-D to automatically reformat your files before committing.
• My code follows the Terminal.Gui library design guidelines
• I ran dotnet test before commit
• I have made corresponding changes to the API documentation (using /// style comments)
• My changes generate no new warnings
• I have checked my code and corrected any poor grammar or misspellings
• I conducted basic QA to assure all features are working

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[tig]

Good foundation — the architecture (provider pattern, IValue<TimeSpan>, cultural format support) is sound and the test coverage is a reasonable start. A few issues need to be addressed before merge:

Bugs

1. Double-firing ValueChanged — Setting Value programmatically fires ValueChanged twice: once via the setter and again via the TextChanged → RaiseValueChangedEvents path triggered by Text = TimeProvider.Text. See inline comment on TimeEditor.cs:55.
2. ValueChanging not raised for keyboard input — User typing bypasses the cancellable event entirely. See TimeEditor.cs:163.

Code quality
3. Bare catch block in TryManualParse — swallows all exceptions including fatal ones.
4. Width management inconsistency — Constructor uses Dim.Auto, Format setter clobbers it with a fixed integer.
5. Redundant 12-hour adjustment in FormatTimeValue() — _isPm may be derivable from _timeValue.Hours rather than tracked as separate state.

Tests
6. Coverage at 61.7% — Below the project's 70% threshold (flagged by CodeCov). The TryManualParse fallback path and much of the cursor navigation code are untested.
7. Missing AI-generated test comment — Project convention requires a comment like // Claude - Sonnet 4.6.
8. Culture-sensitive width test may be non-deterministic.

Minor

• _separatorPositions: prefer HashSet<int> over List<int> for Contains calls.
• Trailing whitespace on blank lines in TimeAndDate.cs.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR modernizes Terminal.Gui’s date/time input controls by replacing the legacy TimeField/DateField (TextField-based) with TimeEditor/DateEditor built on TextValidateField + new culture-aware ITextValidateProvider implementations, and updates docs/examples/tests accordingly.

Changes:

• Added TimeEditor/DateEditor plus TimeTextProvider/DateTextProvider, and removed legacy TimeField/DateField.
• Updated TextValidateField/providers to use CWP-style value events and support a “blank cursor cell” past the last editable character for fixed-width providers.
• Updated DatePicker, docs, and UICatalog scenarios to use the new editors; replaced/added unit tests.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 25 out of 25 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
docfx/docs/views.md	Updates view docs to reference DateEditor/TimeEditor.
docfx/docs/events.md	Updates IValue table entries to DateEditor/TimeEditor.
Tests/UnitTestsParallelizable/Views/TimeFieldTests.cs	Removes legacy TimeField tests.
Tests/UnitTestsParallelizable/Views/TimeEditorTests.cs	Adds coverage for TimeEditor/TimeTextProvider.
Tests/UnitTestsParallelizable/Views/TextValidateFieldTests.cs	Adjusts tests for new blank-cursor-cell behavior and navigation semantics.
Tests/UnitTestsParallelizable/Views/DateFieldTests.cs	Removes legacy DateField tests.
Tests/UnitTestsParallelizable/Views/DateEditorTests.cs	Adds coverage for DateEditor/DateTextProvider.
Tests/UnitTests/Views/DatePickerTests.cs	Updates focus expectations for DateEditor integration.
Terminal.sln.DotSettings	Adds spelling exception entry for “TimeEditor”.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/TimeTextProvider.cs	New culture-aware time provider (12h/24h + AM/PM handling).
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/TimeField.cs	Removes legacy time input view.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/TimeEditor.cs	New time editor built on TextValidateField with CWP value events.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/TextValidateField.cs	Adds IValue plumbing, provider change tracking, and blank-cursor-cell support.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/TextRegexProvider.cs	Improves null-safety and aligns event raising pattern with other providers.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/TextEditingLineStatus.cs	Cleans up file header/nullability directive.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/NetMaskedTextProvider.cs	Refactors + aligns event raising pattern with other providers.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/ITextValidateProvider.cs	Removes obsolete OnTextChanged method from the interface.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/DateTextProvider.cs	New culture-aware date provider (normalized fixed-width pattern).
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/DateField.cs	Removes legacy date input view.
Terminal.Gui/Views/TextInput/DateEditor.cs	New date editor built on TextValidateField with CWP value events.
Terminal.Gui/Views/DatePicker.cs	Replaces embedded DateField with DateEditor and uses DateTextProvider.NormalizePattern.
Examples/UICatalog/Scenarios/TimeAndDate.cs	Updates scenario to demonstrate TimeEditor/DateEditor and formats.
Examples/UICatalog/Scenarios/TextInputControls.cs	Replaces DateField/TimeField usage with editors; updates mirroring labels.
AGENTS.md	Updates agent index to new TextInput file set.
.tg-docs/INDEX.md	Updates docs index to new TextInput file set.

[BDisp]

Good idea to implement them with TextValidateField.