Django Jalali Calendar Widget

Using the original JSCal and the Jalali version for it, I managed to create a simple Django widget that displays a Jalali calendar in view layer but actually uses the Gregorian server side:

calbtn = u'''
'''

class DateTimeWidget(forms.widgets.TextInput):
    class Media:
        css = {
            'all': ('/static/styles/jscalendar/skins/calendar-system.css',)
        }
        js = (
              '/static/js/jscalendar/jalali.js',
              '/static/js/jscalendar/calendar.js',
              '/static/js/jscalendar/calendar-setup.js',
              '/static/js/jscalendar/lang/calendar-fa.js',
        )

    dformat = '%Y-%m-%d'
    def render(self, name, value, attrs=None):
        if value is None: value = ''
        final_attrs = self.build_attrs(attrs, type=self.input_type, name=name)
        if value != '':
            try:
                final_attrs['value'] = \
                                   force_unicode(value.strftime(self.dformat))
            except:
                final_attrs['value'] = \
                                   force_unicode(value)
        if not final_attrs.has_key('id'):
            final_attrs['id'] = u'%s_id' % (name)
        id = final_attrs['id']

        jsdformat = self.dformat #.replace('%', '%%')
        cal = calbtn % (id, id, id, id, jsdformat)
        parsed_atts = forms.util.flatatt(final_attrs)
        a = u' %s%s' % (id, parsed_atts, self.media, cal)
        return mark_safe(a)

    def value_from_datadict(self, data, files, name):
        dtf = forms.fields.DEFAULT_DATETIME_INPUT_FORMATS
        empty_values = forms.fields.EMPTY_VALUES

        value = data.get(name, None)
        if value in empty_values:
            return None
        if isinstance(value, datetime.datetime):
            return value
        if isinstance(value, datetime.date):
            return datetime.datetime(value.year, value.month, value.day)
        for format in dtf:
            try:
                return datetime.datetime(*time.strptime(value, format)[:6])
            except ValueError:
                continue
        return None

    def _has_changed(self, initial, data):
        """
        Return True if data differs from initial.
        Copy of parent's method, but modify value with strftime function before final comparsion
        """
        if data is None:
            data_value = u''
        else:
            data_value = data

        if initial is None:
            initial_value = u''
        else:
            initial_value = initial

        try:
            if force_unicode(initial_value.strftime(self.dformat)) != force_unicode(data_value.strftime(self.dformat)):
                return True
        except:
            if force_unicode(initial_value) != force_unicode(data_value):
                return True
        return False

Also, if you need to do manipulations on the date object in server-side, you can use the utility written in GNU Jalali Calendar.

IBM ICU Persian (Farsi) / Arabic Shaping Bug Fix

Courtesy of Nima Honarmand and Seyyed Jamal Pishvayi, there is now a patch that fixes IBM's ICU project issue 6169. This issue addresses the Persian/Arabic Shaping Support of FB50 block. Hope this contribution would help resolve the issue faster. The patch source: ArabicShaping.java