Jquery – Can’t move focus to the control because it is invisible

You should be able to use the readonly attribute on the text input, and jQuery will still be able to edit its contents.

<input type='text' id='foo' readonly='true'>

Turns out that a simple hidden input field does the job:

<input type="hidden" id="dp" />

And then use the buttonImage attribute for your image, like normal:

    $("#dp").datepicker({
        buttonImage: '../images/icon_star.gif',
        buttonImageOnly: true,
        changeMonth: true,
        changeYear: true,
        showOn: 'both',
     });

Initially I tried a text input field and then set a display:none style on it, but that caused the calendar to emerge from the top of the browser, rather than from where the user clicked. But the hidden field works as desired.

JSFiddle