How do I clear/reset the selected dates on the jQuery UI Datepicker calendar?

Question

How do I reset the datepicker calendar values?.. The min and max date restrictions?

The problem is that when I clear the dates (by deleting the textbox values), th

Answer 1

A modified version of Leniel Macaferi's solution to account for the backspace key being a "page back" shortcut in IE8 when a text field does not have focus (which appears to be the case when datepicker is open).

It also uses val() to clear the field since _clearDate(this) did not work for me.

$("#clearDates").datepicker().keyup(function (e) {
    // allow delete key (46) to clear the field
    if (e.keyCode == 46)
        $(this).val("");

    // backspace key (8) causes 'page back' in IE8 when text field
    // does not have focus, Bad IE!!
    if (e.keyCode == 8)
        e.stopPropagation();
});