jQuery UI Datepicker - setDate not working

Question

I know this question has been asked on SO before, but I can't figure out what I'm missing. Here is a simple Fiddle.

The jquery:

var myDate = new Date(1978,2,11) 
$('#datepicker').datepicker('setDate', myDate);

Answer 1

You have to initialize the datepicker first:

    $('#datepicker').datepicker();

When you pass setDate, you are calling a method which assumes the datepicker has already been initialized on that object.

http://jsfiddle.net/tbYPf/4/