Is it possible to remove segmentation from the Kendo DatePicker DateInput?

[Ian]

I've been working with the Kendo DatePicker UI component and I really like the masking and validation it provides if a user wants to manually enter a date when DateInput() is applied. However, it also adds segmentation which means a user either needs to click or use arrow keys to move on to edit other parts of the date like month, day or year. If I remove DateInput() there is no more segmentation, but also no validation or masking. Is there a way to keep validation and masking in the date input field without the segmentation and keep the date picker functionality? My other option is to remove .DateInput() along with the messages and manually apply validation and masking, but if there is a solution within the component itself, that would be ideal. Below is what we currently have.

                                                       @(Html.Kendo().DatePicker()
.Format(Model.DateMask)
.Name("DateStart")
.DateInput()
.Messages(m => m.DateInput(d => d.Day("__")))
.Messages(m => m.DateInput(d => d.Month("__")))
.Messages(m => m.DateInput(d => d.Year("____")))
.Culture(UICulture)
.Footer(false)
                          )

[Anton Mironov]

Hi Ian,

Thank you for the details provided.

Could you please add information about the segmentation? It will be perfect if you could send video and images of the exact scenario.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Kind Regards,
Anton Mironov
Progress Telerik