Date Format

[Gandolf]

Am I missing something very obvious or are the first two options in View|Date Format the same?? I would have expected one to be 03/09/2004 and the other 09/03/2004.

[admin]

Am I missing something very obvious or are the first two options in View|Date Format the same??.

They were different in the last millenium! I really forgot that we entered the 4-digit-year era...
What now: simply remove one of them, or are their any suggestions...?

[peterbonge]

What about changing to a short format like 3.9.04? Or with leading zeros like 03.09.2004 or 03.09.04?

[admin]

Yes, ok!
Do I hear more ideas...? There's no limit, we can have 20 date formats if necessary, neither performance nor memory will suffer...

[peterbonge]

3-9-04
3. Sep. 04

And maybe two special options to add leading zeros and to show full year? Then you wouldn't have to add every format with/without leading zeros and with/without full year.

Or you could make it customizeable via the ini file (again)...

[Gandolf]

They were different in the last millenium!

Only four years out of date!

mm/dd/yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy I think are the ones I use the most. I've never liked the format without the leading zero's - they don't line up so neatly.

You could have the format in Roman numbers - III/IX/MMIV would certainly be unique to TrackerV3!!!

[admin]

You could have the format in Roman numbers - III/IX/MMIV would certainly be unique to TrackerV3!!!

Maybe a splendid marketing idea! Also a challenge to the programmer (me)! Let's see...

EDIT: well, they are just too clumsy. The romans had just a very bad number system; how did they manage to remain so long in power, was it instead or because of that dumb thing??? Maybe numbers are just a fancy distraction from the real world...

Whatever, what about muslim and jewish calender!? The cross-cultural file-manager... oh no, forget it, too difficult! I don't want to mess with the moon phases etc...

[admin]

UPDATE
I worked a little bit and the state of affairs is now as follows (examples for Germany, UK, US).
The first 3 settings are completely controlled by what you set up in your OS control panel. The last 4 settings are determined by TrackerV3, but are also influenced by your locale settings. See yourself:

Code: Select all

DE:
04.09.2004 
04. Sep. 04
Samstag, 4. September 2004
04.09.04
09.04.04
04/09/2004
09/04/2004

UK:
04/09/2004
04. Sep. 04
04 September 2004
04/09/04
09/04/04
04.09.2004
09.04.2004

US:
9/4/2004
04. Sep. 04
Saturday, September 04, 2004
04/09/04
09/04/04
04.09.2004
09.04.2004

The last two are the reverse of the local scheme, so that German can have US/UK format and vice versa.

Like Gandolf, I don't like formats without the leading zero's.

[Gandolf]

U.K. settings:

No reverse of 04/09/2004 i.e. 09/04/2004. Is that because the O.S. settings won't let you do that? I tend to use it since we have relatives in L.A and they don't seem to be able to understand the U.K. date format!!. Otherwise you seem to cover most options.

[admin]

It's a volatile affair. Quote McLuhan: "You don't like my ideas? No problem, I got others!"

Here comes the next (ultimate i think) approach, with a peterbonge-twist: the first 2 are determined by your OS-wide userdefined date format configuration (Short Date and Long Date). The other 6 are predefined by TrackerV3, but you can edit them in the INI (Section = "ListDateFormats") at will (only for advanced users, but who else would use TrackerV3?).
Here are some examples for three arbitrarily selected countries:

Code: Select all

DE:
04.09.2004
Samstag, 4. September 2004
04.09.04
09.04.04
04-Sep-04
04.09.2004
09.04.2004
04-Sep-2004

UK:
04/09/2004
04 September 2004
04/09/04
09/04/04
04-Sep-04
04/09/2004
09/04/2004
04-Sep-2004

US:
9/4/2004
Saturday, September 04, 2004
04/09/04
09/04/04
04-Sep-04
04/09/2004
09/04/2004
04-Sep-2004

When you edit the INI note that "/" is a soft separator: it's rendered as "." in Germany, "/" in UK/US. To force a hard "/" write "\/".

Donald

[peterbonge]

1. Works great! Thanx! But I would sort the deafult ini entries like this:

Code: Select all

3=dd/mm/yy
4=dd/mm/yyyy
5=mm/dd/yy
6=mm/dd/yyyy
7=dd-mmm-yy
8=dd-mmm-yyyy

I think this is a little bit more clearly arranged. And I would swap the first two time entries in the menu. But these are just suggestions ;-)

2. And what's about leading zeros for the dates in the General File Info tab?

3. And what's about changing the time format? Maybe:
15-30
15/30/43
15 Uhr 30
16 o'clock

Yes, I know: I want it all ;-)

[admin]

1. Works great! Thanx! But I would sort the deafult ini entries like this:

Code: Select all

3=dd/mm/yy
4=dd/mm/yyyy
5=mm/dd/yy
6=mm/dd/yyyy
7=dd-mmm-yy
8=dd-mmm-yyyy

I think this is a little bit more clearly arranged. And I would swap the first two time entries in the menu. But these are just suggestions ;-)

I hate to admit it but once again you are right!

Your other suggestions: no, let's not get too ridiculous. I know that you want the time formats user configurable, too, and try to brainwash me towards doing this... but it's a warm saturday night and you won't succeed! Not tonight...