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Date format

K

KeithJaw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 3, 2010
21
0
I've recently installed 'Snow Leopard'.

In 'Finder' the date displays the way I want (UK: day/month/year), and says 'Today' or 'Yesterday' when appropriate.

But in the 'Open' dialogue, the date displays in US format (month/day/year), and doesn't do the 'Today' thing.

This is very confusing.

Anyone know how to fix it?


KEITH.
 
KeithJaw said:
I've recently installed 'Snow Leopard'.

But in the 'Open' dialogue, the date displays in US format (month/day/year), and doesn't do the 'Today' thing.

KEITH.
Click to expand...

I'm likely being dense, but what is the "Open dialogue"?
 
By the 'Open' Dialogue, I mean, when you go to open a file, and 'finder' comes up to enable you to browse through your files.
 
Yeah, this is where I set my date preference, which I get in 'Finder'.

But where do I set it so that it shows correctly in an 'Open' dialogue?
 
KeithJaw said:
By the 'Open' Dialogue, I mean, when you go to open a file, and 'finder' comes up to enable you to browse through your files.
Click to expand...

OK, I have no idea what you mean. So I'll just follow the thread until the lightbulb goes off for me. This is something built into OS X, not some add-on?

When I make the change in System Prefs, the format seems correctly changed everywhere I look. But obviously I'm missing something.
 
FourCandles said:
Which applications are you using in order to open a file? And do those apps have date format preferences?
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think the light bulb has now lit. This is presumably some non-Apple application that doesn't use the standard approach.
 
No, this has nothing to do with some strange application.

Just Snow Leopard - straight out of the box.

Compare these 3 screenshots:

1. The 'open file' dialogue: look in the 'Preview' column. The date shows in American format, and never says 'Today' (it used to in OSX 10.4)
2. 'Open file' dialogue, in listed format: Date shows the way I want it.
3. 'Finder' dialogue, listed format: Even better: date shows in 'long format'.

Why are they all different? How can I make them the same?
 

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Regarding attachment two (the "Open" dialogue) above: if you make the Date Modified column WIDER, it will show the long date format?

...and... I DO get relative dates, in UK format as well, in the Preview Information pane. ??
 
Hey, Mooblie, that worked!

But my main problem is how do I get the date format to the UK standard in attachment no. 1?
 
KeithJaw said:
No, this has nothing to do with some strange application.

Just Snow Leopard - straight out of the box.

Compare these 3 screenshots:

1. The 'open file' dialogue: look in the 'Preview' column. The date shows in American format, and never says 'Today' (it used to in OSX 10.4)

Why are they all different? How can I make them the same?
Click to expand...

The first appears to be generated not by OS X directly but by Microsoft Word. Note the "Open: Microsoft Word" that titles the window. What happens if you open TextEdit and use its File-->Open... to preview that same file? I bet you get the format you want. I think this is a Microsoft Office issue, which I'll leave to others to help you with (since I don't know how).
 
I'm getting the same behaviour from Word, but not from TextEdit. I think LPZ is correct; Word is doing something non-standard.
 
Interesting - I tried TextEdit and, as you say, all is well.

But it's not just Word. All my Office applications do it (as I suppose you'd expect), but also Archicad, which is the other major application that I use.
And it didn't happen under OSX 10.4.
 
KeithJaw said:
Interesting - I tried TextEdit and, as you say, all is well.

But it's not just Word. All my Office applications do it (as I suppose you'd expect), but also Archicad, which is the other major application that I use.
And it didn't happen under OSX 10.4.
Click to expand...

You're right. Haven't found a non-Apple app that respects that date format setting. I wonder if there is one ...
 
OpenOffice seems to respect my own date format settings (yay open source) along with others Non-Apple apps like Firefox and BBEdit. In the Office apps, are the preferences of localization set for your area? It may make a difference. I don't have any of the apps mentioned that aren't working correctly for you to try on.
 
angelwatt said:
OpenOffice seems to respect my own date format settings (yay open source) along with others Non-Apple apps like Firefox
Click to expand...

So if you do File-->Open File... in Firefox and then select a file (in Column view) the date format is correct in the Preview window? Did you set some preference in Firefox to get this? It doesn't work for me.
 
LPZ said:
So if you do File-->Open File... in Firefox and then select a file (in Column view) the date format is correct in the Preview window? Did you set some preference in Firefox to get this? It doesn't work for me.
Click to expand...

I use list view, which shows it correct. Column view shows a different format though. BBEdit shows the correct format in column view though.
 
angelwatt said:
No. Maybe a bug in MS Office and Archicad though.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure. For example, OpenOffice does indeed correctly set the locale in its preferences based on my System Preferences format setting. But the date is still displayed incorrectly if I do File-->Open and look at the preview.

This seems to be either a bug in OS X, or very few developers know the "right" way to do something.
 
angelwatt said:
I use list view, which shows it correct. Column view shows a different format though. BBEdit shows the correct format in column view though.
Click to expand...

Yes, I see that now for Firefox. Don't have BBEdit, but it's good to know that there's some app for which all the views are correct.

Thanks.
 
My point is that all these applications behaved correctly until the introduction of Snow Leopard, although interestingly enough I notice that it doesn't happen with the new release of Archicad, which needs Snow Leopard to run.

If it weren't for that, I would gladly remove S.L. off our system, since this is only one of about different 6 ways in which this upgrade has disrupted our work flow.
 
LPZ said:
Yes, I see that now for Firefox. Don't have BBEdit, but it's good to know that there's some app for which all the views are correct.
Click to expand...

I tested in Google Chrome, MacVim, and VLC and all showed correct date formats, but Camino 2.0.4 did not. This leads me to believe that something small changed in Snow Leopard that causes the developers to need to change some small thing for this to work right. I don't see this as a bug in SL, but rather applications still catching up to Snow Leopard's differences. Firefox, Camino, and Chmox so far are the only ones not displaying the format correctly, among apps I've checked on my machine.
 
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