GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 653845
RFE: Show date in clock by default
Last modified: 2015-02-27 18:10:11 UTC
GNOME Shell shows only the time in the clock, by default. On almost any screen there is plenty of room to also show the date. I propose the date should also be shown by default. This is useful information that is not distracting and is a sensible use of the slack space in the Shell panel. If anyone's worried about the very small screen case, it could be coded so it falls back to displaying only the time if there is not enough horizontal space to fit the date and time.
With date, do you mean the number of the day in the month, or also the month and the year?
I'd say day and month, not year (if you're forgetting what year it is you probanly have bigger problems!) -- Fedora Bugzappers volunteer triage team https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers
This makes sense to me simply because most of the time the user already knew that today is saturday but he might not know the date. So IMO the date is a much more useful information than the day. But well we had this on IRC multiple times ... anyway adding ui-review keyword.
Just a quick note that the Date, month and year is exactly one (mile high) click away.
(In reply to comment #4) > Just a quick note that the Date, month and year is exactly one (mile high) > click away. So is the day in case one really needs to look that up ...
I think that the information we put there should be symettrical, since this looks vastly superior when the information is center aligned. '12:35' looks great in the middle. 'Sun 12:35' or 'Sun 12 Jan, 12:35' don't.
OTOH, the top panel as a whole isn't symmetrical at all... so that's somewhat a lost battle.
(In reply to comment #7) > OTOH, the top panel as a whole isn't symmetrical at all... so that's somewhat a > lost battle. Pretty much nothing in the design is symmetrical.
(In reply to comment #5) > (In reply to comment #4) > > Just a quick note that the Date, month and year is exactly one (mile high) > > click away. > > So is the day in case one really needs to look that up ... Yes, it seems a lot of clock interfaces out there (ipad, android and webos) settle for just the time there and show the rest of the time info only when expanded.
andreas: they are designed for much smaller screens (the ipad's interface is the iphone's, remember). -- Fedora Bugzappers volunteer triage team https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers
I agree this should return, at least as an official option. I use it regularly and was very relieved when I discovered I could get it back with the tweak tools. My iPod touch has the option of adding the date into the the time on the lock screen but it adds it below the time for "symmetry" but that's not really an option on the panel. eg (centred of course): 13:28 Monday 4 July
(In reply to comment #10) > andreas: they are designed for much smaller screens (the ipad's interface is > the iphone's, remember). Sure, I just wanted to offer some observations on what other similar UI's does (this might be a good time to point out that I don't really care either way for the outcome of this bug *, but I'm happy to do more research). * As the difference between showing this information is either directly visible or exactly one click away.
> Sure, I just wanted to offer some observations on what other similar UI's does > (this might be a good time to point out that I don't really care either way for > the outcome of this bug *, but I'm happy to do more research). > > * As the difference between showing this information is either directly visible > or exactly one click away. The one click is quite disruptive if your in the middle of other things and have to move from the kdb to mouse, move it click, move back as opposed to a glance across the screen with your eyes.
In my opinion there should be simply an option to choose between two modes: 1) Time only 2) Day, Date (without the year, because this is really a waste of space), Time These two options make the most sense in my opinion. Remember this is primarily a desktop environment for desktop computers not for smartphones or tablets. The first option makes sense if it is used on a small screen device and the second one for desktop computers. This way it can be adapted for the needs of different computer/screen types. Just my 2 cents.
(In reply to comment #14) > In my opinion there should be simply an option to choose between two modes: Options should always be the last resort. We should agree on one thing and stick to that and not add a knob for everything.
If we should agree on one thing I am for: 2) Day, Date (without the year, because this is really a waste of space), Time
(In reply to comment #15) > (In reply to comment #14) > > In my opinion there should be simply an option to choose between two modes: > > Options should always be the last resort. We should agree on one thing and > stick to that and not add a knob for everything. Maybe we should pick one or the other based on the horizontal screen size?
(In reply to comment #17) > (In reply to comment #15) > > (In reply to comment #14) > > > In my opinion there should be simply an option to choose between two modes: > > > > Options should always be the last resort. We should agree on one thing and > > stick to that and not add a knob for everything. > > Maybe we should pick one or the other based on the horizontal screen size? Yeah if screen space is really a concern we should do that. (we should do the same in gdm and gnome-screensaver for consistency though).
I would really like to show the week number here as well, that would be more useful for me than month (see bug 651231, https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=651231).
Please don't confuse the discussion; that's a rather separate topic, and it relates to the *expanded* display, whereas here we're talking about the un-expanded display that's always visible.
Yes, I would always like to see the week number in the un-expanded display that is always visible. That would be very useful for me (I could give you examples if you like). I just referenced the bug since my desired feature is dependent on the fact that GNOME can show week numbers without using tweeks.
FWIW, I got here by searching for RFEs relating to showing the date in the shell, thinking I was going to have to implement it myself; turns out it's available, but off by default. For reference, this is the command that a user can run to override the default and get the date: $ gsettings set org.gnome.shell.clock show-date true Hope this is helpful (FWIW I think there probably should be a UI element e.g. on the time right-click for toggling this, but that's probably a separate issue)
dave: you can also do it with gnome-tweak-tool.
Do we want to do anything with this for the new system status panel, given how much more room we have now?
FWIW, I run at 1080x1920 and 3.9.5 with the date enabled looks pretty fine.
(In reply to comment #24) > Do we want to do anything with this for the new system status panel, given how > much more room we have now? I have still not seen any convincing argument for not showing a date.
The symmetry issue still stands, in my opinion. While the current approach isn't exactly symmetric, it is close (and I think we can do something to make it better in the future). If you add the date, it would be even more visually disruptive. The time is meant to be a visual anchor in the middle of the screen (see https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/HIG/Layout ), and it is supposed to balance the information on the right and left hand sides. I would also say that, as a general rule, we are trying to restrict the top bar to only absolutely essential information. This is balanced by providing further details on disclosure. For example, we show a battery icon to give an idea of how much power is remaining. When you click on it, you get exact details of your battery state. The same principle applies to the clock - we show the time and day in the bar, and then give extra information when you click on it.
(In reply to comment #27) > The symmetry issue still stands, in my opinion. While the current approach > isn't exactly symmetric, it is close (and I think we can do something to make > it better in the future). If you add the date, it would be even more visually > disruptive. But isn't the day (in addition to the time) breaking the symmetry? And I'd argue that the day is a rather useless because chances are very high that you already know which day it is today. So we should either add something that is actually useful (i.e the date which you might not always know) or just the time. Which would be pretty much in line with "I would also say that, as a general rule, we are trying to restrict the top bar to only absolutely essential information."
The date is essential information... Windows presents it fairly neatly too: "8/16/2013 8:30 AM"
(In reply to comment #28) > (In reply to comment #27) > > The symmetry issue still stands, in my opinion. While the current approach > > isn't exactly symmetric, it is close (and I think we can do something to make > > it better in the future). If you add the date, it would be even more visually > > disruptive. > > But isn't the day (in addition to the time) breaking the symmetry? It disrupts it to an extent. > And I'd > argue that the day is a rather useless because chances are very high that you > already know which day it is today. So we should either add something that is > actually useful (i.e the date which you might not always know) or just the > time. Which would be pretty much in line with "I would also say that, as a > general rule, we are trying to restrict the top bar to only absolutely > essential information." I agree with that. :) Not something I'm keen to push just before the freeze though.
(In reply to comment #29) > The date is essential information... It's not something that you check as frequently as the time. > Windows presents it fairly neatly too: > "8/16/2013 8:30 AM" Windows doesn't have it centered on the screen though.
I don't think there's much of a point of keeping the bug open and adding a bit of back-and-forth every couple of years - the designers (and others) have been consistently and unanimously opposed to the change, others have consistently disagreed. There is a setting and tweak tool has a toggle for it, so everyone who wants the date has probably figured out how to set it up and move on ... Still reassigning to gsettings-desktop-schemas where the setting lives nowadays, just in case that I unintentionally revived the discussion.