GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 640059
24 hours vs. ???
Last modified: 2011-08-26 20:20:34 UTC
In the new time&date capplet I'm able to turn on and off the 24 hour clock format. It is however unclear what it's opposite is. Maybe it would be a good idea to make them radiobuttons where you can select between 12h and 24h.
John did that. It's not clear indeed. commit 26a45cafe82e8866e87a9f2d77946cde2f02f059 Author: William Jon McCann <jmccann@redhat.com> Date: Thu Jan 6 17:05:38 2011 -0500 datetime: use a switch for 24 hour time
<andreasn> mccann, how do you feel about bug 640059 ? <mccann> i think you're being silly <mccann> I think it is fine So closing as wontfix
I very much agree with Andreas. Radiobuttons should be used here. That's how it was in the designs Thomas Wood and I did for a reason.
I'm inclined to agree with this report. Switches are for services or facilitates which have definite on/off logic to them. You know: 'screenreader: on/off', 'bluetooth: on/off'. Doesn't seem appropriate in this case. Any chance this could be reconsidered?
Reopening for design consideration.
So I mentioned on IRC... In the US at least, there is really no opposite state for a 24 hour time option. There is only "Time" and "24 hour time". So it really is a case where you turn 24 hour time on and off. FWIW, the iPad does this as well. And visually I think the switch works much better here. And doesn't overwhelm the space (and compete for attention with the more interesting and important things). I don't really want to change it.
iOS translated "24-hour Time" as "Affichage 24h" (24 hour display) in French, so it might just be a case of making sure translators know how they should "spin" the original label. Should I add that as a translator comment? "Whether to show the time as 12-hour or 24-hour, for example, "Affichage 24h" (24-hour Display) in French"
(In reply to comment #7) > So I mentioned on IRC... > > In the US at least, there is really no opposite state for a 24 hour time > option. There is only "Time" and "24 hour time". So it really is a case where > you turn 24 hour time on and off. FWIW, the iPad does this as well. > Then at least this should be localised. Because to me, what else is there besides a 24h clock? Why is the US point of view more important? I thought i18n and localisation were major points for GNOME... > And visually I think the switch works much better here. And doesn't overwhelm > the space (and compete for attention with the more interesting and important > things). Lightswitches should be used for system wide modes or hardware, and the descriptive text should be a 'mode' as well, but in this case it uses a verb sentence ('Use 24h clock') which is something for a checkbox. There are other ways to make it visually attractive (this was actually the main guideline we kept in mind whilst Thomas and I designed it, even over functionality). I can make some proposals if you want. I would be good with a custom switch with 24H and 12H on either side to make it more appealing over radiobuttons. I think this decision is wrong in both a usability and i18n perspective.
For info, bug 649566 may be somewhat related.
I must also say that a radiobutton would be much more logical. Maybe something like AM/PM 24 h ?
I think locale plays a major role in how you look at this. I would favor radiobuttons for this as well.
Went with 24h time and AM/PM as labels for the radio buttons. commit 76783e8e27f73dc025bb74032aaf378ce3ffa1b7 Author: Bastien Nocera <hadess@hadess.net> Date: Fri Aug 26 17:01:23 2011 +0100 datetime: Use radio buttons for 24h time Instead of a switch. For most locales "24h time" doesn't really have an opposite (as those don't use AM/PM). https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=640059