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Bug 676898 - Use a better date format by default instead of making the user guess
Use a better date format by default instead of making the user guess
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: nautilus
Classification: Core
Component: general
unspecified
Other All
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Nautilus Maintainers
Nautilus Maintainers
: 346337 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2012-05-26 19:42 UTC by William Jon McCann
Modified: 2015-09-16 18:48 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
Use a better date format by default instead of making the user guess (19.74 KB, patch)
2012-05-26 19:42 UTC, William Jon McCann
needs-work Details | Review
Improve date display (18.29 KB, patch)
2012-06-29 17:25 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Remove date format settings (11.31 KB, patch)
2012-06-29 17:25 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Use better column names (1.73 KB, patch)
2012-06-29 17:25 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
Fix display sizing of name column (9.14 KB, patch)
2012-06-29 17:25 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review

Description William Jon McCann 2012-05-26 19:42:27 UTC
We have a number of date formats currently. There are even user settings
for it. None of them are very good and worse we choose the longest and
most distracting one rather than the most compact one.
Comment 1 William Jon McCann 2012-05-26 19:42:28 UTC
Created attachment 215060 [details] [review]
Use a better date format by default instead of making the user guess
Comment 2 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-05-27 03:34:31 UTC
Review of attachment 215060 [details] [review]:

::: libnautilus-private/nautilus-column-utilities.c
@@ +71,3 @@
 					       "name", "date_accessed",
 					       "attribute", "date_accessed",
+					       "label", _("Opened"),

Doesn't "open" imply an user action? The file could have been accessed from the command line or some other program behind the scenes.

::: libnautilus-private/nautilus-file.c
@@ +4345,3 @@
+static const char *THIS_MONTH_TIME_FORMATS [] = {
+	N_("Oct 00"),
+	N_("%b %-e"),

If the width measurement mechanism we have in place here actually worked for list view, I think we could show the time too as a longer option for this format.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work though, as nautilus_file_get_date_as_string() calls this function with 0 width and NULL measure/truncate callbacks. Maybe it could be worth investigating using of a cell_data_func for the time columns in nautilus-list-view.c, so you could obtain the cell width and call nautilus_file_fit_modified_date_as_string with that, reworking the function to just compare it against the length of the format.

::: src/nautilus-list-view.c
@@ +1677,2 @@
 			view->details->file_name_cell = (GtkCellRendererText *)cell;
+			g_object_set (cell, "ellipsize", PANGO_ELLIPSIZE_END, NULL);

What do these changes address?
Anyway they should go in a separate commit, removing NautilusCellRendererTextEllipsized completely too, since this was its last user.

::: src/nautilus-view.c
@@ +2622,1 @@
 					GTK_POLICY_AUTOMATIC);

This should go in a separate commit too (unless it's part of the changes in nautilus-list-view.c).

How do we expect to fit a high number of enabled columns without horizontal scrolling when space is constrained though?
Comment 3 William Jon McCann 2012-06-29 17:25:09 UTC
Created attachment 217643 [details] [review]
Improve date display
Comment 4 William Jon McCann 2012-06-29 17:25:12 UTC
Created attachment 217644 [details] [review]
Remove date format settings
Comment 5 William Jon McCann 2012-06-29 17:25:14 UTC
Created attachment 217645 [details] [review]
Use better column names
Comment 6 William Jon McCann 2012-06-29 17:25:17 UTC
Created attachment 217646 [details] [review]
Fix display sizing of name column
Comment 7 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-06-30 02:05:56 UTC
Review of attachment 217643 [details] [review]:

Looks good, except for the missing initialization below.

::: libnautilus-private/nautilus-file.c
@@ +7884,3 @@
 	attribute_trash_orig_path_q = g_quark_from_static_string ("trash_orig_path");
 	attribute_date_permissions_q = g_quark_from_static_string ("date_permissions");
+	attribute_date_permissions_full_q = g_quark_from_static_string ("date_permissions_full");

The initialization of attribute_date_changed_full_q is missing here
Comment 8 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-06-30 02:31:44 UTC
Review of attachment 217644 [details] [review]:

Looks good.
Comment 9 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-06-30 02:31:54 UTC
Review of attachment 217645 [details] [review]:

Looks good.
Comment 10 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-06-30 02:32:02 UTC
Review of attachment 217646 [details] [review]:

Looks good.
Comment 11 William Jon McCann 2012-06-30 16:38:13 UTC
Comment on attachment 217643 [details] [review]
Improve date display

Committed with change from review.
Comment 12 William Jon McCann 2012-08-01 13:04:39 UTC
*** Bug 346337 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 13 Patryk Benderz 2013-07-08 14:19:48 UTC
This patch is a regression. According to this information: 
http://askubuntu.com/questions/285493/how-to-show-full-date-and-time-in-nautilus-files-3-6-list-view

...this patch:
https://git.gnome.org/browse/nautilus/commit/?id=3fd9cba41e56f44ed955b28755ad03135026d021

...made it impossible to set other date & time format in nautilus. This patch is a regression. It forces users to recompile Nautilus to have readable ISO date format. There is no way to set date format in Nautilus options, and there is no option to set it in dconf-editor under key org>gnome>nautilus>preferences>date-format. Currently I am unable to change default date format in nautilus:

patben@esp-patben-amd:~$ apt-cache policy nautilus
nautilus:
  Zainstalowana: 1:3.8.2-0ubuntu1~ubuntu13.04.1
  Kandydująca:   1:3.8.2-0ubuntu1~ubuntu13.04.1
  Tabela wersji:
 *** 1:3.8.2-0ubuntu1~ubuntu13.04.1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu/ raring/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:3.6.3-0ubuntu16 0
        500 http://pl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/main amd64 Packages
Comment 14 Artur 2013-10-27 11:24:55 UTC
Next important functionality has been removed from nautilus. It may be a good idea for people using files to play music or display photos, but a serious drawback for ones doing a little more advanced work.
Comment 15 Seán Ó Séaghdha 2014-06-02 02:49:05 UTC
Just discovered this demented change after a new installation.  Not only does this totally remove the user's choice of date format, but the default date format no longer conforms to my locale.  "Jun 1"  is not an Australian date format.
Comment 16 António Fernandes 2014-06-02 09:43:30 UTC
(In reply to comment #15)
> [...] the default date
> format no longer conforms to my locale.  "Jun 1"  is not an Australian date
> format.

This sounds like a bug. Can you file a new report about this?
Comment 17 mariano 2015-09-16 18:48:03 UTC
This bug is not RESOLVED FIXED. It is is still present in Nautilus 3.10.1 with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. 

See http://imgur.com/L5kWqG8 for screenshot. 

Date format in Nautilus does not correspond to locale. Date format in Nautilus can not be set by user. 

Having the full date is a basic function of every file browser. Please make Nautilus display date-time according to RFC 3339 by default. Let user set date-time format by giving most common formats to choose (e.g. YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS, MM/DD/YYYY, DD.MM.YYYY) and possibility to set format with date sequences (e.g. %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S). 

Related to Bug 699055 <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=699055>