IPB 3.2 - the calendar, the time-format and other crimes

[Ikadon]

Greetings community, hello developers,

I'm really looking forward to 3.2 and all those great changes, first the announcement of an overhauled calendar, then the new editor, it's really great.

What I don't like is some part in the newest blog-entry (*[url="*) where it says

The date picker javascript tool has been added to the form to make it easier for users to choose the date they are attempting to add, and times have been changed to a 12 hour format with an "AM" and "PM" dropdown menu, [u]a vast improvement over the previous 24-hour format field previously used[/u].

Now guess what, it may be a vast improvement for those countries where you use the "12 hours AM/PM" system, but here, on continental europe, I don't know any country that uses this. Sure, I've learned to use it in english, but my forum-language is not english and will not be for a long time, if at all. People here find it quite complicated to use a time-format they never use elsewhere.

Also, yes, we are in 21st century and yes, english is "the world language" but many people here don't speak english that well, they've never had it in school or already forgotten about it.

Please, how can you force us to use a time-format no-one uses here when you sell your licences world-wide and any other competitor I ever used (paid and free ones) allows the users themselves (!) or at least the administrators for a global setting to choose which time-format to use.

This is a punch on the head of every other administrator like me, nearly as the still untranslatable Admin-CP that detains so many non-english-users from moving to IPS. (Yes, just get a translator and work through german-boards of your, still major, competitor... "I would really like to go to IPS but I can't because I don't speak english that well and the ACP is english only" "Really? Well, then I can't go either" - there are many discussions like that all over the internet but you still don't care, even more than a year later, when I first supported a topic like that)

Please IPS, let us decide what we want and what we don't want for our forums! And while you're at it, please make this an overall-feature within all your applications. Last time I looked I couldn't change the time-format to 24hours in IP.Content either... which is a shame!

And please see this as constructive criticism, as I do not intend to insult you, but neither do I lie and say all is fine when it isn't!

Regards
Ikadon

[Pfeiffer]

Thanks Ikadon for pointing this out. Without wanting to insult anyone - I think this is outrageous.

I cannot in any way see, how this is considered a vast improvement. And this isn't a language issue - it is a standards question. There is a reason that military, airline reservations, hospitals, etc, use a 24-hr system. All of Europe has the 24 hour system and AM/PM are optional.

Operating Systems allow users to choose the time format to use. Because this has to do with conforming to standards. Most software will then conform to the standard set in the OS.
Forcing users to ONLY use a household US standard is going a step backwards. And this one is a step backwards - the US, Liberia and Burma are the only countries in the world that haven't adopted the International System of Units, so maybe the next step is to force us to use inches, gallons, etc.

I speak English fluently and have lived in a few English speaking countries - where the metric system was always used and for time the 24-hour time (or in some cases both 24h & AM/PM). Just to say that this isn't about language.

[Enkidu]

so maybe the next step is to force us to use inches, gallons, etc.

I would imagine that the next step is to force us to use MacOS/Safari (Apple products in general). Didn't you hear the news? IPS is phasing out support for IE7.

No offence to IPS by the way :)

[Hunting insects...]

...so maybe the next step is to force us to use inches, gallons, etc.

So long as it is the Imperial Gallon. ;)

Didn't you hear the news? IPS is phasing out support for IE7.

Having advised users of this a couple of months ago, I didn't receive a single complaint.

[bfarber]

Whoa, calm down here. I would hardly say a change to the method to submit times is a "crime". I'm now looking over my shoulder for the police to come arrest me. :unsure:

In previous versions of calendar we used the 24-hour time system, and received no end to complaints about how complicated it was for users (yes, I suppose in hindsight it was most likely American customers where we do NOT overly use 24-hour time formats). I was not aware that the 24-hour time format was so widely used in your countries that this would be an issue. I'm happy to look into a setting to allow you to use 24-hour time formats for submitting calendar entries.

Asking nicely goes a long ways. :thumbsup:

[Ikadon]

Whoa, calm down here. I would hardly say a change to the method to submit times is a "crime". I'm now looking over my shoulder for the police to come arrest me. :unsure:

Three S.W.A.T.-Teams are on there way... Resistance is futile ;) (Yes, they are borg-swat-teams :P)

Also, this (calling it a "crime") is called sarcasm or irony we use it widely here, at least at university ;) So, no offense meant.

In previous versions of calendar we used the 24-hour time system, and received no end to complaints about how complicated it was for users (yes, I suppose in hindsight it was most likely American customers where we do NOT overly use 24-hour time formats). I was not aware that the 24-hour time format was so widely used in your countries that this would be an issue. I'm happy to look into a setting to allow you to use 24-hour time formats for submitting calendar entries.

Please, don't force me to make another thread in IP.Content. Could you please look into this there as well? There only is the AM/PM-System, and as I'm working on a way to let my users submit their own news...

Kind regards,
Ikadon

[Pfeiffer]

Whoa, calm down here. I would hardly say a change to the method to submit times is a "crime". I'm now looking over my shoulder for the police to come arrest me. :unsure:

In previous versions of calendar we used the 24-hour time system, and received no end to complaints about how complicated it was for users (yes, I suppose in hindsight it was most likely American customers where we do NOT overly use 24-hour time formats). I was not aware that the 24-hour time format was so widely used in your countries that this would be an issue. I'm happy to look into a setting to allow you to use 24-hour time formats for submitting calendar entries.

Asking nicely goes a long ways. :thumbsup:

bfarber, my apologies. Talking for myself, then I assume that as a development company working with web applications that work across country boundaries, support for time-zones, locales, date and time formats, etc are standard knowledge.
When I read the OP, then I felt it was a blatant disregard for this. Like saying "from next version we only support the US date format, currency and time zones". That is why I jumped up.

But I can now see that it is because you were not aware of this. Agreed - no crime and situation under control.

I would like to add to Ikadons suggestion. Make this a global setting for the board. The Admin decides what date/time formats to use based on his/hers country and region. And then ALL applications just plugin to that setting. The same goes for the requirement for "State" in addresses for say shipping in IP.Nexus. They are not widely used outside the US.

Anyways, great improvements to the Calendar and looking forward to implementing this.

[bfarber]

I've received some private messages indicating that this topic of the 24 hour time format has been misunderstood by some. I have replied to the blog entry as well to clarify some of the things I've said, but I will cross-post here for anyone interested.

I've seen some confusion expressed over my previous reply so I just wanted to clarify it.

Some people have told me that based on my previous reply they heard that IP.Board does not support 24 hour formats and/or that to change the time formatting in IP.Board you need to write a javascript class. This is not what I said, or intended to convey, in my earlier responses.

IP.Board itself fully supports formatting times and dates anyway you want. The timestamps we store are run through the strftime() function in PHP so that (1) you can control the formatting of times and dates, and (2) your locale is honored. Here is a screenshot of some of the date formatting options available in the ACP for IP.Board: http://screencast.com/t/NkbwScBKY . Further to this, times are parsed in the skin templates through a template plugin, so if you wish to change how dates or times display in specific locations you can do so by editing the skin only. You have full control in IP.Board over the way times and dates are formatted.

When I was discussing 24 hour formats and date formats previously, I was referring specifically to submitting events in calendar.

Calendar allows you to specify the date(s) for an event, naturally, and, when needed, the time as well. In IP.Board 3.1 you must specify the time in 24 hour format, which is unfriendly to American users who typically use AM/PM notations. IP.Board 3.2 will now allow you to specify times in either 24 hour format OR American format, just by toggling a switch in the ACP. This change is based on feedback from both American and international users, and specifically based on feedback from customers replying to this blog entry.

When I referenced writing a javascript class previously, this is ONLY in relation to our date picker javascript function. If you are not familiar with what I'm referring to, go to our advanced search page and click on the calendar icons next to both date entry fields. You are presented with a mini-calendar allowing you to click on a date to enter it into the search box. In order to change the formatting of the date that is entered into the search box, a small javascript file needs to be available to understand that date format. I only meant that to support different formats for the way this date is passed from the mini-calendar to the text input box, a small javascript file needs to be there to translate the date. That said, out of the box we have several formats available, and in the next version of Calendar you will be able to select between YYYY/MM/DD, MM/DD/YYYY, DD/MM/YYYY, and YYYY-MM-DD formatting.

My apologies to anyone that I may have confused with earlier replies. Please understand we care about our international users just as much as users here in the states, and this is evidenced by how quickly we acted upon your feedback here in this blog entry to give our international users the experience they are expecting and deserve. :)

Original post:

[Ikadon]

So this is sorted out? Great to hear :)