1482373 - make date and time formatting use "regional settings locale" by default for thunderbird

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, enhancement)

Description

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Make intl.regional_prefs.use_os_locales true for Thunderbird.

I thought we had already done it but notice we hadn't.
Users in general would like their time/date in the OS preferred format (if you ask me). That's the whole point of having OS definable formatting.

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Attachment: bug1482373_os_datetime.patch

Comment 2

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

(In reply to Magnus Melin from comment #0)
> Users in general would like their time/date in the OS preferred format (if
> you ask me). That's the whole point of having OS definable formatting.
Sigh, I thought we had closed this discussion :-(

The absolute majority of users will use FF or TB localised into their language, and they will want the format to go with it. FF doesn't even expose the preference (although there is bug 1379910 which stalled). Since en-US TB already follows the system formats, as long as they are English, so en-AU, en-GB or so, this option is only interesting for a very small (but very vocal) group of people who must see German, Finnish or Slovak dates in their otherwise English UI. These people should check the box.

This change also comes to late. We shipped TB 60 ESR using the application locale, so there isn't much point changing that now.

Personally, this is a WONTFIX.

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

(In reply to Jorg K (GMT+2) from comment #2)
> The absolute majority of users will use FF or TB localised into their
> language, and they will want the format to go with it. 

This is less true with Thunderbird actually. There are plenty of languages that Thunderbird does not support. Firefox has many more locales that they ship. We only have 63, Firefox has 104.

FF doesn't even
> expose the preference (although there is bug 1379910 which stalled). Since
> en-US TB already follows the system formats, as long as they are English, so
> en-AU, en-GB or so, this option is only interesting for a very small (but
> very vocal) group of people who must see German, Finnish or Slovak dates in
> their otherwise English UI. These people should check the box.

Why would we require checking a box to get the normal behavior. Like I said in the previous comment, there is a reason you can set these things on the OS level. 

Thunderbird has used the OS settings since always. Besides, this is also what others are doing. Outlook, Gmail... everybody use the settings people expect. Without having to check an advanced setting.

> This change also comes to late. We shipped TB 60 ESR using the application
> locale, so there isn't much point changing that now.

The vast majority hasn't been updated yet. And they *will* be upset.

Comment 4

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/a806462b9d2e
use "regional settings locale" by default for date and time formatting. r=jorgk

Comment 5

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

TB 60.1 ESR:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr60/rev/770c0a2055784b19d814b79f663ab2f5644c0ff7