238094 - time format set by desktop environment is not honored

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: Tracking, defect)

Description

[Felix Miata]

0.9.61 & 0.9.62 tested in 1.7b on Fedora Core 1 and trunk on SuSE 8.2

To reproduce
1-If not already so set, in KDE Control Center -> Country/Region set Time Format
HH:MM:SS
2-If not already so set, log out of KDE and back in
3-Launch CZ
4-Mouseover something in output window

Actual behavior
1-statusbar shows time in AM/PM format

Expected behavior
1-statusbar shows time in HH:MM format

According to James Ross, this is the relevant broken code:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/extensions/irc/xul/content/static.js#2842

Comment 1

[James Ross]

No, not exactly, ChatZilla's code is not broken - the LXR link is the bit that
asks *Mozilla* for the locale-correct short date string. It's the code that
works /that/ out that's broken. :)

CCing Constantine and blocking bug #dateandtime.

Comment 2

[Constantine A. Murenin]

Felix:

This is a problem of Date and Time handler in Mozilla. We do not yet honour KDE
settings. You must set your locale appropriately in order for the correct time
to show up. Use LANG environment variable to set the correct locale. 

Does this problem show up in MailNews and other components as well as in
ChatZilla? I bet it does --- it is not a problem with ChatZilla. 


Silver: 

We can fix 24-hour problem if we will use "timeFormatNoSecondsForce24Hour"
instead of "timeFormatNoSeconds", but this hack will possibly create another
complaint, so it is not a very good way to go (although I have no problems with
it). 

Comment 3

[Felix Miata]

LANG is appropriately set to en_US. I use only OS/2 for email. Anyone know of
any web pages that have clocks that should use the local LOCALE time format?

Since there are more non-Amerikans than Amerikans on this planet, shouldn't,
until Mozilla can properly use the time format ordinary users know how to
change, the default be set to the most common worldwide format? Isn't that
format 24 hour?

Comment 4

[Constantine A. Murenin]

(> Since there are more non-Amerikans than Amerikans on this planet, shouldn't,
> until Mozilla can properly use the time format ordinary users know how to
> change, the default be set to the most common worldwide format? Isn't that
> format 24 hour?



*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 238109 ***

Comment 5

[Felix Miata]

*** Bug 238109 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Felix Miata]

This also applies to mail and page info. 

Comment 7

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

setting dates is not a window manager's job. correcting summary.

as a note, mozilla respects the system-set date/time format, like all
(well-written) unix apps. KDE has an own setting, apparently.

personally I'd rather mozilla not use kde's setting. as I never use KDE, it's
probably configured at some unsuitable default, while the locale (de_AT) sets
the correct time and date format.

Comment 8

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

and can someone explain why this is not a duplicate of bug 238109? only kde has
its own date/time settings (adjusting summary again).

Comment 9

[Felix Miata]

This bug was filed first as a result of moznet discussion. There was initially
no apparent need for bug 238109, which shortly after resulted from that discussion. 

Then we decided that each broken desktop environment would need to be fixed
separately, that one broad brush bug would not be appropriate. Hence this bug
was changed to track a unique bug for each desktop environment exhibiting the
problem originally described here as a CZ only problem, while bug 238109 is kept
for KDE. Other desktop environments still need to be tested and bugs filed as
necessary.

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=238109#c5 probably should have been
made here originally, but I couldn't decide the better place at the time.

I finally found out how to work around this, and that is as
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231280#c29 mentions, to set and
export LC_TIME=en_DK, which to do globally in SuSE 8.2 at least, is done via
/etc/bash.bashrc.local.

Comment 10

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Then we decided that each broken desktop environment would need to be fixed
> separately, 

Please name a single desktop environment that you suspect allows to set a date
format. GNOME is not such a DE.

Comment 11

[Jungshik Shin]

(In reply to comment #10)

> Please name a single desktop environment that you suspect allows to set a date
> format. GNOME is not such a DE.

That doesn't mean allowing users to customize date/time format is a bad idea.
Actually, it's regarded as a good idea by many I18N experts. Relying on locale
_exclusively_ for date/time format and other similar things is not such a good
idea. If Gnome doesn't offer such a customization indepdent of the locale, it's
Gnome that has to be enhanced. 

Comment 12

[Jungshik Shin]

(In reply to comment #11)

> That doesn't mean allowing users to customize date/time format is a bad idea.

I didn't mean that Mozilla has to have its own UI for this. I was talking about
desktop environments.  Mozilla needs a generic (the word means it's not easy
unless there's an agreed-upon standard to exchange date/time format and other
similar things across programs) framework to honor the setting of a particular
desktop environment _when_ running in that desktop environment _before_ falling
back to the locale (LC_TIME). This may yet be a 'hypothetical' issue because I
don't know any desktop environment other than KDE on Unix that lets users change
the date/time format, but there are likely to be some. 

Comment 13

[Jungshik Shin]

(In reply to comment #12)

> desktop environments.  Mozilla needs a generic (the word means it's not easy
> unless there's an agreed-upon standard to exchange date/time format and other
> similar things across programs) framework to honor the setting of a particular

One possible approach is to use what comes out of freestandar group's effort
(locale repository and locale specification format : I guess they use xml).
Then, we can even put up our locale preference on the net and retrieve it
wherever we go. Mozilla can be made to retrieve that over the net. 

Comment 14

[BMO Automation]

Marking all tracking bugs which haven't been updated since 2014 as INCOMPLETE.
If this bug is still relevant, please reopen it and move it into a bugzilla component related to the work
being tracked. The Core: Tracking component will no longer be used.