482115 - "Date Text Format" has long and short date format wrong (switched, swapped)

Status: NEW

(Calendar :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Umang]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009030422 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13pre) Gecko/20080602 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Calendar/0.8

If you go to Preferences, and check the "Date Text Format" option, it gives me two options:

- Long: Sun 8 Mar 2009
- Short: Sunday 08 March 2009

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Edit Menu >> Preferences >> General Tab


Expected Results:  
I believe that this should be

- Short: Sun 8 Mar 2009
- Long: Sunday 08 March 2009

Comment 1

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

Works fine for me using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b4pre) Gecko/20090307 Calendar/1.0pre. The preference dialog shows "Short: 08.03.2009" and "Long: Sonntag, 8. März 2009".

I'd recommend that you update to the latest official release (0.9) and retest. But most probably your system doesn't correctly define the short and long date format and your run into the code at <http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/calendar/base/src/calDateTimeFormatter.js#151>. You could try to change the short and long date format for your system and observe the changes in Sunbird.

Comment 2

[Umang]

I can't seem to find a way to change the system settings for that (have checked all Time/Date settings for the system, no such option). Will report a bug in Launchpad. (Referring to this bug). (But I won't call this bug resolved as yet...)

Comment 3

[Umang]

I've reported it at launchpad. Let's see what they have to say about it.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/sunbird/+bug/339497

Comment 4

[Martin Schröder [:mschroeder]]

Probably a Linux-only problem, and http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/calendar/base/src/calDateTimeFormatter.js#151 may be the culprit. (Stolen from https://bugs.launchpad.net/sunbird/+bug/339497 ;))

Comment 5

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

To summarize the current situation: The mozilla toolkit receives the short date format and the long date format from the operating systems. Some systems (some/all linux systems?) don't provide a long date format and return the same as used for the short date format or an invalid string.

Sunbird/Lightning detects that both formats are identical and uses a custom long date format like "<abbreviated weekday name> <day of month> <abbreviated month name> <year>". Depending on the systems short date format this string might be shorter or longer - as reported with this bug.

One solution could be to remove the "Long" and "Short" text in the date format dropdown menu in the preference dialog and just offer the two entries as is. They don't really provide more information than already provided by the formatted examples in the dropdown menu itself.

Comment 6

[Umang]

That last solutions seems like a good idea. I would go with it.