Usability of the date-time format setting for advanced users has improved in D6. It's more flexible now. The result however is an even more complex user interface. Maybe now is the time to improve the interface for beginners.

What I mean is stop letting the PHP implementation show up in the interface and start showing what it's really about.

My suggestions are to ask the user the following simple questions:

1. time: choose 12, 24h or none
2. date: choose d m y, m d y or y m d
3. delimiter: choose '-', ' /', '.' or ' ' (the latter using e.g. May instead of 5)

Ready.

Short, medium and long date formats will be composed from this.

My guess is this will suit most users. If not the new custom format can be used.

Before I start coding a patch I would like some feedback.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#10 date formatting.png36.9 KByoroy

Comments

gaele’s picture

cosmicdreams’s picture

Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Fixed

Apparently this is a resolved issue in Drupal 6.

http://drupal.org/node/105039

I'll mark this as fixed for now.

gaele’s picture

Status: Fixed » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)

http://drupal.org/node/105039 added more options, making the user-interface easier for advanced users, but even more difficult for beginners.

cosmicdreams’s picture

So should we consider this an open issue then? How would we change the user interface to make it feature complete, yet easier to use.

cosmicdreams’s picture

I think we should sit on this issue until Drupal 6 is in wider use. We'll have a fresh perspective then.

sutharsan’s picture

Project: » Drupal core
Version: » 7.x-dev

Moving issues from User experience project to Drupal core usability component.

illuminaut’s picture

I think the custom date format entry is fine, except that on 12 days out of the year the options are ambiguous. It might be better to use a fixed non-ambiguous date as an example rather than the current date. You can use some vanity date such as drupal's birthday.

The link to the PHP manual is useful, but it takes you away from the form and there's a lot of unnecessary information on the manual page. It would be better to have just the table with the codes/explanation/example and display that in a popup window, so the user doesn't have to remember the codes, keep going back and forth, or write them down.

gaele’s picture

Component: usability » base system
Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Active
Issue tags: +Usability
cosmicdreams’s picture

Priority: Normal » Minor

well it looks like we've sit on this issue enough. Perhaps too long, since we are in the final stages of getting Drupal 7 done.

Drupal 7 has some improvements for handling time formats, the configuration page as seen in Seven look pretty good to me. Other than that I'm not sure what has changed for this feature.

To me, (disclaimer: I am a programmer), the default time settings + a easy to find and understand way of creating my own time formats is enough to satisfy my needs. However, I do see how a non-programmer or casual Drupal administrator would consider that learning how to create the unavailable time format that they want is too much work and a source of frustration.

Yet, I feel I have to degrade the Priority of this issue down to Minor as it isn't an issue that has gained a lot of traction and therefore may not be a common request of drupal users. Please correct me if I am wrong.

yoroy’s picture

Issue summary: View changes
Issue tags: +Needs design
StatusFileSize
new36.9 KB

This is still cumbersome.

yoroy’s picture

Version: 7.x-dev » 8.2.x-dev
mpdonadio’s picture

Component: base system » datetime.module

Changing the component so this can be tracked with some similar work, though it may not be in the datetime module proper.

mpdonadio’s picture

Does anyone have examples of systems that do this well? Think we want to leverage a PIE solution for this, if one exists.

aaronchristian’s picture

What if we had some sort of date "builder" tool, that was a little more hands-on? Maybe some drag and drop ordering (split up into parts, month/day/year/time), and then various formats of Month when clicked (Mar, March, 03). Possibly with the option to toggle to the standard text field where the user can enter in a unique format of the date they'd like to enter? Thoughts?

Version: 8.2.x-dev » 8.3.x-dev

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millionleaves’s picture

Agree with #10. In fact, D8 is more cumbersome than D7, where you at least had a list of formats in both dmy and mdy to choose from before you dived into custom date formats. Now, you have to figure out the PHP date formats yourself. Not site-builder friendly at all.

I like the suggestions in the original post. Provide some simple options for setting defaults, and allow these defaults to be augmented with custom formats if the defaults don't provide all that you need.

Version: 8.4.x-dev » 8.5.x-dev

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Version: 10.1.x-dev » 11.x-dev

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smustgrave’s picture

Status: Active » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)
Issue tags: +stale-issue-cleanup

Thank you for sharing your idea for improving Drupal.

We are working to decide if this proposal meets the Criteria for evaluating proposed changes. There hasn't been any discussion here for over 8 years which suggests that this has either been implemented or there is no community support. Your thoughts on this will allow a decision to be made.

Since we need more information to move forward with this issue, the status is now Postponed (maintainer needs more info). If we don't receive additional information to help with the issue, it may be closed after three months.

Thanks!

Version: 11.x-dev » main

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Read more in the announcement.