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Old 02-09-2009, 11:44 AM   #374
Dale
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Join Date: Jun 2005

Location: Western Missouri
Posts: 960
Originally posted by Jim Sachs:
Wow, that interface for changing those settings is nearly as obscure as going into the Registry directly. I was hoping for something more along the lines of right-clicking the time readout.

The reason this is imortant is that if get into an area which the average user is not familiar with, we suddenly become responsible for teaching them. If there are 50 million copies of a program out there, and just one person in 1000 is wondering why his clock is showing 24-hour time, that's 50,000 emails. So if I'm going to support other time/date modes, I think that the user will need to be able to set it from within the program, and I shouldn't get the settings from the Registry.  
I understand that reasoning.

Of course, it means that you would have to code one more set of "pickers" with user interface, and presumably handle all of the added complexities of 31.12.1999, 1999/12/31, 12/31/1999, 31 DEC 99, December 31, 1999, etc. Not to mention the appropriate names (and single-character abbreviations) for the days, and names of the months (associating them with various choices of language). And explain that somewhere.

There would be significant complexity to doing that, rather than just reading the registry settings - or just saying "No, that's the only way MA3 works".

I just (quickly) counted 11 applications on my PC that display some form of day/time. I'm personally thankful that I don't have to change each of them.

There could be some advantage to being able to tell 50,000 people "It's Microsoft's fault - go ask them".
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