Bug 480683

Summary: Allow choice of specific date and time format.
Product: [Applications] systemsettings Reporter: Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell <4wy78uwh>
Component: kcm_regionandlangAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE    
Severity: normal CC: daninshed, hanyoung, rsbrux, sitter
Priority: NOR Flags: 4wy78uwh: performance-
Version First Reported In: 5.27.10   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: openSUSE   
OS: Linux   
URL: https://discuss.kde.org/t/how-to-change-system-time-format-to-specific-standard/1355/13?u=rokejulianlockhart
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: Demonstration of lack of standard.

Description Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-02-01 14:16:01 UTC
Created attachment 165437 [details]
Demonstration of lack of standard.

SUMMARY
		Allow choice of specific date and time format, like Windows 11 and KDE 4 and permitted, instead of predefined presets. This is because the region in a lot of cases does not whatsoever indicate the choice date and time format utilized. For instance, the UK (especially England) the government (and consequently myself) use ISO 8601, which mandates YYYY-MM-DD and 24-hour time. Although not most, much of society here uses AM/PM, and most certainly uses DD/MM/YYYY.

	STEPS TO REPRODUCE
		1. Invoke kcmshell5 kcm_regionandlang (via systemsettings5).
		2. Attempt to set the formats it governs individually, or to a specific standard.

	OBSERVED RESULT
		I can only choose a single preset's predefined date *and* time. I cannot choose different forms of date *and* time, and cannot use a specific standard's, only instead hope that a certain region by default is defined to use my exact preferences.

	EXPECTED RESULT
		I should be able to choose YYYY-MM-DD as the date format, HH:mm:ss as the time format. Additionally, I should be able to specify that I always want the timezone to be displayed (I frequently use Z, other times +00:00 and +01:00 due to BST, so this is necessary for me).
		Ideally, I should also be able to specify that I want them formatted as ISO 8601 using a T-delimiter for time, but this would be a perfection, so I don't explicitly request it.

	SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
		Operating System: cpe:/o:opensuse:tumbleweed:20240125
		KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.10
		KDE Frameworks Version: 5.114.0
		Qt Version: 5.15.12
		Kernel Version: 6.7.1-1-default (64-bit)
		Graphics Platform: X11
		Processors: 12 × AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6-Core Processor
		Memory: 30.5 GiB of RAM
		Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 5700
		Manufacturer: ASRock
		Product Name: X670E Taichi

	ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
		https://discuss.kde.org/t/how-to-change-system-time-format-to-specific-standard/1355/13?u=rokejulianlockhart
Comment 1 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-02-01 14:16:52 UTC
(In reply to `{third: "Beedell", first: "Roke"}`{.JSON5} from comment #0)
> Created attachment 165437 [details]
> Demonstration of lack of standard.
> 
> SUMMARY

Weird. The bug reporter removes the first newline.
Comment 2 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-02-01 15:48:09 UTC
https://discuss.kde.org/t/how-to-prevent-automatic-font-installation-upon-time-locale-change/10176?u=rokejulianlockhart is another reason to get this fixed.
Comment 3 Harald Sitter 2024-02-02 11:10:11 UTC
The way localization works on POSIX systems is through locales. There simply is no concept of standalone date or time format.

https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/xbd_chap07.html
Comment 4 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-02-02 12:12:25 UTC
(In reply to Harald Sitter from comment #3)
> The way localization works on POSIX systems is through locales. There simply
> is no concept of standalone date or time format.
> 
> https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/xbd_chap07.html

Then how did KDE4 manage it (according to Nate)? Regardless, this is a significant issue – I literally can't adhere to the requirements of my job because they expect me to be using only AOSP, Windows 11, macOS, and/or I(Pad)OS, which *all* provide this capability. If, despite that, this won't be remediated, do I report this to the POSIX working group, if such a body exists?
Comment 5 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2025-03-10 11:54:55 UTC
(In reply to Harald Sitter from comment #3)  
Please see https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/4823517. Perhaps it shall demonstrate why I want this somewhat better. Do you think that FreeDesktop would have any interest in improving this?
Comment 6 Harald Sitter 2025-03-10 12:34:35 UTC
> Do you think that FreeDesktop would have any interest in improving this?

Unlikely, this needs to happen on a POSIX or (g)libc level.
Comment 7 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2025-03-10 17:33:49 UTC
(In reply to Harald Sitter from comment #6)  
Thanks! I suppose, when I've formulated it better, I'll *try* to take this to https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi and/or https://posix.opengroup.org/PR/submit.html, then. Gee...
Comment 8 Kevin Kofler 2025-03-11 00:34:54 UTC
> Then how did KDE4 manage it

kdelibs 4 had a working customizable locale implementation inherited from kdelibs 3 (KLocale) that handled this just fine. That was unfortunately dropped in favor of the inferior QLocale implementation in Qt proper as part of the KDE Frameworks 5 migration, where the developers were more interested in reducing the amount of required dependencies in a split library world (where every feature that was previously part of libkdecore or libkdeui is now its own split "Framework") than in keeping perfectly working functionality working.
Comment 9 Kevin Kofler 2025-03-11 00:57:06 UTC
Harald Sitter wrote:
> The way localization works on POSIX systems is through locales. There simply is no concept of standalone date or time format.

There is nothing requiring KDE applications to use the POSIX locale infrastructure itself. In fact, as you surely know, they actually don't behind the scenes: QLocale internally translates the POSIX locales to ICU locales and uses the ICU infrastructure (which is unfortunately not any better, and the translation also means custom glibc locales, or even the glibc en_DK locale, do not work in Qt applications). Up to KDE 4, they used KLocale which bypassed the POSIX locale infrastructure entirely and was much more customizable, so in my view it is no surprise that users do not understand why this functionality was removed with no viable replacement.
Comment 10 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2025-06-22 17:40:54 UTC
Rather than NOTABUG, I'd say that this should be marked as a duplicate of https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=340982, since I appear to be asking for what it does: the kind of customisation that ReactOS (https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24525) and Windows (https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/78770833/1) provide.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 340982 ***
Comment 11 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2025-06-22 19:34:33 UTC
(In reply to Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell from comment #7)

> > this needs to happen on a POSIX or (g)libc level.
> 
> I suppose, when I've formulated it better, I'll *try* to take this to https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi and/or https://posix.opengroup.org/PR/submit.html, then.

I'd like to ask the Open Group and GNU first, before filing bugs. However, does anyone know where I'd so so? https://gitlab.com/mailman/mailman/-/issues/1225 has stopped me dead in my tracks on GNU's side (their websites are generally unreliable), and the Open Group's websites are difficult to navigate at best.