[Evolution-hackers] Evolution doesn't honor LC_TIME (and other LC_ variables)

[Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado <raul dervishd net>]

Hi all :)

Since Evolution uses gettext to get the appropriate format strings for
"strftime", no matter what you say on your LC_TIME, you only get the
date and time information properly formatted for your language if you
set LANG (or LANGUAGE).

While this may not be a bad behaviour, it makes impossible to have a
fine grained locale. That is, you want the data handled by apps in the
format appropriate for your language, but you want the messages (and
menus, etc.) in English. This is more common that it may appear due to
the fact that many translations are incomplete, weird or plainly
incorrect.

In my case, for example, I have all locale categories set to es_ES.UTF-8
*except* for LC_MESSAGES (I want my messages in English) and LC_NUMERIC
(being a programmer, I'm more familiar with floating point numbers in
English than in Spanish!). Sometimes, I even use LC_COLLATE=C.

I don't think I'm the only one out there that needs a fine grained
locale, and most applications I use everyday use the appropriate LC_
category for the information they are handled. Even if I am the only one
with this problem ;), I don't think that using gettext for the date and
time format strings is the correct way of doing this, given that
strftime already has "%x" and "%X", which presents information according
to locale.

If portability is a problem when using "%x" and "%X", there's even a
better solution, which is letting the user choose which format he wants
for dates. In a PIM, this is better than using the locale format,
because at times is best to present the year first, etc.

I'm not sure about which solution is best, and probably the "%x"
solution is easier and will do the right job. If that's the case, I can
try to change the sources so strftime uses "%x" and not hardcoded
combinations of "%d" and "%m".

Thanks a lot for Evolution!

Raúl "DervishD" Núñez de Arenas Coronado
-- 
Linux Registered User 88736 | http://www.dervishd.net
It's my PC and I'll cry if I want to... RAmen!
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