Ubuntu Clock Won't Show Year

[Lonnie Lee Best]

indicator-datetime, Ubuntu 12.10

The Ubuntu menu bar clock offers no setting to "show year".

Yes, I know what year it is, but I have very good reason for wanting it shown. For years, I've been collecting screen-shots, when I'm doing something I think is pretty cool. When I use to use windows, these screen shots (over the years) have always showed the current year.

However, since April of 2007 (The date I started using Ubuntu exclusively), my screen shots have not included the year, because the Gnome clock doesn't provide this capability.

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeAndDate#settings>: "'Year' should be both insensitive and unchecked whenever 'Date and month' is unchecked..."

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

For example, this page clear shows, that I made the top Google result for "crazy songs" on 02-12 2005 (See attachment)

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

However, in 2007, when I submitted the number one Digg article for the day, see the ubuntu screen shot (attached).

No year shown!

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

At bare minimum, I'd expect to see "show clock" in the gconf-editor, but more importantly, most user's expectations would be to see this as a check box option, after right-clicking on the Clock and selecting "Properties".

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Here's another screen shot, compare and contract Ubuntu Clock to Windows 7 Clock (See attachment).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

[Victor Vargas (kamus)]

This issue is already reported in Gnome BugTracker so for now I have mark this report as triaged. You can track and follow status of this requirement at: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=317891 , Thanks in advance.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Here we are in 2012, and "show year" is still not an option on the clock in Ubuntu!

[Charles Kerr (charlesk)]

Years aren't shown in the datetime indicator because it's not in the design <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeAndDate>.

I don't have any opinion on this one way or the other... adding Design to the ticket for feedback.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Call it what you want, but it is a option that is NOT there in Ubuntu, that IS there in Windows and Mac (see screen-shots I've provided).

If it is by design, it is an over-presumptuous design to assume that no one wants the year to be displayed; I've given very practical reasons for why I dearly prefer it.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Others who want the clock to show the date's year:

- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1676372
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=780676
- http://linux.bigresource.com/Ubuntu-How-to-Show-year-in-Gnome-Calendar-v4i5z8lZr.html
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1607903
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/docky/+bug/801533

[John Lea (johnlea)]

Hi MPT, could you talk a look at this bug. Thx!

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

After 3 years with no fix, I decided to use LXDE desktop, where I can easily configure the clock applet to any format I wish:
http://forum.lxde.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=88&p=39493#p39493

Now, in LXDE, I have my clock display set to:
%m/%d/%Y %l:%M %p

Which displays:
07/12/2012 1:49 PM

Perfect for me!

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Here's a work-around, until the option becomes a standard GUI feature:
http://superuser.com/questions/443982/how-can-i-show-the-current-year-in-ubuntus-clock-indicator-applet

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

apport information

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

My clock looks like this:
Thursday | 10-11-2012 | 1:40PM

Using this command:
gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.datetime time-format "'custom'" ; gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.datetime custom-time-format "'%A | %m-%d-%Y | %l:%M%p'"

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Marked incomplete as we await design.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

This seems like a reasonable request. Thanks for the report, Lonnie.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Specification updated. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeAndDate?action=diff&rev2=80&rev1=79>

[Charles Kerr (charlesk)]

We're waaaay past the UI/feature freeze for this cycle, but I'll try to pick this up post-13.10.

[PS Jenkins bot (ps-jenkins)]

Fix committed into lp:indicator-datetime at revision 282, scheduled for release in indicator-datetime, milestone Unknown

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package indicator-datetime - 13.10.0+14.04.20131125-0ubuntu1

---------------
indicator-datetime (13.10.0+14.04.20131125-0ubuntu1) trusty; urgency=low

  [ Charles Kerr ]
  * Switch the build system to cmake. (LP: #1237509)
  * As per the spec, let users show the year in indicator-datetime. (LP:
    #465689)
  * Don't generate g_critical() messages in the log when the timezone
    object is clearing its value. . (LP: #1246532)
  * When in the desktop-greeter mode, don't allow clicking on calendar
    dates to launch evolution. (LP: #1246812)
  * Use g_icon_serialize() output when setting menuitems' "icon"
    property.
  * In src/clock-live.c, pass the right pointer to
    on_detect_location_changed(). (LP: #1251460)

  [ Ted Gould ]
  * Adding a phone_greeter profile.
  * Upstart Job. (LP: #1185565)

  [ Ubuntu daily release ]
  * Automatic snapshot from revision 289
 -- Ubuntu daily release <email address hidden> Mon, 25 Nov 2013 03:55:52 +0000

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Will I ever be able to convenience people that "show year" is actually a useful feature when taking screenshots over time?

Now, that I've upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 and GNOME 3.28, it looks like I'll have to start this 2009 battle all over again. It will not allow me to format the clock the way I want it to display.

In Unity, I could at least achieved my desired clock format with a command:

gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.datetime time-format "'custom'" ; gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.datetime custom-time-format "'%A | %m-%d-%Y | %l:%M%p'"

In GNOME 3.28 on Ubuntu 18.04, I've yet to figure out a way to achieved my desired format. The GUI doesn't offer "show year" and I've yet to discover a command (like the one above) that achieves the exact custom format I desire.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Lonnie, please use a separate gnome-shell bug for that issue.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

I was ultimately able to achieve my exactly desired format using a GNOME extension made by Daniel Khodabakhsh. Thank you Daniel!

I found that here:
https://github.com/Daniel-Khodabakhsh/datetime-format

Screenshot:
http://neartalk.com/ss/2018-04-06_003_1919x1079.png

Format:
%A | %m-%d-%G | %I:%M %p