>> No, my locale is not US English: >> $ locale >> LANG=he_IL.utf8 > > This is the only relevant setting which is read from the OS when a default > locale has to be evaluated. >
Really? In my opinion it is wrong behaviour to ignore the user's specifically-set Time and other settings. Is there a place where I could read the reasoning or discussion behind this decision? >> I am not sure that I am following you. Do you mean that Calc ignores >> the formatting options of locale ab_CD.utf8 and substitutes it's own >> formatting based on the name of the locale? >> > Yes, you are following me correctly. > Where is there an outline of which locales provide which formatting? I have gone through quite a bit of the docs as support.openoffice.org but I find nothing. > Since ODF is for printing, OOo shows figures in the same built-in styles, > regardless of your system setup. Is it assumed that all printed pages are for use by North Americans instead of those of the culture specified by the locale? Because the behaviour is to use the North America (or maybe US) date format no matter what the locale is set to. > In case of "Default" it assumes one > distinct locale. to be used as default. > ONe distinct locale for the whole world, which just so happens to be the locale for the US? I find this very self-centered: the word "locale" is based on "local" for a good reason: not the whole world is the US. I have nothing against Americans or their date format (well, I do find it ridiculous that the least significant unit is in the middle, but I am sure that they could find similar complaints about some of my culture) but it leads to errors whn used outside the US by people who are unfamiliar with it. >>> There is no >>> bug, since the number formatting behaves exactly as it has been designed >>> intentionally. >> >> There may or may not be a programming error (see my locale) however >> this is unexpected behaviour with no obvious solution. Programming >> error or poor design decision, it is a bug. >> > You refuse to use number formatting and styles, so you've got to live with > the defaults. > I have not refused to use anything. I have asked how to set the default formatting and styles to respect my locale, or to configuring them manually within OOo itself. But how? >>> Simply use the given formatting facilities, styles in particular, in >>> order >>> to override the plain defaults. >> >> That is not practical when I have many new documents to create daily. >> Neither is a "default document". I need an application setting, not a >> particular file setting. >> > Templates and styles are the most fundamental concepts to understand before > you start creating many new documents on a daily basis. > You can set the application wide locale, which affects all numeric data in > all components (cells in Writer and Calc, numeric fields in Writer and > Base). How? I have set them in Language settings, but I have not gotten the results that I expect. Specifically, I have gotten the US date format, which is neither the date format of my locale nor the date format that I prefer (which itself differs from the date format of my locale, which is why I use the Danish time locale). > Regarding Calc, you may create a new spreadsheet template > (File>Templates>Save...) with your preferred number format locale in cell > style "Default" (root of cell style hierarchy). When you need another locale > context, change the number format locale for this particular style. > You can make your new spreadsheet template the default template to be used > with Ctrl+N or File>New>Spreadsheet (File>Templates>Orignize...Command:Make > Default) > The templates organizer lets you copy styles between documents and templates > (Ctrl+Drag&Drop). > To do this, I must set the entire spreadsheet as Date format, which many (most) columns are unlikely to be when I create a document. That is the reason that I discard this workaround. If there is a way to set all _date_ cells as yyyy-mm-dd without setting any cells as date, then I would appreciate very much instructions on how to do this. > Your data are incomprehensible if the computer processes "1/2" as "1st of > February", where the user reads "February 2nd". That is exactly my point! > Specify your locales explicitly. I do. OOo ignores them. > Make a note that all figures and dates use > US American style or whatever. > That is impossible. Most people here don't even know what the American date format is. Would you find it reasonable to make a note that all times in your documents use the Hour-Second-Minute format, where 14:30:15 is quarter past two in the afternoon, thirty seconds after the hour? > Alternatively, you may decide to use the "Default" locale, which defaults to > the same "en-US style" on every US American system (12/31/1999 and > 1,234.99), the same Hebrew style on every Hebrew system (31/12/1999 and > 1,234.99) and the same Swedish style on every Swedish system (1999-12-31 and > 1 234,99). Yes, I would like this very much. In fact, I have set them as Default. However, this is not producing the for specified in my locale. > The office user may set his/her preferred default locale in the general` > locale settings or let OOo read one distinct locale from the system's > general language. I think that I see. I set the Language Settings -> Languages -> Local Setting as Default, and it reads LANG, then formats everything (paper size, time, measurement) as if they were the same as that of LANG as well. I have two comments on this: 1) The other locale settings should not be assumed to be the same, they are configurable separately for a reason. 2) It does not work. I still get US date formats, not my locale's date format. > This is simple, comprehensible, reproducible and will not distort a > document's layout due to some user's exotic system preferences. > I understand this argument, and agree with it to an extent. There are many hole in this argument which this is not the place to discuss, but when I file bugs I will take this into consideration. Thanks! I stress that I am not being argumentative, rather I am trying to understand the reasoning behind OOo's behaviour, and how to configure it for the use that we need. I thank you for your patience in explaining to me the design decisions and in helping me work within those confines to properly configure my systems. -- Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
