How to get your Kobo to use non-US dates

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by DomesticExtremis

CurrentLocale=en_GB works for me on the mini - though I needed
to add the [ApplicationPreferences] section.
Interestingly, after a reboot, there were a lot more entries in this section.
I don't know why it was absent in the first place...

Note also that this doesn't alter the date displayed on the firmware level

Really? It does with my en_GB setting. In Settings - Device Info it shows
Software Version: 2.1.5 (r43939, 12/10/2012)

... or did you mean something else?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DomesticExtremis

Note also that this doesn't alter the date displayed on the firmware level

I'm not quite sure what you meant by the date displayed on the firmware level but looking at Device Information, setting the locale to en-CA changed the date displayed for the firmware revision from 2/12/13 to 13-02-12 (version 2.4.0).

Regards,
David

[DomesticExtremis]

Under Device Information it says 2.3.1 (r45611 07/12/2012)
I'm pretty sure it said 7/12/2012 before the change.
The last sync date has flipped to19/02/2012, before it said 2/17/2012 (last synced two days ago).

[paola]

will we need to update this after each firmware update?

[GeoffR]

I think the fact that the dates are handled properly when you change the language from English to a language with a non-US date format shows that the internal representation is independent of the way the date is displayed, so I wouldn't expect any problem with server sync getting the wrong date.

It is a bit strange that during setup the firmware asks for the nearest city so it can figure out the correct timezone, and it correctly reports NZDT so it knows I am in NZ, but doesn't take the small extra step of setting the current locale to match.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

It is a bit strange that during setup the firmware asks for the nearest city so it can figure out the correct timezone, and it correctly reports NZDT so it knows I am in NZ, but doesn't take the small extra step of setting the current locale to match.

Exactly my thoughts.

[TechniSol]

Just another Kobo mystery... Forgive me, I haven't really been following this closely, but perhaps the locale setting was intended to be set based on distribution and somehow just didn't happen?

Seems it might be a lot simpler if they just simply asked what time / day-date formats the user prefers...

[0x55]

Time zone and locale are probably independent by design.

It would be a huge annoyance if the date format changed just because I set a different time zone.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by latepaul

I'm not going to argue over the handling of dates - that wasn't my point and not being privy to Kobo's server-side code I have no idea how they handle it during sync-ing (if they handle it at all). My point was that this setting hasn't been exposed as a user-changeable setting. I have no problem with people changing it if it works for them.

However I do think that the usual call-the-developer-stupid game is unfair when it relates to something the user has changed which isn't supposed to be able to be changed.

.conf files are designed to be edited by the user. It's been the unix/linux way forever. They ARE supposed to be changed. It's what they are made for.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by 0x55

Time zone and locale are probably independent by design.

It would be a huge annoyance if the date format changed just because I set a different time zone.

The date format displayed for the user is for the user's convenience. Internal date/time representations are a separate thing and shouldn't change.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by jusmee

.conf files are designed to be edited by the user. It's been the unix/linux way forever. They ARE supposed to be changed. It's what they are made for.

Not in a consumer product where you're not even supposed to be aware it's running Linux. Most people wouldn't even think of the device as a computer.

If it's supposed to be changed where is it mentioned in the Kobo documentation?

The fact that the .conf file exists is because the Kobo developers found that a convenient way to store settings which implies that they wanted to make it possible to change this value, but they haven't got around to providing a user interface to it yet. There could be any number of reasons for this from simply that they were working to some deadline and ran out of time to the fact that they know about a bug that occurs with non-US settings and haven't tracked down the cause yet. We don't know. And to call them stupid when we don't know is unfair.

[murg]

Originally Posted by latepaul

Not in a consumer product where you're not even supposed to be aware it's running Linux. Most people wouldn't even think of the device as a computer.

If it's supposed to be changed where is it mentioned in the Kobo documentation?

The fact that the .conf file exists is because the Kobo developers found that a convenient way to store settings which implies that they wanted to make it possible to change this value, but they haven't got around to providing a user interface to it yet. There could be any number of reasons for this from simply that they were working to some deadline and ran out of time to the fact that they know about a bug that occurs with non-US settings and haven't tracked down the cause yet. We don't know. And to call them stupid when we don't know is unfair.

If the Kobo developers really didn't want you to edit the .conf file, they would have put on the internal partition, and not on the user accessible partition.

As to its being a consumer product, maybe someone should let Kobo in on the secret. Many things that Kobo does should not be done on a consumer product.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by jusmee

The date format displayed for the user is for the user's convenience. Internal date/time representations are a separate thing and shouldn't change.

0x55 brings up an interesting point. On Linux and some unixes you can set the locale using values of this format - which suggests they're using standard libraries. However there are a family of locale settings and since there's only one in the .conf file it will probably be being used for all of them (in general you want to set you time and date, character set, collation, money format settings to related settings). Maybe they haven't exposed this setting because they want to split it up into individual settings.

It would be interesting to know if changing the locale changed the sort order.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by murg

If the Kobo developers really didn't want you to edit the .conf file, they would have put on the internal partition, and not on the user accessible partition.

Well they did put it on a hidden partition. You have no idea what constraints they're working to. In any case even if they have a choice it's not whether you choose to edit that file, it's whether you choose to do so and then complain that they are stupid if it doesn't work as you expect.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by latepaul

0x55 brings up an interesting point. On Linux and some unixes you can set the locale using values of this format - which suggests they're using standard libraries. However there are a family of locale settings and since there's only one in the .conf file it will probably be being used for all of them (in general you want to set you time and date, character set, collation, money format settings to related settings). Maybe they haven't exposed this setting because they want to split it up into individual settings.

It would be interesting to know if changing the locale changed the sort order.

As I stated earlier, the only noticeable change the date display. In my case it is to en_AU, so the date format is DD/MM/YYYY. Everything else should be the same as for en_US.

But, your statement about not being changed by the device is wrong. If you choose a language from the menu, the conf file gets updated with the appropriate locale for the language. Selecting Dutch sets it to "nl_NL". I didn't check the other languages. The issue is that Kobo has decided that "English" is only locale "en_US". Apart from the testing I have done, seeing that the locale is changed for different languages makes me feel very safe doing manually changing the it.

I don't suppose that I blame Kobo for doing it this way. They are keeping the GUI to a minimum and that means keeping the total number of options down.

Originally Posted by latepaul

Well they did put it on a hidden partition. You have no idea what constraints they're working to. In any case even if they have a choice it's not whether you choose to edit that file, it's whether you choose to do so and then complain that they are stupid if it doesn't work as you expect.

Not they didn't. It is on the partition that is visible when connected to a PC. The base directory stars with a dot, so that is not as visible to a unix based machine. But it is a directory that Kobo people have told us to look in. And I have even been told by Kobo to make changes to the conf file in the past.