Encore Requests: Last-Modification Date

[El_Guille]

Encore 4.5.5 has this little thing that I find uncomfortable. Every time I open a score (even without saving the file!), Encore changes the "last modification date" attribute of the file.
Since I work with many files, I find very useful the last-modification date value to know which file is the newest (with the last modifications). But it doesn't work for me this way in Ecore, because Encore constantly changes the "last modification" attribute when i open a file. Encore should change the last-modification value only when I save the file.

[matt-olddev]

this has been corrected for 5.0

[Denkster]

Encore should change the last-modification value only when I save the file.

this has been corrected for 5.0

That is beuatiful!

And can we have four digit year notation too?

k.r.E.

[matt-olddev]

And can we have four digit year notation too?

?? you mean in text elements?

[Denkster]

Denkster wrote:And can we have four digit year notation too?



?? you mean in text elements?

Of course! The thing is called with #D.
The fact GVox did not change that with the year 2000 update of 4.5.x surprised me.

k.r.E.

[Rob M.]

And can we have four digit year notation too?

?? you mean in text elements?

Of course! The thing is called with #D.
The fact GVox did not change that with the year 2000 update of 4.5.x surprised me.

A four year digit would be helpful -- but only if the date is expressed in the order YYYY-MM-DD. Fortunately, that's the current order of the elements called by the #D function.

The real issue is to avoid confusion as to which date order is being used. The present result (in E455W) is hopeless. For example: today's date is shown as "9-07-05". The reader of the score that contains that date has no way of knowing whether it represents "July 5, 2009", "Sept. 7, 2005", or "July 9, 2005" without information external to the score. That makes the date function in E455W nearly useless as it is.

[polarbreeze]

And can we have four digit year notation too?

?? you mean in text elements?

Of course! The thing is called with #D.
The fact GVox did not change that with the year 2000 update of 4.5.x surprised me.

A four year digit would be helpful -- but only if the date is expressed in the order YYYY-MM-DD. Fortunately, that's the current order of the elements called by the #D function.

The real issue is to avoid confusion as to which date order is being used. The present result (in E455W) is hopeless. For example: today's date is shown as "9-07-05". The reader of the score that contains that date has no way of knowing whether it represents "July 5, 2009", "Sept. 7, 2005", or "July 9, 2005" without information external to the score. That makes the date function in E455W nearly useless as it is.

Doesn't it follow the operating system's date format settings? Surely it should...?

[q]

And can we have four digit year notation too?

?? you mean in text elements?

Of course! The thing is called with #D.

A four year digit would be helpful -- but only if the date is expressed in the order YYYY-MM-DD. Fortunately, that's the current order of the elements called by the #D function.

The real issue is to avoid confusion as to which date order is being used. The present result (in E455W) is hopeless.

Thanks Rob. I've found this ambiguity is impossible to work around. Your explanation below explains why perfectly.

For example: today's date is shown as "9-07-05". The reader of the score that contains that date has no way of knowing whether it represents "July 5, 2009", "Sept. 7, 2005", or "July 9, 2005" without information external to the score. That makes the date function in E455W nearly useless as it is.

Do we now have options for "Today's" date (i.e. print date) and Last modification Date?

q

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, q,

We have used the YYYY.MM.DD format for the numerical presentation of dates since about 1976.

Doug

[q]

Hi, q,

We have used the YYYY.MM.DD format for the numerical presentation of dates since about 1976.

It's the best way!

Waddaminute ... you don't mean automatically in Encore do you?

q

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, q,

Waddaminute ... you don't mean automatically in Encore do you?

Well, semiautomatically (by concatenating the earlier year digits - three during this decade - as a literal prefix to what Encore returns for #D).

Thus:
200#D

with the OS set to do:

YYYY.MM.DD

so today that yields 2009.07.15.

But mostly I mean in handwritten stuff, and in other applications that provide for that.

Doug

[Rob M.]

Thus:
200#D

with the OS set to do:

YYYY.MM.DD

so today that yields 2009.07.15.

Oooh, I like that. I wish I'd thought of it! Thanks for the tip, Doug.

[q]

With regard to footers in Score>Text Elements and the 'current date' button

Thus:
200#D

with the OS set to do:

YYYY.MM.DD

so today that yields 2009.07.15.

Oooh, I like that. I wish I'd thought of it! Thanks for the tip, Doug.

Can Encore produce a YYYY.MM.DD date style even when the operating system's date property is set to something other than:

YYYY.MM.DD   

If so, then we have reliable options.

The user could set the style.styleDefinition to 200#D or select an alternate code family. Some sort of UI picklist or datagrid might suffice in presenting date code families.

q

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Q,

[quote="q"]Can Encore produce a YYYY.MM.DD date style even when the operating system's date property is set to something other than:

YYYY.MM.DD

Not that I know of. I believe it always "uses" the "short date" format set in the OS (taking liberties with it on the way). [I speak here specifically of the Windows context.]

The particular liberties taken here are:

•Delete the first two digits of the year (the century indicator, comprising the millennium and century digits)
•Suppress leading zeros in the result.

This perhaps qualifies as "dumb and dumber".

Best regards,

Doug

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, a

I'd like to emphasize that date format is country dependant
(of course an internal format might be necessary for sorting,
but any displayed or printed date under format yyyy.mm.dd
would look very strange here in France (Europe ?!)

Note that I only reported on my practice. It should certainly not be "imposed" by Encore. (People would just like Encore to be able to do it!)

I do note however that this is the ISO standard format (actually, as YYYY-MM-DD) for presenting dates in all-numeric format!

Doug