by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2012/07/11 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2012/07/11/10327775.aspx
Previous blogs from this series:
As we come closer and closer to the ongoing march to releasing Windows 8, it starts to feel like preparing for something.
A ceremony of some kind.
Like some sort of wedding.
Cool!
Okay, let's talk about some locale data, as if we were bridesmaids trying to help a somewhat lazy bride who didn't want to do all the work herself....
This shouldn't offend anybody, right? :-)
Okay, first we have something old.
For this, we have the long date format, a.k.a. LOCALE_SLONGDATE.
That one has been around for nearly two decades.
And in Win32 locale nomenclature, that's old!
Now we did update some long date entries based on feedback, but it is largely the same as it ever was.
Perfect for our blushing bride!
We need to find something new, now.
I've got just the thing.
We added a new lock screen date format, which is almost a long date (mostly we just take the year off of a long date, though in some cases we independently have something different).
It's essentially a special "Day/Month/Date" format, not unlike a single line version of the one used on the Windows Phone lock screen:
That format is not explicitly exposed to developers or documented for them, though I'm told one or two lifelessclever folks have figured out how to dig it out.
All I will say is that they didn't get help from me!
They're on their own.
For Cherokee, it's kind of like a dddd, MMMM, d kind of thing, which you can [blurily] see, above.
Anyway, it is a quite visible and new thing!
Anyway, we now have to find something borrowed.
Crap, how can we have something we borrow?
It seems kind of trite to say we borrowed the Metro user interface. Especially since we kind of improved on it in some ways - ways that they will be able to pick up themselves now.
How about if we borrow something that is there already, kinda?
And we'll just repurpose it!
Specifically, we'll borrow the LOCALE_SMONTHDATE format.
And we'll change it a little bit, as I will explain in a moment.
We'll cleverly take the new item above, the "lock screen" format, to decide where the DAY goes (on top or on the bottom of the SMONTHDATE), i.e.
MMMM d
and then putting with the day name (which is first) on top, i.e.
dddd
MMMM d
for Cherokee:
and for Turkish, i.e.
d MMMM
and then putting the day name (which is last) on the bottom, i.e.
d MMMM
dddd
for Turkish:
Perhaps it would have been easier to add a whole new format than such a tortuous algorithm (some people suggested as much), but it the end it allows these two exciting pieces of Windows 8 user interface to be quite visible and available.
That TDBN (Time/Date/Battery/Network) display box is readily available by hitting WindowsKey+C pretty much anywhere in Windows 8, and the lock screen is what you see any time you lock the user interface of hit WindowsKey+L.
All borrowed from existing settings!
Now we get to the next bit, which according to the tradition, should be something Blue, riight?
But I'm having trouble figuring out what that should be.
I need something that rhymes with blue I think, or the scansion will be messed up.
Hmmmm.
I'll figure it out to finish up this wedding ceremony prep, in the next part.
Stay tuned....
referenced by
2012/10/26 The evolving Story of Locale Support, part 28: We finally fixed that 'Install New Languages' thing!
2012/10/02 The evolving Story of Locale Support, part 27: No, the T and the H aren't silent...
2012/08/20 The evolving Story of Locale Support, part 26: Hey Windows 8, there's someone on the phone for you.
2012/07/12 Something old, something new, something repurposed, and something blue - ME!