Friendlier Clock Setting?

[Pita]

Why is it that in some desktops such as icewn, jwm and possibly others it is
near impossible for a newbie to change the clock format on the panel and
I hate that.

They come preset for 'am' and 'pm' time, when most of the world uses the       
24 hour system. Nice exeptions are fluxbox and xfce4 which make it easy for
everyone to set the clock format on the panel to its liking.

Is it not possible for distro developers offering icewm or jwm desktops to make
the clock format setting user friendly?

[The Headacher]

Why is it that in some desktops such as icewn, jwm and possibly others it is
near impossible for a newbie to change the clock format on the panel and
I hate that.

I have no idea why you hate editing text files  .

The "Desktops" you are referring to here, are only window managers. They are not ment to have a full Desktop clicky clickity experience. By having just a configuration file that has all the settings in it you remove the need for 100 setting dialogs / wizards. This keeps the WM lightweight.

Is it not possible for distro developers offering icewm or jwm desktops to make
the clock format setting user friendly?

Sure, you could have a program that parses the configuration file. But where'd you put it? In the menu somewhere? The most logical way of changing the clock settings from a users point of view, would be an option offered when rightclicking the clock. This would probably mean changing the sourcecode of the offending WM.

[lagagnon]

They come preset for 'am' and 'pm' time, when most of the world uses the       
24 hour system.

Americans rarely, if ever, use the 24 hour clock (other than their military). So perhaps the developers of icewm and jwm are Americans. I am only surmising.

Is it not possible for distro developers offering icewm or jwm desktops to make
the clock format setting user friendly?

I think that would be up to the developers of the window managers themselves. Putting a suggestion up at their specific websites might help. You do realize it is just a simple matter of editing their config files?

[Triarius Fidelis]

Fluxbox for one uses 24-hour time by default

IIRC so does Xfce4, which was originally developed in France

[Pita]

Yes, at one time when I played with jmc I went into /usr/bin/jwm and was able to
change to the 24 h time. It was then I think Uelsk who pointed out to me the right thing
is doing in /usr/etc/system.jwmrc and how. Still awkward, however, doable. That would
be a pointer in the opening text of Nightflyers VL-Light versions, how to change the clock
settings, --guess might be too much.

[Triarius Fidelis]

While these kinds of things come almost naturally to me, it's not difficult to imagine that someone else would like things to be more straightforward.

Like in Fluxbox, to change the time format you first have to understand the format for date(1).