Forum OpenACS Development: Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization)

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1: Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 05/09/01 06:13 PM
Whoever is doing the calendar porting, please bear in mind non
american users. The week starts with a monday and not a sunday. At
least for the majority of people worldwide [bold assumption]. That's
just one thing I stumbled over when dealing with the ACES. In general
it would be good, if you use widgets to use numbers and not names to
transfer information around (e.g. display March, because you have it
in your long_month_list, but use the number 3 all around the place.
That way you could easily change the name and it would still work.
This would include <option> tags. Don't use <option>[lindex
$long_month_list $i], but use <option value=$i>[lindex
$long_month_list $i]).

Maybe you thought about it already, but just to keep the record
Malte

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2: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Roberto Mello on 05/09/01 06:31 PM
I'm from Brazil, and the week starts on sunday down there. I am not versed in the different calendars floating around the world, so maybe you can expand on your request stating which calendar you are referring to and where else it's used.
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3: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Don Baccus on 05/09/01 06:43 PM
Malte - Open Force will be working on an enhanced calendar package
(violating all my rules about "just port what's there", but in this
case the calendar package was never finished and Open Force is doing
this for a client anyway, so we'll take it).

They - Ben, primarily - will be working on a spec for their work, you
might ping him directly to see if they can work this into it.

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4: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Arjun Sanyal on 05/09/01 09:14 PM
Thanks for the reminder and the good UI idea, Malte.

I am working on the calendar design which is currently in the early design stages. Input welcome.

From this post by Henry Minsky it seems that some of the dirty work of local formatting of dates and times has already been done in the acs-lang package:
https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=18171

I'll look at what the acs-lang package provides. The calendar should let users choose what input and output formats the want to use.

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5: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Don Baccus on 05/09/01 09:27 PM
Since Arjun wasn't explicit, I'll point out that he works for Open
Force, so we really are more organized than it might appear from the
juxtaposition of our two posts...
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6: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 05/09/01 10:44 PM
Robert, the parts I was speaking about is Europe, most of Afrika, middle east and if I remember correctly south east asia, but I might be mistaken. There the week starts on a monday, which, if you believe in Genesis as laid out in the bible seems to be the more correct starting point, as it is said, on the 7th day god rested (which is sunday, a holiday in most christian "dominated" countries, therefore the first day is a monday 😉).

Henry's post seems to be a good way to go. But what I found in the original ACS is that e.g. they have been using Oracle Names for date functions (to_string('YYYY-MM-DD', Mon)), which returns the name of the month in the language which is selected as default for the user with which you connect to Oracle (if I can believe what Oracle told me).

In any case, you'll have a crowd of eager students over here to lay their hands on your solution (as they will have to do it with the old ACES calendar package. Gosh it is nice to teach at the university *grin*) starting in June. Furthermore I'm more than willing to discuss further the ideas how to implement localization for the calendar (and in general for other areas). In any case will start to look at Henry's toolbox.

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7: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Talli Somekh on 05/09/01 10:50 PM
hmmm... I have a feeling this board might soon go theological.

talli

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8: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Don Baccus on 05/10/01 01:57 AM
Well, heck, we *are* rather fanatical about open source.  Supporting
Oracle is just a ploy...
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9: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Talli Somekh on 05/28/01 07:12 PM
Robert, the parts I was speaking about is Europe, most of Afrika, middle east and if I remember correctly south east asia, but I might be mistaken. There the week starts on a monday, which, if you believe in Genesis as laid out in the bible seems to be the more correct starting point, as it is said, on the 7th day god rested (which is sunday, a holiday in most christian "dominated" countries, therefore the first day is a monday 😉).

All right, I gotta answer this one. Tried to hold my mouth for a month, but couldn't...

Malte, in Genesis God rests on the 7th day, true, but the first day is Sunday (probably becuase God created Light on that day, hence Sun-day, but that's conjecture.) So Saturday is the day he rested on and why in Judaism Saturday is the Sabbath.

Also, the areas you pointed out are far from being "Christian dominated", although Lord knows the Crusaders and the colonialists tried to change that. Africa and Southeast Asia are mostly, if anything, Islamic, Buddhist and regional, indigenous religions. The Middle East, of course, is nearly exclusively Islamic, except for one pesky little country called Israel which is, of course, Jewish. I don't know what the day of rest, or if there is one, in Buddhism, but for Muslims it is Friday. I must admit I am not familiar enough with Islam to explain why they chose that day.

So, enough about that. How's the calendar module coming? :)

talli

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10: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Albert Langer on 05/28/01 08:50 PM
Talli:
"All right, I gotta answer this one. Tried to hold my mouth for a month, but couldn't...

Malte, in Genesis God rests on the 7th day, true, but the first day is Sunday (probably becuase God created Light on that day, hence Sun-day, but that's conjecture.) So Saturday is the day he rested on and why in Judaism Saturday is the Sabbath."

Now I can't resist either.

Actually Christianity started (as a Jewish sect) with the Sabbath on Saturday too. Switched to Sunday about 400 years later in return for the Roman Emperor Constantine converting (and making it the State Religion). Constantine (and the Empire) were sun-worshippers and insisted on the Sun God's day being the sabbath.

Some other english names for days are also derived from various other Gods (Woden, Thor, Saturn?). Don't know about Monday, Tuesday and Friday.

Not quite as spectacular as Christianity adapting the sabbath to sun worship but of the same sort, is the recent designation of Hannukah as a Jewish festival accompanied by presents. Previously of no significance, but adopted as a major event because it comes near Christmas so accommodates Christian neighbours celebrating their messiah.

BTW Santa Claus (Saint Nicholas) also originated from a pagan festival but the jolly fat guy with red and white costume dates from a Coca Cola advertizing campaign last century.

The only really important day is of course Towel day in recognition of Douglas Adams for his many contributions (including the most powerful atheist polemics ever).

May 25 this year. May be combined with Happy Adams Day Feb 11 (42nd day) next year. Should definately be noted in calendar.

http://www.towelday.org

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11: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by good bye on 05/28/01 09:59 PM
for Muslims it is Friday. I must admit I am not familiar enough with Islam to explain why they chose that day.

Allah's prophet chose Friday because that is when the first Man was created, and also because Judgement day is going to be on Friday. It is also one more thing that sets Islam apart from the infidel religions.

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12: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Don Baccus on 05/28/01 10:11 PM
Constantine (and the Empire) were sun-worshippers
Ahhh...the original beach bum. We can blame Unholy California on the Holy Roman Empire. Cool!

Since there's so much confusion on which day one should rest, I humbly submit that all OpenACS 4 volunteers simply work on the project seven days a week!

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13: Response to Who is doing Calendar Porting (aka. Localization) (response to 1)
Posted by Talli Somekh on 05/28/01 10:16 PM
Since there's so much confusion on which day one should rest, I humbly submit that all OpenACS 4 volunteers simply work on the project seven days a week!

And what, may I ask, will the punishment be for committing sacrilege? Perhaps a personalized flame from Pope Baccus?

talli