Configuring the Date and Time Formats

  • [config]

The game shows dates and times in various places. You can configure how these are shown.

To configure the date and time preferencse:

  1. Select Admin -> Setup
  2. Edit datetime.yml

Date Formats

The game supports several different types of formats, each of which may be configured:

  • short_date_format - This is used when you just want a short date, like 1/2/2016.
  • long_date_format - This combines date and time into a longer format, like 27 March 2016, 5:45pm.
  • time_format - This is just the time by itself, like 5:45pm.
  • date_and_time_entry_format - This is used for parsing date/time strings (e.g. when inputting event start times like 12/25/2016 2:45pm). It is suggested that you only use numeric month values here. Trying to parse month names can be problematic.

Here are some common examples:

Format American European
Short Date %m/%d/%Y %d-%m-%Y
Long Date %a %b %d, %Y %l:%M%P %d-%m-%Y %k%M
Time %l:%M%P %k%M
Date and Time Entry %m/%d/%Y %H:%M%p %d-%m-%Y %k%M

You have complete control over each format. You can change it use hyphens, put the month first or second, use two-digit years instead of four-digit years, use 12 or 24-hour time, etc. Some common format codes:

%d - Day of month
%m - Month number
%b - Month abbreviation (e.g. Jan)
%Y - Four-digit year
%k - 24-hour clock hour
%M - Clock minute
%l - 12-hour clock hour
%P - am or pm

For a detailed explanation of all possible options, see the Ruby Date/Time Format Documentation.

Help Prompts

There are two date options that are not used for date formatting by the code, but are shown to the user as help prompts.

  • date_entry_format_help - A human-readable string telling someone how to enter a date in short_date_format. For example, if short date format is 12/25/2016 then your help would be mm/dd/yyyy.
  • date_and_time_entry_format_help - A human-readable string telling someone how to enter a date and time in date_and_time_entry_format. For example, if your entry format is 12/25/2016 2:45pm then your help would be mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm(am/pm).

server_timezone

OOC dates and times (shown in the time command, for example) are relative to the server’s timezone, so it’s helpful to tell the players what that is.

Players can choose to have events and other times displayed in their local time by setting their timezone with the timezone command.

Changing the Server Timezone

If you want to change what the actual server time is, see Changing the Server Timezone.