Overview of Location and Time

Documentation / Contents - Location and Time

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Location and Time Preferences

Location and Time Preferences records where you are and how you want text, money and the clock written. The program is cylocalize. Its window is titled "Location and Time Preferences".

Open it from the Toolchest: Desktop > Location and Time.

What It Changes, and What It Does Not

This panel is user scoped. Everything it writes goes to one file in your home directory, and, if you ask for it in as many words, to your own shell startup file.

It does not change the system locale.
It does not change the system timezone files.
It does not set the clock. There is no date field and no time field.
It never needs root.

Because of that, nothing here takes effect the moment you press Apply. The settings are recorded; programs pick them up the next time they start with the new environment. See The Environment Tab.

The Window

The window has a title, three tabs, a row of three buttons, and a status line.

The tabs are drawn along the BOTTOM of the tabbed pane, not the top.
The buttons are Apply, Close and Reset.
The status line sits to the right of the buttons and is where every message appears. This panel has no dialogs at all.

The three tabs, in order:

Time & Location      timezone, location name, clock style
Language & Formats   locale, language, currency
Environment          which variables to export, and the shell block

The Buttons

Apply writes your settings to the configuration file and refreshes the previews. It does not touch your shell startup file.
Close quits at once. It does not save, and it does not ask about unsaved work. Press Apply first.
Reset reloads the settings from the file, discarding edits you have not applied. If the file cannot be read, Reset falls back to the built-in defaults.