Change iPhoto2's roll date display format

Feb 26, '03 09:23:00AM

Contributed by: nockely

With the introduction iPhoto 2 I was a little frustrated to note that the Rolls date format used in the Photo Library was set at MM/DD/YY and does not use the default system format. This hint will thus give a brief and simple method of changing the date format into DD/MM/YY, useful primarily for British or Australian users.

  1. Control-click on iPhoto, click on "Show Package Contents" and locate Contents -> Resources -> English.lproj -> Localizable.strings
  2. Back this file up if you like, then double click on it. The file should open in text edit.
  3. Scroll down to just beyond 75% of the way down the page, and look for the heading // Date/time formatting.
  4. You should see beneath that DateShortFormat = "%m/%d/%y"; // Used for rolls
  5. To change the format into DD/MM/YY, simply change %m into %d and vice versa. The string should now read: DateShortFormat = "%d/%m/%y"; // Used for rolls
  6. To use another date format, visit this page at about.com which lists all the UNIX date and time commands which can be used in any combination you like. [robg adds: or type man strftime in the Terminal...
  7. Simply save the file and check to see if it works in iPhoto.
For those REALLY pedantic users, like myself, why not change "Trash" to "Wastebasket" and hearken back to the good old days of a localised British system? Just about half way down the same file look for // Trash titles, change "Move to Trash" into "Move to Wastebasket" and "Trash" into "Wastebasket".

Warning: When editing strings, make sure you only edit text within quotation marks. Hope this helps someone!

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