Ubuntu Wiki

The Gnome clock applet should be replaced by a clock menu. Like the applet before it, the menu should optionally show a monthly calendar, coming events from your Evolution calendar, and/or the time at other locations. Unlike the applet, it should not show weather or a world map; but it should let you add an event or set a timer directly from the menu. The three windows for setting time, date, and clock options should also be consolidated into a single window.

Use cases

These use cases are not necessarily to be satisfied by the same software. But most of them are currently satisfied by the Gnome clock applet, so we should explicitly include, separate, or exclude them.

For each of these:

• Variation: user is not sighted

Other use cases:

• Computer learns of change of geographic location (time zone etc)

Time & Date settings

The “Clock Preferences”, “Time and Date Settings”, and “Time & Date” windows should be merged into a single “Time & Date” window.

The window should have two tabs, “Time & Date” and “Clock”.

Inside the “Time & Date” tab, all controls should be insensitive by default, except for the “Unlock to change these settings” button. Activating the button should open a PolicyKit alert with the primary text “To change time or date settings, you need to authenticate.”. If you authenticate successfully, the lock button’s caption should change to “Lock to prevent further changes”, and all the other controls should become sensitive.

The time zone map and associated controls should be exactly the same as used in the Ubuntu installer.

The “Time:” and “Date:” controls should be sensitive only when “Set the time: Manually” is selected.

To avoid unnecessary disruption, any change to the system time should be applied only when both the “Time:” and “Date:” fields are unfocused (or when the window is closed).

Inside the “Clock” tab, the “Show a clock in the panel” checkbox should be sensitive only if you have at least one Gnome panel or Unity menu bar.

The remainder of the controls in the tab should be sensitive only if you have at least one Gnome panel or Unity menu bar and “Show a clock in the panel” is checked.

The “Include week numbers” checkbox and the “Week begins on:” radio buttons should be sensitive only when “Monthly calendar” is checked.

The “Coming events from Evolution Calendar” checkbox should be sensitive only when Evolution is installed.

The “Choose Locations…” button should be sensitive only when “Time in other locations” is checked.

Activating “Choose Locations…” should open and focus the “Locations” dialog.

In the dialog, the pseudo-location “UTC” should be present by default, as a hint that it is available (remembering that “Time in other locations” as a whole is off by default).

activating the “+” button should add, scroll to, and begin editing the “Location” cell of, a new row in the table.

The menu

The title of the menu should depend on the “In the clock, show:” settings.

The contents of the menu should depend on the “In the clock menu, show:” settings. In particular:

• The date item should always be present, but it should be sensitive (and have an icon) only if Evolution is installed.

For an upcoming event:

• if it is today, just the time should be shown (e.g. “3:55 PM”)

• if it is later this week, the day and time should be shown (e.g. “Wed 3:55 PM”)

• if it is after this week, the day, date, and time should be shown (e.g. “Wed 21 Apr 3:55 PM”).

Future work

• Provide an API for calendar applications other than Evolution.

Unresolved issues

Setting the timezone automatically by checking geoip.ubuntu.com. That is, connect to the Internet in Prague and your timezone is automatically changed to that location. This is already done automatically in the installer.