datepicker / textfield / 24hr format !?

Scripting Forums AppleScript Studio & Xcode
#1

Hi Folks,

first of all: compliments to all of you. I’ve been reading around here for a bit, found quite a few useful hints for my considerable small problems and enjoyed the nice and helpful attitude of the active forum members.

Now I’ve got a problem that seems a bit tricky to me and I couldn’t find anything on the net so far:

1.) What I need in general is a field where I can enter a number directly that is interpreted as time (e.g. 1023 would be interpreted as 00:10:23) and that can be as well changed by 1-3 steppers (3 would be ideal (h / m /s))

2.) Since I could find no better, I decided to use the date picker control. It has only one stepper but seems more or less suitable for my needs.

3.) Now comes the point where I arrived so far: when I read the contents of the date picker as time string, i always get something like ‘01:01:01 AM’. I would not mind if I had only 12 hours max. to enter the time, but I cannot have the AM/PM at the end.

4.) Here’s the question: How can I convert the content from date picker to the 24hr format OR is there any (maybe a lot smarter) way of entering timecodes?

here’s (more or less) my code:

[code]tell window “dMain”
set the_date to content of control “myTimecode”
set the_time to the time string of the_date
end tell

→ the_time = “01:02:03 AM”[/code]
The AM has to go _and I have problems since 12:00:00 AM in 12h format would be 00:00:00 in 24h format ( I need the 00:00:00 ).

Thanks for any hint, and please excuse any errors in my English.

sbx

Model: pb g4 al
AppleScript: xcode 2.2
Browser: Firefox 1.0.7
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.4)

#2

The date picker will use the style that is set in the System Preferences (International pane).

#3

Hi Bruce,

thanks for the hint. You’re completely right in terms of displaying the time in the UI. But internally, Applescript is always using the 12hr format.

But I think maybe a date formatter can do the trick. I’ll try later…

sbx

#4

Possibly, but consider this:

get time string of (current date)

With my current settings this returns: “10:15:11 AM”

However, changing my time settings to a 24-hour clock returns. well, it’s too early to check it, but it does return what you would expect.

That said, a date formatter might be better for what you’re doing.

#5

You could also try something like this:

set theTime to time of (current date)

set theHour to zeroPad(round (theTime / hours) rounding down)
set theMinute to zeroPad(round ((theTime mod hours) / minutes) rounding down)
set theSecond to zeroPad(round (((theTime / minutes) - result) * 60) rounding down)

set theTime to theHour & ":" & theMinute & ":" & theSecond

on zeroPad(thisNumber)
	return text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & thisNumber)
end zeroPad

Just replace “current date” with the date object from the date picker.

#6

Using a technique I learned from Nigel Garvey: (again replacing current date with the date you want)

tell time of (current date) to tell 1000000 + it div hours * 10000 + it mod hours div minutes * 100 + it mod minutes as string to text 2 thru 3 & ":" & text 4 thru 5 & ":" & text 6 thru 7
#7

Or you could attach a date formatter to a text field in Interface Builder.