Visual bug - Date field edit control

I have a Custom Metadata field “Date Time” defined as type Data, formatted as yyyy-MM-dd.
I’d gripe about the fact that the edition is done by a floaty calendar control, but it’s usable (still would have preferred to just edit in-field).
One minor point is that the entry field in the little control is NOT formatted the same as my chosen format, but by system locale, which is making it a tiny bit of an obstacle.
What however is an issue is that this little control seems not to be appearing next to the field I’m editing, but wherever the mouse cursor is at the time. Since I do a lot of editing through the keyboard (up/down arrows + F2 for editing the values), I move the mouse cursor away, and when the little window followed it, I was a bit surprised:

image

Shouldn’t this control stay somehow linked to the field it’s called for?

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Additional problem with the Date type:
In the Manual, 10.4.4:

Date: store date and time information with an easy to use calendar interface
coupled with a natural language recognition system that lets you type
in things like “monday” and have the computer figure out for you when
the next Monday will be. Use this to store publication dates, timeline information,
deadlines and so on.

While the calendar control has its own troubles (and now, for whatever reason, it’s reset to be the same format as the field, in fact), I don’t even see how I can type in “monday” since the field is not active to be written in, either in Outline or in the Inspector pane. How should it be done? Is it possible only if I choose the weekday to be displayed in there?

The Date/time control actually looks vastly different in my system from what it is in the manual - what does this depend on?

And lastly… The compiled file. I needed to put the dates automatically with the scenes they are in. So I looked through the options in Compile, finally finding “Metadata”. OK, I included that. Which means for every scene I’m getting everything, including creation, modification etc etc date, keywords and what not. Is there a way to include just one chosen field?
And, even if I can’t choose just my one metadata field, is there any way of influencing how it’s formatted? I write in Polish. This is not what I need to see in my text:

image

I’d love to have this format be the same as I’ve set in the field format and see in Outline, but I’ve searched the entire Manual and either I’m not looking for the right keyword, or there is no way to do this.

Thanks for these reports! And sorry, I thought I had responded to this last week, but I must have ended up getting tangled in a chain of issues relating to metadata entry for dates. Suffice to say there are a number of interface issues as it currently stands, some that have been documented for a long time now. At any rate, I’ve filed the popup issue—I also noted that this happens if you double-click too slowly and move the mouse a ways after doing so.

One minor point is that the entry field in the little control is NOT formatted the same as my chosen format, but by system locale, which is making it a tiny bit of an obstacle.

Yes, this is one of those said issues—as illustrated by the error you point out in the documentation, with it incorrectly describing the current interface with how it is supposed to work. The idea is that the date field should be something you can type into normally rather than having to use a popup interface. The interface would still be there as an optional mode of use, integrated with the calendar picker, but you could enter dates, copy/paste, clear the text to remove it, more like in a spreadsheet, as well.

So I’ve fixed this spot in the manual, until such a time as it is fixed.

My guess is that they went with a form because the more complex parser wasn’t there. I think overall it will be best for them to put their effort into the parser rather than making the temporary approach better.

The Date/time control actually looks vastly different in my system from what it is in the manual - what does this depend on?

Oops, I removed all cross-references pointing to that screenshot, but not the screenshot itself (that’s the Mac UI). I’ll wait to add a Windows screenshot once they are past the temporary approach that is currently used.

And, even if I can’t choose just my one metadata field, is there any way of influencing how it’s formatted? I write in Polish. This is not what I need to see in my text:

Hmm, yeah that’s a bigger problem. I’ve added that report to the system as well.

In the meanwhile you might explore the alternative given in this forum post. If you scroll down toward the bottom of that discussion, you’ll find an example project that shows how you can design your own metadata block if the built-in one isn’t working right for you.

It’s a bit of an overkill for working around this problem, I’m aware, but that aside it’s a useful technique to be aware of!

Thank you so much :slight_smile: And no worries about the delay, it’s not a vital functionality (just maybe a bit annoying… ;))
The popup appears with a bit of a lag, yes, so I managed to move the mouse away several times like that, too.

I’ll have a look at the post you linked, definitely. This compile problem just occurred to me since I needed to share the WIP file with my alpha reader and wanted her to see the exact timings. And, blam, English month name. Surprise :wink:

I can understand the UI issues related to the date entry, this is always a bit of a pain, so many formats, so many ways it can go wrong or weird. Type-in would be much easier to do, if you have multiple scenes to correct - less waiting and switching focus. I’ll wait then :slight_smile:

Some more Date shenanigans.
So I have my date in a field called “Date Time”, formatted now with short weekday + yyyy-mm-dd.
I pick in the Search box the following conditions:
Search In: “Date Time”
Operator: Any Word
Options: Search Included, Search Excluded
And the phrase I search for is “04”.
The result is as follows:

So I have a number of entries that have April set as the month, but the search is not returning them.

At the same time the manual says:
image

So… how do I search by date?

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It looks like custom date field searching is completely missing at the moment (save for * searches, for finding all items that have dates, or all that do not when the Invert Results option is ticked). I’ve located a previously filed ticket on it, and linked it to your report. I’ve also removed this description for the next user manual revision (unless it gets fixed before then).

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Thank you for the explanation. I had a brief moment of “am I sure I’m doing this correctly”, but considering the example was about April specifically… :wink: