MadCap Software Forums

I'm sure there's a simple solution to this one, but I can't find it.
I want Flare to display dates (for Builds etc.) in non-US dd/mm/yyyy format, where 7th Sept is 7/9/2015 as per my Windows settings, but it stubbornly refuses to do so (see below). What am I missing? Thanks for any advice.

You need to restart Flare before the date format change will take effect.

I quickly checked this on my machine.
Normally I use the English (US) locale but with a date setting of dd-mmm-yy (today is 08-Sep-15). And this is reflected in Flare as well. So far so good.
BUT when I change the locale to English (UK), and choose the date setting e.g. dd-mm-yyyy, then Flare ignores this.
Yes, I restarted Flare after setting this
I'm using Flare version 11.1 on Win 7 64-bit.

So, I can confirm the behaviour you see.

Thanks for confirming Lydia - looks like a bug then (in the 'small but annoying' category...)

Update:
I raised this as a bug with Madcap support (Case 84997 should anyone ever need to refer to it).
On further investigation, it became clear that the problem only affected two (of eight) Flare projects, and that the dates were initially displayed correctly, but 'flipped' to the wrong format as soon as I drilled down or re-displayed file data within Flare.
After trying various potential solutions over the past few days, this now appears to have been fixed by the 'nuclear option' of going into the registry and deleting HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Madcap Software.

Update - after about three days, the problem returned in one of the five projects I'm working on, but not in the others.
Have informed MC support but this one is hard to pin down and I'm not hopeful of a resolution. I guess I can live with it.
Please add to this thread if you come across the same issue - and report it to MC, as further input may help to find the cause/solution.

Hello all,

Is this still a problem?

I want to use the Flare variable "ShortDate" and I understood that its format is based on the Windows date configuration. Well, this is definitely not what I am observing. I want to see the date appear as 20160722 but Flare is insisting on 7/22/2016.

There was a change to variables in the last major update - I understand it uses the language in Flare rather than the operating system now. (Note that I can't replicate this problem - short date always worked for me.)

However, I now use the Date/Time variable (look up Custom Date/Time variables) - which can give you the result you want.

wclass wrote:There was a change to variables in the last major update - I understand it uses the language in Flare rather than the operating system now. (Note that I can't replicate this problem - short date always worked for me.)

However, I now use the Date/Time variable (look up Custom Date/Time variables) - which can give you the result you want.

Thank you Margaret. I had forgotten about that feature.

FYI, if anyone is looking for this answer, the instructions are here: http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare12/ ... iables.htm