Recently upgrading from KDE 4 to KDE 5 (far less painful that past major upgrades, and I have to say that it looks really good).

The are annoyances of course, and one that is on my mind now is the time format of the system clock widget. I want a simple clock with nothing but the time in %H:%M:%S format, which was what I had with KDE4 (formats are from 'man date').

With KDE 5, the format is %k:%M:%S - which means that twice a day the number of digits displayed changes. UGH! I would really like some way to return the the KDE 4 behavior. Is there some way of doing that, and if there is no easy fix, can someone point me to the file that controls that widget, I might be able to patch it (no guarantee of success - I am not a programmer, but I am certainly going to try).

KDE Brainstorm: Improve Locale Configuration in Plasma 5 - viewtopic.php?f=83&t=124741

At here, editing the digital clock qml scripts to get what I want.

My Digital Clock
(This is with the plasma 5.7.2.)

Plasma 5 is using qml to draw the clocks. QML date and time formats can be found from the http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtqml-date.html .

date:



time:




The plasma digital clock qml scripts are at the /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.digitalclock/. The user can edit the codes at the /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.digitalclock/ but the plasma updates will overwrite the edits.

A bit better way is to copy the scripts to the users home and rename the digital clock.

Copying the /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.digitalclock/ to the ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.mydigitalclock/.

Editing the ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.mydigitalclock/metadata.desktop:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=My Digital Clock
Name[x-test]=xxMy Digital Clockxx

Comment=Time displayed in an advanced digital format
Comment[x-test]=xxTime displayed in an advanced digital formatxx

Icon=preferences-system-time
Type=Service
X-KDE-ParentApp=
X-KDE-PluginInfo-Author=
X-KDE-PluginInfo-Email=
X-KDE-PluginInfo-License=GPL
X-KDE-PluginInfo-Name=org.kde.plasma.mydigitalclock
X-KDE-PluginInfo-Version=3.0
X-KDE-PluginInfo-Website=plasma.kde.org
X-KDE-ServiceTypes=Plasma/Applet
X-Plasma-API=declarativeappletscript
X-KDE-PluginInfo-Category=Date and Time
X-Plasma-Provides=org.kde.plasma.time,org.kde.plasma.date

X-Plasma-MainScript=ui/main.qml
X-Plasma-RemoteLocation=


Editing ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.mydigitalclock/contents/ui/DigitalClock.qml

Time format:

line 422
Changing

Code: Select all

return Qt.formatTime(currentTime, main.timeFormat);


to

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return Qt.formatTime(currentTime, "hh:mm");


Date format:

line 537
Changing

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dateLabelLeft.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, main.dateFormat);

to

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dateLabelLeft.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, "MM/dd");

line 539
Changing

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dateLabel.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, main.dateFormat);

to

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dateLabel.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, "MM/dd");

Restarting the plasmashell or log out - log in.

Adding the My Digital clock to the panel:





My Digital Clock can be added to the My Panel: viewtopic.php?f=66&t=133073&hilit=panel#p357392


More of time&date formats:
- Wrong time format in plasma5 lock screen: viewtopic.php?f=289&t=130484
- How to set Monday as the first day of calendar widget?: viewtopic.php?f=66&t=131758


Calendar background

The digitalclock calendar qml code is at CalendarView.qml

A picture can be slipped to the calendar by adding a picture and few code lines ( http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtquick-image.html ):

Code: Select all

       Image {
        source: "Background.jpg"
    }

That is:

Code: Select all

...
    onIsExpandedChanged: {
        if (!isExpanded) {
            // clear all the selections when the plasmoid is hiding
            monthView.resetToToday();
        }
    }

       Image {
        source: "Background.jpg"
    }


    Item {
        id: agenda
...

After plasmashell restart:



Monthly calendar background image

Monthly background images can be added by

Code: Select all

    Image {
        source: "images/" + monthView.currentDate.getMonth()
    }

That is:

Code: Select all

....
    onIsExpandedChanged: {
        if (!isExpanded) {
            // clear all the selections when the plasmoid is hiding
            monthView.resetToToday();
        }
    }
   
    Image {
        fillMode: Image.Stretch
        anchors.fill: parent
        source: "images/" + monthView.currentDate.getMonth()
    }
       Image {
        fillMode: Image.Stretch
        anchors.fill: parent
        source: "images/Matte.png"
    }


    Item {
        id: agenda
...


Monthly pictures are at Images subdirectory:



and the names are 0,1,2,..11.



To get a bit better readability there is a matte image:



After plasmashell restart:




------------------------EDIT-------------------------------

With the Plasma 5.11.

The KOrganizer starting with the mouse middle click: https://youtu.be/j2gslAS8tFI

Code of .../contents/ui/CalendarView.qml: https://pastebin.com/M15CZXSv


------------------------EDIT #2-------------------------------


With the Plasma 5.14

Digital clock time is

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return Qt.formatTime(currentTime, main.timeFormat);

My Digital clock time is:

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return Qt.formatTime(currentTime, "hh:mm");

Digital clock date is

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dateLabel.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, main.dateFormat);

My Digital clock date is

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dateLabel.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, "MM/dd");

i.e:

Code: Select all

--- /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.digitalclock/contents/ui/DigitalClock.qml   2018-11-27 19:50:44.000000000 +0200
+++ /home/rog131/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.mydigitalclock/contents/ui/DigitalClock.qml   2019-01-09 12:26:26.786016739 +0200
@@ -498,7 +498,8 @@
                     var currentTime = new Date(msUTC + (dataSource.data[plasmoid.configuration.lastSelectedTimezone]["Offset"] * 1000));
 
                     main.currentTime = currentTime;
-                    return Qt.formatTime(currentTime, main.timeFormat);
+                    //return Qt.formatTime(currentTime, main.timeFormat);
+                    return Qt.formatTime(currentTime, "hh:mm");
                 }
 
                 verticalAlignment: Text.AlignVCenter
@@ -610,7 +611,8 @@
 
 
         if (main.showDate) {
-            dateLabel.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, main.dateFormat);
+            //dateLabel.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, main.dateFormat);
+            dateLabel.text = Qt.formatDate(main.currentTime, "MM/dd");
         } else {
             // clear it so it doesn't take space in the layout
             dateLabel.text = "";


Result:

Thanks Rog131 for figuring this all out.

However, I tried this in Kubuntu 16.04, Plasma 5.8.6 (backported PPA) but could not get it to work. The "My Digital Clock" widget didn't even appear in the Add Widgets dialog. After double checking everything I had a hunch that the metadata.json file in the same folder as the metadata.desktop file needed to be edited in a similar manner so they matched. I edited lines 10, 19, 51, 55 (I think this was the key line), 57, 140.

After editing metadata.json and restarting, the "My Digital Clock" widget did appear in the Add Widgets dialog and it is working perfectly. I have my time displayed now as "12.05 am" (lowercase am/pm) and my date as "Sat, 27 May 2017" (abbreviated day string) ... exactly what I wanted.

Hi DrPsyche,

I abandoned this fiddly approach to getting a more flexible time/date display some time ago. I now use an excellent Plasma widget called "Event Calendar" to replace the standard time/date display. This widget has a wealth of configuration options including displaying the time/date in different colours if you want. It also has weather/calendar information too.

To install the widget just click on the "Get new widgets" box at the bottom of the add widgets dialog and search for "Event Calendar".

Hope this helps.