Customization of Time and Date Display for Entries

[howto_user]

IMPORTANT: Not all of the system styles have both the date and time defined within the *_DATE_FORMAT variable. Some system styles have the date definied in the *_NEW_DAY variable, which cannot be modified via free user overrides. If you wish to change the display of the date in those styles you will need to do so through a custom style, one of the benefits of a paid account.

The following styles will allow you to customize both the date and time through one of the overrides below:
Disjointed
Generator
Notepad
Refried Paper
Webley Boxes on White

The following styles will only allow you to customize the time through one of the overrides below:
Clean and Simple
Default LiveJournal
Magazine
Punquin Elegant w/Sidebar
Tabular Indent
Suppression of Time and Date Display for Entries: To suppress display of the date and/or time that a journal entry was posted, a simple one-line override with an HTML comment will do the trick--

LASTN_DATE_FORMAT=>

Technically, you do not need to use an HTML comment. Placement of at least one blank space after the LASTN_DATE_FORMAT=> will suppress the time display (whereas leaving the line completely blank after the LASTN_DATE_FORMAT=> will not override at all); but using something like a space inserts content into the page that might not be exactly the intended result, even if only a single extra space per entry. The HTML comment leaves the display completely untouched.

This override only affects the recent entries ('LASTN') view. Overrides for the other views would be needed to similarly suppress the display of journal posting times on the other views. The variables for the remaning two views that contain entries are FRIENDS_DATE_FORMAT and DAY_DATE_FORMAT.

Customization of Time and Date Display for Entries: To customize the time and date display for your entries you will need to use the variables for each desired element in the format you would like them to appear into a *_DATE_FORMAT override. The available variables are:

dayshort
Day of week. Short form. Example: Mon, Tue, Wed...
daylong
Day of week. Long form. Example: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...
monshort
Month. Short form. Example: Jan, Feb, Mar...
monlong
Month. Long form. Example: January, February, March...
yy
Year, two digit.
yyyy
Year, four digit.
m
Month. 1-12.
mm
Month. 01-12.
d
Day. 1-31.
dd
Day. 01-31.
dth
Day plus ordinal. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th...
ap
AM or PM as a one-character lower-case "a" or "p".
AP
AM or PM as a one-character upper-case "A" or "P".
ampm
AM or PM as a two-character lower-case "am" or "pm".
AMPM
AM or PM as a two-character upper-case "AM" or "PM".
min
Minutes. 00-59.
12h
Hour. 1-12.
12hh
Hour. 01-12.
24h
Hour. 1-23.
24hh
Hour. 01-23.

Using these variables you can specify the exact style of the time and date for your entries.

LASTN_DATE_FORMAT=>%%daylong%%, %%monlong%% %%dth%%, %%yyyy%% @ %%12h%%:%%min%%%%ampm%%

The above example will produce a date format that looks like the following:

Monday, January 1st, 2002 @ 1:01pm

Since the above override uses only one line it uses the variable for a one line override, LASTN_DATE_FORMAT=> If your *_DATE_FORMAT override uses more then one line you would need to use a slightly different format.

LASTN_DATE_FORMAT<=
%%daylong%%, %%monlong%% %%dth%%, %%yyyy%%

@ %%12h%%:%%min%%%%ampm%%
<=LASTN_DATE_FORMAT

The above override would produce the following:

Monday, January 1st, 2002
@ 1:01pm

All of these overrides only affect the recent entries ('LASTN') view. Overrides for the other views would be needed to similarly customize the display of journal posting times on the other views. The variables for the remaning two views that contain entries are FRIENDS_DATE_FORMAT and DAY_DATE_FORMAT.

Links for Day, Month and Years Displayed for Entries: Adding hypertext links to relevant calendars, monthly listings, and single-day views -- similar to the links automatically placed on dates shown on comment views -- is a simple matter of adding the relevant links to a date format override.--

LASTN_DATE_FORMAT<=
exampleusername.livejournal.com/%%yyyy%%/%%mm%%/%%dd%%">
%%dd%%
exampleusername.livejournal.com/%%yyyy%%/%%mm%%">
%%monshort%%
exampleusername.livejournal.com/%%yyyy%%">
%%yyyy%%|%%12hh%%:%%min%%%%ampm%%
<=LASTN_DATE_FORMAT

The above example is for the system's Generator layout. If you are using the Generator layout and you do not wish to change the default date format then you can use the above override by changing the red text to your user name.

Otherwise the above is merely an example to demonstrate the proper placement of the link code for the individual day, month and year links. You will need to place the highlighted sections in your *_DATE_FORMAT override as follows.

• Day View Link--Place the code highlighted in orange around the variable you have chosen for the day of the month. (As shown above: %%dd%%, %%d%%, %%dth%%) You will also need to change the red text of the highlighted section to your username.
• Month View Link--Place the code highlighted in pink around the variable you have chosen for the month. (As shown above: %%monshort%%, %%monlong%%, %%m%%, %%mm%%) You will also need to change the red text of the highlighted section to your username.
• Calendar Year Link--Place the code highlighted in blue around the variable you have chosen for the year. (As shown above: %%yy%%, %%yyyy%%) You will also need to change the red text of the highlighted section to your username.

This override only affects the recent entries ('LASTN') view. Overrides for the other views would be needed to similarly create links for the journal posting times on the other views. The variables for the remaning two views that contain entries are FRIENDS_DATE_FORMAT and DAY_DATE_FORMAT.

Variable Reference:

LASTN_DATE_FORMAT

Additional References:

What are overrides? How do they work?

contributed by macheide, arie, and xtremesaints