SoftMaker.com

Hi,

I'm using:

PlanMaker 2010 (rev 591) on Windows 7.

In a new PlanMaker document if I try and enter (say in field A1) "26 Nov 2010 9:00 pm" the date will be changed to "30 Dec 1899 09:00 PM".

And even if I change the formatting with a custom number format for date/time it won't change, although if I change the number format (why can't I change it just be text?) to "Default" it changes the value to 0.875. Also when I click on the field in the edit bar above it displays "21:00:00".

I can enter either a date or a time in the field with no problem, it the combination of the two that is wrong.

Thanks,

Gary

Hi Gary,

I can replicate your problem on my machine too (with rev591).

Interestingly, the problem doesn't occur in Excel 2003 and when a test file is saved in Excel and opened in PlanMaker, the cell displays correctly. As you'll see from my sample file, the equivalent (decimal) value of the cell is 40508.875. So it's intriguing how planmaker treats the cell when the data is entered manually, it is evidently ignoring the "whole number of days since 1900" part of the value, and just leaving the fractional part of the day (0.875).

I will continue some testing and let you know if I have anything helpful or useful to say!

Cheers,
Jez

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Designer and manufacturer of handheld electronic test equipment. This is my little company: http://www.peakelec.co.uk

Aaah, I've discovered something interesting and useful (doesn't happen very often with me).

If you enter the date as 26/11/2010 21:00:00, the value is correctly interpreted. Furthermore if you set the formatting to: DD MMM YYYY hh:mm AM/PM then it displays exactly as you want.

So I think Planmaker's problem was simply in the way it interprets your original entry syntax, even though it can generate dates in that syntax without difficulty. So just make sure you enter the dates in the more universal format like: 26/11/2010 21:00:00 and then format the cell with:
DD MMM YYYY hh:mm AM/PM and everything is fine

I think that the developers can possibly look at improving the way Planmaker interprets your original syntax, but apart from that, it does work ok provided you adjust your input syntax to suit Planmaker in the meantime.

Hope that makes sense.

Jez

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Designer and manufacturer of handheld electronic test equipment. This is my little company: http://www.peakelec.co.uk

Hello,

I can reproduce this issue as well and referred it to our developers. I will inform you here as soon as I have more information.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Sven and Developers especially...

Would it actually be better that PlanMaker parse the incoming syntax, and "allow" for a wider range of input, then place the results accordingly.

That is, allow for input being, for example:

mm/dd/yy (more used in U.S. and North America)
mm/dd/yyyy (more used in U.S. and North America)
dd/mm/yy (more used in Euro ??)
dd/mm/yyyy (more used in Euro ??)

Optionally, but likely a bit more complex to do in the code parsing, allow for:

Month Day, Year (Example: January 20, 2011)
Day Month, Year (Example: 20 January, 2011)

Both the above, or at least thee first thought, would both give users "their way" to do it, and stop more than a handful of PlanMaker "error calling", etc ??

Joe

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Win7 Pro 64bit | Intel Multi Core i5 3.46gHz | 8GB DDR3 | 1GB Nvidia GT-9800 SP @ 1152x864 | ASUS | SoftMaker Office user / NetObjects Fusion 12 user / Serif WebPlus X5 and PagePlus X6 User / MoviePlus X6 / DrawPlus X5 / PhotoPlus X5

PlanMaker would not be able to guess whether 11/10 is the 11th of November or the 10th of November. For this, it has to rely on the country settings in the Windows control panel. But as for the other issue about the written-out month name, the bug has been fixed and won't occur anymore in the next service pack.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Understood...and can see the limitations imposed by the code.

RE: << But as for the other issue about the written-out month name, the bug has been fixed and won't occur anymore in the next service pack. >>

May we presume that this also means that the same fixes are reflected in the Nightly Builds as well ?

Just making sure that base is covered too.

Joe

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Win7 Pro 64bit | Intel Multi Core i5 3.46gHz | 8GB DDR3 | 1GB Nvidia GT-9800 SP @ 1152x864 | ASUS | SoftMaker Office user / NetObjects Fusion 12 user / Serif WebPlus X5 and PagePlus X6 User / MoviePlus X6 / DrawPlus X5 / PhotoPlus X5

Yes, and there will also be hotfix for the customer (probably tomorrow).

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Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

this problem has been solved now and won't occur any longer with the next service pack. I sent the hotfix to the customer.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH