Displaying the date in a toolbar

MajDate

Français

I only dispose of the French version of Windows XP. For this reason, the screen copies that are proposed here are in French. As soon as one of you sends me screen copies in English, I shall be pleased to integrate them.

The clock of Windows XP displays the date and time on three lines. Nevertheless, the user does not always wish to increase the display height of the taskbar, so, as long as you only display one line, the clock only displays the time -not the date.

Programs as TclockEx can modify the display format of the Windows XP clock.

If you do not wish a have a program permanently loaded to manage the clock format, you can display the date in a toolbar apart.

The « Shared documents » directory (= « C:\Documents and Settings\All users\Documents »), being shared, is quite adapted for information that all users of the machine can display.

Create a Documents sub-directory in it (select the directory in the left pane, and then File, New, Directory),

in the sub-directory, you create a Jour directory. (*)

In this Jour directory, you create a text file. (Right click in the right pane, New, text document.)

After that, open the contextual menu of the taskbar (down the screen), by a right click on it.

Click on "Toolbars", then on "New toolbar". A dialog box invites you to select a directory on which the new toolbar will be based. Please select the directory you have just created.

Then, you see a "Jour" toolbar that appears on the taskbar. With a right click on it, you see its contextual menu appear.

After you verified that "Display the text" is unchecked, please check "Display the title".

Then, the toolbar shows the name of the file you created in it.

The MajDate program renames its file so that its name shows the name of the day in the week, followed by the number of the day in the month (I tested this only on a French system. It is quite possible that obtaining this in English requires to recompile the program with the English version of vb.dll. A further version will be developped in .Net, in order to solve this problem.

Then, you only have to launch this program at noon, and at each Windows session start.

First create or download (see at the bottom of the page) the MajDate program.

Then, in the ConfigurationPanel (Start Button, select Configuration Panel), double-click on « Planified tasks ». In the directory that opens, double-click on « Create a new planifed task ». (The GestTaches program also allows you to create a planified task, without having to wait the time to put all the available programs of the machine into the displayed list.

Please click on Browse, then select the MajDate program.After validation :

Click on « At opening of a session », then on the « Next » button. The next screen invites you to seize (twice) your Windows session opening password.

Once you validated :

Check « Open the advanced properties of this task when I click on Terminate », then click on the « Terminate »button.

In the list on the left, telling the type of planification of the task, if it is not already done please select "in case of connexion" -note that this is a litteral translation, I do not dispose of the english version to verify the exact text.

Please check « Display the different times » down the dialog box.

By default, the first value indicate start at opening of the session. Please click on the « New » button.

In « Begin time», please seize « 00:00 ». For this, you click on hours (the first two figures fraction), type 00, click on the right arrow of the numeric pad (while the numeric pad is not locked), type 00 again (if the numeric pad is not locked, you can have to use the Shift key to type 0 on it.

Please click on the OK button.

In the tasks list, you now see a « MajDate » task. Right click on it, and click on « Exécute ».

The Jour toolbar now shows the date of the day, with the format weekday + monthday. 

Of course, any other format would be possible, as for instance the week number. With a script you can put just what you want in it. Please note that TclockEx does that very well, in a parameterizable way, with the further advantage to propose a calendar at the disposal of the limited user, which Windows does not, in standard.

This date will be updated each night at noon if the machine is running at this time, at the following start if not.

There is one point more you must pay attention to : if you restore a backup, you can find two files in the Jour directory, corresponding to two different dates. You then must erase all these files except one.

Back to the home page

Return to the task installation procedure.

N.B. Here is a first version of this program, that creates the directory at a fixed place and with a fixed name. A further version will adapt to the Windows installation language, and avoid the duplication of "Documents" word in the path

. To use the present version, you have to use the « C:\Documents and Settings\All users\Documents\Documents\Jour » directory.

Return to the procedure, after the directories creation.

Return to the home page.

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