TUAW Tip: Add date to the menu bar clock
To do this, open System Preferences and go to the "International" system preference pane. Once there, click on the "Formats" tab and then click the customize button in the dates section. Select "Medium" from the drop-down menu. You should see the data change in the text box below the drop-down menu. Click inside the box, select all the text (Command + A), and then copy the text (Command + C). Once you've copied the text, click cancel.
Click on the customize button in the times section. Select "Medium" from the drop-down menu. Then place the cursor just before the time and paste (Command + V) the date that you just copied. You might want to add several spaces (or some sort of separator) between the date and time. Once you are finished, click OK. The changes will now show up in the menu bar.
Update: To remove the custom formatting from the menu bar, go to System Preferences > International > Formats. Click the "Customize" button in the times section and select "Medium" from the drop-down menu. Delete the additional text that you add and click "OK." Now click the customize button under the "Times" section again and select "Short" from the drop-down menu. Click "OK," and your system should return to normal.
More tips and tricks like these can be found at the TUAW Tips and Mac 101 sections of TUAW.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Colm said 4:09PM on 8-18-2008
or....
just put iCal on the dock, as long as you can remember what year it is, you're sorted!
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moo083 said 4:14PM on 8-18-2008
Well, yes, though I thought I would add that that only works under Leopard. Glad they finally fixed that though. Seemed sorta silly to always be July 29 unless you open the app. Not in the "just works" frame of mind.
Shunnabunich said 11:43AM on 8-19-2008
Yes, but can you make your menu-bar clock read "Tue Aug 19, '08 jiggitywicky 12:43 PM BEEEATCH" by dragging iCal to your Dock?
Thaaaat's right.
phi said 4:09PM on 8-18-2008
Or you could just use MagiCal or use the Dashboard Calendar
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Mustard Bizzle said 3:24AM on 8-19-2008
Just tried MagiCal, good stuff. Thanks for the rec.
brianallen said 4:16PM on 8-18-2008
This is a very old trick. It does have side affect.
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brianallen said 4:19PM on 8-18-2008
Any place within the OS that uses the medium format, will be affect by this change.
Jim C. said 4:39PM on 8-18-2008
Yup. Precisely why I don't do this alteration. Back in the Jaguar days (10.2), there was change you could make that was side effect-free. That "medium date" format shows up in a bunch of places.
As others here have said, iStat Menus and MagiCal are both good, free alternatives which add the bonus of a pop-up calendar. There's also the paid app MenuCalendarClock which has versions that can pull in your appointments from either iCal or Entourage.
In short, there's free (and paid) applications which are more customizable, and don't have the effects that this alteration causes.
serenity said 4:17PM on 8-18-2008
Anyone know how to make this not screw up Adium? My events show up like "Augus" now (since OS X returns the *time* as "August 18, 22:17" now, and the field is meant for 5 characters or so - 12:34). I've had this for a few months and not cared, but it is a bit annoying.
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F_D said 4:21PM on 8-18-2008
Pretty sure this does not work in Leopard... Works like a charm under Tiger. But after my upgrade a few months back, I tried putting the date back in the menubar with this method and got stymied.
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rauz said 4:21PM on 8-18-2008
iStat Menus has a very customizable alternative to the built in menu bar clock which lets you specify what font to use and much more.
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SimpleLife said 4:30PM on 8-18-2008
This method has system wide problems. It's not a really good solution. Bad TUAW, bad . . .
Best for Leopard users is to put the iCal icon in the Dock.
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Think Adrian said 4:39PM on 8-18-2008
iStat Menues is a better choice, but this trick is nice for getting the week number in the dropdown of the clock (edit the long preference)
no idea what "week of month" is good for, though...
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christophercjensen said 4:44PM on 8-18-2008
I have used this for months and never suffered any ill effects. Guess I am lucky enough not to use any apps that rely on a user customizable date/time string
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Dave Barnes said 4:49PM on 8-18-2008
Having done this a while ago and then undoing because of the myriad side effects, I do not understand why this "tip" was published.
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Nate Klaiber said 4:54PM on 8-18-2008
Care to explain your myriad of side effects? I have done this since Jaguar (and now with Leopard) on my Macbook, iMac, and Mac Pro. Not one issue. I am interested to hear of all of these side effects that make this a 'useless' tip.
DaveZ said 7:08PM on 8-18-2008
This was on tekzilla a couple of days ago.
macxprt said 4:49PM on 8-18-2008
Just saw this tip last week on TekZilla episode 157. http://revision3.com/tzdaily/2008-08-13osxdate/
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Berkan said 4:59PM on 8-18-2008
WTF!!! This just messed up all my calendars in iCal. Everybody has got a problem with this crappy tip!
Shame on you TUAW!!!
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Cory Bohon said 8:57PM on 8-18-2008
I have included an update to the post with instructions on how to remove the formatting.
-Cory