Question Date localisation

There is nothing " between January and February 1900"

Franz Frese wrote:

There is nothing " between January and February 1900"

That's right, that was a wrong example.
I've changed it to: "between January and March 1900".

Franz Frese wrote:

There is nothing " between January and February 1900"

That is not correct. BET JAN 1900 AND FEB 1900 is any day between 1st of January and the last day in February 1900. The borders are inclusive in GEDCOM 5.5.1 and 7.

5.5.1: Event happened some time between date 1 AND date 2. For example, bet 1904 and 1915 indicates that the event state (perhaps a single day) existed somewhere between 1904 and 1915.

7: BET x · Exact date unknown, but no earlier than x. AND x · Exact date unknown, but no later than x.

hermann wrote:

That is not correct. BET JAN 1900 AND FEB 1900 is any day between 1st of January and the last day in February 1900. The borders are inclusive in GEDCOM 5.5.1 and 7.

5.5.1: Event happened some time between date 1 AND date 2. For example, bet 1904 and 1915 indicates that the event state (perhaps a single day) existed somewhere between 1904 and 1915.

7: BET x · Exact date unknown, but no earlier than x. AND x · Exact date unknown, but no later than x.

You're right, too. According to the GEDCOM specification, it is indeed correct, because BET ... AND ... means "not earlier than" the first date and "not later than" the second.

In ordinary language, however, "between A and B" is often interpreted as excluding A and B themselves. Therefore, a phrase such as "between January and February 1900" may feel wrong or confusing to readers, even though it is technically correct according to GEDCOM.

There is an old issue regarding date and German: FROM is translated as "von". That is normally correct (regarding a location/place), but not with date: "FROM 1850" has to be "ab 1850" and not as now "von 1850". 

Man könnte ja auch "Seit 1850" verwenden.

hermann wrote:

There is an old issue regarding date and German: FROM is translated as "von". That is normally correct (regarding a location/place), but not with date: "FROM 1850" has to be "ab 1850" and not as now "von 1850". 
 

This can be fixed easily.  Dates have their own translations.  I used the existing translations, and filled in gaps using online translation tools.

github.com/fisharebest/webtrees/blob/mai...s/German.php#L43-L44

If this is wrong, create a PR/Issue.

It's a pity that we have not yet gotten any (explicit) comments from users of other languages which use non-latin scripts. If your keyboard is eg Cyrillic, then I have no idea how Latin letters are typed. These people seem to manage, but it must be slow, having to switch etc.

Date entry strongly resembles raw GEDCOM. I'd rather not see that change (it is fast to type) but an isolation between storage and presentation is needed.

Translation of dates in both directions would be great. You need to serve both novices and advanced users.

A year ago or so I did an investigation what should be done to introduce another (the Chinese) calendar. Never got around to reporting my findings...

From the top of my head (and ignoring the fact that GEDCOM representation and date conversion for the Chinese calendar are not trivial) :

• The javascript date picker cannot handle other calendars than Gregorian. If I were testing a calendar which is alien to me, I do need that date picker.
• Enumerations of calendar names and month literals are scattered around in webtrees core php code, a separate php library and also javascript code.
• If showing raw (English) GEDCOM data can be prevented, that would benefit a significant group of users. However webtrees should still accept it. Maybe the text entry field should be accompanied with text field(s) showing the resulting raw gedcom and translated version?

I probably forgot some.

Franz Frese wrote:

Man könnte ja auch "Seit 1850" verwenden.

I‘d say the difference here between from (German „ab“) and since (German: „seit“) is that at least in English since („seit“) is more strictly referring to an ongoing process or a status still valid today. I‘d prefer the German „ab“.