Hi,
Here is a simple tip, but maybe useful to someone.
For a long time I've used Keyboard Maestro to type the date in my preferred format: 14 Apr 16. In the OS X Sierra update Apple changed their short month format from 'Apr' to 'Apr.'. This format causes problems in Apple's own Numbers app as well as introducing a gratuitous '.'.
The attached macro returns to the older, simpler short date format.
Type Short Date.kmmacros (2.8 KB)
This is the kind of crap changes that Apple makes, while having no apparent benefit, tends to break stuff. There's an ole saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." LOL
I know, I'm pissing in the wind . . . 
A couple of years ago I adopted the standard, ISO, international date format of "YYYY-MM-DD" for all of my date handling. I like it because:
But we each have our own preferences. That's what's so great about KM -- you can always have it your way! Thanks for sharing your solution.
I agree that ā2016-04-14ā is the most robust format. I too have a KM macro for that and use if often. But itās not the prettiest nor most-easily-readable format, and for informal emails and for most documents ā14 Apr 16ā or even just ā14 Aprā is my go-to format.
I cannot imagine how they made this change without any way to disable it. It drives me batty every time I see it, which is all the time since it is in the clock menu bar. Hmm, that might explain a lot really.
A former die-hard Apple fan boy, Iām now reduced to lamenting Appleās latter-day quality control and seeming cadre of amateur developers and designers. I try to hold my tongue here, on this excellent forum, in deference to concision.
More on point, their bugreporter team informed me that my report was a āduplicate issueā. Maybe that means theyāll do something about this exasperating, but sadly representative, issue. However their hilarious follow up questions (āwhich applicationā¦?ā, ā¦) leave me with scant hope.
[quote=āJMichaelTX, post:2, topic:5600ā]
I adopted the standard, ISO, international date format of āYYYY-MM-DDā
- No matter which part of the world ā¦ it is unambiguous.
- It always sorts properly.
- It makes sure I am aware of the important part first, the year. [/quote]
Yes, yes, and yes, again.
Thank you, @JMichaelTX , for this valuable reminder.
Scant hope, indeed.
And a perfect example of the benefits of frank and open conversation here.
I hope the KM forum remains an island of free speech in an ocean of "not wanting to offend anyone".
[quote="peternlewis, post:4, topic:5600, full:true"]
...they made this change without any way to disable it. It drives me batty every time I see it, which is all the time since it is in the clock menu bar. [/quote]
I didn't understand that, because my clock menu bar looks like this:
No evidence of the problem.
So I went searching.
I've adjusted date format here.
Would that solve the problem, or not?
I totally agree, Mark.
I didnāt know that was an ISO. Iāve always preferred YYYY-MM-DD for the other reasons you pointed out. Itās also the way everyone filesāby year first, then by month, and usually in day order.
BTW, you can easily get the date formated as ISO string from AppleScript, but it is NOT well known or advertised:
set dateAS to current date
set dateISOStr to text 1 thru 10 of (dateAS as Ā«class isotĀ» as string)
What is your Region set to. I presume it is the region that configures the available language/defaults for the options.
You would think if they were going to make such a change they would add an option to turn it off or an additional month/dow selection option with or without the dot.
A couple of years ago I adopted the standard, ISO, international date format of "YYYY-MM-DD" for all of my date handling. I like it because:
No matter which part of the world you are from, it is unambiguous.
An aside. I'm mildly puzzled why you would think numbers formatted as YYYY-MM-DD" is unambiguous. Couldn't 2016-12-04 just as easily be interpreted as April 12 instead of December 4 by anybody just looking at the number version without some sort of additional context?
Starting with the year announces descending order of magnitude, and ISO is a non-local standard.
[quote="peternlewis, post:12, topic:5600"]
What is your Region set to. [/quote]
.
No periods.
Interesting, eh?
Yes, the Canadian region is the difference - Australian gets me the dots. Time to move back to Canada.
It'd make it a shorter plane ride for me to come visit. 
In theory, yes. But in practice, no.
I've never seen a date format that starts with the year in any other format than YYYY-MM-DD.
In addition to being an ISO standard, I think it is a widely recognized format. Even in the USA, we often use this format electronically when we want to sort things by date (file names, note titles, etc).
Alas, I have seen YYYY-MM-DD confused for YYYY-DD-MM many times. I think YYYY-MM-DD makes perfect sense and is unequivocal, but when either number is 12 or less, some people Iāve observed do get confused.
I'm sure that's true. Some people are easily confused, and some just aspire to be confusing.
We have a saying here in Texas:
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink"
