<sect1 id="locale">

<sect1info>

<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Krishna</firstname>
<surname>Tateneni</surname>
<affiliation><address><email>
tateneni@pluto.njcc.com
</email></address></affiliation>
</author>
<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>

<date>2002-02-12</date>
<releaseinfo>3.00.00</releaseinfo>

<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>KControl</keyword>
<keyword>locale</keyword>
<keyword>coutry</keyword>
<keyword>language</keyword>
</keywordset>

</sect1info>

<title>Country and Language</title>

<para>This module of the &kde; control center allows you select
customization options that depend on the region of the world that you
happen to live in. There are four different pages in this module, each
of which is described in detail in the following sections.</para>

<para>In most cases, you can simply select the country you live in, and
the other options will be set in an appropriate manner.</para>

<para>Below the pages of this module, you can see a preview of what the
settings look like. In addition to positive and negative numbers, you
can see how positive and negative currency values, long and short dates,
and times are displayed. When you change any of the settings, the
preview shows the effects of the changes before you apply them.</para>

<sect2 id="locale-locale">
<title>Locale</title>

<para>On this page, there are three lists, from which you can
select the country, language, and character set that you want
to use.</para>

<para>When you click on the <guilabel>Country</guilabel> list,
a menu pops up showing major groups of countries. You can select
one of these regions and see a list of the countries that are
available for that region.</para>

<para>If the language for the country you have selected is available on your
system, it will be selected automatically. For instance, choosing
<guilabel>Germany</guilabel> as the country will select
<guilabel>German</guilabel> as the language, if it is available.</para>

<para>The default character set, ISO-8859-1, is for use with the
<quote>Latin 1</quote> family of languages. If you are not using English
or another Western European language, you will need to select the
appropriate character set for your language so that fonts are displayed
properly. For example, ISO-8859-5 should be used for Cyrillic, and
ISO-8859-6 for Arabic.</para>

<note><para>Note that selecting the character set is not sufficient on
it's own!  You will also need to have the appropriate fonts installed on
your system.</para></note>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="locale-numbers">
<title>Numbers</title>

<para>On this page, you can select options for how numbers are
displayed. The defaults are selected automatically based on the country
which is currently selected.</para>

<para>In the text box labeled <guilabel>Decimal symbol</guilabel>, you
can type the character that you want to use to separate the decimal
portion of numbers. You could put anything here you wanted to, but
really, <userinput>.</userinput> and <userinput>,</userinput> are the
two characters that make the most sense.</para>

<para>Similarly, you can choose the character which is used to group
units of thousands in numbers. If no character, not even a space, is
present, then there will be no separator for thousands.</para>

<para>Finally, you can choose what character should be prefixed to
positive and negative numbers respectively. For example, the default
for English is not to have any prefix for positive numbers, and a
<userinput>-</userinput> for negative numbers.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="locale-money">

<title>Money</title>

<para>Unlike the display of ordinary numbers, conventions for
currency values do vary from region to region. However, you will
find that the defaults are probably fine.</para>

<para>The character or characters representing the currency symbol
are based on the country that is currently selected. The decimal
symbol and thousands separator work as they do for numbers. The
text box labeled <guilabel>Fract digits</guilabel> allows you
to specify the number of fractional digits used in displaying
currency values.</para>

<para>For both positive and negative currency values, you can
control whether the currency symbol appears before or after the
numeric value, and how the sign of the value is distinguished
in the display. Note that the symbols used for the sign of
currency values are the same as those used for other numeric
values.</para>

<para>If the checkbox labeled <guilabel>Prefix currency
symbol</guilabel> is selected, the currency symbol appears
before the numeric value. If this checkbox is cleared, then the
currency symbol appears after the numeric value.</para>

<para>There are five choices for the way in which the sign of the
currency value is handled:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>Parens around</guilabel>
option displays the numeric value within a pair of
parentheses.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>Before quantity money</guilabel>
option displays the sign before the numeric value, but after any
currency symbol that may be present.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>After quantity money</guilabel>
option displays the sign after the numeric value, but before any
currency symbol that may be present.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>Before money</guilabel> option
displays the sign before the numeric value as well as any
currency symbol that may be present.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The <guilabel>After money</guilabel> option
displays the sign after the numeric value as well as any
currency symbol that may be present.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="locale-datetime">
<title>Time and Dates</title>

<para>On this page, there are text boxes for the time, long date,
and short date, in which you can type format strings to control
the way in which times and dates are displayed.</para>

<para>Except for the special codes described below, any other characters in the
format strings are displayed literally. The special codes consist of a
<parameter>%</parameter> sign followed by a character, as shown in the list of
codes below:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Time format codes:</para>
  <itemizedlist>

  <listitem><para><parameter>HH</parameter> - The hour according to a 24-hour
  clock, using two digits (00 to 23).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>hH</parameter> - The hour according to a 24-hour
  clock, using one or two digits (0 to 23).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>PH</parameter> (uppercase eye) - The hour according
  to a 12-hour clock, using two digits (01 to 12).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>pH</parameter> (lowercase ell) - The hour according
  to a 12-hour clock, using one or two digits (1 to 12).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>MM</parameter> - The current minute using two digits
  (00 to 59).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>SS</parameter> - The current second using two digits
  (00 to 59).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>AMPM</parameter> - Either <quote>am</quote> or <quote>pm</quote> depending on the hour.
  Useful with <parameter>PH</parameter> or
  <parameter>pH</parameter>.</para></listitem>
  </itemizedlist>
</listitem>

<listitem><para>Date format codes:</para>
  <itemizedlist>
  <listitem><para><parameter>YYYY</parameter> - The year, using 4
  digits.</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>YY</parameter> - The year, using 2
  digits.</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>MM</parameter> - The month, using 2 digits (01 to
  12).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>mM</parameter> - The month, using 1 or 2 digits (1
  to 12).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>MONTH</parameter> - The name of the
  month.</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>SHORTMONTH</parameter> - The abbreviated name of the
  month.</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>DD</parameter> - The day, using 2 digits (01 to
  31).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>dD</parameter> - The day, using 1 or 2 digits (1 to
  31).</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>WEEKDAY</parameter> - The name of the
  weekday.</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para><parameter>SHORTWEEKDAY</parameter> - The abbreviated name of the
  weekday.</para></listitem>
  </itemizedlist>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>Finally, if the checkbox labeled <guilabel>Start Week on
Monday</guilabel> is selected, then calendars display weeks
beginning with Monday as the first day of the week, and ending
with Sunday. If this checkbox is cleared, then Sunday is shown
as the first day of the week, and Saturday as the last.</para>

</sect2>


<sect2 id="locale-author">
<title>Section Author</title>
<para>This section written by:</para>
<para>Krishna Tateneni
<email>tateneni@pluto.njcc.com</email>.</para>
<!-- TRANS:CREDIT_FOR_TRANSLATORS -->
</sect2>


</sect1>

