I don't really know if this is a bug or a feature request, but when checking the "read it" box in the book
properties a date has to be chosen (today's date is standard). I checked in a lot of books at once, but have no idea
when I read them, so now they all have today's date in that field.
Can we think of a way where we do have the "read it" box checked, but without a date? Or does the used have
to pick his own "zero" date (like e.g. 1-1-1970)?

Date: 2010-05-10 22:47
Sender: Paul Kishimoto

A further improvement would be allowing "fuzzy" dates;
for example, it should be valid to enter:

(nothing)
2010
2010-05
2010-05-10

...according to user preference.

Date: 2010-03-21 14:40
Sender: Vada Davis

I had the same problem with entering a lot of books at once.
I just entered a year -- probably not right but I've almost never
thrown a book away so who knows when I actually read the book?

Date: 2009-03-14 00:41
Sender: Cathal Mc Ginley

Stopped the crash when an invalid date is entered in the "date
read" field (in SVN r1052). Still should redesign UI to
allow no date to be entered.

Date: 2009-03-05 00:08
Sender: Cathal Mc Ginley

Upgrading the priority of this bug, since the crash is unacceptable
in stable code. I may have to hack with the UI a bit, to make
the case of "No Date" a bit easier to deal with.

Stack trace follows:
(eval): line 1
   GLib-CRITICAL **:g_date_to_struct_tm: assertion `g_date_valid
(d)' failed
/usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/dialogs/book_properties
_dialog.rb:145:in `at': bignum too big to convert into `long'
	 from /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/alexandria/ui/dialogs/book_pro
perties_dialog.rb:145:in `on_close'

Date: 2008-02-28 18:18
Sender: Tim Malone

Yeah, that does seem problimatic. However, GnomeDateEdit (which
is what I used for that feature) requires a default value. Setting
it to '0' just makes it use the current date. I couldn't find
a way to set it to be blank. Internally the date isn't set unless
you set it (save the book), which is why it always shows today's
date. All that means is that a book that you haven't assigned
a "read date" to won't show up in searches.

I considered just using a text box and allowing the user to input
the date, but this would cause problems because of all the different
ways to format a date.

I just did some research and it appears that GnomeDateEdit is
part of GnomeUI which is depreciated. LibEgg was supposed to
take over, but I could find no info on using that in Ruby, or
whether or not it has a better date widget. I also discovered
another problem which is when the user clears out the date in
the widget (by hilighting and hitting backspace), then saves
the book, it crashes Alexandria. The same thing happens with
the book loaning support. I think this is actually a bug in Gnome
though.