I am seeking help with formatting the Mate desktop clock applet. I want the clock and date to wrap to two rows and use a smaller font.

I use several distros. The only one that has this feature is Linux Mint with the Mint-X theme.

In all other distros none of the installed themes have this feature, defaulting to one row.

I can force the clock to wrap to two rows when I use a panel height larger than I desire in conjuntion with an application font smaller than I desire.

I appreciate any guidance.

Thanks.

Customizable fonts and a multiline display are why I like the orage clock applet in XFCE. Currently running Mate in Fedora Rawhide. Thought I'd try something likeas the format, but every time I attempt to modify the Mate clock format, the clock applet crashes

This might help
http://forums.mate-desktop.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1593

Mate seems to be getting too like Gnome 3 in such matters. I think the answer is Xfce!

Thank you.

Solving this was not intuitive but I did stumble across the solution.

The file /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.mate.panel.applet.clock.gschema.xml provided clues.

* Open dconf-editor.
* Open org.mate.panel.objects.clock.prefs.
* Manually change the format key to custom.

Without using the custom format, trying to otherwise modify the clock display is futile. The GUI for the clock only supports the 12-hour and 24-hour formats, but as explained in the gschema.xml file, there also are the internet, unix, and custom formats.

After changing the dconf format key to custom, any changes to the custom-format key will occur in real-time (immediately). The options to use are explained in the strftime man page.

I used the following string:

This custom format places the time in bold in the first row, the %n option introduces a newline character, and the date is placed in the clock's second row. Like this:

I wasn't quite finished. I needed to change the font size.

I added the following in ~/.gtkrc-2.0:

I added the font color to match the desktop color (I don't use wallpaper).

I don't know how the Mint-X theme performs the same basic magic, but I am content with what I discovered. I hope this information helps others.

I pulled up this thread (but couldn't seethe whole thing), went to dconf-editor to take another stab at changing the format, put in my desired format (to no effect), then thought, maybe if I change the format entry from 24-hour to custom it'll work. I did it, it works, then I scrolled down the page and saw upnort's response. Now I need to try modifying .gtkrc

I'd forgotten the %b code; actually, the codes for setting the date are the same as those used in the function strftime — see its man page.

After couple of hours I've managed to find a workaround. I will try to describe it step by step.

IMPORTANT !!! The workaround is tested under "debian wheezy" only. The names of the files or directories may vary depending on the distro. !!!

Before making any changes, please backup all the files that you are going to modify in this workaround.

-- All the commands below are execute with user root.

Step 1:
Go to "/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/" and edit the file named "mate-debian.gschema.override" (for your distro, the name of the file may vary) adding the following code:

where for "custom-format" value, you have to put your own custom string. Mine is e.g.

Save the file.

As mentioned by others earlier, there is no need to modify /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/... (which will not survive next update of the clock applet). Just do the same as you suggested in "dconf-editor" run as a regular user (not root).