Update the wording for "deadline was"

[kliberf]

The wording displayed when a student uploads a solution after the deadline of an assignment is (at least to me) misleading. It can look like

Submitted at: 1/16/2023 15:51 (deadline was 3 hours ago)
Odevzdáno: 16. 1. 2023 15:51 (termín byl před 3 hodinami)

To me, this seems that the deadline was three hours prior to the time I am viewing the webpage (not prior to the submit). I'd like a wording like

Submitted at: 1/16/2023 15:51 (3 hours after the deadline)
Odevzdáno: 16. 1. 2023 15:51 (3 hodiny po termínu)

[krulis-martin]

I agree entirely, but so far, I have been unable to find a way how to trick react-intl (the <FormattedRelativeTime> component in particular) to avoid using explicit wording (like "ago"). In English, I might be able to hack it using string replacement, but in Czech (thanks to the inflections), such replacement would be impractical. The only option remaining is to write a custom component for relative time formatting (that is quite a lot of work I can currently spend on more pressing issues).

However, if anyone has a tip on how to coerce react-intl to do what we need, I am more than willing to entertain it.

[kliberf]

The underlaying Intl.RelativeTimeFormat has formatToParts() method that can be used to extract the inflections and supply custom format. Results look promising, but I don't know if this can be injected into the <FormattedRelativeTime> component.

function test(locale, num, unit)
{
    rtf = new Intl.RelativeTimeFormat(locale, { style: 'long', numeric: 'always' });
    parts = rtf.formatToParts(num, unit);
    return parts[1].value + parts[2].value + (locale == 'cs' ? ' po termínu' : ' after the deadline');
}

for (locale of ['cs', 'en'])
    for (unit of ['minute', 'hour', 'day'])
        for (i = 1; i <= 5; ++i)
            console.log(test(locale, i, unit))

[krulis-martin]

Technically, it might be better to use https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl/RelativeTimeFormat directly, as it is quite well-supported already. However, I am not that versed in all its nuances in all languages (or at least cs and en). Yes, the numeric: 'always' option should avoid pitfalls like "yesterday" (instead of 1 day ago), but even then it would require some nontrivial experimenting and subsequent testing to make sure we won't make things worse (relatively to the current state).

So, I am keeping this in the TODO list, but the priority is quite low given its cost-to-benefit ratio.

[krulis-martin]

I found out that moment.js has I18n as well, I will check it out, whether it will do what we need here...

[krulis-martin]

The fix will appear in the upcoming release.