The buttons in the Date group select the format in which dates are displayed in printed documents. A sample of the format is provided. In the Time group you have the option to enable the display of seconds in documents and in Prescription (Rx) window controls. Display of seconds is disabled by default. (Note: seconds will not be displayed in Rx window controls until you restart the program.) In general, the various date and time controls found throughout the program will automatically comply with your MacOS date and time preference settings.

Document date and time group

• M, D, Y (USA) - Selects USA as the implant schedule date format for printed documents.
• D-M-Y (Europe) - Selects European as the implant schedule date format for printed documents.
• Y-M-D (ISO 8601) - Selects ISO 8601 as the implant schedule date format for printed documents.
• Short - Selects the implant schedule date format for printed documents.
• Abbreviated - Selects the implant schedule date format for printed documents.
• Long - Selects the implant schedule date format for printed documents.


• 24 hour mode - When enabled the implant schedule time in printed documents uses a 24 hour display format.
• Show seconds - When enabled the implant schedule time format in printed documents includes seconds.

Calendar sheet group

• M, D, Y (USA) - Selects USA as the implant schedule date format used in the calendar sheet summary.
• D-M-Y (Europe) - Selects European as the implant schedule date format used in the calendar sheet summary.
• Y-M-D (ISO 8601) - Selects ISO 8601 as the implant schedule date format used in the calendar sheet summary.


• 24 hour mode - When enabled, times in the calendar sheet summary uss a 24 hour display format.
• Custom locale - When enabled, the locale settings of MacOS can be overridden, for example, to temporarily use British date and time conventions from a computer in the USA.

Rx window options group

• Show weekday - If enabled, the implant schedule format as displayed in the Rx window includes the day of the week.
• Common implant schedule - If enabled, changes to a plaque's implant date and time schedule are propagated to all other plaques, otherwise, each plaque maintains its own implant schedule.
• Common Rx - If enabled, changes to a plaque's Rx settings are propagated to all other plaques, otherwise, each plaque maintains its own Rx.
• Poll clipboard for dates - If enabled, the Rx window periodically polls the MacOS clipboard for textual data. If textual data is found on the clipboard, it is parsed for formatted date sequences (optionally including time of day. If a recognizable date is found, a button will appear in the Rx window offering to paste that date into either of the surgical date-time controls.

Misc controls group

• Autocomplete two digit years - If enabled, date controls will automatically convert 2 digit year entries to the most probable 4 digit form. For example, entering a year of 62 will be converted to 1962, entering 04 will be converted to 2004.
• Enable OCR - Enables Tesseract OCR for the patient ID window. Requires MacOS 10.14 (Mojave) or later.

Recent patients group

• Fundus thumbnail - If enabled, a thumbnail of the fundus (or iris if no fundus) picture is added to recent patients menu listings.
• Show last access date - If enabled, the date & time of last plan access is appended to recent patients menu listings.
• Show file comments - If enabled, treatment plan file comments are appended to recent patients menu listings.
• Grandparent folder - If enabled, the treatment plan's grandparent folder (e.g. the institution name) is appended to recent patients menu listings.

Time zone group

• Enable app. time zones - When enabled, the Plaque Simulator application will operate as if it were running on a computer located in the selected time zone.
• The icon in the popup menu of recognized time zones indicates whether daylight saving time is observed in the selected time zone.
• Due to a long standing offset from GMT caching bug in the MacOS NSTimeZone default time zone API, you can reliably change an application's default time zone only once per program launch.
• To reliably switch between multiple time zones you should save, quit and relaunch PS6 before changing the time zone a second time.

The Time zone group enables the Plaque Simulator (PS) application to operate as if it were located in a time zone other than the computer's local time zone. This feature is disabled by default and PS uses your computer's local time zone and calendar to calculate plaque removal time and/or implant duration in order to calculate the required source strengths at the time of plaque insertion. The primary reason for setting an application specific time zone is to plan a treatment that will take place in a time zone that observes daylight saving time differently than the local time zone of the planning computer for those infrequent instances when a daylight saving clock change occurs during the implant period and the plaque removal time is predetermined.

For example, in the USA, the state of Arizona does not observe daylight saving time. Lets assume you are planning a treatment that will take place in Phoenix Arizona using a computer located in Los Angeles California. The plaque will be inserted (in Phoenix) on March 10 at 8AM and removed March 17th at 8AM. A clock change for daylight saving time occurs on March 14th and is observed in Los Angeles (where the planning computer is located) but not in Phoenix which remains on mountain standard time. If this implant were done in Los Angeles, the duration would be 167 hours, whereas in Phoenix the duration will be 168 hours. To calculate source calibration strengths for treatment in Phoenix you could enable app. time zones and temporarily select America/Phoenix as the application time zone.

8AM to 8AM treatment in Los Angeles, California (167 hours)

(observes daylight saving time)

8AM to 8AM treatment in Phoenix, Arizona (168 hours)

(does NOT observe daylight saving time)