Time slider annotation format string not working

[cyrush]

Describe the bug

Reported by Mike Stees, changing the timeslider format string doesn't work.

I was able to reproduce with the blood flow tutorial data, here is a screenshot:

Helpful additional information

• Did VisIt crash: no
• Did you get wrong results: Yes

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior. For example:

• Open time varying database
• Make a PC plot
• Add a timeslider annotation
• Change the format string

Expected behavior

Format string should be honored

Desktop

• OS and version: macOS
• VisIt Version: 3.3.3

[markcmiller86]

I may have introduced this issue. I thought I fixed something like this in prev. release.

That said, what happens if the user specifies a Text label string of Time=$time%2.1f

[cyrush]

Mark's suggestion does work, we should drop the format string entry and update default the text string to include a format string.

[markcmiller86]

Ok, so when I added the ability to set printf-style formatting via the Text label field itself (which was useful when I added all the other annotation macros), I suspect I broke reading format info from the Time format field.

We decided best solution is to drop the Time format field from the GUI (and the associated python object) and set default Text label field to Time=$time%g.

Do we need to worry about backward compatibility of python scripting that might involve the Time format field?

[markcmiller86]

I've got a fix almost ready for #18955 but am wondering about this one too.

Is it ok, in an RC release (are we doing a 3.3.4?) to change the GUI/CLI. I would be removing the time format field and documenting that the format is part of the Text label itself. Alternatively, I could just ensure that whatever gets entered in time format gets routed to the text label underneath the covers.

Thoughts @visit-dav/visit-developers

[brugger1]

I don't believe we will do a 3.3.4 release, so let's just make the change on develop.