Can you find me at least two popular software packages who show only
time in the date column when that record is for "today"?

And maybe showing the day (vs date) and time when the date/time is
less than a week old.

And maybe showing just the date (no time) when the date/time is more
than a week old.

Macintosh software applications are frequently more "intelligent"
about this sort of interface detail than their PC competitors, so
that's where you should be looking.

In fact, the Finder, the Mac OS' file management interface, has done
this sort of thing for a long time. For example, My Mac OS X 10.2
Finder lists some of the following in the "Date Modified" column:

Yesterday, 11:00 AM
Today, 5:38 PM
10/22/02, 3:12 PM

In unusual circumstances when the system clock is inaccurate, it has
also been known to say "Tomorrow". :)

The Eudora email package does a similar thing, but to a greater
degree, and more inline with your question:

9:10 AM
Wednesday, 11:11 PM
10/25/02, 1:04 PM

Not quite as "popular", but the newsgroup software Diiva (
http://www.diiva.com ) does a similar sort of thing:

8 minutes ago
12 hours ago
5 days ago
4 months ago

Another option you might want to look into is intelligently shortening
the information as the column is narrowed or widened. For example, if
the column is very narrow, you could only display the time if it's
"Today", but as it grows, you could add more information, or format it
in a more friendly way.

The aforementioned Mac OS X Finder uses this progression:

10.../01
10/22/01
10/22/01, 6:58 PM
Mon, Oct 22, 2001, 6:58 PM
Monday, October 22, 2001, 6:58 PM

please be more specific than just "software". Directory Opus is a file
management system that behaves in the way you request, but it is of
zero use if you are expecting a spreadsheet program.

Well, I said "popular" and should refine that-- popular as in used by
a million people or more. And maybe consumer software, an email
client, etc.

Has this 'software' got to have any specific function, or are you
looking just for examples of software that happen to work that way?

Any type of popular consumer software would be fine.

Btw, the reason I'm asking about this is that I'm working with some
folks on some new software that we think should work as described in
my original question here, but I'd like to have some other examples if
there are any.

Thanks.