The way Ringtail handles dates from a comic's file name is very simple, but isn't very flexible. There are a few ways an author may format the filenames to allow Ringtail to properly read the comic's date, but the proper option must be set in the configuration for the software to actually read it properly.

An idea is to allow Ringtail to automatically and intelligently determine the date format when it reads the file name. A UNIX timestamp looks something like this:

1247251181

Other, regular date formats can look like this:

2008-10-30
20081030
08-10-30
081030

Ringtail would read the file name and assume a UNIX time stamp for a moment. If the format is anything like the second examples (even if it were 99999999), it will make the date of the comic fall somewhere in the 1970's, a very unlikely time for a webcomic to have been published. Doing a date comparison, Ringtail will see this and assume correctly that it is a UNIX timestamp (using a set date clamped at a later time period).

This is the default setting for a "zero configuration" setup.

There should be an optional setting to read the date from a separate text-based list for those who are using sequential file names and know the date of the comic's publication.