Aperture 3 import date format

Question

Okay its a matter for me to stick with it or pick up something else. I am hoping someone could help me here.
How do I change date format of project name while importing. Whenever I try to import whether from camera or local folder, it always gives the date format MMM DD, YY (Dec 30, 2010). Therefore, A3 gives the same name to the project regardless what date format I have set on my MBP. I tried many options, changing my input locals, date/time format, language, etc... nothing helps. Automatically split projects is also enabled and leaving project name blank as I want A3 to import it and put them in a separate project by date with specific format.
All I want is A3 import into different date format automatically the way I prefer such as YYYY-MM-DD, YYYYMMDD, DDMMYYYY or DD-MM-YYYY. Seems a simple task but I have been trying different methods for the last 4-6 months - no success. I searched through this forum but no results come up. Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

I agree with this being a bizarre omission from Aperture.
I had the clever idea that maybe it was following one of the formats defined in the International preference pane, but changing them had no effect.
Fortunately, Aperture 3 allows running an AppleScript after import. Choose Actions from the Import settings and select an AppleScript file you want to run after the images have been imported. The documentation provided in the Aperture AppleScript Reference provides an example on page 30. What is left unsaid is that the handler is called once for each project created during the import, with the input argument being a list of images added to that project.
Here's an AppleScript you can save and use as an import action. It changes the name of each folder to a date string in the form yyyy-mm-dd. It should be pretty easy to change if you want some other format. It should also be pretty easy to change if you want to add the date as a suffix to the project name you provided in the input settings if you didn't leave that blank.
(* Aperture 3 Script by Mitchell L Model, mlm at acm dot org, May 28, 2011 *)
(* Choose this script to run after importing images with automatic split
selected; it will rename the projects created for each date to the format
defined by the crude handler formatImageDate defined below.
Yes, that handler could have been written as:
        return do shell script "date +'%Y-%m-%d'"
but this way demonstrates the use of EXIF tag values.
Change or generalize the formatting as you wish.
It would be nice if Aperture used one of the date formats set in the International
Preference Pane -- in particular the short date -- so that you could simply change
that to be the way you want the split folders to be named, but it deosn't.
-- Experimentation shows that the handler is called once for each project created by the import,
-- with input a list of images placed in that project
on ImportActionForVersions(input)
    tell application "Aperture"
        set the name of the parent of the first item of input to my formatImageDate(the first item of input)
    end tell
end ImportActionForVersions
-- Note: numerical EXIF tag values are real numbers and must be converted to integers for these manipulations
to formatImageDate(theImage)
    tell application "Aperture"
        set y to the value of EXIF tag named "CaptureYear" of theImage
        set m to the value of EXIF tag named "CaptureMonthOfYear" of theImage
        set d to the value of EXIF tag named "CaptureDayOfMonth" of theImage
        return (y as integer as string) & "-" & my twoDigitString(m) & "-" & my twoDigitString(d)
    end tell
end formatImageDate
on twoDigitString(num)
    set n to num as integer -- to handle floats
    if n < 10 then
        return "0" & n as string
    end if
    return n as string
end twoDigitString