keithcstone wrote
It would be a one time shot, not continually readjusting, but you would run it from settings instead of durng the conversion process. You could rerun it, but it would obiviously change everything instead of just the "wrong" ones. I like the idea of only changing the ones with the null timezone, but that only works properly if people set the timezone on their portal before they install your module.
Now one thing that was never clear to me is the purpose of the timezoneoffset field. I don't see how it can be changed in the UI, since the timezone dropdown is apparent used just to adjust the time on input.
This also brings up another point. I think there is a need for a "display timezone" that is static. Case in point. I have a local event, (eastern time) that starts HERE at 8:30 am. The only way to participate in that event is to be here. Someone from Chicago may want to particiate in that event and currently they will be 7:30 am if they are logged in. Not too bad if they show up an hour early, but the same doesn't work for my California portal. I think this needs to be optional, because there are things like over the air broadcast, radio shows, web casts, etc that happen at one time and people from multiple time zones needs to know the local time they happen.
I reall like the idea of storing the times in GMT. I think I'll use that idea in a specialized DB I'm working on.
"only works properly if people set the timezone on their portal before they install your module"...actually, the one time shot would default to the Site TimeZone (but allow them to choose another) that the events were created in...from there, new events would be entered based on the User's TimeZone (unless they selected another).
The reason for the Database field, TimeZoneOffset is that it is obvious what timezone the event is stored. This was also a recommendation in several papers I read. This way it cannot be mis-interpreted that the data is stored in GMT +0.
"This also brings up another point. I think there is a need for a "display timezone" that is static"...Actually this is the way it works...If the user is unauthenticated, the Site TimeZone is what is displayed...If the user is logged in, it will display in there User TimeZone...this way they can set it however they want it. I know it seems confusing at first, but this is exactly the way the Windows XP Desktop works...and MS Outlook!