How are Time Zones Intended to be Used

By Guest on Wednesday, 06 September 2017

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As far as I can see, Time Zones key on the user's stated time zone in their Joomla account when logged in. What if the user doesn't have an account on the website??? The vast majority of our users don't have a website account.

Another problem is, if I set the Time Zone to be say America/Denver, and then save, then the times I set for the event to take place in Denver get moved ahead 4 hours, I don't understand that..

The system time zone is set to America/New York. I have set the JEvents Time Zone to "Not Selected." And the Specific Teim Zone for the Event set to America/Denver

After subtracting 4 hours from the time I am attempting to set for the event in Denver and saving so that the time would be correct after the system automatically adds 4 hours, and then hover over the event in the month view of the calendar from the front end I see that it is set for my time zone. When I ask someone in New York to tell me what time they see when hovering over the event in the month view of the calendar on the front end, they report seeing the time in my time zone as well. When I set the Time zone for that user in New York to America/New York, and ask them to log in and then tell me what time they see when hovering over the event, they tell me that it is the correct time zone for their location.

That is great, but the vast majority of the people that visit our site do not have accounts so when they hover they will get the time zone of the person that entered the event, in this case me. My only option is to disable Time Zone entirely and take care of that manually, which I don't want to do.

I know that I can set my time zone in my browser or on my iPhone, doesn't JEvents read that?

What we are doing now is indicating what time zone the event is taking place by adding the time zone in square brackets in in the title of the event.

We should not have to be doing this, this should all be automatic.

Tony has login to our site 911tap.org so he has the ability to poke around and let me know what might be amiss or if I am not understanding how Time Zones work in JEvents.

You should set the JEvents timezone config option to the default timezone for your event calendar - the events will be stored in this timezone but should be adjusted by any specific timezone set when creating an event

Displaying the event is, by default, in the timezone of the calendar (not of the event) - hence your difference. It will not pick up the browser or user timezone by default.

You can configure JEvents to show the event in a specific timezone using the layout editor and using the timezone specific output options e.g.



Start Time in Adelaide {{Start Time in TZ:STARTTZ;%e %b %Y, %k:%M;Australia/Adelaide}}



Start Time in Sydney {{Start Time in TZ:STARTTZ;%e %b %Y, %k:%M;Australia/Sydney}}

Guest

Thursday, 07 September 2017 10:36

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#192943

First and foremost Geraint, you are competing against EventBrite and Google Events, not against other Joomla Event Calendar components. If this isn't easy to use, people, at least in my camp, will opt to use online offerings like EventBrite and Google Events, just because it is easy, even though it doesn't satisfy all their needs.

We are adding the following to the title of the event until we figure out a more elegant way to handle this: "[8 PM Eastern] Dr. Leroy Hulsey, University of Alaska, Presents Findings about WTC 7"

I have attached a screenshot of what I would want to display on the monthly view of the calendar to look like such that the date and time is displayed as Sunday, September 10, 2017, 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm MDT. This could be IDT or BDT or CEST or WEST or EEST or AWST or ACST or AEST, There looks to be a hundred or so little time zone acronyms around the world, So a two tiered drop-down could be, first level - area of the world - second level - time zone acronyms for that area of the world.

I could add a grid of times in different time zones by using the tag you demonstrated in your previous post, but I think that might make it more confusing than adding clarify. I think adding the time zone acronym at the end of the time period for the event listing and on the event page might be the best way to go. Adjusting the time of the event for the time zone the person visiting the calendar is located in may be problematic because the device time zone may not reflect the actual time zone the visitor to the page is located in

There is no default timezone setting in Calendar Manager, the only setting for timezone is in Configuration "Time Zone for Site" which I have left unselected. The time zone set in Joomla Global Configuration is America/New York.

We have events that take place all over the world, and we need people to know what time to tune in, in their timezone and usually they won't have an account on the site.

I hope I have been clear enough for you to get picture of what I am attempting to accomplish. If not I would not mind elaborating further

Guest

Thursday, 07 September 2017 17:31

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#192956

We have events that take place all over the world, and we need people to know what time to tune in, in their timezone and usually they won't have an account on the site.

So - I'm guessing you'd like us to try to determing the visitor's timezone based on their user profile (if logged in) or otherwise a 'guess' based on their browser/GeoIP and present the events in that timezone (with an option to change it) - is that right?

Guest

Monday, 11 September 2017 09:50

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#193057

Sorry, I wasn't very clear.

No to your guess, because I think that would cause more problems especially when the guess based on browser/GeoIP was wrong; I can hear the complaints now.

What I wold like to add is simply the ability add the timezone in which the event is taking place so that the user can determine for them selves what the begin and end times would be for their area. That takes the guessing out based on browser/GeoIP locations which I have found are often wrong.

i.e.:

Sunday, September 10, 2017
1:30 PM to 4:30 PM MDT,

for Mountain Daylight Time if this is taking place in Denver Colorado, US. This could be CEST for Central European Summer Time, if this were taking place in Berlin, or BST for British Summer Time, if this event was taking place in London, UK. I think that is simple and uncomplicated and would be understood by all..

This can't involve any calculation from any kind of offset, This has to just be a dumb label that can be selected from a drop-down that would cause that label to appear appear when hovering over the event on the calendar, day view, week view, month view or year view on the front end.

I am not sure how the time zones as you have them configured can be used. You said in the documentation that these are only useful when importing from another calendar, like Google Events or Outlook.

I hope I have made this more clear.

Guest

Monday, 11 September 2017 16:08

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#193069

It has been awhile since discussing this and I haven't had time to look at this again until now.

What I did was to create a Custom Field:



<field name="jevcfEventTimeZone" type="jevcflist" label="Time Zone" description="Select a time zone that the selected time refers to." default="EST" access="151" readaccess="151" allowoverride="1" filtersize="3" filterdefault="" cf="" cfvfv="1"  >

<option value="AKDT" >Alaska Daylight Time	UTC−08</option>

<option value="AKST" >Alaska Standard Time	UTC−09</option>

<option value="CDT" >Central Daylight Time (North America)	UTC−05</option>

<option value="CST" >Central Standard Time (North America)	UTC−06</option>

<option value="EDT" >Eastern Daylight Time (North America)	UTC−04</option>

<option value="EST" >Eastern Standard Time (North America)	UTC−05</option>

<option value="HDT" >Hawaii–Aleutian Daylight Time	UTC−09</option>

<option value="HST" >Hawaii–Aleutian Standard Time	UTC−10</option>

<option value="MDT" >Mountain Daylight Time (North America)	UTC−06</option>

<option value="MST" >Mountain Standard Time (North America)	UTC−07</option>

<option value="PDT" >Pacific Daylight Time (North America)	UTC−07</option>

<option value="PST" >Pacific Standard Time (North America)	UTC−08</option>

<option value="CET" >Central European Time	UTC+01</option>

<option value="CEST" >Central European Summer Time	UTC+02</option>

<option value="DFT" >AIX-specific equivalent of Central European Time[5]	UTC+01</option>

<option value="EEST" >Eastern European Summer Time	UTC+03</option>

<option value="EET" >Eastern European Time	UTC+02</option>

<option value="FET" >Further-eastern European Time	UTC+03</option>

<option value="HAEC" >Heure Avancée d'Europe Centrale	UTC+02</option>

<option value="MET" >Middle European Time Same zone as CET	UTC+01</option>

<option value="MEST" >Middle European Summer Time Same zone as CEST	UTC+02</option>

... I list all the time zones for the planet. These are the one's the get used most often on this site so I put them at the top of the list...

</field>

</fieldset>

</fields>

</form>

I add the following to Custom Forms - Events Edit Page:



	{{Calendar tab content:CALTAB}}

	<div class="row" id='jev_time-zone' >

		<div class="span2">

			{{Time Zone Label:customfield_jevcfEventTimeZone_lbl}}

		</div>

		<div class="span10">

			{{Time Zone:customfield_jevcfEventTimeZone}}

		</div>

	</div>

And added the field tag {{Time Zone:jevcfEventTimeZone#%s}}



<p {{Multiday Event End Date:MULTIENDDATE# class="jev-empty-field"}}>This event takes place on {{Start Date:STARTDATE#%s from }}{{Start Time:STARTTIME#%s to }}{{End Time:ENDTIME#%s - }}{{Time Zone:jevcfEventTimeZone#%s}}{{Location Title:JEVLOCATION_TITLE#, at }}{{Location Title:JEVLOCATION_TITLE#%s in }}{{Location City:JEVLOCATION_CITY#%s, }}{{Location State:JEVLOCATION_STATE#%s, }}{{Location Country:JEVLOCATION_COUNTRY#%s}}</p>

to the Custom Forms - Event Details Page.

And everything seems to work correctly, I can select the Time Zone under the Calendar tab, and it saves with out problem, but when I go to refresh the page on the front end I get:

This event takes place on Thursday, January 04, 2018 from 02:00pm to 03:00pm -

This is what it should be for this particular event:

This event takes place on Thursday, January 04, 2018 from 02:00pm to 03:00pm - PST

URL to Event Page: https://www.911tap.org/9-11-tap-events/911tap-events-calendar/eventdetail/1326/2-00-pm-pacific-9-11-an-architect-s-guide-part-1-pdh-available

What am I doing wrong here???

Guest

Tuesday, 02 January 2018 18:12

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#196380