Support for multiple time zones

Unfortunately the code was very specific to this user's needs.

If you want to show the event date/time in a specific (or user's) timezone there are options to do this using the layout editor. You can either specify a timezone ot tell the layout to show the logged in user's timezone.

Any news about this development effort?

Regards, Phil

That would be good to see what they have done to save reinventing the wheel !

please send login details via PM.

thanks

I understand, our developers have been quite busy If it would be useful for you to have their code, please let me know. I can give you access to our backend.

I've made a start on this but its a complicated piece of work that affects a lot of the code. In particular, as you say, the handling of repeats is complicated since we need to generate the repeat dates/times in the specified timezone rather than convert the time to 'local' time and then generate the repeats and display the output in the specified timezone.

Yes, we would need both. The reason is if a recurring event is created in for example Pacific Time, it changes to Winter/Summer Time differently than if scheduled in Australia or Europe. So in our customization we now have a creation timezone as well as displaying by user preferred timezone. We also have a choice for local events to always be displayed in local time, ie an event in Berlin is always shown in CE(S)T regardless of user preferred timezone.

Do you want to specify the timezone when the event is created OR display the event time in different timezones?

Displaying the event in different timezones is part of JEvents core (see above) but not during event creation at this stage.

Hello Geraint,
We have developed on an older jEvents version (https://www.balancedview.org/en/trainin ... l&city=all) and are now in the process of upgrading to the latest version with our outsourced developer team. So I just wanted to check here what was implemented from this thread, before we go through all our customizations and adapt them to the latest version.
Thanks for always being so responsive

Hi, Thanks for this information's

Thanks - this is very helpful.

In the meantime you can output event details in different timezone using the STARTTZ and ENDTZ fields in the layout editor and you can use 'Usertz' in these fields

e.g. {{User Timezone Start Time:STARTTZ;%e %b %Y, %k:%M;Usertz)
or for london you can use
{{London Start Time:STARTTZ;%e %b %Y, %k:%M;Europe/London)

Some thoughts on what I think would be helpful (to me anyway <!-- s;-) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt=";-)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;-) -->...

When creating an event:
i) When entering an event it would be desirable to have a field that allows the event creator to enter the timezone for the event. Ideally, this would be default to the user timezone, (taken from "Joomla User Manager: Edit User: Basic Settings: Time Zone", but it could be preset to the current timezone of the server. It would be good if this could be changed by the creator for each event. In other words, each event can be created with time zone information. However, whether this is configurable or not, it really should show the timezone for the event.

When displaying events:
i) it would be desirable for the Events Calendar and the detailed view for each event to show the timezone that is being used. Again, this is probably best to default to the user time zone, (taken from "Joomla User Manager: Edit User: Basic Settings: Time Zone".

It is questionable whether a user should be able to change the timezone for event display in JEvents itself; I think this is best achieved by the user changing their own timezone in their user profile and JEvents correctly reflecting this change when displaying events. However, it is essential that the start and end times (and dates) of each event are displayed in a "known and shown" timezone.

Here are examples of what I would like to do:

i) I am in the UK: I want to create an event for a 1 hour conference call starting at 10:00am Japan Standard Time on Thursday mornings held every 2 weeks. (NB Japan does not implement daylight saving time clock changes). I would like to see this displayed correctly in my calendar wherever I am in the world. I am quite happy to change my timezone in my user profile, but it'd be really helpful IF the timezone for the event calendar is can be displayed on the event calendar as a reminder. The event displayed should include the 1 hour time shift when daylight savings comes into effect e.g. from GMT to BST.

ii) I want to create a 2 day conference schedule that includes Webinar access for those that cannot attend in person. The conference may be in Boston, but I will create the schedule while in the UK, and I will have remote attendees from California, Japan, China, India etc. I would like the displayed information to show the correct time zone information for the attendees

( In the current implementation what timezone is used when an event is created? Is it the server timezone, the user timezone, UTC, or something arbitrary? Does a repeating event goes across a change from winter time to summer time correctly reflect this in an invitation? )

I'm working on JEvents 3.2.x at the moment and removing references to MooTools. I've made good progress (See JEvents 3.2.5) and am now working on the last phase (event editing) - this involves a complete reworking of date/time validation and input code. My plan is to look at introducing timezones for event creation as a part of this work.

Hi Geraint,
Any further update on this topic, ie. event creator can set the timezone for an event, and user can display event times in a selectable time zone?
Regards, Phil

There is a config option within JEvents.

Thanks for your prompt reply. Is the single timezone value settable (from the backend for example), or taken from the server clock?

Regards, Phil

At present there is a single timezone setting for the overall calendar and all events are created in this timezone. We are working on a timezone value to be set during event creation but this is not yet ready for use.

iCal exports include the timezone values and so will be imported correctly into Google calendar and other calendars that support timzone settings

Note that iCal import DO respect the timezone of the imported data source.

Hi,

Here is an example of what I'd like to do:

A calendar contains i) conference calls and ii) face to face meetings
Ideally...
the conference calls are displayed in the Time Zone of the person viewing the calendar.
the face to face meetings are displayed in the Time Zone where the meeting will occur.

This could be 2 separate calendars.

Please can you confirm functionality for latest version of JEvents:

1) Events are displayed in the user's configured time zone?
2) Calendar reminders are sent with Time zone included, so therefore will be correctly entered into Outlook, Google calendar etc?
3) Is the timezone selectable when adding a new event, or ...
is it entered in the user time zone, or ...
is it entered in the server time zone?
4) Is it possible to display the timezone for the event on the calendar - e.g. from a variable?

Thanks, Phil

Ok, this will still be much better than our current system with timezone converters
I will open a new topic.

1. user's timezone is via their Joomla profile
2. No - you would use the layout editor and display the times/timezones you want to show but it would affect all events.

Thank you, Geraint, for your quick response.
I think this would already be a brilliant addition for us, just a couple more questions:
How is a users perferred timezone defined?
Can we choose for each event which timezones to be displayed in the event description, ie some events display CET and PDT, and another event PDT and MDT?