Support for multiple time zones

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

Regards, Phil

There is a config option within JEvents.

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

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.

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? )

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)

Hi, Thanks for this information's

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

please send login details via PM.

thanks

Any news about this development effort?

Regards, Phil

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.