[Design][Decision] Floating timezones

[Sheila Mooney]

Mimi,

+ What is the default when you start Chandler - to have timezones on  
or off?
+ To reiterate Jeffrey and Philippe's comments, it is my assumption  
that the preference to turn on and off timezone affects the UI only.  
We don't do any kind of repository conversion.
+ Will we still have the ability to select floating timezone when we  
have the timezone preference turned on...like we do now?

Sheila

On Jan 25, 2006, at 5:51 PM, Mimi Yin wrote:

> We're about to finalize the floating timezones proposal and wanted  
> to gather a final round of input and feedback in case people are  
> sitting on thoughts and ideas and haven't had a chance to express  
> them:
>
> Here was the original proposal:
> http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/design/2006-January/ 
> 003758.html
>
> Here was my summary, after much discussion (includes use cases and  
> workflow descriptions)
> http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/design/2006-January/ 
> 003894.html
>
> The proposal in brief is:
> + Add a preference to "turn on" timezone support
> + Prior to turning on timezone support, all events are stored as  
> "floating". As a result, if you change the timezone on your  
> computer, none of your events will shift.
> + Once you've turned on timezone support, all events are stored in  
> "local time" (whatever timezone your computer is set to) and then  
> timezones proceed to work the way they do today.
> + Nice to have: You turn on timezone support, you make a bunch of  
> timezone adjustments. Then you turn off timezone support. We  
> somehow remember your timezone adjustments if you turn on timezone  
> support again.
> + If you have timezone support turned off and receive, import or  
> subscribe to event(s) that have timezone information, the following  
> could happen:
> ++ A dialog pops up telling you that you either have to turn on  
> timezone support or lose timezone info on the data you're adding to  
> your calendar.
> ++ The events display in the calendar in "floating time", but in  
> the detail view, you can see what timezone they're in.
>
> Mimi
>
> On Jan 17, 2006, at 6:21 PM, Mimi Yin wrote:
>
>> Here is the long-awaited summary of the floating timezones  
>> proposal put forth on the design list Jan 6th.
>>
>> I wrote up a proposal for implementing a variation on how iCal  
>> treats timezones in the UI:
>> + OOTB, Chandler calendar does not support timezones. No pulldowns  
>> to specify or display a timezone for the calendar canvas. No  
>> pulldowns to specify or display timezones for individual events.
>> + Users interested in timezone support can look for it in  
>> Preferences and activate it explicitly.
>>
>> This split off into 3 separate threads:
>> ===
>> 1. Should we store events as floating when timezone support has  
>> not been activated?
>>
>> Some use cases for doing this:
>> + Users who don't really travel much or don't use their calendar  
>> when traveling.
>> ++ They only use calendars for work and they mostly travel for  
>> vacation or family holidays.
>>
>> + Users who do travel but prefer to do all the timezone math in  
>> their head.
>> ++ Described David Allen's way of sorting out timezones in his  
>> calendar.
>> ++ People get used to identifying certain meetings by their start  
>> time or approximate placement physically on the calendar canvas,  
>> ie. "that 1:30" meeting, irrespective of what timezone they're in.  
>> So keeping the "1:30" meeting in the 1:30 slot is important, even  
>> if the user changes the "clock" on their computer to a new timezone.
>>
>> However, Grant pointed out that in iCal, they actually store the  
>> events in the "local" timezone even though the UI pretends to not  
>> know anything about timezones. As a result, in iCal if you change  
>> your "clock" on your computer to a new timezone, all of the events  
>> on your calendar will get moved automatically. If you go from San  
>> Francisco to New York, events that started at 1:30PM will show up  
>> as starting at 4:30PM.
>>
>> There are also some complications if you pretend that timezones  
>> don't exist:
>> + What happens when you receive an invitation for an event that is  
>> stored in a specific timezone?
>> + What happens when you subscribe to a calendar that is stored in  
>> a specific timezone(s)
>>
>> Some possible solutions:
>> + Throw up a dialog to let people turn on timezones support AND/OR
>> + The new events show up on your calendar as floating, but the  
>> specific timezone they're stored in is displayed, but not  
>> editable. So if you have NOT turned on timezone support and  
>> receive an event for 1-2PM EST, it will show up in the 1-2PM slot  
>> on the calendar and the detail view will display: 1-2PM EST.
>>
>> ===
>> 2. Should we have preferences at all?
>>
>> Jeffrey wasn't sure whether we wanted to hide timezones by default.
>> Philippe pointed out that users looking for timezone support will  
>> be motivated to look for it in preferences.
>> Brendan thought most student users of calendars wouldn't need  
>> timezone support but wasn't sure if that was a valid user group.
>>
>> ===
>> 3. Oren brought up an import bug when importing calendars from  
>> Oracle calendar. This is being addressed as a bug in bugzilla.  
>> http://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5000
>>
>> Mimi
>>
>>
>>
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