417020 - UTC and floating are missing in time zone picker

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Calendar :: General, defect)

Description

[:Hb]

The "Universal Time Code" or "Universal Time, Coordinated" zone is missing in the time zone picker. It can't be replaced  by "Europe/London" because that TZ has a normal time/daylight saving time border in it (DT/DST).

Comment 1

[cmtalbert]

This is a real oversight for us.  Check out these steps to reproduce:

1. Open Calendar
2. Attempt to schedule our weekly conference call (17:00 UTC)

== Expected Results ==
You schedule the call, it displays at the proper time in your timezone and life is good.

== Actual Results ==
You can't schedule it since you can't pick the timezone.

Note that we should also expose the "floating" timezone in the timezone picker as well.  Since that is a legitimate timezone too.  For example: I go running at 8AM regardless of where in the world I am.

Changing the summary to reflect the need to add floating too.

Comment 3

[Robert]

I'm sorry, I must have overlooked this bug report...

Anyways, I made the necessary changes to my installation now so both UTC and floating time can be selected from the list. I have a few annotations and questions though:
1. I added UTC and floating to the top of the list as they are somehow special.
2. When selecting "floating", no special part of the map is highlighted. This seems logical to me as the map indicates where in the world the shown time is valid - and that's everywhere for "floating". UTC uses the +0000 highlighting.
3. I didn't find a translated string for UTC and floating. Did I overlook something (again) or do I have to create it?

I'd like to clarify the third point before uploading that patch.

Additionally, two things which are related to this:
4. In my opinion these two "timezones" are quite useful, but hidden to users who didn't explicitly enable the display of timezones in the menu. Maybe the default value should be "checked=true"?
5. The timezone label in the event dialog isn't translated. This might be ok for the usual timezones which include the continent and a big town, but I personally wouldn't have known what "floating" is (I'm German, but that shouldn't matter).

Comment 4

[:Hb]

(In reply to comment #3)
> ..., I made the necessary changes to my installation now so both UTC and
> floating time can be selected from the list. 

Robert, feel free to post a preliminary version of this patch here. Others need it too, even untranslated.

Comment 5

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

See Bug 393360 for the not localized timezone names display in the event dialog.

I suggest to find a wording for "UTC" and "floating" that makes it understandable for normal users or include some description. Maybe "UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)" and for floating "No timezone".

Comment 6

[Daniel Boelzle [:dbo]]

Practically, UTC equals GMT which I suspect is far better known to users. So we could also use that term IMO.

Comment 7

[Robert]

Unfortunatelly my changed files were deleted when I upgraded to RC2, so I have to do that again, but that will take less than half an hour I think.

For UTC, I think Daniel's suggestion is good, or maybe a combination like "UTC/GMT". The patch I made was localized for German, and I displayed "Jeweilige Ortszeit" for "floating" there, meaning something like "respective local time".

Comment 8

[Daniel Boelzle [:dbo]]

"Lokalzeit" or "lokale Zeit" resp. "local time" best fits floating times IMO.

Comment 9

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][☁️📆]]

Attachment: Submenus Screenshot

While you are at it, it would be great if you could improve the timezone dialog, but this can also be done in a different bug if you like.

In addition to what the screenshot shows, it would probably be a good idea to split up certain lists into regions (i.e America).

Comment 10

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

I think it would be a good idea to unify both timezone pickers controls first. Currently we have one implementation in the event dialog and a separate one in the preference dialog. Once this is done we can continue with adding new features. Not sure if there already exists a bug for this.

Comment 11

[Robert]

Attachment: preliminary patch, not localizable

This version adds UTC and floating timezone to the timezone picker in the event details. I mentioned the according highlighting in the map in comment #3.
As I still don't know if translations for "UTC" and "floating" exist already, this version uses hardcoded strings for these.

Comment 12

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

You can use <http://mxr.mozilla.org/> to browse and search the source code online. In this case you probably want to add new entities to file mozilla/calendar/locales/en-US/chrome/calendar/preferences/timezones.dtd and use it.

Comment 13

[Robert]

Thank you, I'll upload a version with these entities in the evening.

One question though, I use the German localization, and if I add the entities to the en-US only, the dialog throws an error. Is there a possibility that Thunderbird uses the en-US if an entity doesn't exist in the localized .jar file? Otherwise anyone who would like to use this patch would have to add the entities manually...

Comment 14

[:Hb]

Thanks for the patch. I suggest another order in the dropdown. Floating should be first because UTC is a timezone too:

floating = "no timezone" = "Ohne Zeitzone"
UTC = "UTC/GMT" = "UTC/GMT"
Africa ..... 

As long as it is a patch the "no timezone" name would be sufficient. If SB is going 0.9 the localization should take place. 

Does this patch makes floating possible as overall time zone setting for the calendar? I like to completely switched off the TZ functionally.

If UTC is selected, all timezones in the map should light.

Comment 15

[Robert]

(In reply to comment #14)
> I suggest another order in the dropdown.

Yes, I think you are right, I'll change that.

> As long as it is a patch the "no timezone" name would be sufficient. If SB is
> going 0.9 the localization should take place. 

I'm afraid I don't really understand what you are suggesting. Do you mean that I should upload two versions, one with localization and one with hardcoded strings? Apart from that, I think that "no timezone" is somehow inaccurate as there IS a timezone - that one selected by the one looking at the created event.

> Does this patch makes floating possible as overall time zone setting for the
> calendar? I like to completely switched off the TZ functionally.

No, this is only for the event details. I suppose with "switching off" you mean that Lightning should automatically use the system timezone?

> If UTC is selected, all timezones in the map should light.

Well, there are several overlays, of which one is chosen depending on the timezone offset relative to UTC. So UTC itself has an offset of +0000, and that's the overlay I used.

Comment 16

[Robert]

Attachment: Patch v2

Two things changed: UTC and floating are localizable now and floating was moved to the top of the list.

For using this patch with a localized version of Lightning/Sunbird, you have to add two lines to the timezone.dtd. Example for German (de):
In chrome/calendar-de.jar/locale/de/calendar/preferences/timezone.dtd, add
<!ENTITY pref.timezone.localtime "lokale Zeit" >
<!ENTITY pref.timezone.UTC "UTC/GMT" >
before
<!ENTITY pref.timezone.Africa.Abidjan "Afrika/Abidjan" >

Comment 17

[:Hb]

(In reply to comment #15)
> No, this is only for the event details. I suppose with "switching off" you mean
> that Lightning should automatically use the system timezone?

Perhaps my initial feature request was not precise enough.

I have a ical file based sync solution with a mobile device which has problems with time zones. And even the mobile device has problems with them. So I want the ical files used by sunbird completely free of timezone information (= "no timezone). 

I hope to get this with setting the complete application to "floating".

Comment 18

[Robert]

Ah, then I misunderstood what you wanted. I thought you meant the timezone you select in the Lightning preferences, which actually doesn't have effect on how events are saved and exported.

Yes, setting the timezone of an event to either "floating" or "UTC" will give you a file without any timezone information in it. You may prefer UTC if your devices support that as it is a clear definition of date and time. See Clint's comment #1 above, 8 AM in "floating" is 8 AM everywhere in the world, but that's not at the same point of time in New York and Berlin for example. If these events are only for yourself, that should be fine, but you shouldn't send out a meeting request in floating if the attendees are in different timezones.

However, the default timezone of new events is the one you set in the preferences. This means you have to set "floating" manually for each new event. If you import events from ical files, you have to do that for each of those as well - as stated above, this is independent from your selected timezone, and should be.

Comment 19

[Daniel Boelzle [:dbo]]

Comment on attachment 314109 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch v2

>+<!ENTITY pref.timezone.localtime "local time" >
I'd prefer "Local Time".

r=dbo; thanks for the patch.

Comment 20

[Robert]

I don't mind. Should I create a new patch for this?

Comment 21

[Daniel Boelzle [:dbo]]

No, not needed. You could check in by yourself (on HEAD and MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH)?

Comment 22

[Robert]

As far as I know, I can't check in without special cvs permissions (which I don't have), sorry. So I'd be glad if someone else could do that for me please.

Comment 23

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #19)
> (From update of attachment 314109 [details] [diff] [review])
> >+<!ENTITY pref.timezone.localtime "local time" >
> I'd prefer "Local Time".

Made that change, and checked this in on the trunk and branch:
mozilla/calendar/locales/en-US/chrome/calendar/preferences/timezones.dtd 	1.1.2.4
mozilla/calendar/prototypes/wcap/sun-calendar-event-dialog-timezone.js 	1.1.2.7
mozilla/calendar/prototypes/wcap/sun-calendar-event-dialog-timezone.xul 	1.1.2.10
mozilla/calendar/locales/en-US/chrome/calendar/preferences/timezones.dtd 	1.5
mozilla/calendar/prototypes/wcap/sun-calendar-event-dialog-timezone.js 	1.8
mozilla/calendar/prototypes/wcap/sun-calendar-event-dialog-timezone.xul 	1.11