desktop-packages team mailing list archive

[Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Public bug reported:

If I start the Time & Date chooser in 15.04, the "Time & Date" pane does
not let me to specify a city by typing its name into the "Location" box
(I can type a name, but it's not obvious how to make it select that
city), nor does it offer a drop-down list of cities in that box.  If I
drag the "you are here" blob to the West Coast of the US, it puts "Los
Angeles" in the "Location" box, the fact that I'm currently in Palo
Alto, about 400 miles from Los Angeles, nonwithstanding.

The fact that the identifier, in the IANA tz database, for the tzdb zone
I'm in happens to have, in sequence, the characters 'A', "m', 'e', 'r',
'i', 'c', 'a', '/', 'L', 'o', 's', '_', 'A', 'n', 'g', 'e', 'l', 'e',
and 's' is irrelevant; the set of strings used for tzdb zone identifiers
is *not* to be used as a set of cities to offer an end user!

Please find a machine running OS X, fire up "System Preferences", select
the "Date & Time" item, and select the "Time Zone" pane in that item,
for an example of how a time zone selector *should* work.  It's similar
to what Ubuntu 15.04 offers, but:

    1) it uses OS X's location services (Core Location, etc.) to try to
find out where you're located, using, I think, Skyhook - you could
perhaps use GeoClue for this;

    2) instead of a "Location" box into which you can type stuff without
an obvious effect, it offers a drop-down list of cities near the
location where you've placed the "you are here" blob - the map display
in OS X has "geonames.org" on it, so that might be where it gets the
list of nearby cities;

    3) you can type in that box, and if it finds a matching city, it'll
move the "you are here" blob there (sadly, I tried typing "Weed" into
it, but it failed to find Weed, CA, although it could find Tustin,
Oxnard, Union City, and Redding).

OS X also lets you run in a mode where it uses the location services to
continuously update the current tzdb zone for the system, but *that*
required a fair bit of chainsaw work on localtime.c (I'm told by
somebody who should know that the notify(3) mechanism in OS X was
originally created to allow a running process to be informed that it
needs to change the current time zone, so even a dumb program in a for
loop doing "sleep(10)" followed by "now = time(NULL)" followed by
"printf("%s", ctime(&now));" will see the change - in fact, it just
*did*).

So please at least stop using the list of tzdb names as a list of cities
to show to the user; tzdb identifiers are really *not* something that
should be exposed to the vast majority of users (they should be exposed
only to nerds).  The tzdb maintainers will thank you, as this should
significantly reduce the number of users who complain that the tzdb's
choice of city to use in the identifier is inappropriate because it's
not their city, or it's not the most important city, or whatever.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: unity-control-center 15.04.0+15.04.20150410-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-22.22-generic 3.19.8-ckt1
Uname: Linux 3.19.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed Jul 22 17:42:47 2015
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/unity-control-center
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-06-03 (48 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Release amd64 (20150422)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 LANGUAGE=en_US
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
SourcePackage: unity-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_unity-control-center: deja-dup 32.0-0ubuntu5

** Affects: unity-control-center (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug vivid

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop
Packages, which is subscribed to unity-control-center in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1477032

Title:
  Time & Date time zone chooser doesn't offer a full set of cities

Status in unity-control-center package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  If I start the Time & Date chooser in 15.04, the "Time & Date" pane
  does not let me to specify a city by typing its name into the
  "Location" box (I can type a name, but it's not obvious how to make it
  select that city), nor does it offer a drop-down list of cities in
  that box.  If I drag the "you are here" blob to the West Coast of the
  US, it puts "Los Angeles" in the "Location" box, the fact that I'm
  currently in Palo Alto, about 400 miles from Los Angeles,
  nonwithstanding.

  The fact that the identifier, in the IANA tz database, for the tzdb
  zone I'm in happens to have, in sequence, the characters 'A', "m',
  'e', 'r', 'i', 'c', 'a', '/', 'L', 'o', 's', '_', 'A', 'n', 'g', 'e',
  'l', 'e', and 's' is irrelevant; the set of strings used for tzdb zone
  identifiers is *not* to be used as a set of cities to offer an end
  user!

  Please find a machine running OS X, fire up "System Preferences",
  select the "Date & Time" item, and select the "Time Zone" pane in that
  item, for an example of how a time zone selector *should* work.  It's
  similar to what Ubuntu 15.04 offers, but:

      1) it uses OS X's location services (Core Location, etc.) to try
  to find out where you're located, using, I think, Skyhook - you could
  perhaps use GeoClue for this;

      2) instead of a "Location" box into which you can type stuff
  without an obvious effect, it offers a drop-down list of cities near
  the location where you've placed the "you are here" blob - the map
  display in OS X has "geonames.org" on it, so that might be where it
  gets the list of nearby cities;

      3) you can type in that box, and if it finds a matching city,
  it'll move the "you are here" blob there (sadly, I tried typing "Weed"
  into it, but it failed to find Weed, CA, although it could find
  Tustin, Oxnard, Union City, and Redding).

  OS X also lets you run in a mode where it uses the location services
  to continuously update the current tzdb zone for the system, but
  *that* required a fair bit of chainsaw work on localtime.c (I'm told
  by somebody who should know that the notify(3) mechanism in OS X was
  originally created to allow a running process to be informed that it
  needs to change the current time zone, so even a dumb program in a for
  loop doing "sleep(10)" followed by "now = time(NULL)" followed by
  "printf("%s", ctime(&now));" will see the change - in fact, it just
  *did*).

  So please at least stop using the list of tzdb names as a list of
  cities to show to the user; tzdb identifiers are really *not*
  something that should be exposed to the vast majority of users (they
  should be exposed only to nerds).  The tzdb maintainers will thank
  you, as this should significantly reduce the number of users who
  complain that the tzdb's choice of city to use in the identifier is
  inappropriate because it's not their city, or it's not the most
  important city, or whatever.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
  Package: unity-control-center 15.04.0+15.04.20150410-0ubuntu1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-22.22-generic 3.19.8-ckt1
  Uname: Linux 3.19.0-22-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1.1
  Architecture: amd64
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  Date: Wed Jul 22 17:42:47 2015
  ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/unity-control-center
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-06-03 (48 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Release amd64 (20150422)
  ProcEnviron:
   PATH=(custom, user)
   SHELL=/bin/bash
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   LANGUAGE=en_US
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
  SourcePackage: unity-control-center
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
  usr_lib_unity-control-center: deja-dup 32.0-0ubuntu5

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-control-center/+bug/1477032/+subscriptions