Re: [Ayatana-dev] Timezones and Locations for indicator-datetime

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Hi Karl

Karl Lattimer wrote on 07/02/11 10:42:
>...
>  I'm currently working on adding timezones and locations now that the
> appointments and tasks are out of the way.

Excellent!

>...
> Case: Bob creates an appointment via evolution, he creates that
> appointment at home in London, the appointment is for 1 week in the
> future when Bob is in New York. The appointment time is 9:00am 
> 
> Result: Bobs appointment appears at 2pm when the timezone changes due
> to either user interaction or geoclue location 
> 
> Reason: Evolution doesn't (by default) display the Timezone field in
> the Appointment editor. Bob didn't set the timezone for the appointment
> to New York so the Timezone was London for the appointment, the local
> clock changed to New York time but the appointment stayed on london
> time. 
>...
> To solve this problem I propose that we change the default behaviour in
> evolution to display the Timezone field in the appointment editor. 

That seems reasonable.

> Also add a helpful indication to the appointment item which is shown
> when the appointment is in a different timezone. e.g. changing the
> appointment time to "2:00pm BST" for items in a different timezone and,
> "9:00am" for items in the local timezone. 

Fair enough. Changed.
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeAndDate?action=diff&rev2=19&rev1=18>

>...
> I also want to propose a solution to the "What should happen when you
> select one of the alternate timezone items in the menu.". Unresolved
> item; https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeAndDate#Unresolved%20issues
> 
> As the user is probably expecting the timezone to change when it's
> selected I propose that we use a radio button to indicate the selected
> item. This is inline with the other indicators and I've written code to
> do this pretty easily in the menu. 
>
> For the menu items for the locations/timezones, I suggest we always
> retain the one we've changed from, at least during the current
> session.
>
> So for instance, as Bob lands in New York he has two timezones in the
> menu, London and New York, which are not necessarily pre-configured to
> be there. London may disappear after a reboot, but that should have
> been enough of a transition period.

We don't want to force everyone to have at least one location in their
menu, especially on (for example) a desktop machine that never goes
anywhere.

But what if you configure your clock menu to contain one location, and
it isn't the location the computer is currently set to?

If we follow your suggestion, the menu will contain that one item
normally, but will oddly sprout an extra item (representing your
previous location) if you ever change to that manually chosen location.

Alternatively, we could insist on including the current location in the
menu whenever any other locations are present. But that would require us
to grey out the current location in the "Locations" window, to prevent
you from trying to remove it, whenever any other locations were
selected. It wouldn't be as visibly weird, but it would still be weird.

Maybe there are other options.

>...
> Something else I'm having to think about is whether or not the indicator
> is the correct place to be acting on a location change as it should be
> possible when the clock isn't visible in the menu from what I can
> gather?

Exactly -- everything in a status menu is a shortcut to something
available elsewhere.

> Maybe there needs to be something else to handle this particular
> change? and the indicator is merely a consumer of information from that
> something else.
>...

Yes, the something else is the time zone control in the Time & Date
settings window.

Thanks
- -- 
mpt
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