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Though, in calendar apps, I find this behavior annoying. My phone automatically adjusts my calendar when I change timezones, but I put all events into my calen

Though, in calendar apps, I find this behavior annoying. My phone automatically adjusts my calendar when I change timezones, but I put all events into my calendar as local time for wherever I will be when that event is going to occur. I don't want to have to think about how to enter things into my calendar when I'm planning a trip back to where I grew up...

makmanalp 15y ago
Well, this is also a presentation layer problem. You should be able to tell it to use your home zone instead of the current local zone, for example.
- cdcarter 15y ago
  I don't want to tell it that though. I just want to enter things at a time, and have them stay at that time.
  - baddox 15y ago
    Any calendar app either has to base its time zone on location or ask you to manually choose a zone. How would you propose changing this?
    - andrewcooke 15y ago
      i think what is being suggested is something like storing it as a string and raising the alarm when the string matches the current local time. so it's "time in whatever time zone i am local to when it matches the time". (which has problems with uniqueness, but does seem like an intuitive "dwim" high level interface).
    - invalidOrTaken 15y ago
      In the realm of unrealistic-now-but-maybe-cool-later, if it could access your flight reservations, it could infer where you'll be at the time and base the time zone on that.
  - matwood 15y ago
    You have to tell it a time zone or else the calendar app will not know what time you mean (and really, time without a time zone is meaningless). What you are doing is using your current time zone as the default so when you enter appointments from another time zone you're actually entering them incorrectly. Any calendar app should allow the entry of appointments with time zone.
    - stoney 15y ago
      > You have to tell it a time zone or else the calendar app will not know what time you mean It seems logical to me that whatever time I write in my calendar app is the time that I expect something to happen. I.e. it is the local time at wherever I happen to be. If I put in a meeting at 4pm on 8/7/2011, then I expect an alarm to sound whenever the local time is 4pm on 8/7/2011. That's how my paper diary works (or used to work when I had one) - if I am planning for a future event where I will be in a different time zone, I simply write down the local time of the event.
      - dandelany 15y ago
        Most useful calendar apps these days allow you to share events, or invite others to an event. What happens when you invite someone who lives in another timezone? There's no good way to handle this that doesn't involve taking timezones into consideration.
      - caf 15y ago
        That doesn't sound at all logical to me. The phone conference is scheduled for a particular time, eg 10am in Montreal. The other meeting participants do not care that it is now 10am in Mombasa, where your phone happens to be at the moment - they will not be at the meeting for another 7 hours anyway. Your other way also allows for the same event to happen twice, at different times, which is entirely unexpected.
        stoney 15y ago
        Yes, very true. Doesn't work very well for events where people are attending from multiple time zones. I was thinking more of events that I attend in person. But I'll use the paper diary example again - if I was in Mombassa and was due to have a phone conference at 10am Montreal time, I would write "6pm - Phone conference" in my diary (assuming that is indeed the correct local time). And in your example, yes, it would be easier for me if I could tell my calendar that it is "10am, montreal time, please adjust that to mombassa time". So I guess my ideal solution would be a calendar app that works the way I described unless I specifically override it. Anyway, I think this proves the point that time is hard.
donpark 15y ago
Calendar has to know where each event occurs in order to present time in event timezone which introduces some interesting issues like: 1) requiring location fatigues UX, 2) inferring location is not always possible and frequently wrong, and 3) tracking location requires more data like complete travel plans. Adding to this just-another-presentation-layer problem, online event timezones are different for each participant.

makmanalp 15y ago

Well, this is also a presentation layer problem. You should be able to tell it to use your home zone instead of the current local zone, for example.

cdcarter 15y ago
I don't want to tell it that though. I just want to enter things at a time, and have them stay at that time.
- baddox 15y ago
  Any calendar app either has to base its time zone on location or ask you to manually choose a zone. How would you propose changing this?
  - andrewcooke 15y ago
    i think what is being suggested is something like storing it as a string and raising the alarm when the string matches the current local time. so it's "time in whatever time zone i am local to when it matches the time". (which has problems with uniqueness, but does seem like an intuitive "dwim" high level interface).
  - invalidOrTaken 15y ago
    In the realm of unrealistic-now-but-maybe-cool-later, if it could access your flight reservations, it could infer where you'll be at the time and base the time zone on that.
- matwood 15y ago
  You have to tell it a time zone or else the calendar app will not know what time you mean (and really, time without a time zone is meaningless). What you are doing is using your current time zone as the default so when you enter appointments from another time zone you're actually entering them incorrectly. Any calendar app should allow the entry of appointments with time zone.
  - stoney 15y ago
    > You have to tell it a time zone or else the calendar app will not know what time you mean It seems logical to me that whatever time I write in my calendar app is the time that I expect something to happen. I.e. it is the local time at wherever I happen to be. If I put in a meeting at 4pm on 8/7/2011, then I expect an alarm to sound whenever the local time is 4pm on 8/7/2011. That's how my paper diary works (or used to work when I had one) - if I am planning for a future event where I will be in a different time zone, I simply write down the local time of the event.
    - dandelany 15y ago
      Most useful calendar apps these days allow you to share events, or invite others to an event. What happens when you invite someone who lives in another timezone? There's no good way to handle this that doesn't involve taking timezones into consideration.
    - caf 15y ago
      That doesn't sound at all logical to me. The phone conference is scheduled for a particular time, eg 10am in Montreal. The other meeting participants do not care that it is now 10am in Mombasa, where your phone happens to be at the moment - they will not be at the meeting for another 7 hours anyway. Your other way also allows for the same event to happen twice, at different times, which is entirely unexpected.
      - stoney 15y ago
        Yes, very true. Doesn't work very well for events where people are attending from multiple time zones. I was thinking more of events that I attend in person. But I'll use the paper diary example again - if I was in Mombassa and was due to have a phone conference at 10am Montreal time, I would write "6pm - Phone conference" in my diary (assuming that is indeed the correct local time). And in your example, yes, it would be easier for me if I could tell my calendar that it is "10am, montreal time, please adjust that to mombassa time". So I guess my ideal solution would be a calendar app that works the way I described unless I specifically override it. Anyway, I think this proves the point that time is hard.

donpark 15y ago

Calendar has to know where each event occurs in order to present time in event timezone which introduces some interesting issues like: 1) requiring location fatigues UX, 2) inferring location is not always possible and frequently wrong, and 3) tracking location requires more data like complete travel plans. Adding to this just-another-presentation-layer problem, online event timezones are different for each participant.