Add timezone setting when creating calendar event

Tracked by Jolla (In progress)

asked 2015-02-14 01:21:38 +0300

2080 ●26 ●42 ●44

updated 2015-02-28 03:21:59 +0300

This idea came to me when I was living with my time synchronization switched off (because Russian timezone changed and Jolla caught up with that a bit late). I switched off the time autosync, changed my timezone to a bogus one, and created several events in my calendar. Then when Vaarainjärvi fixed the Russian timezone I turned the time sync on again, and all my calendar events (made with the bogus timezone) moved by one hour. So I had to spend a lot of time double-checking if all my meeting schedules were correct.

Then there is another thing. I travel a lot, and I frequently need to create calendar events which will take place in another country. Example: I am in Russia, but I'll have a meeting in Switzerland in a week. Of course I know only the local (Swiss) time of the meeting. So I have to search the Swiss timezone on the Internet, calculate the difference, and create an event which is several hours 'later' so that the time becomes right when I actually come to Switzerland and my Jolla adjusts its timezone. This gets exponentially worse when daylight saving kicks in.

Yet another case: I frequently have to create a calendar event which should always take place at a certain time of day, e.g. in the evening, whatever country I'm in at that moment. There is no way I can do that now, no matter what calculations I perform.

Suggestion

ALWAYS store calendar events' time in UTC - this way the events will never, ever "travel in time" on their own
allow user to choose the event timezone when creating calendar event - this way the local time of the event will be always correct, even if the country's government issues a decree and changes the timezone
add a "relative time" option, so that the event time is always the same in all timezones

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i agree with you. Good behavior using UTC always, besides most telecom standard using it.Usually Unix like systems stor RTC on UTC.

hyper_sonic ( 2015-02-14 10:05:24 +0300 )edit

Having some interface to set/change the timezone of each calendar event individually would definitely be an interesting feature for us jet-setters... Fingers crossed!

Piero ( 2015-10-08 19:29:14 +0300 )edit

I just had a random wake-up alarm at 1:45 am, because I had created an alarm while at -10 hours from my current location. The alarm was supposed to go off at 15:45, as the event started at 17:45.

Milo ( 2016-09-26 01:53:47 +0300 )edit

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answered 2020-02-21 00:50:28 +0300

Damien Caliste
6535 ●105 ●139 ●161

https://github.com/dcalis...

updated 2020-02-24 17:53:18 +0300

I've begun to work on this. I'm submitting a merge request in the middleware to export time zone information to QML, so the Jolla calendar can display this data. Additionally, at the moment, the events are always saved in the system time zone of the device at the moment the calendar app was started. This patch thus adds the possibility to choose the time zone by its name when modifying an event.

It's preliminary work that requires further testing though. And I would like to receive feedback from the maintainers about the modifications. I'll update the post when there will be news.

Edit: added screenshot of proposed UI, subjected to changes during review...

time zone combobox

Edit 2020-02-24: if someone would like to try here are the necessary materials (try it at your own risk), this is currently work in progress with discussion with maintainers, so output is constantly changing and final is likely to be different:

nemo-qml-plugin-calendar-qt5-0.5.1-1.armv7hl.rpm.gzto be installed instead of the Jolla version (or compile yourself this branch https://git.sailfishos.org/dcaliste/nemo-qml-plugin-calendar/tree/tz) ;
patch.gz to be applied on /usr/share/jolla-calendar/pages/EventEditPage.qml.

To go back to the official versions, type pkcon refresh; pkcon install nemo-qml-plugin-calendar-qt5 jolla-calendar.

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@Damien Caliste, supergreat to hear. This will make me not wake up in the middle of the night and miss meetings. Not sure it will make occuring events cross daylight saving off-by-one better, but hey they might stop with that here next year anyway. Thanks!

ljo ( 2020-02-21 08:27:33 +0300 )edit

I do not have to know in what time zone I want to be awake or have my appointment, this is done by simply comparing the chosen time with the local time (communications tower).

manu007 ( 2020-02-21 11:58:11 +0300 )edit

@manu007, the current issue is that the system time zone is always used when creating an event on device. So if you create a "yoga pause" every week day at 2pm, and you travel to another time zone, the event will not be displayed at 2 anymore. And the alarm may ring at unexpected time...

Damien Caliste ( 2020-02-21 12:26:23 +0300 )edit

I know it and I suffer it since version 1.

manu007 ( 2020-02-21 12:42:05 +0300 )edit

@damien-caliste Has some UI hooks. You need an "Always Local Time" timezone. SFOS also needs a "UTC" named TZ. I have events which are scheduled in UTC, and don't have any location at all (no they really aren't on Ivory Coast , my current UTC choice). You also need a good favorites mechanism, as I only really have meetings in a couple of TZ's, but the TZ list is ridiculously long and cumbersome to navigate. It would also be useful for this TZ favorites list to be shared with the Worldclock.

bongo ( 2020-02-22 21:09:10 +0300 )edit

@bongo, thanks for the suggestions. The current proposition is adding support for click time in UI, meaning exact time whatever the time zone. For UTC possibility, I don't know. An event will still happen somewhere even if location is irrelevant. Can you detail your use case more, so I have argument in case maintainer wonder why UTC ? Finally, the initial implementation won't have favorite because with the search entry in time zone picker, you're three letters away from your choice. But it may be added later if necessary. Thanks for the feedback.

Damien Caliste ( 2020-02-23 09:25:38 +0300 )edit

Case 1) If I want to be woken up at 6 am, I want it to be everywhere in the world, this is only done by comparing the time of the event with the local time.
Case 2) this case is a bit complicated, I create a local event (example local phone call) and I go elsewhere (other time zone), I want the event to occur at the correct local time, Example, I have to call my collegegue at 18:00 (GMT0), I go to GMT + 3, for the call to be correct it will have to be launched at 21:00 so that I speak with my colleague (located at GMT0) at 18:00. In this case, the event must contain the information of the zone where it is to be triggered.

manu007 ( 2020-02-23 14:30:40 +0300 )edit

answered 2020-02-25 00:01:28 +0300

bongo
238 ●8 ●15 ●18

@Damien Caliste , Thanks for taking that onboard. What I suggest is adding a timezone explicitly named "UTC" to the system wide list of timezones.

I agree that UTC is not really warranting the dedicated menu item in your screenshot.

As a note, I think that patching the calendar UI is a kludge solution (but probably what you have to do).

The correct solution is that the system-wide time setting (two-concentric circles) dialog is where time is set. It should return an unambiguous value which means time and timezone .

It should add a timezone selector below in the enormous unused area. (this needs to be hideable for the majority of users who have no interest in global times)

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There are discussions at the moment to replace the combobox with the time zone picker page completely and add there the UTC choice and "no timezone" one also. It may ends up with this solution.

About having the time zone selection in the time picker, that was my first move indeed. But it has some drawbacks (beside the fact that the time picker from Silica is not easily modifiable) : in landscape, there is no space below to put the time zone value button for instance. The suggestion was done but at the moment, the added value button in the dit page for event is favoured. It may change in the future though…

Damien Caliste ( 2020-02-25 11:34:39 +0300 )edit

Add timezone setting when creating calendar event

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Add timezone setting when creating calendar event

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