Daylight savings time

[Fusion]

Hopefully I'm just blind and under the weather, but having looked at the alpha I have been unable to find any trace of v3 ever taking DST into account. Would someone in the know please confirm if it will or not? I know this has been brought up before under the old vB2 Suggestions, but this is a BigThing to a major portion of the users, so kindly bear with me.

[Floris]

I've heard rumours, but nothing confirmed. Maybe they are already working on it. I have read that many of the features will be added over the upcomming months.

[leadZERO]

This was a problem back in the old vb2 days (so long ago right). The problem is when the webserver is in a country that has daylight savings time and the viewer isn't. Or vise versa. Jelsoft doesn't have DST where the forums are hosted while here in the US it is. So, when PHP goes to grab the system time it gets a regular time. It then computes the time difference based on the time zone. So, if the webserver and the viewer don't both use or not use Daylight Savings Time time won't show correctly. A band-aid solution would be to just offset your timezone.

[Kier]

The timezone system has changed in vB3... we now use gmdate() instead of date() but Mike will be able to tell you more about that.

[Chen]

Originally posted by xiphoid
I've heard rumours, but nothing confirmed. Maybe they are already working on it. I have read that many of the features will be added over the upcomming months.
Where exactly have you heard that???

[John]

DST handling is still to be looked at.

[leadZERO]

Does anything other then the US use the idiotic Daylight Savings Time scam?

[Fusion]

Originally posted by leadZERO
Does anything other then the US use the idiotic Daylight Savings Time scam? (Why, yes, most of Europe still does.) Personally, I wish we'd go for UTC all round and be done with it.

Thanks, John.

[leadZERO]

Man, and here I thought only us Americans were still using it.

On a side-note, I think it's one of the dumbest ideas around, if you couldn't tell. I mean most of the agriculter business is run by robots now anyway, so why do we need to change the time for the farmers?

I guess I'm not a farmer.

[Lats]

I dislike DST myself.

It was initially devised to save energy in the war years, never heard anything about it being the farmers' fault :)


Lats...

[Wayne Luke]

The United States starting using it in the 1800's to give the farmers extra daylight in order to tend to their fields.

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by FireFly

Where exactly have you heard that??? HERE. We were told numerous times in the past that VB3 would have revamped timezone support WITH a daylight savings feature.

Problem example: VB has a single timezone for Adelaide and Darwin combined (as does every other package/device since both are in the same timezone). Adelaide has daylight savings whilst Darwin does not. As a result vBulletin is incapable of displaying the correct time for Darwin folk during daylight savings.

[tubedogg]

Originally posted by DVD Plaza
HERE. We were told numerous times in the past that VB3 would have revamped timezone support WITH a daylight savings feature.Settle down, Chen was referring to this:I have read that many of the features will be added over the upcomming months.

[DVD Plaza]

Oh, and daylight savings can start and end on different dates in different states of Australia...

[DVD Plaza]

Posts from vBulletin staff advising consideration of Daylight Savings support in VB3:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21627

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32421

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17443

[tubedogg]

No one is arguing that point.

Also note John's post that DST is still being sorted.

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by tubedogg
Settle down, Chen was referring to this: OIC, hehe :)

Originally posted by tubedogg
Also note John's post that DST is still being sorted.Ah, I figured DST was a US timezone... oops :)

I wonder if perhaps an "editable timezone list", with each timezone referenced via an index rather than a fixed hour difference (to allow for duplictes), might be an easier option? This way everyone could tailor their list to work the way they want and/or make adjustments on the fly (ie I could add two seperate options for Adelaide and Darwin, one with a daylight savings flag on and one with it off).

I customised the timezone list (featured on several templates), but of course I couldn't do the above as otherwise there would be two timezones with +9.5 and each time the form is displayed the wrong item may be selected.

I know some have asked for each member to be able to turn on daylight savings, but I'm concerned that might introduce more headaches for forum admins and moderators (let alone support requests here) than its worth?

[Paul]

I chose to take on the task of adding DST support myself with 2.2.6. This was the approach I took:

PHP has a function that returns whether or not a timestamp falls within DST, however the documentation is unclear as to whether or not it uses United States rules only. The problem with DST is that it begins and ends at different times in different parts of the world, so I'm not sure how much we can rely on the PHP function. I see a few possible approaches:

1. Use the date() "I" flag to determine if a timestamp is DST if a user specifies that they'd like North American DST support.

2. Provide a DST option that can be turned on and off by the user. I.e. in places like Israel, the dates and times of DST are determined by lawmakers every year. This would allow you to simply select or deselect DST support.

3. Integration with the Time Zone drop down box (seems a rather hard feat to accomplish).

You need to account (at least with 2.2.x, which does not use gmdate()) for the server's offset, if any. I have created an option in the control panel that allows me to turn on or off the DST offset for the forum. That way if your server's time automatically adjusts for DST, GMT will be correctly displayed. Presently DST will add an hour to GMT if left uncorrected.

I wonder if anyone knows specifically what the I flag for date() refers to? I have a feeling it only applies to North American DST. I didn't think there was such an audience for this modification. I will try and release my changes on vb.org asap.

Paul

[Lats]

Originally posted by wluke
...using it in the 1800's...
Umm, you might find this (http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/) interesting reading. :)


Lats...

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by Lats

Umm, you might find this (http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/) interesting reading. :)


Lats...

1917 might be when the entire country started using it or at least it was made official. However from what I understand many states had adopted it long before that. Of course I don't have my 7th Grade History book anymore so I can't point out the exact passage word for word.

[Floris]

Originally posted by FireFly

Where exactly have you heard that???

I have read many times about timezone updates and that there might be something done about it in vb3

I have read that many of the features will be added over the upcomming months. // yesterday at least 10.000 times ..

[DVD Plaza]

I notice VB3 now contains a daylight savings option for each user - allowing them to have automatic control, override it to on, or override it to off... cool!

BUT...

I live in the southern hemisphere - Say what?!?!? The user specifies their timezone, in my case Adelaide, so you KNOW where they are but you're asking where they are?!? Isn't that a redundant option?

Operating systems and calendar/scheduling systems only ever ask which timezone you are in and whether you want daylight savings complied with?

Confused :confused:

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by DVD Plaza
I notice VB3 now contains a daylight savings option for each user - allowing them to have automatic control, override it to on, or override it to off... cool!

BUT...

I live in the southern hemisphere - Say what?!?!? The user specifies their timezone, in my case Adelaide, so you KNOW where they are but you're asking where they are?!? Isn't that a redundant option?

Operating systems and calendar/scheduling systems only ever ask which timezone you are in and whether you want daylight savings complied with?

Confused :confused: All the time zone setting does is send a number back to the system. The city names are there to make it more readable for the end user, they are not stored nor is there a matrix to pinpoint where the user lives.

Since most time zones exist in both hemisphere's the question was put in to be used if Daylight Savings time doesn't work automatically for the user so they can correct things as needed and receive the proper time.

[Cyborg from DH]

Canada uses DST as well.

[stanmxl]

There's a typo on the user options. An option is marked "Daylight Savings Time"

The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.

Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Similar examples would be dog walking time or book reading time. Since saving is a verb describing a single type of activity, the form is singular.

And for a list of all the countries that use daylight saving time (there are quite a few), check http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/g.html.

[stanmxl]

Another interesting bit:


Why did daylight saving time (DST) start, and why does it still continue? When asking a random sample of people we heard two answers again and again: "To help the farmers" or "Because of World War I ... or was it World War II?"
In fact, farmers generally oppose daylight saving time. In Indiana, where part of the state observes DST and part does not, farmers have opposed a move to DST. And the chief adversary of daylight saving time in the United States is the Farm Bureau. Farmers, who must wake with the sun no matter what time their clock says, are greatly inconvenienced by having to change their schedule in order to sell their crops to people who observe daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time did indeed begin in the United States during World War I, primarily to save fuel by reducing the need to use artificial lighting. Although some states and communities observed daylight saving time between the wars, it was not observed nationally again until World War II.