A question for the Chandler developers: How much work is it to share
the publisher's calendar canvas timezone when publishing shares?
Okay, I'm going to make a pass at trying to summarize the issues in
the timezone discussion. Wish me luck.
It seems like there are really 2 distinct discussions going on.
1. Finding a minimally annoying way to introduce the concept of
timezones to Casual Collaborators (I think this actually applies to
both CC's with and without accounts and should probably even stretch
to include Chandler users).
2. What needs to have a timezone? Individual events? What about non-
event items with alarms? A particular collection? The calendar view?
The user's account?
For Issue #1, it seems like there is no shortage of viable solutions.
Prompting CC's with a pop-up every time they access a share is
probably overkill. But a subtle 'Notice' banner at the top of the
page probably wouldn't be so bad. We may want to consider something
like this for Chandler users as well.
Issue #2 is more complicated. I'm not even sure what a collection
timezone would do.
+ What does it mean for a collection to have a timezone which in turn
contains individual items that have different timezones?
+ How do we overlay collections that have different timezones in the
calendar view?
+ What is the timezone of an individual item if it belongs to
multiple collections, all with different timezones?
I think we can all agree on the need to: Display timezone information
on individual items. Beyond that, there seem to be a number of options:
A. No timezone for the canvas for CC's by default. Login to assign
timezones.
+ By default, all shared collections are displayed on a Floating
timezone canvas.
OR
B. Prompt CC's when there's timezone info and allow them to set their
own timezone. Login not required.
+ Subtly prompt CC's to assign a timezone when Cosmo UI detects
timezone information in a share.
+ Allow CC's (with or without accounts) to assign a timezone to the
calendar canvas and to alarms on non-events.
OR
C. Inherit the canvas timezone from the Chandler user/shar-ER.
+ (I think this was Priscilla's original proposal) Do a 1-time
transfer of the Chandler user's global timezone from Chandler to the
CC in the Cosmo UI. The CC automagically views the shared collection
in whatever timezone the Chandler user used when publishing the
collection.
OR
D. Keep the canvas timezone in sync with the Chandler user/shar-ER.
+ Keep the CC's calendar canvas timezone in sync with the Chandler
user's calendar canvas timezone.
Are there other options I'm missing?
=====
Some more things that came out in the thread to keep in mind:
+ CC's are not using Cosmo UI to keep track of their own schedule.
+ The target user group for Preview is very small and close-knit.
Most CC's could probably guess the correct timezone of events in a
share without having to be told explicitly by the UI. e.g. When Bear
shared his calendar with Priss, she didn't need to have timezone
support turned on to know that his events were in EST.
+ Cosmo UI is slated to support alarms on non-event items in the
Preview timeframe.
+ Cosmo UI will most likely eventually support overlays in both the
calendar and Dashboard views.
Hope that was more helpful than confusing. :o)
Mimi
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Open Source Applications Foundation "Design" mailing list
http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/design
