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bug with user specified time zones
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vegard | Subject: bug with user specified time zones |  |
| Hia, there's a bug with home time zone offsets work in ATutor. to reproduce: 1. create a test with a start date and end date 2. log in with a user that can take this test, note the start and end date. 3. go to that users preferences and set "time zone offset" to something (like 10, or -50, or whatever number) 4. go back to the test and you will see that the start and end times have changed. -> note that the *actual* start and end time uses the servers time, and does not take into account what the user have set as offset (which is very good BTW, or else users could pretty much decide themselves when tests and content should open or close). I just had one user on the phone as he had set something like "18:13" as time offset (he had probably misunderstood the setting at one point, and written the time of day there. users do that..) - he could no longer access a test that closed yesterday (the 18th), but for him the end date displayed as later today (the 19th). I don't know how to solve this, but I believe users should can be allowed to set time zone offsets at all. as far as I can see the only two situations you can get from this are: 1. users can manipulate open / close dates by tinkering with their time offset settings, or 2. users will get false open / close dates displayed. both situations presents a serious bug. --- Things to describe: ATutor version - 1.6.2 Posted: 2009-12-18 07:45:05 | ||
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greg | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| We've been talking about timezones, and have come to the conclusion that we need a proper select menu with the timezone names and offsets listed, making it easier for users to select the right timezone, and so they can't make an error, such as entering 18:13. Tests are set to server time on purpose, for just that reason, so users can not change their timezone to control access to tests. Start and end dates change to reflect the difference in timezone. If I'm in one timezone, and you are in the next (+1) you should start the test hour after I do in relative time, but at the same time as I do in reality. Everyone starts at say GMT+5, though for me it might be noon, and for you it might be 1pm. I would disagree about removing users timezones, but might perhaps agree to providing a way of disabling it if timezone is not an issue, with all users being from the same timezone for instance. For things like forum posts, as is the case with email, the time at which a message was posted relative to one's own timezone, is preferable over seeing the time of the poster's timezone. If it is a problem in your case, since we do not currently have an option to remove the setting, you could potentially comment out the user timezone setting in the Preferences theme template. Though unfortunately that would not eliminate timezones from those who have already set it. I've posted this to mantis for tracking. It'll be a while before we get to it now that 1.6.4 has just been released. You can provide input directly to the tracker if you have implementation ideas. www.atutor.ca/atutor/mantis/view.php?id=4090 Posted: 2009-12-18 14:40:38 | ||
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| vegard | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| I'll probably comment that out from the template, then. But even though a better format would be, well, better, it would not solve the issue that users will be presented with end dates for tests that are false. Posted: 2009-12-20 10:38:05 | ||
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| greg | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| Maybe it was a problem in 1.6.2, start and end dates seem fine in 1.6.3/1.6.4. If your time zone is set to -3 for instance, the test start and end both reset to -3 hours. Regardless of what time zone one is in, tests all start and end at the same relative times across timezones. Try the demo site, and see if you can reproduce the problem. Posted: 2009-12-20 10:57:53 | ||
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| vegard | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| yes, that is happening but that creates this bug. I just tried on your demo server and the issue is there. set 12 as time offset, and the end date for the test will be server time + 12. however, as the test *actually* ends on server time the information the student is presented with is false, fooling the user to believe they have 12 more hours to complete the test that they actually have. they will be presented with a closed test, but with an end date that tells them it's open. the issue is simply that you either must use server time always or user time always, or you will get mix ups like this. Posted: 2009-12-20 11:15:54 | ||
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| greg | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| As I understand it, it's only a problem if the person sets their timezone wrong. Hence we need to prevent people from setting the wrong timezone. I've set the start of the test in the demo course to 1pm today local time, ending at 4pm. If you create an account on the demo and set your offset to Norway time (+6 I believe) you start the test at 7pm your time, up until 10pm. If that's not what's happening, we'll take a closer look in the new year. Posted: 2009-12-20 11:28:52 | ||
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| vegard | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| ...but the test will *actually* end 4pm, right? because tests are closed on server time, even though my end time will *display* as 10pm. so, if I go to complete that test that day at 8pm, it will actually be closed, while the system will tell me that it is still open. Posted: 2009-12-20 12:39:03 | ||
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| greg | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| It will end 4pm here, 10pm there. Try the test after 7pm. The test should become available them if your timezone is set correctly. Posted: 2009-12-20 12:46:01 | ||
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IndieRect | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| Guys, I still don't see what the problem is. Think of a test as if it was a football match televised live (a familiar situation, I hope). Let's say you want to watch live a 7 o'clock London game. You'll tune in at 19 PM if you're in London, at 20 PM if you're in Tromso, at 14 PM if in Toronto. I don't remember any confusion as to the beginning time of a match, except when people used TV guides (printed or online) targeted at a different time zone. If everybody has a localized time (as they do in ATutor) and a localized clock (as they should do in ATutor), no problems appear. That's in football. Do you say it's different in the situation described? Posted: 2009-12-20 17:12:14 | ||
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| vegard | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| well I've probably gotten this wrong then, but on my server with my users (who all are in the same time zone) whatever you put in time zone will create an error for me, so I'll just comment out the code and hope no one else have set time zones.. Posted: 2009-12-21 03:50:38 | ||
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| IndieRect | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| I think there should be a dropdown box there, with zone numbers relative to the GMT and some sample cities. Manual input is probably too difficult solution for end users in this case. Posted: 2009-12-22 15:24:20 | ||
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| greg | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| This has now been updated to UTC time, and a selector added for syspref and userprefs. All seems to work now, though unfortunately its a hack. PHP 5.3 has the functions required to set timezones a little more elegantly, but I don't think we are ready to make php 5.3 the requirement. Currently we are still at 5.0. In any case, we could use some feedback, to make sure we have not missed anything. The change should be available in tonight's nightly build, or it can be retrieved from Subverion now. Still not sure everyone will understand the timezone settings, so we'll include a link to an explanation on Wikipedia. Once we do up the requirement to 5.3, there's still the issue of translation, if we go with the timezone names. Indie/Vegard, from your perspectives, how do you see timezone selectors in your mother tongue when timezone names are used? Is it acceptable to present them in English? Posted: 2010-03-04 12:04:45 | ||
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| vegard | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| hia, thanks! haven't been able to test this but regarding timezone selectors I've seen both variants (both translated to norwegian and in English) in use here. In Norwegian the differences from English are minimal though as most continent and city names are almost the exact same (it's Europe vs Europa, America vs Amerika etc), but in other languages and alphabeths I expect that the difference can be substantial? Best practice would be to have it translatable I think. Posted: 2010-03-09 04:41:37 | ||
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| IndieRect | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| Greg, thanks for asking. Which names are we talking about? These: www.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php or the more usual for end users "(GMT+01) Berlin, Paris, Warsaw", "(GMT+02) Athens, Helsinki, Cairo", "(GMT+03) ..." etc.? Posted: 2010-03-09 05:12:44 | ||
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| greg | Subject: Re: bug with user specified time zones | |
| The names PHP 5.3+ produces are like "Europe/Kiev" The trouble is there are 400+ of these timezone names, and they are all in English. Translating them is more work than we want to place on translators, not to mention most translators are not going to know all the city names. While the names are more meaningful, and people are less likely to make a mistake when setting their timezone, using UTC (or GMT) is much more manageable. If it is normal to see timezone name presented in English, then we'll probably go with the PHP timezone names. If not, we'll likely stay with UTC. In any case this is likely a year or two away. Posted: 2010-03-09 08:48:48 | ||
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