Edmund von der Burg wrote:
2009/1/20 Lyle <webmas...@cosmicperl.com>:
Is there something similar to the time zone selection you get in Windows or
similar programs? The GMT, GMT+1, etc...
You really don't want to do that.
Many users don't really understand timezones, but almost all know
where they are. As an example - say you are in the UK and it is mid
April - should you choose GMT or GMT+1? Has BST kicked in yet? And
will you remember to log in again and change your settings when BST
ends, whenever that is. Choose 'Europe/London' and all the magic
happens for you.
More importantly, while at the moment both London and Accra are on GMT,
the Ghanaians, being a sensible nation, don't do that stupid timezone
changing thing twice a year, so Accra *stays* on GMT throughout the
year, whereas London changes to BST for a bit. Or consider southern
Africa and northern Europe - same longitude so you'd think they were the
same timezone - but Windhoek (in Namibia) and Stockholm (in Sweden) move
in different directions when they begin and end "daylight saving" time,
so they could differ by between 0 and 2 hours depending on how the
timezone changes overlap.
From a practical point of view, you probably want users to select first
from a list of areas (eg Europe, or Africa) and then a city within that
area, to avoid having a very long list. Even sorted alphabetically, a
long list can be a pain from an accessibility point of view.
--
David Cantrell
