CALENDAR for races - NICE

[watermelon punch]

Love the new calendar for race events scheduling.
This is WONDERFUL.
I'm so thrilled.

(Only just when I finally figured out how to easily translate times zones. haha.)

One question...
What's the thinking on having the "disregard daylight savings time" changes button checked by default?
(I'm asking in ignorance... I've noticed most people do use DST, no?)
And then I see it say:
*The times shown may change, depending on DST settings

Which I don't know... This worries me. I've already had headaches dealing with DST time issues with time zones. LOL
(I feel at this point I feel I should start living in UTC/zulu time or something, just to avoid confusion.)

If I UNCHECK that, I'm assuming it'll assume I mean US EDT (that's my time zone - and that's what I want.)

Okay strike that, it shows my correct time IF I leave it checked.

But I'm still not sure about the:
*The times shown may change, depending on DST settings
and how things might operate with this.

Though at this point, I only have used single event feature, and nothing is scheduled beyond when DST would change, so I think I'm okay NOW.
But for future, I think I need to understand this option a little better.

UPDATE:
And if I may be so bold to suggest:
It would be nice if the event reminders were listed on the MY GTP page with the subscribed threads. And, even better if they were sorted in the other order... or somehow with the events reminders not listed in the order they were added, but in date order starting with the soonest first.
JUST A THOUGHT
Not complaining - it's great!!!

 

[Darren.]

Yeah, one of Jordan's unannouced features of GTPX....

Awesome

 

[Adam41]

A question about the reccuring events. Should the "end time" be what time the event finishes on that final day, or should it be the start time of the final event? For example, my events start at 16:30 and normally finish at about 18:00. The events will finish on the 16th July. I should choose the 16th July as the end date, but would I choose 16:30 or 18:00 as the end time?

 

[VBR]

An excellent addition to GT Planet, thanks Jordan!

 

[Jordan]

But I'm still not sure about the:
*The times shown may change, depending on DST settings
and how things might operate with this.

That's part of the default templates of the forum software, and I'm not sure what the developers meant by it. However, I assume it's pointing out the times shown may shift by an hour after the DST deadlines pass. I've removed it from the templates to prevent confusion. It shouldn't be anything you have to worry about.

UPDATE:
And if I may be so bold to suggest:
It would be nice if the event reminders were listed on the MY GTP page with the subscribed threads. And, even better if they were sorted in the other order... or somehow with the events reminders not listed in the order they were added, but in date order starting with the soonest first.
JUST A THOUGHT
Not complaining - it's great!!!

That would be great, but it's not currently part of the forum software.

A question about the reccuring events. Should the "end time" be what time the event finishes on that final day, or should it be the start time of the final event? For example, my events start at 16:30 and normally finish at about 18:00. The events will finish on the 16th July. I should choose the 16th July as the end date, but would I choose 16:30 or 18:00 as the end time?

I don't know. You can edit your events as much as you like, though, so feel free to try it out and see what happens.

 

[watermelon punch]

A question about the reccuring events. Should the "end time" be what time the event finishes on that final day, or should it be the start time of the final event? For example, my events start at 16:30 and normally finish at about 18:00. The events will finish on the 16th July. I should choose the 16th July as the end date, but would I choose 16:30 or 18:00 as the end time?

I think what you're looking for is a "continue until" or "repeat X times" option... and I didn't see that on the recurring option.
I just used the single event option, as my event is a limited series. So perhaps I just didn't look closely enough for that option?

I was assuming the "end time" was to indicate the DURATION of the race scheduled.
For example, there's an event on Saturday I have scheduled that starts at 6pm, I know it will last not longer than 8pm. So I indicated that by using the end time entry.
I know this is important when I schedule events. I'm careful to have things worked out so that I can predict a duration, because myself, and most of the core group I tend to race with, it's important for us to know how long an event will last, in order to schedule.

I also tend to input "arrival time" as my calendar start time. Not the race start time, since participants need to arrive before that, to check that everything's working properly, and then to qualify. So I think it's better to schedule that way, so people immediately see what time they ought to arrive, rather than what time they can arrive at the last split second to jump on the track as the race starts & possibly not be seeing 3 out of 5 cars that are on the track because of the invisible car problem.

That's part of the default templates of the forum software, and I'm not sure what the developers meant by it. However, I assume it's pointing out the times shown may shift by an hour after the DST deadlines pass. I've removed it from the templates to prevent confusion. It shouldn't be anything you have to worry about.

OH thank you! (Anything that's less potential for confusion about times is ++++ )
I think that will only be an issue around the time that DST changes. Which is only twice a year.

As long as everyone has their time zone set properly in their forum options, and then schedules on the calendar according to their time, I think all will work perfectly.

BTW: Also like the new forum organization. Much more tidy & easier to see things. ++ 👍

 

[Adam41]

Sorry, my misunderstanding. I was thinking "Event dates" was relating to the whole recurring schedule, which is actually listed below. So for my event dates I was putting in the 2nd of July for the start, and 16th of July for the end. But really I should have put 2nd of July in both, and listed the start and end time in both and then set the recurring pattern as below.

Although I'm not sure if you did set a recurring event, how you would get it to stop when you wanted at the end date. Unless you can remove an event.

 

[watermelon punch]

oops

Sorry, my misunderstanding. I was thinking "Event dates" was relating to the whole recurring schedule, which is actually listed below. So for my event dates I was putting in the 2nd of July for the start, and 16th of July for the end. But really I should have put 2nd of July in both, and listed the start and end time in both and then set the recurring pattern as below.

Although I'm not sure if you did set a recurring event, how you would get it to stop when you wanted at the end date. Unless you can remove an event.

Yeah, I don't see an option for it to stop on a particular date. But I'm going to look further to see if it's just not obvious.

 

[watermelon punch]

I have yet another quandary... (due to my always panicking about time zones)

As you can see here, Super Taikyu Combined Test has a red outline on Friday, and is showing normally on Saturday, and Thursday.

In the actual event post:

Notice the note stating: "This event was posted for time zone so it will appear to occur on a different day on your calendar."

Which would be fine... if that's what was occurring, but it's not. (Or is it?)

It's appearing in both places, with it highlighted in red, (as if to alert me there's a problem there), but that's the day it SHOULD be on.

Then it appears normally in Saturday when I think it should not.

Here's the thing. I looked & GN+ is in Japan. So his time zone is likely Tokyo Japan (and also PERTH Australia).

This means whatever day it is here for me in US EDT, it's 14 hours in the future in Tokyo Japan (and also PERTH Australia).
Which means if anything, whatever someone schedules in Japan time zone, when translated to my time zone, it's 14 hours in the past, so that means it's the day before for me, in many occasions.

Plus, the actual post part indicates the date as Saturday (2nd)... which it's not that date for me, I think.
I believe the time displayed for me might be correct, but perhaps on the wrong day.

Now, I'm just using this as an example, of course. I'm not actually participating in this event, so that's not a problem.

But I worry about this, and would like to understand how this is operating, so I know how to predict what others will see in different time zones, when they view my event.

I'm confused.

For example, if someone in Ireland, for example, were to schedule an event at:
Saturday 1:00am BST (GMT+1)
(This would be Friday night, after midnight, thus Saturday, to them in Ireland.)

But to me it would translate to:
Friday 8:00pm US EDT

But what if it tells me it's Saturday 8pm US EDT?
I'll be a day late on that one.

I might be alerted to the fact if it was highlighted red on the Saturday, to caution me that it's not really on that day.
But that doesn't appear as what's happening. (Or is it?)

It appears that it would list normally on that day, and inside, it has the correct date for their time zone, but the wrong date with the right time in my time zone...

Well, then this is not good.

And I think I will still need to post, in the calendar posts, a few exact dates & time zones, for reference.

But what I'd really like is to know if the correct TIME for my time zone is ALWAYS shown as MY time.

Is the date shown in the actual post taking into account time zone?

And, what the red outline is supposed to indicate?

 

[Jordan]

That's a good observation, WMP. I wish the forum software developers had put more thought into the calendar templates. I just made a few edits so there will hopefully be less confusion when events overlap between days. The red box simply indicates the current day in your specified time zone.

 

[watermelon punch]

That's a good observation, WMP. I wish the forum software developers had put more thought into the calendar templates. I just made a few edits so there will hopefully be less confusion when events overlap between days. The red box simply indicates the current day in your specified time zone.

AH okay... I see that now that the day has changed! LOL
But it seemed to be boxing one specific event... that seemed to be listed on several days, but with the same date.
I had no idea.

I think the problem is that I think those are actually THREE different events, indeed on 3 different days...
And the fact that it's a recurring thing means that the dates are shown on the individual post, as if the event lasts 3 days, rather than that it's recurring, each individually, for 3 days in a row.

Does that make sense?

At least that's what I THINK might be going on. And why it seems confusing, and as if that's the "same event" copied. Well it is the same event copied, but not the exact same event. It's just the same event repeated.

*sigh* I have a lot of trouble explaining this. Sorry.
Even with visual aids, I'm ill equipped to communicate my confusion.

Maybe that person just input funny... I don't know. I'll have to take a look at other repeating events & compare them.

My main concern is that the dates change along with the time zone.... when displaying in my time zone.

Meaning, if the event is on July 05 in Japan, but with time zone different, it's on July 04 US EDT... will it in fact show the date as July 4th for me?

Maybe I'll just pester someone in a different time zone to tell me what they see. haha.

It was just the note:
"This event was posted for time zone so it will appear to occur on a different day on your calendar."

Well, yes, as it should.
Why even tell me this if it's not something I need to know?
Just makes me suspicious that something is wrong.

But maybe it's just supposed to be a sort of FYI note that the person who posted it isn't in my time zone.
In that it doesn't mean anything, it's just a head's up that the person who posted it is in a different time zone than me.
Maybe for other applications of this Calendar that would be important??
That could explain it.

For our purposes here, I guess it just seemed odd to have that. It's not like there's the chance that someone's going to make a business call to someone they have a race with tomorrow, on their cell phone, and accidentally call them at 4:30 in the morning. hahaha.

I really like the fact I can race with people all over the world. That's so wonderful.
But I really hate time zones.
(And I think I make it more confusing than it needs to be on top of it. )


APPENDED UPDATE: OKAY, the issue at least partly (other than that goofy message about days that may mean nothing at all)... is to do with the way it does recurring events.

Here's an event I participate in (that was input by 19L who's in the UK, BST time zone)

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/calendar.php?do=getinfo&e=378&day=2011-7-7&c=1

designate-19L Event Reminder
Delete Reminder for this Event
This event occurs every 1 week(s) on Tuesday, Thursday
Starts: Jul 07 2011 at 3:15 PM
Ends: Aug 23 2011 at 5:10 PM

This event doesn't carry on for weeks on end, obviously. LOL

But there's no weird note saying anything, at least.

And it's like the other poster (above in this thread) said... if you don't use the end TIME to set an end DATE... the event will just continue on forever until the end of time... or something like that. haha.

So people are using the end TIME to indicate the END date.

Which, as you see 19L still used the end time to indicate the end time... BUT ONLY IF YOU ALREADY KNOW, as I do, that the event is held on Tues & Thurs at 3:15pm US EDT, and the duration is approximately 2 hours (ie: until 5:10pm)

If I didn't know that - it would look pretty confusing. Which is probably why that other event seems hideously confusing to me. (That, and of course that note about the different time zone not helping matters one bit.)

Okay, please don't be angry with me for making things more confused than they could probably ever be if I hadn't said anything.

I really love the calendar. I really do!!
I just want to be sure I'm using it properly.

 

[Adam41]

So people are using the end TIME to indicate the END date.

Yep, that was my query. So basically 19L's events are held between 7th July and 23rd August. 19L's event only tells you the start time of the first event on the 7th July, and only tells you the end time of the last event on 23rd August. But obviously you can assume this start and end time for every event between these 2 dates, recurring on "every 1 week(s) on Tuesday, Thursday".

Correct?

 

[watermelon punch]

Yep, that was my query. So basically 19L's events are held between 7th July and 23rd August. 19L's event only tells you the start time of the first event on the 7th July, and only tells you the end time of the last event on 23rd August. But obviously you can assume this start and end time for every event between these 2 dates, recurring on "every 1 week(s) on Tuesday, Thursday".

Correct?

Yes yes. It's exactly the same thing you mentioned. I only put it together when I looked at a few of them, that that was what was going on.
And of course I know this about 19L's dates, because I'm already a participant.
So that works, if you know how that works.
I was getting mixed up when there was the notice about the time zones & days & it was a recurring event.

My events that I would input to the calendar are mostly short series, so I hadn't needed to look at the recurring thing too closely.
But I think that is the most sensible way to do things if you have league/club racing or a long series that you use recurring event to make the input.

And then best not to look at the start/end dates, but the date at the top. And not worry about the date range in the post part. Just the start/end times.

At least I hope.
As long as the date on the calendar as I see it (and as others do in their time zones) is correct for their time zone, all should work out properly.

 

[Jordan]

I'm sorry that you've found it so confusing. I've just edited the templates once again, hopefully you'll find it more usable.

 

[watermelon punch]

I'm sorry that you've found it so confusing. I've just edited the templates once again, hopefully you'll find it more usable.

I promise I'm not complaining! It's a VERY useful feature.
VERY useful. I hope more people start using it.

(And I just find anything to do with time zones very confusing in general. lol I don't need any help being confused with that, I can get confused all on my own whenever time zones come into the picture.)

But yes, I'm not seeing any suspicious notices anymore with unclear meanings. And that's probably the best for people like me.