Bug #64958 [Opn->Nab]: Messed up timezone names

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=64958&edit=1 ID: 64958 Updated by: rasmus@php.net Reported by: chimel31 at live dot fr Summary: Messed up timezone names -Status: Open +Status: Not a bug Type: Bug Package: Date/time related Operating System: Windows XP PHP Version: Irrelevant Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: Are you under the impression that we came up with the groupings and the names of the timezones? This is an industry standard that everyone uses. It is currently maintained by IANA which is the same organization that manages the root DNS servers and IP allocation on the Internet. And you can easily get a list of timezones for a specific country. eg. $tzs = timezone_identifiers_list(DateTimeZone::PER_COUNTRY, 'US'); And nowhere does it say HST -10:00. The abbreviation is HST, but all offsets are against GMT. You are interpreting it incorrectly. With the combination of using timezone_identifiers_list() to narrow things down to a user's own country and timezone_abbreviations_list() you can create a very easy to use UI for your users. If you still feel strongly about wanting to change the names of these timezones, I suggest you take it up with IANA. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2013-06-02 19:45:07] chimel31 at live dot fr The descriptions of the timezones are even more horrendous than I thought: My default timezone says: "Pacific/Honolulu [HST -10:00]" 1) It is not HST-10, it is GMT-10. 2) Apart from computers and baboon programmers, who memorizes acronyms? The list is supposed to help humans choose the correct timezone. The proper way to help is to say "Hawaiian Standard Time". 3) And my timezone not even HST, it is Pacific Standard Time, GMT-8. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2013-06-01 23:21:48] chimel31 at live dot fr Description: ------------ Descriptions for timezones do not allow users to select their own timezone. For instance, there are 160 timezones to choose from for America. None contains the standard timezone that users expect and know, like Pacific Time. Instead, they are sorted by continent and cities! Why you would expect people to select Anchorage when they live in San Francisco or Seattle is a mystery. There is absolutely nothing to allow the user to select the proper timezone quickly, you have to browse all 160 of them to spot the ones that match your timezone offset, pick one and hope that city from a different state is indeed in the timezone your city belongs to. I suggest: 1) The country US or USA be added between the continent and city name. That would allow users to quickly sort and select the correct time zone. 2) If official timezone names exist, like Pacific Time, these should be present in the timezone description, not just a city name from a foreign state. That does not help at all. 3) Timezones should be sortable by their GMT offset too. The current one dimension list is just not good enough. It should have a separate numeric field for the offset, not an offset in text format that's appended to the timezone description and is of absolutely no use for sorting. And the timezone library should come with some code to, to allow users to sort timezones on either the description or the GMT offset. I appreciate that there are more timezones now, it's probably more detailed and fits more precise areas, but it came at a price if it makes the timezone hard and time-consuming to select. Something has been lost in the way, there was no need to reinvent the wheel, just to improve on it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=64958&edit=1