Good news: The fix is now available in the trunk (it runs on Joomla 1.0 and 1.5; Joomla 1.0 will not profit from the fix since Joomla 1.0 does not support user timezones).


On Joomla 1.5 uddeIM does following:

UddeIM stores the sender’s date/time information when a message has been written. This value is not transformed into the recipient’s time zone.

Example: A user in GMT+1 writes a message at 3pm. Immediately after sending the message the receiver in GMT-1 has 1pm – nevertheless the message is displayed written at 3pm (the date/time when the sender has written the message).


This is a) a solution that could be implemented quite fast and b) it is god to know when the sender has written the message (usually you do not know his time zone he is living in).

There are two other possibilities:
1) Transforming the time in the recipients time zone, so the message shows the recipient's local time when the PM has been send, or
2) Also storing the sender's time zone and displaying this, e.g. "3pm (GMT+1)" so the recipient knows the sender's time zone.

What will be more useful?

Post edited by: slabbi, at: 2010/11/03 10:04

Changed the behavior:


On Joomla 1.5 uddeIM does following:

UddeIM stores the sender’s date/time information in GMT+0 when a message has been written.

Example: A user in GMT+1 writes a message at 3pm (2pm is stored in DB). Immediately after sending the message the receiver in GMT-1 will see the message written at 1pm.

Is that fine for you?

Hi Stephen,
For clarity, let me repeat the 4 options as I understand them:

1) Transforming the time in the recipients time zone, so the message shows the recipient's local time when the PM has been send, or

This is the most useful, assuming that the sender still sees the message in his time zone setting.

2) Also storing the sender's time zone and displaying this, e.g. "3pm (GMT+1)" so the recipient knows the sender's time zone.

This would be useful to some, but probably not worth too much development effort. In other words, if it is easy to incorporate, please do, but don't delay the primary fix (recipient and sender each see the message in their own time zone).

3) UddeIM stores the sender’s date/time information when a message has been written. This value is not transformed into the recipient’s time zone.

Example: A user in GMT+1 writes a message at 3pm. Immediately after sending the message the receiver in GMT-1 has 1pm – nevertheless the message is displayed written at 3pm (the date/time when the sender has written the message).

This may help a little (at least one party sees the message in the "correct" time zone), but not a lot. It may also be confusing to explain to the users - right now we can easily explain to people that all messages are in Pacific time, but if we have to explain that received messages are in the senders' time zone, this will be confusing.

4) UddeIM stores the sender’s date/time information in GMT+0 when a message has been written.

Example: A user in GMT+1 writes a message at 3pm (2pm is stored in D. Immediately after sending the message the receiver in GMT-1 will see the message written at 1pm.

I think this would just be confusing for the sender. I think if we correct one side of the transaction, we should correct the other as well. Most mail programs now, show message dates and times in the viewers' time zone - that would be the best solution.

Thanks for your help with this!

drdehart wrote:

1) Transforming the time in the recipients time zone, so the message shows the recipient's local time when the PM has been send, or

This is the most useful, assuming that the sender still sees the message in his time zone setting.

I have implemented this option, now. It is available in the trunk and should work fine, nevertheless it should be an intermediate solution so a later update to uddeIM 2.2 is highly recommended!

Great! Can you post a link to the trunk? Want to make certain we get the correct files. Do we need to upgrade to 2.1 for this? (I assume so)

drdehart wrote:

Great! Can you post a link to the trunk? Want to make certain we get the correct files. Do we need to upgrade to 2.1 for this? (I assume so)

www.joomlapolis.com/component/option,com_joomlaboard/Itemid,38/func,view/id,51170/catid,25/

Yes, better upgrade to uddeIM 2.1 first because there are some DB modifications required for the 2.1 update.

Post edited by: slabbi, at: 2010/11/04 11:57