timeline timezone problem

[Matthew Richardson]

I've been looking at the timeline widget which appears to have a problem
- whether or not it counts as a bug or a design choice, I'm not sure.

If you specify a date in the xml without specifying a time it seems to
apply some kind of local or timezone to it, which can make it display at
a different date to that specified.

For example, if you look at the example Jewish History timline
(http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/examples/religions/jewish-history.html)
one of the last entries 'Bnei Menashe recognized as lost tribe shows up
as occuring at 'Mar 30 2005 17:00:00 GMT' when you click on it in the
timeline, but if you look at the xml, the date is specified as
'start='Mar 31 2005'.
(http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/examples/religions/jewish.xml)

I'm seeing the same problem on a timeline I'm building, where some dates
are shifted back 1 hour if they are for events that fall within British
Summer Time for me.

Is there a way round this I've missed, a deliberate choice (i.e you must
always specify a time with a date), or a bug?

Thanks,

Matthew

[mleden]

Hi Matthew,

Yes, you're right that the Jewish History example "factors in"
timezone offsets, since that same bubble for me shows a value:
Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:00:00 GMT
(I'm in California, in the PST timezone.)

I've mainly used the Timeline extension from within Exhibit. I
remember that it took a little time for me to figure out how to format
date-time values.

This very instructive posting on the subject might help:
http://groups.google.com/group/simile-widgets/browse_thread/thread/d9237cda1e13b286/c2eaf1fdafc396aa?lnk=gst&q=timezone#c2eaf1fdafc396aa

If the link doesn't resolve from this posting, you can access it by
inputting "timezone" in the Search this group box.

HTH,
-Mark