[Typo3-dev] Typo3 Timezone settings.

[Fernando de Alcantara Correia]

Hi Kasper.

My opinion:

Sites with users on several timezones need the ability to show the time on
any timezone.

DotNetNuke, for instance, is terrible on this aspect. Nobody thought about
this initially. The core itself and every extension has hardcoded the
assumption about the date format, like MM/DD/YYYY. It is very difficult even
to install it on a server that is configured for another timezone or time
format.

I think the requirements for this feature are:
- All datetime information should be stored in a "raw" state, with a well
defined timezone that never changes.
- There should be a consistent way for the core and all extensions convert
this information to present on the pages.

I think a good solution is:
- All dates and times should be saved in numeric format, whith a constant
timezone (GMT or local time).
- Using GMT would allow a Typo3 database to be moved to a server with
another timezone, and still represent the same dates and times.
- All date and time formatting for output, on the core and extensions,
should be done through a unified core function or class.
- That function would first convert the numerical datetime first to a
desired time zone, defined on a site constant with the possibility to be
overriden by a FE user field.
- Then that function would convert the adjustes datetime to a string, a
formatting specified in a site constant, also with the possibility to be
overriden by a FE user field.

Fernando.