Well, the information is available (in a strange format that has to be converted) and IMO it is easier to select a city than to select a GMT offset.Highway of Life wrote: Option 1 does not seem very viable, for reasons you already posted, it would be a lot of work to gather and use all that information, and it might make choosing a timezone difficult for the end-user.
Well, you would have to show the time zone to people. (e.g. "13:37:23 +02:00", which means "13:37" in time zone "GMT+02:00"). Probably not good as a default setting, however.The problem with option 3 and 4 is that it would confuse a lot of people, thinking they are viewing things in their own time, OR if they know it's in a different time, sometimes its difficult for a lot of people to make the conversion in their head.
How about option 5:
an option on registration to allow users to select: "Detect Daylight Savings time", which many boards have... I believe PCP for phpBB2 had it.
although, the problem with that is now the US has changed the month when Daylight Savings time begins and/or ends. So it would not be all constant per date.
However, if the "Detect" really "detects" the local time to see if it is DST, then this option would still be the best.
That's essentially option 4 done wrong.
Well, a mod for option 4 is easy to write. A mod for option 1 is harder but I think it's quite possible.